A recent piece of customer research told us what we already suspected—but in that satisfying, I-knew-it-but-it’s-nice-to-have-it-confirmed way. We have an unusually fascinating, fiercely loyal customer base. Not just people who buy clothes, but people who think about clothes—who live in them, test them, stretch them, and fold them into their complicated, glorious daily lives.

Take Jane, for example.

She’s the creative designer behind Knuckey Furniture—the bespoke furniture studio she runs in West Sussex with her husband, John. Their workbench is sawdust-flecked, the craftsmanship meticulous, the aesthetic quietly confident. The Knuckeys make things to last, which is probably why Jane gravitates to Kate Barton in the first place.

Jane wears The Easy Denim Dress. Scarf, Janes own

She told me she’s been an “enthusiastic customer” of KB for a few years now—said with the wry understatement of a woman who knows she’s essentially in a long-term relationship with half her wardrobe.

What pulls her in, she says, are the materials. The honest, elemental stuff: heavy linen that has weight and authority; soft cord that behaves beautifully; fabrics with a lineage. “Classic materials,” she calls them—“with a whiff of uniform.” Which, coming from a designer, is high praise indeed. Uniforms aren’t dull; they’re purposeful. They get the job done. They free the mind to think about more important things.

Jane wears The Winter Harper Dress in Persian Blue with The Boxy Jacket in Denim. Scarf, Janes own.

She loves that KB’s clothes are adaptable—shapeshifters for real life. The sort of pieces that can be embellished, dressed up, toned down, or simply left to do their quiet, confident work without fuss. “I’m very happy dressed in them,” she says. And you believe her, because she’s the sort of woman who knows when something earns its place in her day.

Her current favourites? The Boxy jacket and utility trousers: “a casual, modern-day suit,” as she describes it. And there’s something in the way she says modern-day—with a hint of relief—that makes you realise how rare it is to find clothes that keep pace with both the graft and the glamour of a working life. She can go from the workshop to a client meeting with a couple of quick tweaks—swap the boots, add a necklace, maybe brush the sawdust out of her hair—and she’s good to go. No drama. No overthinking. Just clothes that behave.

Jane wears The Boxy Jacket in Denim, The Heritage Alba Shirt and The Denim Workwear Trousers.

And that’s key, isn’t it? For women living the multi-faceted, many-tabbed browser-window existence we all seem to occupy now. One minute wrestling with the rain and mud in the garden, the next sweeping into a site meeting in a polished Kensington apartment. Same woman, same day, wildly different expectations placed upon her.

Kate Barton’s clothes, Jane says, “cover all the bases.” And she says it with the conviction of someone who has tested that claim against real, muddy, occasionally glamorous life.

Jane wears The Winter Harper Dress in Denim with The Boxy Jacket in Orange. Scarf, Janes own.

With thanks to Jane Knuckey for being our first Customer Spotlight.

Photographer: Pascal Vossen

Knuckey Furniture