How to Choose a Printed Silk Kaftan | Holland Street
Are you suffering from choice fatigue when it comes to choosing your clothes in the morning?
Standing in front of a wardrobe full of clothes but feeling as though you have nothing to wear is a familiar feeling. Perhaps the problem isn't that you need more clothes. Perhaps you need a different way of choosing them.
Instead of asking “What should I wear today?”, try asking yourself one simple question:
How do I want this outfit to make me feel when I am living in it?
This is the starting point of the Holland Street SENSE Method™ — an emotional approach to dressing that puts feeling, intuition and personal style before fashion rules. Rather than beginning with what's trending, you begin with yourself.
And this is where the printed silk kaftan comes into its own.
Discover the Holland Street Silk Kaftan Collection →
Why a kaftan?
There is something wonderfully liberating about a kaftan.
A long, flowing silhouette, generous sleeves and a relaxed shape make it a garment that allows you to move. Traditionally associated with luxurious textiles such as silk, cotton and cashmere, the kaftan has travelled across cultures and generations, evolving into everything from an elegant occasion garment to effortless holiday dressing.
But today's kaftan doesn't have to mean dressing up.
A beautifully printed silk kaftan can be thrown over jeans in the afternoon, worn with sandals on holiday, layered over swimwear, or dressed up with jewellery for dinner.
It is one of those rare pieces that can feel simultaneously comfortable, expressive and luxurious.
And when the print is right, you don't need much else.
The SENSE Method™: choose how you want to feel
At Holland Street, the SENSE Method™ starts with a simple idea: style begins with a feeling.
The method encourages you to identify three words that describe how you want to feel, then use those words as your emotional compass when choosing what to wear.
So before you look at colour, silhouette, fashion trends or even the occasion, pause.
Ask yourself:
How do I want to feel today?
Perhaps you want to feel:
Soulful. Romantic. Cocooned.
Or maybe:
Daring. Playful. Empowered.
Or:
Quiet. Balanced. Effortless.
Once you know your three words, choosing becomes much easier.
You are no longer asking which garment is best. You're asking which garment feels most like you.
Which silk kaftan matches your mood?
This is where the SENSE Method™ becomes particularly useful when choosing a printed silk kaftan.
If you want to feel EMPOWERED
Look for colour, confidence and a print that makes an entrance.
The Classic Camellia Silk Kaftan, for example, sits within Holland Street's Empowered emotional world. Its expressive floral print turns the simplicity of the flowing kaftan silhouette into something with presence.
This is the kind of garment you can wear when you want to feel visible.
Not because you are following a fashion trend, but because the clothes are reflecting the energy you already have.
If you want to feel DARING
Perhaps your three words are:
Bold. Expressive. Alive.
Then allow the print to do more of the talking.
The Pink Camellia Silk Kaftan, Kingfisher Blue Silk Camellia and Tangerine Silk Camellia Kaftan all bring a more expressive energy to the collection.
This is the joy of British print design: colour and pattern can completely transform a familiar silhouette.
You don't need to change your entire wardrobe. Sometimes one extraordinary printed piece is enough.
If you want to feel ROMANTIC
Choose softness, movement and florals.
The Sakura Bloom Short Kaftan sits within Holland Street's Romantic mood — a more delicate interpretation of the kaftan, with the expressive quality of a statement print but an easy, wearable silhouette.
Wear it with simple trousers, over a slip dress or with bare legs and sandals.
The print becomes the outfit.
If you want to feel PLAYFUL
Why should getting dressed be so serious?
The Cuba Silk Kaftan belongs to Holland Street's Playful emotional world, bringing colour and personality to an easy, flowing shape.
This is the kaftan for when your three words might be:
Joyful. Creative. Free.
And perhaps that's one of the most appealing things about printed silk: it allows you to wear your personality rather than simply wearing clothes.
Why print matters
A kaftan is a relatively simple silhouette.
That is precisely why print matters so much.
With fewer seams and a generous expanse of fabric, the surface becomes the canvas. The textile becomes the story.
This is where Holland Street's approach to engineered print design comes in.
Rather than treating a print as something simply placed onto a finished garment, the design can be considered in relation to the shape of the body and the way the fabric moves.
The result is clothing where textiles, colour, pattern and silhouette work together.
(Lauren Barfoot, founder of Holland Street and the Sense Method)
For Holland Street founder and designer Lauren Barfoot, this approach has been shaped by a career in textile design, including studying at the Royal College of Art and working with major British fashion names including Alexander McQueen and Zandra Rhodes. Her experience as a print designer and textile designer informs Holland Street's distinctive approach to hand-drawn motifs, colour and engineered placement prints.
The brand describes this as a process of developing large-scale, hand-drawn prints and transforming them into three-dimensional, wearable pieces.
That connection between drawing, textile and body is what makes a printed silk kaftan feel different from simply buying a patterned garment.
London Fashion Week hosted by the British Fashion Council at Somerset House, London
British print design, made wearable
British fashion has a long history of celebrating print.
From the exuberance of the 1960s and 1970s through to contemporary fashion, print has been one of the ways British designers have challenged the idea that clothing needs to be restrained or predictable.
Holland Street takes inspiration from that tradition while developing its own visual language.
The collections draw on nature, English gardens, vintage textiles and florals, bringing those references into contemporary womenswear through expressive colour and print.
The result is a distinctly modern interpretation of luxury dressing: beautiful textiles, generous silhouettes and prints designed to be noticed.
It is fashion, but it is also textile design.
And that distinction matters.
Find your feeling. Find your print. Find your kaftan.
Explore the Holland Street collection of printed silk kaftans, created around expressive textile design, colour, movement and the emotional experience of getting dressed.
Choose with your heart. Wear it with your soul.