Nick Ashley doesn't like to call himself a "design director" because his job has a lot more to it - putting new proj-ects together (hotels are the latest) and preserving the image that his mother established when she created the concept of Laura Ashley in 1953 with a handful of homemade tea towels and aprons. "In other words, I'm the idea man."
It hasn't been easy lately. At the time of Laura's death in 1985 from injuries she suffered in a fall down the stairway of her French chateau, the company was at its prime. "Everything we touched," Nick says, "turned to gold." Laura Ashley stores were opening "in every civilized country in the world"; between fashions and home furnishings, "we were manufacturing practically everything a person would need from womb to tomb."But when Laura died, her husband, Sir Bernard Ashley, the company's chairman, and the kids - two sons, two daughters - "had the wind knocked out of us," says Nick. "We're just now getting it back."
Her very name, however, proved an enduring legacy. Laura Ashley has always conjured a kinder, gentler time - of garden party frocks and straw picture hats, of tea parties and English drawing rooms.
"Like good silverware," says Nick, "it's passed down from generation to generation."
But even the most treasured heirlooms get tarnished and need polishing. "For the last five years, we haven't been doing it right," Nick admits. "We quit talking to our customers and just sat around the table making generalizations. We had faults, and we had to rectify them."
And so Nick began "concepting." "We had to have a look for the '90s. Mother's concept of fashion was all about the '60s, a time of great fantasy and make-believe. Not that the garden-party image hasn't been good for us, but we have to keep in mind that the '90s are all about reality.
"We also had a much stronger customer base than we deserved. They were people that love and understand nature, health as wealth, that appreciate our natural fabrics."
Translated into Laura Ashley labels, that means clothes that are "more practical, more wearable. The delicate floral prints are still very much in evidence, but they come in jumpsuits and minis as well as the signature full-skirted, petticoated dresses."
There was never any question that Nick, 34, would be the child who would follow in his mother's creative footsteps, "though when I was growing up, I just thought she had a neat hobby." While his job is providing fodder for 10 factories - mostly in the United Kingdom - and some 450 worldwide Laura Ashley stores, his siblings take care of other aspects of the business.
Brother David, 36, runs the international Laura Ashley Foundation - "everything we don't spend, we give away," says Nick.
Jane, 37, was responsible for dreaming up the famous Laura Ashley ad campaign of the '60s ("the romantic-looking girl in a field of hay"); Emma, 25, is one of Nick's assistants. And so far, five grandchildren are waiting in the wings. (Nick is married but has no children.)
"We eat, sleep and breathe Laura Ashley 24 hours a day," says Nick, who went to art school in Paris and worked with Savile Row tailors before becoming his mother's co-designer. "We're constantly brainstorming, and yes, of course we have our disagreements."
One thing they all agree on is jeans, notably Levi's 501s. "We live in them, even my father."
So where are the Laura Ashley jeans? "They're coming," Nick smiles. "I've been looking at jeans for two years, but I'm going to do them my way. I don't want blue jeans, and we didn't get our act together in time to come out with colored jeans. The obvious for us is printed jeans, isn't it?"