Our Origins
Like all good things, it started around the kitchen table. Roger Saul's father would come back from his job at a shoe manufacturer with a bunch of leather off-cuts, which a young Roger soon turned into belts and chokers that he sold down on Portobello Market. With £500 from his mother, Joan – which Roger spent on stationery and a batch of belt buckles imported from France – Mulberry was born. While Roger handled design and marketing in London, Joan ran production from their garage in Somerset. Mulberry was a family business in every sense, built on skill, support, and ingenuity. The iconic Mulberry Tree logo was designed by Roger’s sister, Rosemary. His wife, Monty Saul, appeared on the catwalk and in the factory, embodying everything that made Mulberry unique: equally as at home in both the cosmopolitan world of fashion and the Great British Countryside.
Roger was constantly moving between Somerset and London, balancing the contrast between town and country. In 1975, he presented Hunting, Shooting, Fishing, which was inspired by English heritage. Luxurious and practical; rugged yet refined, the collection was all blouson jackets, saddlery leather, and netted bags. It was a hit across the world, even earning Mulberry the Queen's Award for Export in 1979.
Mulberry's cultural reach was expanding. By 1990, Mulberry had its own magazine, Mulberry Life, which showcased fashion, culture, and craft – cementing Mulberry firmly as a lifestyle brand. In 1981, Mulberry introduced its debut bag collection. Just a year later, a decade after crafting his first belt, Roger opened Mulberry's first boutique just off Oxford Street on Gees Court. A Paris flagship quickly followed. From these early milestones, Mulberry's global presence grew, with over 100 stores open worldwide today. In 1993, Mulberry held its first runway show in Paris. The world was introduced to the full Mulberry universe, and it resonated. Everyone wanted a piece of Mulberry's modern Britishness.
In 2002, Mulberry embraced a new creative direction under Nicholas Knightly, who introduced the Bayswater, a bag that swiftly became a British fashion staple, effortlessly draped over the arm of everyone from Kate Moss to Jennifer Lopez. When Emma Hill was appointed Creative Director in 2008, the Alexa arrived – an artful blend of heritage and modernity inspired by Alexa Chung’s vintage Elkington briefcase. In 2015, Johnny Coca took the helm as Mulberry’s Creative Director. Known for his work under Phoebe Philo at Céline, Coca brought a fresh perspective to British craft. He looked to the past for inspiration, reviving a 1970s Mulberry logo from the archives, and to the future with the introduction of two new bag families: the Iris and the Amberley.
Collaboration has always been at the heart of Mulberry, and in 2021, to mark our 50th anniversary, we launched Mulberry Editions, where we invited leading voices in contemporary design – including Priya Ahluwalia, Nicholas Daley, Richard Malone, and Stefan Cooke – to reimagine iconic Mulberry pieces. In 2023, Paul Smith celebrated our shared heritage and creative spirit in a collection that felt distinctly British and boldly Mulberry. And in 2024 Rejina Pyo reimagined Mulberry’s heritage with a collection of timeless designs. Each of these collaborations captured that creative tension which has always been at the heart of Mulberry: old and new, tradition and boldness, the familiar and the unexpected.