The excitement that fizzed when Mulberry announced it had appointed Christopher Kane as creative director practically made it into a national day of celebration for British fashion. “It was a tsunami of people posting and reposting it,” he says, still amazed by the wave of love that hit him. “It feels so good to be back. Because Mulberry is a British brand, with a great story behind it. When I got the offer, Tammy and I were like: we can do something really great here.”

Standing in front of us, in the summer sunshine of the Mulberry studio, is the first glimpse in three years of how a Christopher Kane design can hit. It’s short, it’s pristine white and made from horizontal geometric tiers of leather. Clearly, that’s a signature Kane dress, which has many, many sisters, stretching all the way back to the tiny neon-bright bodycon disco dresses of his sensational first show in 2006. In a flash, though, it’s obvious: he has also coded this dress to read as Mulberry through and through. Each layer of it is cut in the unmistakable shape of the flap of the Mulberry Bayswater bag.

“My point was to say ‘Mulberry’ without a logo,” Christopher says with a smile and a shrug. “It’s a real pleasure to work with leather. Mulberry’s a leather house,” says Tammy Kane, the big sister who’s always worked with him. “Yeah. Leather forever!” her brother says, laughing. His knack for fusing surreptitious codes, sexuality and offbeat references into his collections – while always making them wearable – is the elusive factor in his creative psyche. “I love digging. Finding research that no one else has looked at.”

Andrea Baldo, the Italian CEO who joined Mulberry in 2024 (from Ganni and, before that, Marni, Diesel and Maison Margiela), hired Christopher for the long-standing buzz of his creativity – and for the business brain Tammy brings. “He’s an incredible talent with an engaged fan base,” says Baldo. “Christopher and Tammy are entrepreneurs and one another’s strength. Their interpretation of modern Britishness, and their integrity in honouring the Mulberry codes and heritage, was refreshing and struck me instantly in one of our first conversations. It’s a great honour and incredibly fun to work together.”

Bruce the Boston terrier is the third member of the Kane clan at work today, chasing his ball around the racks. Tammy picks up a cardigan, which buttons with the same crenellated Bayswater-derived graphic detail. It’s a dark purplish shade, which – on second thoughts – you might call . “Although,” she says, putting her head on one side, “It’s also a bit school uniform, like our school in Scotland, Taylor High.” Her brother is laughing. “It’s also about Christine, my mum, and auntie Sandra in a jumper and a little skirt, how they dressed in the 1960s.” They’ve been looking at documentary street photography from the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. “Yes, there will be sexy dresses, it wouldn’t be Christopher Kane without it, but there’s some restraint here that we’re employing,” he says. “It’s about things being stripped back.” This is a Christopher Kane collection all right, but with an edge of modern town-and-country luxury about it. He’ll get to the country reasoning in a minute.

Before they arrived, the Kanes had to think out how they’d relate to a brand that’s a bit of a national treasure. It’s smaller than Burberry, but perhaps just as ready for a fashion refurbishment as the much-loved Bayswater handbags, which customers still send off to be repaired at its Somerset factory. Since the noughties, it’s cycled through designers who were principally accessories experts. In 2002, Stuart Vevers, now the star of Coach in New York, caused a sensation when he made the Mulberry Gisele bag that Luella Bartley put on her runway. In 2003, the young British designer Nicholas Knightly designed the Bayswater (and then went on to a stellar future in leather goods at Louis Vuitton). Its big fashion pop-culture moment came when the Bayswater was first being toted around town as an early street-style hit on the arms of the London It girls of the time – Kate, Sienna, Alexa et al. Emma Hill, an experienced British accessories aficionada, caught that wave by putting on buzzy celebrity-packed Mulberry runway shows for six years until 2013. She was followed by Johnny Coca, the Spanish ex-Celine leather goods designer, who stayed for another six until 2020, and is now at Saint Laurent. An impressive roster, but Christopher Kane is their first ready-to-wear designer. “They hadn’t done a runway show in six years,” he says.

