British Model Jade Parfitt’s Mission to Bring Fashion to the Masses

LONDON — British model Jade Parfitt is on a mission to take fashion beyond the parameters of London.

The model and television presenter will host the second edition of Bath Fashion Festival on June 7 and 8 in Bath, a city in Somerset that’s famed for its Roman baths and locations for Netflix’s “Bridgerton.”

Parfitt founded the festival last year with Mickey Luke, which included talks, fashion shows, interactive workshops, pop-up shops and an exhibition. The inaugural event drew in the likes of Sarah Mower, Anne-Marie Curtis, Erin O’Connor and Sam McKnight to participate.

This year’s edition returns to the Holburne Museum with similar activations and a lineup that features Ateh Jewel, Caroline Hirons, Alex Box, MAC Cosmetics, NRBY, Albaray, Nicholas Wylde, Neem London and Jodie Kidd.

A collection of Giles Deacon’s couture and red carpet pieces will be exhibited at the festival and will run beyond the weekend on display in the same room as paintings from Gainsborough, Guardi, Stubbs, Ramsay and Zoffany that are part of the museum’s permanent collection. The previous year’s display was a corset installation from Vivienne Westwood along with archival Manolo Blahnik shoes.

Parfitt will interview Deacon on a panel on June 7.

The model first tested the waters for her idea by hosting a charitable fashion event at the Holburne Museum in 2022.

“I know that a lot of people in Bath are ex-Londoners and it’s a very creative, vibrant community here. The event sold out and had a waiting list,” Parfitt said in an interview.

She used her expansive contact book to create something that wasn’t London-centric.

“After I had my first son, I switched gears and learned about the fashion industry from a different angle. I hosted panel talks and charitable fashion events — and one lasting thread throughout my career has been friends or people that I meet asking to tag along to a show or exhibition with me,” Parfitt said. “I sort of realized that our world, if you’re not actually in it, is very hard to break into and be involved in. There’s very few consumer-facing events for fashion fans.”

Parfitt wants to amplify the city of Bath through the Bath Fashion Festival.

Fashion students from Bath Spa University have been invited to stage a fashion show with their designs.

“What we’re about is lifting the lid on an industry that can feel very elitist, but it’s an industry full of really interesting, creative people that work really, really hard. So many assumptions get made when you say you work in fashion, but this is about diving in deep and actually getting to meet some of those people that have built incredible careers in the industry,” Parfitt said.

The model started in the world of fashion at the age of 15, when she won a modeling competition on the British television show “This Morning” and was awarded with a contract with the modeling agency Models1.

Parfitt made her runway debut in October 1994 for Prada’s spring 1995 show at Milan Fashion Week.

“My agency were beside themselves, but I didn’t really know anything. I’d heard of Chanel, but I didn’t necessarily know what Prada was, which sounds mad saying out loud now,” she said. “For somebody that didn’t know that much about fashion, what I did know was that every other model in the room was incredibly famous — there was Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista and Christy Turlington. Suddenly, I really got the fear, I was quaking in my boots backstage.”

Parfitt remembers not rehearsing at all for her Prada debut and that initial first steps on the runway were her first ever. 

“I looked like a Bambi startled in the headlights. I was so young and I realized one of my arms wasn’t moving, it was frozen. I remember being really harsh on myself, but what an incredible honor,” she recalled.

Over her decades long career, she has walked in the runway shows of Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel, Jean Paul Gaultier, John Galliano for Christian Dior, Thierry Mugler and Lee Alexander McQueen under his own brand and at Givenchy. 

“I certainly didn’t think I’d still be in [fashion] at age 46. I’ve had a lot of time out here and there to have my children and so on, but when I do a shoot or a runway show, it’s so lovely to meet all these different people. It’s quite intoxicating working with people who are so passionate about their industry,” she said.

Parfitt wants to use her Bath Fashion Festival to connect with people. She can see the festival going on the road to places like Dublin, Edinburgh and even London.

“Even in London, it’s hard to actually connect with the industry if you’re not directly in it. We love Bath and we want it to become part of the annual calendar here,” she said.