Summer dressing secrets of New York’s favourite designer
‘There has been a seismic shift: slow fashion is now a thing’
You could forgive Ulla Johnson for feeling a little smug earlier this year after she discovered that her label was one of the top three most searched-for names on Net-a-porter.com. At the time, she wasn’t even stocked on the site.
Net-a-porter has since rectified the omission – although keeping it in stock is proving a challenge. It’s easy to see the appeal, especially this time of year. Johnson makes the bohemian hip: hers is a floaty but controlled, easy-fit interpretation, with a holiday vibe that’s sleek enough to wear to the office. It’s Isabel Marant without the rockchic edge and importantly, until now, it has been under the radar.
There’s another aspect to her label that, without advertising or PR, seems to be resonating with customers – it has heart. I stumbled across it wandering down Bleeker Street in New York’s Soho recently. Shoehorned between the big beasts – Apple, Prada, Jcrew; all those names that flocked to the area at the start of the millennium for a slice of Soho’s cool – it’s a little oasis of greenery that radiates those elusive qualities that bigger companies pay so much to project: authenticity and personal conviction.
“It’s funny you say that,” says Johnson, when I track her down, “because we’ve spent zero on marketing, particularly in Europe. It’s all word of mouth or social media. It’s very much about what I love.” A psychologist by training, she launched her label in 1999 but only opened the boutique four months ago – an act that in itself is revealing of her company’s spontaneous approach. All around her, Manhattan retail looks as though it’s dying. Ralph Lauren closed on 5th Avenue. American Apparel, Scoop, Macy’s and Sears are all downsizing or disappearing. Soho in particular has just recorded the largest percentage drop in average asking rent from the previous year, falling 12 per cent. Some previously fashionable streets are starting to look gap-toothed where stores have gone dark.
Maybe they simply don’t have the right approach. “A lot of the shopping experience, especially in the US, feels like being in a mall,” says Johnson. “Even when it isn’t. But I always loved Bleeker Street. It never got quite as developed as the others in Soho. Plus I’m plant obsessed and it’s tree-lined.” Opening a store has enabled Johnson to engage directly with her customers and become more experimental. “I’ve seen the visceral reaction women have to trying on the clothes in the boutique,” she says.
The clothes are nicely made, either locally in Soho, or hand woven and knitted in India or Peru. A trip to Peru with her youngest daughter four years ago was an eye-opener. “You go to some areas there and every woman knows how to knit. The Peruvian government is investing quite a bit in order to preserve their indigenous crafts.”
Here are the other segments in the jigsaw – sustainability and social responsibility, which are important founding principles, but hard to communicate without coming across as dreary. “It’s not something we ram down people’s throats,” says Johnson, “but how and where it’s made are incredibly important.”
They may not carry foghorns, but Johnson’s sales staff are happy to educate customers who are willing to listen. “We were putting all this information on the labels and I felt for a long time no one was looking at it. Then there was this seismic shift about five years ago. Customers have really taken on board this idea that you don’t buy 10,000 new things each season, but you look for timeless things that are really going to fulfil you. Slow fashion is really becoming a thing.”
Johnson consults with NGOS (non-government organisations) on the ground in the countries she produces in to keep quality consistent. “We’re not able to manufacture on a 60-90 day window… Clients have to adjust to the fact that we can’t turn things around that fast.”
It’s probably worth noting that the other store doing brisk business in Soho is Reformation, the LA label selling clothes made from deadstock and recycled fabrics.
Johnson’s prices hit that so-called sweet spot, between £300-£600. They’re affordable, but high enough for customers to make certain assumptions about provenance and welfare standards. “We work with a lot of the same factories that deliver designer pieces,” says Johnson, “but we don’t have massive corporate structure so our margins are tighter.”
The daughter of archaeologists who lived on the Upper East Side (maybe her fascination with Bleeker Street in the Eighties began as an exercise in tribal observation), she became very dispirited by the manufacturing process when she worked in the industry first started. “People were making – and buying – with no emotion.”
Three children later, Johnson feels less connected to the fashion industry in some ways, but just as drawn to the locomotion of desire as ever. “I’m not going to say I never look at trends, because I do,” she says. “I live in the real world, but trends aren’t why
I do this. Making something beautiful that lasts is.”