HEIGHTS OF FASHION
Fe to go! Designer Felisha Noel creates celeb-beloved duds in a basement in Crown Heights
C LOTHING designer Felisha Noel was at dinner with friends in December when she got an Instagram notification that took her breath away.
She had been tagged in a 30-second clip of Beyoncé serenading husband Jay-Z at his 49th birthday party in South Africa. In the video, the superstar wore a puff-sleeved, splashy patterned, off-the-shoulder shirt Noel had designed for her 2017 collection.
Noel, 32, says she immediately “screamed” in shock. “We had no idea, no warning” that the “Lemonade” singer was planning to don the top, Noel tells The Post.
This summer, the Canarsie-based Noel finds herself affiliated with Beyoncé yet again. In July, Bloomingdale’s launched a collection inspired by the remake of “The Lion King,” in which Queen Bey supplies the voice of lioness Nala.
The department store’s capsule, called Style Kingdom, features four of Noel’s original creations, including a silky giraffeprint skirt ($396) and a sunny wrap dress ($536). Surprisingly, it’s the first-ever retail order for Noel, who nevertheless has designed clothes for the likes of Gabrielle Union, Jordin Sparks and Michelle Obama.
Like all of the offerings from Noel’s label, Fe Noel, the Bloomingdale’s pieces are decidedly luxe. But they aren’t shipped in from Paris or even manufactured in the Garment District: Every one of her brightly printed, flowy designs is created in her Crown Heights studio, housed in the basement of the three-story, yellow-brick building where Noel spent some of her childhood years. Her mother, Sonia, owns it, and runs a day care upstairs; Noel’s former bedroom is now home to an energetic class of kids.
“It’s so crazy — like six of us in this basement sewing, designing, brainstorming and running the whole business,” Noel says of the underground, one-room factory. “It keeps me humble. It’s literally where I came from. It reminds me of why I keep grinding.”
The Brooklyn native, who has a 2-year-old son, has loved fashion
since she was a kid. Before Sonia founded the day care, she worked as an administrative assistant at a clothing manufacturer near the Garment District, and frequently brought home stray fabric samples for Noel, then a teenager, to work with.
Noel was ambitious: At age 19, in 2006, she co-founded a streetwear boutique called the Wagon in Crown Heights. The shop featured a mix of high-end vintage pieces and Noel’s original designs, which she says had an elevated yet clubby, “Michelle Pfeiffer in ‘Scarface’ vibe.”
Soon, she developed a cool celeb clientele. “Miguel, Wiz Khalifa, Teyana Taylor and the late Nipsey Hussle all came in back in the day,” Noel says. She says she made a slinky, turtleneck, cutout green dress that appeared on an actress in a Jay-Z video. Even still, she says, “times were tough. I was 19, and my business partner and I were really bootstrapping it, like a ‘sell something, pay the light bill’ kind of thing. It was super stressful.”
And so the shop shuttered in December 2011. In its stead, she opened a Web store, featuring a line called Simply Intricate by Fe Noel. Soon, she sold out of a vivid two-piece set that singer Jordin Sparks wore to the 2014 Teen Choice Awards.
With the “American Idol” winner’s influence, the outfit “was selling like hotcakes,” Noel says. “It was the first time I started making money.”
Then, another setback: Noel’s Manhattan-based clothing manufacturer dropped her as a client, in favor of a lucrative, exclusive contract with a hip downtown line. Her mother offered Noel her Crown Heights basement as an alternative — and “that’s how we ended up all in-house!” Noel says with a laugh.
She took the opportunity to rebrand, too. She shortened her label to Fe Noel, and switched up her aesthetic, creating Caribbean-themed pieces out of luxurious fabrics such as richly dyed silk and chiffon. “I think your point of view changes as you grow,” Noel says. “My sense of style . . . became more mature, and I want to reflect that in my clothes.” Unfortunately, her longtime clients didn’t see the appeal. “I lost my customers. I lost everything,” Noel says. “I was buying more expensive fabrics, so of course that made the price change . . . the young girl who wants to look sexy in the club no longer related.” Yet, unbeknownst to her, some of the fashion world’s top stylists were taking notice — and began following her sumptuous Instagram feed. She was given the opportunity to design glam women’s sneakers and jerseys for LeBron James’ Nike collection in 2018. Then, a few months later, her once-foundering career reached an unthinkable new high: Michelle Obama wore a bright orange Fe Noel set to a high-profile event promoting her memoir, “Becoming.” “I cannot even describe to you the feeling I had of seeing her walk across the stage,” Noel says of the footage, adding that even though Obama’s stylist had requested the look, she had no idea if the former first lady would actually wear it. Now, Noel is elevating her aesthetic even further, through a number of dream artistic collaborations. She has one with Harmonia Rosales, an Afro-Cuban-American painter from Chicago. Another, with fellow Brooklyn-bred Grenadian artisan Cliffanie Forrester, will debut in November as part of her sixth Fe Noel collection. “It’s paying homage to my family, to my heritage,” she says. “We aren’t launching during Fashion Week. We want to launch it in a museum.” But, in spite of her current spate of success, Noel has no plans to abandon the design spot she’s come to love: her mother’s basement. “We have a good thing going here,” she says. “We’re staying with our Brooklyn roots.”