It was the rooftop saunas that drew Louise Markey to her workspace at Netil House, right by London Fields in Hackney. But with a clothing brand and a family to run, she rarely finds time to visit.
Dressed in baggy grey jeans and a well-worn T-shirt, the LF Markey founder shows us into her studio. “We’ve just made the finishing touches for spring-summer 2026,” she says in an Australian accent, flicking through a rail of next year’s pieces: bright cobalt trousers; a tailored trench coat; a heavy cotton T-shirt with thick white and green stripes. Drawing inspiration from the likes of Bauhaus, Helen Frankenthaler and nature, Markey now does most of the design work at her home studio in Stroud, where she moved after 20 years in east London. “I’m on a bit of an ’80s tip at the moment,” she says, gesturing to the shoulders on a shirt.
The ex-Burberry designer started her label in 2008 after completing a master’s degree at Central Saint Martins. It remained a side project for years while Markey worked as a designer for other brands, but when she was “made redundant and found out I was pregnant on the same day” the project moved into another gear.
Focusing on bold prints, big colour and function, LF Markey as we know it was born: a collection of workwear-inspired clothing designed for busy, creative women. Something about the vision resonated with Londoners, and by homing in on core styles – like the Danny boiler suit, chore coat and various wide-legged trouser silhouettes – Markey cemented the brand’s success.
“These are pieces designed to be worn every day – a staple part of somebody’s wardrobe that they’ll pull out without thinking,” she says. “It speaks to the way I dress personally. I wear things until they’re dead and I have to repair them. I’d like to get to a point where clothes can just be fully composted.” In that same ethos, LF Markey clothes are seasonless, use non-toxic dyes and are free from synthetic fibres. They also have a weight and durability that feeds into the timeless aesthetic, using cotton drill and canvas fabrics, and feature workwear-style details like double stitching and cotton webbing.
In 2019 Markey opened her store on Dalston Lane. “That was a major turning point for us – we were able to show people our world,” she says. That same year, Markey launched sister brand Meadows. In contrast to the utility and colour blocks of her namesake line, it was all florals, embroideries and prairie-style blouses. “That’s how I was dressing at the time: ultra femme. I was into Victoriana, folklore and paganism,” Markey says.
“I didn’t want to dilute the DNA of this brand in any way, and things grew super quickly. But it also meant growing the team massively, and it was just too much for me in the end: four kids and two labels.”
She wound down Meadows last September and refocused on LF Markey. There are plans to launch an accessories line – shopper bags, cross-body purses – before Christmas. Menswear will also be reintroduced, due to popular demand, mid-next year. And then there’s the business back home. “We’ve already launched in Australia,” Markey says. “Hopefully, next year we’ll have a shop; the dream is to open one in the Marrickville area.
“It feels like a homecoming. We have a small but loyal cohort of customers there, but growing the label in Australia feels like the early days of growing LF Markey in east London.”