Meet Camilla’s new style weapon –the kitchen-table entrepreneur who never advertises

Sophie Dundas was in bed at home, near Lewes in East Sussex, when news trickled through. A friend called to say she should have a look at Clarence House’s Instagram, the official account of the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall.

There, for all the royal couple’s 1.6 million followers to see, was a photograph of Camilla looking relaxed and jovial in her private garden in Lacock, Wiltshire, wearing one of Dundas’s dresses. The blue-daisy print design, called the ‘Isla’ is named after Dundas’s first grandchild, and at £145 it has since sold out in every size. And the photograph graces the cover of this month’s Country Life magazine, photographed by the Duchess of Cambridge, part of a commemorative edition guest-edited by Camilla and celebrating her 75th birthday and the magazine’s 125th anniversary.

“I had absolutely no idea,” says Dundas. “I was really thrilled. I think she looks amazing.”

Dundas’s website has had a significant uptick in traffic and sales – though she is reluctant to go into figures – but some versions of the Isla remain in prints such as ‘pink speedwell’, ‘cherries’ and ‘wild flower’. The Duchess wore another dress of hers last summer, in another Clarence House Instagram post celebrating the Royal Voluntary Service.

Royal outfits, however, especially those chosen for official portraits for magazine covers, are never accidents. A number of factors might have drawn Camilla to this particular design, including it having been created by a small, ethical British brand, run by women for women, and based in East Sussex, a few miles from where she grew up.

While the Duchess has a dresser, Jacqui Meakin (who also dressed the Queen Mother), it’s well known that she likes to pick out clothes herself and enjoys fashion – up to a point. Dundas guesses Camilla became aware of her brand after her sister, interior designer Annabel Elliot, started buying her dresses a few years ago and probably asked a friend to buy them for her. There were no billing addresses to Clarence House.

When I visit, copies of the magazine are strewn throughout Dundas’s house, including beside the loo – a spot reserved for only the most coveted British achievements. Her two daughters have been mobbing her up too. “I am being teased. There’s a lot of ‘God, Mum.’” Dundas feigns an eye-roll. “And then me saying, ‘You do know I have a job. I have been doing this for years.’”

Seventeen, to be precise – ever since she returned with five dresses made-up during a trip to India and friends lobbied her to bring back more. She then had 30 dresses created, using fabrics sourced by her at markets and to her design specification. They sold out within a week. “Everyone wanted one. I thought, OK, I’ve got to do this.”

Dundas’s eponymous label is unique for a few reasons: she has never used ad campaigns or commissioned photoshoots; she has no design qualifications; she doesn’t sell to shops (only fairs, sales in friends’ houses or in small batches through her website), and she runs everything herself from the kitchen table (packing), sitting room (customer services), back hall (stock cupboard) and laundry room (where each order gets ironed using an old-fashioned Elnapress).

The dresses, of which only 300 or so are made a year, are so good because of their universally flattering shape and unusual one-off fabrics. They have sensible sleeves, a loose but fitted drop-waist, a shirt collar, a slightly flared skirt and elegant midi length. Best-sellers come in silk cotton, a mix of mainly cotton with a shot of silk woven in for smoothness, to prevent creases and make dresses hang and swish better. She also creates shirts, jackets and belts.

Fabrics are chosen by Dundas from markets in Asia – end-of-line rolls that are never longer than 90 metres – with dainty but powerful prints. A few years ago, she moved sourcing fabrics and production to Hanoi, Vietnam after a trip to the south American country where she met three talented sisters.

“I saw a beautiful velvet jacket in a shop window. I then met the sisters who cut the fabrics in their shop, they outsource to women who sew the designs at home. We have about 24 outworkers now and I visit at least once a year,” she says.

More appeal comes from the brand’s ethos. Her Instagram – @sophiedundasclothing – is a patchwork of personal, unsophisticated posed shots of friends and family modelling designs in the garden alongside her dog, out on walks, next to an Aga, a roaring fire, or with a bemused-looking man (usually her husband, Dave, an English teacher) in the background. Every image has a sense of carefree humour, comfort and ease that’s a welcome antidote to ultra-curated perfectionism.

“I don’t want anything to feel skintight. I am not seasonal or guided by what is in or out, colour-wise because I don’t really know” she says.

Dundas, who is 63, grew up in Kent, West Malling, before moving to Suffolk near Bury St Edmunds. Her father was a wine merchant, her mother didn’t work, and she had two brothers, including one twin who now owns a racehorse stud in Essex.

“It was pretty idyllic,” she says. “We were outside all the time. I grew up wearing my brothers’ Millets jeans and baggy shirts – while my cousins were in Kids In Gear [a former swinging ’60s Carnaby Street boutique].”

Once she left home to travel around South America, India and the US something ignited in her. She left a junior role at Christie’s, the auction house, and went on to set up a small shop in Fulham, Brother Sun, selling an eclectic mix of children’s clothes, espadrilles, bags and jerseys, which she later give up to raise her two daughters – now grown up with young families of their own – before eventually starting up her own label.

Her love of pattern, colour and design now extends to making cushions, curtains and mixing paint for the walls at her home. While not, by any means, traditionally trained, she gleans inspiration from everything around her: her sweet-pea-filled garden, nearby Charleston House – former haunt of Duncan Grant, Vanessa Bell and the Bloomsbury set – vintage finds and the local countryside.

Problems do arise. Sizing can veer a bit and, being such a one-woman show, the pressures mount.

“Once a year I go through a thing of saying, ‘Am I too old to be doing this? Where is it going to go? Am I going to take it to another level?’” she says. “But then a new dress will arrive and the response to it is good.”

Her unique formula has done well to inspire brand loyalty. Her sales spread by word of mouth. Many who buy her dresses have done so for 10 years or more, and she knows them by name. Clientele includes another brand of royalty, actress Sigourney Weaver, who saw a friend wearing a velvet version of the Isla in Australia four years ago. “She emailed to ask if I had any more. She is very tall [5ft 11in] and they work for her. She has bought a lot and she is lovely.”

Now the Duchess has let the secret out, Dundas might need to rope her husband Dave to help with packing at the kitchen table.