He has been through his own break in showing, of course. Fans have sorely missed the frisson of his chic-spiked shows ever since the siblings closed the 17-year-old Christopher Kane business in 2023. Some of the complex causes behind the closure were pandemic-related, compounded by the closure of the Mount Street flagship, and the increasing caution of wholesale buyers (although the Kanes made sure they bought their brand name after it was liquidated). It must have been a painful couple of years but, resilient Glaswegians to the core, the brother and sister treated it as time out to stand back and observe. “We’ve changed as people since we stopped [the brand] Christopher Kane,” says Tammy. “Because we had a minute to think and to actually live our lives. Rather than going from studio to events, we started to wear a different wardrobe and that’s really interesting. I realised I needed more staples in my wardrobe, things that are functional – don’t we all?”

Which has taken her brother back to Mulberry’s roots and, in a manner of speaking, its branches too. His “digging” through the history unearthed the origin story of the brand’s founder Roger Saul, who began in the 1970s at his parents’ home in Somerset, making leather belts from offcuts his father brought home from the nearby Clarks shoe factory. “Being an entrepreneur, starting at the age of 21 on his kitchen table and the shoe factory. We love that,” says Christopher. “It reminds us of the culture of knitwear and the factories in Scotland we grew up around. Roger Saul was brought up in an industrious place like Somerset. It wasn’t London-centric, it was regional. He worked his arse off.”

Saul named his company after the mulberry trees he saw on the train to school. That’s why – in a very Christopher Kane slippage of imagery – now there are also axe motifs: on a T-shirt, in the carved shape of mirrored heels and a flat, curved shoulder bag called The Chop. “It’s like being a tree surgeon,” he says. “Cutting away to promote new growth.” Tammy grabs a long greige raincoat, with a brown check on the inside, and shrugs it on. “This is one of Roger Saul’s original 1980s Mulberry designs. We didn’t change it, because it was so perfect.” It looks like an ideal school-run, dog-walking sort of coat – but with a lot of flair. “And it reminded us of tartan, which we always love,” her brother chirps. Clever. The generation who grew up dancing all night in Kane’s party dresses also surely has a need for cool outerwear too.

Now in their 40s, the siblings live close to one another in smart Primrose Hill rather than the rented flat in Dalston, where they conspired over those first incendiary collections. Their intertwined family lives play out on their Instagram feeds: Tammy, her partner and two daughters; Christopher and his partner; and the many exploits of Bruce. Their close friends, Erdem Moralıoğlu and Roksanda Ilinčić, designers with whom Christopher started out in the mid-noughties, are thrilled to have him back; all of them showing on the same day during London Fashion Week. “He’s bursting with new ideas,” says Ilinčić. “It’s a huge excitement to all of us to see Christopher at such an amazing British brand.” “Having him back on the schedule is brilliant,” echoes Moralıoğlu. “His return brings energy, provocation and imagination.”

It’s funny to see the Kanes working away in Mulberry’s headquarters on Kensington Church Street – half a city, and two decades away from Dalston Lane where Christopher started, with Tammy as his model. “I’m obsessed with the world we’re in here,” he says, gesturing towards the windows. Kensington Palace is in one direction and a wealthy enclave of white-stuccoed Kensington terraces and villas is across the road. It would hardly be surprising if a good number of people round here spend their weekends in Somerset. It has, after all, become one of the more fashionable counties these days.

The Kanes will definitely be spending more time there. Mulberry has two factories in Somerset, making it the largest luxury accessories manufacturer in the UK; it’s also a B Corp. “Incredible quality,” says Christopher. “We’re curious people,” says Tammy. “We want to bring something here, and we want to learn new things as well. We’re so lucky to be British. Britain is multilayered, full of contradictions. And” – she shoots a look at her brother – “We’re sure going to have a good time with it!”