Coastal cool
Los Angeles clothing label Reformation reflects founder Yael Aflalo’s instinct for marrying vintage with contemporary – a style also evident in her breezy Malibu home. By Zara Wong.
Yael Aflalo has a strongly held passion for interiors. She can name-check Royère couches, and acknowledges how her taste started at Nelson midcentury before developing to 70s Italianate Scarpa. But she is still patient enough to share her tips with an interiors novice: “Gather images of what you like first – start on Pinterest,” she says. “Then figure out the names of the images – it’s fine if you don’t know! Then put the name in 1stdibs and see what other furniture comes out, and how they describe them. You can figure it out from there.”
It’s this dialogue with Aflalo, speaking over the phone from her label Reformation’s headquarters in Los Angeles, that says volumes about her, and about Reformation: work out what you want, then backwards-engineer it. But also that she is the preeminent cool girl who is more than happy to share her tips and to admit that, hey, she doesn’t always know the names of all the different styles of furniture, either.
For Aflalo, it took an oft-told tale of a visit to China while freelance designing for another fashion label that convinced her there needed to be another way to produce clothes. The pollution from the factories startled her. “I felt like there was a big need for a fashionable, sustainable brand.” With her background in design and newfound passion for sustainability, she realised she was well placed to be part of a wider
discussion in the fashion industry. “I’m extremely long-term-goal orientated, so I thought I would have a pretty good shot of getting it done,” she says.
This realisation coincided with Aflalo closing down her first fashion line, Ya-Ya, which she had started in her 20s. In its heyday, the brand was stocked at LA store Fred Segal, showed in New York, and epitomised the youthful, party-style fashions of its time: stretch jersey, cowl neckline and handkerchief hems.
By the late 2000s, in the midst of the economic recession, Aflalo, who was then in her early 30s, was frustrated with her career. “I wasn’t enjoying Ya-Ya, I wasn’t happy, and I was like: ‘Okay, I need to make a change, I need to figure out what is going to make me happy’, so I shut it down. I was wondering whether I should build something or go back to school.” The thought of closing of one business and opening another soon after didn’t deter Aflalo. “Change is really easy for me. I enjoy trying new things. I’m still afraid and have normal reactions, but I’m more excited than fearful.”
What started as a cult label is now a major player in sustainability, the brand of choice for every mindful millennial drawn to its vintage-esque dresses in flattering yet wearable styles and colours and attention to fit. (Aflalo tries on about half the styles of Reformation and encourages other staffers to do the same.)
Wearability is an important factor for Aflalo. “We keep it simple at Reformation.” Emerald green has been a recent standout colour for the label, to the bemusement of Aflalo and her team. “We don’t know who’s buying it, because we never see anyone wear it, but I finally saw a girl wearing the emerald green dress,” she says triumphantly. “Do you buy emerald green? What’s your complexion?” she asks me, ever the consummate designer, interested in her customers and what we’re buying. “I get very number geeky,” she says of sales data. “They [customers] love a high slit and the princess seam. And I feel people are into bra-friendly styles at the moment. I pretty much do whatever the customer wants,” she says modestly. But Aflalo combines that with a searingly accurate gauge of what women desire anyway – easyto-wear pieces with ethically and sustainably sound manufacturing practices, where factory employees are eligible for health benefits, and fabric scraps are down-cycled into insulation, and no hazardous substances are used in products.
While there is still some way to go, Aflalo and her company are open about what they still need to improve on – an awareness that hopefully will be reflected in the wider
industry. On Reformation’s Instagram Stories recently, the company pronounced: “All our factory employees make more than Californian minimum wage, and we are working to have all employees make above Los Angeles living wage!”
Aflalo’s interest in fashion came early. “I was always into dressing up as a little girl, and it never really went away.” While her parents worked in the garment industry, her mother had little interest in fashion, so the young Aflalo would style her mother, as well as her younger sister. “By the time I was 12 I was dressing my mother! For my little sister, I’d style her for school,” she says.
Photographed for Vogue in her newly renovated Malibu home, Aflalo’s interiors encompass her love of mid-century modern and have a touch of 70s Italian style. “Having them all together in a room is a really nice balance,” she says. Her expansive interior knowledge stems from an ex-boyfriend who was an interior designer and owned a vintage furniture store. “He introduced me to all the designers and different eras. We broke up, but I still love furniture!” she says with a big laugh.
The house was previously owned by her grandparents, and required work to update it. “I looked like a grandparents’ home, with sofas that matches the curtains and carpet, so we did cosmetic renovations,” she explains. The effect is spacious, with enlarged windows to make the most of the coastal light. “My personal style is more edgy, but I like my interiors to be more white and open and more clean – I can’t handle clutter: it makes me crazy.”
Her husband, Ludvig Frössén, the creative director of Reformation, shares a similar taste in minimal but warm interior styles, thanks to his Swedish background. The two have been together for six years and have a two-year-old daughter, Luella. Her birth instigated a change in Aflalo’s work routine. “I used to stay at the office until I was too tired, but now I have a daughter, I have to leave because I want to see her,” she explains.
Becoming a mother also affected her style. Shorter lengths were put aside for longer hemlines and she made other changes made for practical reasons. “It’s hard to wear short skirts, because you have to bend down and pick up a kid. And kids stain everything! And you know how every girl loves that style of bag where you hold it in your hand? There’s no doing that with a toddler – you need both your hands,” she says with a laugh. With her time in the office, she also is leaning towards more comfortable silhouettes. “I’m trying to navigate the space where clothes can look elegant but are also comfortable,” she says, mentioning jeggings. “It’s so embarrassing, but I do like them! I dress them up with big scrunch boots on top.” She’s also wearing bike shorts with an oversized black sweater and furry Celine slippers. “My legs are the shining stars in the body department, so I like to have them out!”
As creative director of Reformation, Frössén is also in charge of the purposely provocative yet knowing and humorous brand voice. For example, the slogan: ‘Being naked is the most sustainable option. We’re number two’, is all part of Aflalo’s plan to reposition the image of sustainability. She looked at other industries, like food, and saw it was possible. “So we created a strategic marketing campaign,” she says. “Everyone positions sustainability as crunchy granola and we’re going to make it really sexy.”
And if there’s anyone who can do that, it will undoubtedly be Aflalo.
“My personal style is more edgy, but I like my interiors to be more white and open and more clean – I can’t handle clutter: it makes me crazy”