Kikka was, by trade, a fashion designer. Along with her partner in work and love, Marco Capaldo, Kikka founded 16Arlington, a label that has single-handedly redefined the spirit of London fashion and given style back its folly and joy. Kikka’s sense of play, combined with the rigorous skills of sewing, draping and fit that she and Marco honed when studying at the London arm of Istituto Marangoni, meant that she had a presence in her industry far beyond her years. Kikka loved fashion with a capital F – sherbet colours, luxe textures and the dissonance of casual-wear when paired with a pop of drama. She brought the old world hysteria of a Bob Mackie-era Cher together with a race-car sleekness, and even her perfectly fitting casual-wear – a leather shirt, a satin pant – was always possessed of a wild detail, like a comically large collar coming to a point, or a bow twisted from an unexpected material like leather or thick brocade.
I was one of the lucky ones – along with women from
puma soccer cleats Lizzo to Amal Clooney – who got to be a 16Arlington girl. Finding Kikka and Marco felt like coming home to familiars. When we met in mid-2019 so that they could make me a custom gown for a London premiere, I found myself in orange sequins having game-time hot-pink marabou hand-tacked to my bust (yet another chance for Kikka to let out that wild cackle). I said, “Wow, Kikka, you’re the chicest goof I’ve ever met”, which is how our WhatsApp group gained the name “chic goofs”. And she was, through and through – her goofiness making her infinitely chicer. Marco recently recounted to me a day this past summer when she strode into the studio in an orange sweater with a matching orange shearling over the top, holding two orange coffee cups: “You know you’ve made it when your bitch matches your coffee,” she said. That was the embodiment of Kikka – making style fun, and making
puma tennis shoes fun into a pure expression of style.
I have been flooded by the lucky memories of my friendship with Kikka: laughing in yet another pile of feathers, this time inky black, as she asked, “Is it too much?”, before deciding, yet again: never too much. Eating cold French fries while she and Marco fit me for their fall 2020 show, and then Kikka making me practise my “Versace walk” up and down the hallway, the resultant iPhone video full of her giggles. Tea in the studio and on the floor. Selfies and voice notes.