This year marks Apolina’s 10th anniversary, and AW26 will be our 20th main collection. This significant achievement has us thinking deeply about the Apolina archive, and what defines an Apolina piece. To mark this moment we had a chat with Caroline about AW26 and all things Apolina.

This month marks Apolina’s 10th year, what significance does this milestone hold for you?

Ten years feels like a significant milestone, particularly because Apolina was started as a passion project, and not something I ever dreamed would grow to this scale. It began very instinctively, from my personal creative point of view, and has evolved and grown very organically, season by season.

I think the biggest achievement, and what I am most proud of, is to have grown without changing the core values of the brand, keeping focussed on creating special things that excite me, rather than adopting a commercial viewpoint. I am also forever grateful to have built strong and respectful relationships with our team in India and in the UK where there is a lot of support, care and attention to detail, and a shared drive to keep getting better.

 

How do you feel when you think about AW26 alongside the Apolina archive?

I think what makes me happiest is seeing how much the brand has evolved, while still holding onto the spirit of the first Apolina collection. There are certain things that have remained constant: the importance of the silhouette, a love of embroidery and handcraft, a sense of nostalgia, travel and discovery, and a slightly unexpected approach to colour and detail.

Every Apolina piece has a recognisable character. Even our more statement, fashion-led pieces, that might feel really modern and new, have that same something familiar, a little sense of something nostalgic and collectible about them.

The idea of building an archive, rather than just producing a new collection every season, has become increasingly important to me. So when I look at the first collection next to AW26, I don't see two completely different moods, I see a continuous story. I always love to see children wearing Apolina of different seasons together, and I build the collection as an ever-evolving wardrobe – the colours are all in a general Apolina mood, and allow for creative dressing by finding new and exciting combinations.

 

Travel is an essential inspiration for Apolina – what role did travel play in creating AW26?

Travel has always been part of the Apolina world, but not simply taking inspiration from a particular destination. I'm more interested in the feeling of travelling and discovering somewhere unfamiliar. That excitement of seeing things for the first time, collecting souvenirs and bringing little fragments of those experiences home with you.

I like the idea that Apolina is a wardrobe for going somewhere, whether that’s travelling to another country, wandering around a new town, spending a long day outdoors or even disappearing into the garden on an adventure. That sense of curiosity is really central to the brand.

For AW26 in particular, I picked up an interesting book when I was travelling last summer in the French alpine region about L'École de Savièse, a community of early 20th-century artists who depicted everyday life in the Alps, and I became absolutely fascinated. Their paintings capture a very specific sense of place and community, as well as showing the most amazing textiles and garments layered in a cosy and inspiring way. I really love the way they used colour to show the landscape and the changing light.

‘Balcon en Hiver’ by Edmond Bille, 1911

I also spend a lot of time at brocantes when I’m in France, collecting treasures for my home or the studio, and often finding inspiration for Apolina. Either floral embroidered linens, a beautiful faded trim, patchwork quilts, or a strange little motif on a vintage napkin that you immediately love.

Can you tell us a little about the design influences for AW26?

The starting point was this idea of mountain living, with a focus on craft, cosy layers, colour and a slower pace. The colours are drawn quite directly from the painterly landscapes of the Alps, but I didn't want the collection to feel like a literal interpretation of traditional Alpine dress. Instead, we have taken elements of that world and reinterpreted them in a more contemporary, fashion-led mood.

I was particularly interested in the contrast between something quite traditional and something more modern. There are layered, practical silhouettes inspired by rural dressing, but with the proportions and volumes that are important to Apolina. I love the contrast between something that feels familiar and something that feels slightly unexpected. There’s also a strong sense of the modern girlhood that runs through Apolina, with a focus on self-expression – pieces can be styled in many different ways. For AW26 we have the combination of cosy, tactile fabrics and traditional references with more modern silhouettes, unexpected colour combinations, and slightly irregular details.

The collection brings together quite a few of the things I continually return to: vintage clothing, folk art, traditional textiles, naïve botanical motifs and the slightly eccentric beauty of things that have been collected over time.

 

Each Apolina collection is a celebration of traditional handicrafts. Are there any techniques this season that you're excited about?

Embroidery is always at the heart of Apolina, but I'm increasingly interested in how we can push it further while retaining the very particular embroidery language that makes a piece feel like Apolina. This season we’ve explored embroidery with a greater sense of storytelling. I had collected some vintage pieces with interesting and off-beat motifs, like our basket motif, and a simple flower motif from a tiny rug. I'm interested in how motifs can work almost like little illustrations and stories rather than simply being decorative.

Apolina floral embroidery is often quite naive and rounded in character, which is something I love. I don't want it to become too perfect or dainty. There should still be a sense of naivety and a folk art reference. We have new patchwork combinations too, where we've played with making floral motifs and more complex designs.

In Apolina garments the craft elements don’t feel like an embellishment that comes at the end of the design process. They are very much part of the identity of the garment. The challenge is always to find ways of preserving those traditional skills while making them feel new and exciting now.

 

How do you imagine the character of Apolina and the child who wears it?

I always imagine dressing an adventurous, artistic child who wants to discover things!  Someone who is interested in the world around them and grows up with an appreciation for craft, colour, nature and different cultures. I think about each collection as the wardrobe of a curious traveller. For AW26, I was particularly drawn to the idea of childhood in the mountains, thinking about layers, textures, getting dressed for the weather and spending time outdoors.

I love references to childhood and traditional ideas of girlhood, but I don't think of Apolina as recreating a prescribed or overly-nostalgic version of it. I don’t want Apolina to feel like a costume. I'm much more interested in taking those references and allowing a child to make them their own, and that's an important part of what Apolina offers; the clothes have a strong identity, but they don't dictate the identity of the child wearing them.

The same embroidered dress can feel sweet and nostalgic on one child, quite cool and modern on another, or become something completely unexpected when layered with other pieces. I think about the collections as pieces that can be collected and layered over time. A dress from one collection, a pair of trousers from another, an embroidered jacket found years later and worn a little shrunken.

I hope for each piece to become part of someone's personal archive – the clothes should hold memories of where that child went, who they were with and who they were becoming. That's also how I think about the Apolina archive. After ten years, the collections have started to become a record of the brand's journey, and I would love that to continue for many years to come.

My ambition isn't just to make beautiful children's clothes for the next season. It's to create pieces that have a life beyond the season they were designed for; pieces you remember your child wearing, find years later in a box of favourites, or pass on to someone else. Maybe the most exciting part is that once the clothes leave us, they become part of someone else's story. That's when they really come to life.