The year is 1996 — a time where the emerging art scene in SoHo is influencing the world of modern luxury fashion in way we haven’t seen before. At 148 Lafayette Street, New York, NY, fashion executive and entrepreneur Deirdre Quinn is working behind the scenes joining forces with seasoned fashion factory owners Ida and Shun Yen Siu. It is there that Lafayette 148 New York — a lifestyle brand based on the belief that women deserve beautiful clothing created for women’s needs — is born into existence.
Over the years, Lafayette 148 has become the epitome of luxury womenswear with uncompromising quality and flawless construction. With new silhouettes pushing the envelope of modern style, and tailored garments made to complement the female body, Lafayette 148 has grown to represent top-of-the-line ready-to-wear. As a completely in-house company, their headquarters on Lafayette Street started as the sole location of the brand, where all of their initial concepts were carried out into creation.
In 2008, Shun Yen Siu moved the company’s manufacturing to his hometown of Shantou, China. With the relocation of Lafayette 148’s factory, Mr. Siu continued to oversee the brand’s design studio and production facility overseas ensuring alignment from start to finish — until his passing in 2013. Today, his wife, Ida Siu, leads L148 in cutting-edge fashion manufacturing with her unmatched expertise. Going against the grain of a growing fast fashion industry, Lafayette 148’s state-of-the-art design workshop in Shantou ensures that all garments are consciously created, with each and every piece of clothing remaining in L148’s hands from beginning to end. Lafayette 148 remains a completely vertically-integrated fashion brand to this day.
Now, L148 is taking the time to step back out into their own with a new direction, one shaped by the vision of Creative Director Emily Smith. Once a design assistant at Lafayette 148 back in 2002, Smith has now built a team of top talent to propel the apparel brand into a new chapter. The Atlanta native is very hands on within the company, working to trend forecast for every collection that launches and traveling the world in search of the finest fabrics — evolving the fashion house to a whole new level of luxury.
Fabric has become the top priority at L148, with the brand now accepting nothing less than the best cashmere from Loro Piana, printed silks from Como, Italy, cotton from Reggiani, shearling from Spain, and classic wool from Botto Giuseppe. According to Lafayette 148, “Our European mill partners are considered some of the finest textile producers in the world, not only for the quality of their yarns; but also, for their extraordinary commitment to sustainability.”
Sustainability and social responsibility are at the core of the female-led fashion brand. L148 holds themselves — and their global partners — to the highest standards for both environmental and workers’ rights. They have made a commitment to working in solar-powered production facilities, utilizing energy-saving technologies, creating new and unique ways to utilize excess materials and minimize waste, and ensuring that all their garments are created with efforts to reduce chemicals and water usage during the process. Creative Director Emily Smith has driven these initiatives forward, making sure that their New York-based team follows the same sustainability standards as their international counterparts. This has included revolutionizing their US headquarters into a sustainably built loft space in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and — of course — ensuring they are always creating high quality clothing that is meant to last.
In addition to their sustainable mindset, Lafayette 148 also prioritizes social responsibility. Believing that success is nothing if not shared, they stand behind the belief of leaving the world a better place than when they found it. To wit: When Co-Founder Mr. Siu opened L148’s production facility in China, he made a dream of his come true by making a commitment to helping the children of his community. Mr. Siu opened the School of Dreams, a subsidized private education center for students to grow academically, alongside a wide array of athletic and artistic opportunities focused on “nurturing the whole person.” To this day, the school is entirely funded by Lafayette 148 and a group of private investors, helping give the next generation of children opportunities to succeed in all that they want to do and become.
Truly, the future of the luxe fashion house is just beginning, with 2022 as a pinnacle year for the reemergence of the brand. Formerly seen within larger luxury retail stores, Lafayette 148 is now focusing on their own standalone spaces — recently opening their first new concept store located at 59 Greene Street in New York City. “The primary store space evokes the scale and luminosity of an art gallery, a nod to Lafayette 148’s SoHo origins, as well as the brand’s ongoing commitment to craft and handwork in its collections,” L148 noted in their Greene Street press release. This new concept store was designed alongside the talented architect William Sofield, who has worked on numerous high-end brick and mortar locations for Gucci, Tom Ford, Saint Laurent, and more.
“I see the new Greene Street flagship as a holistic expression of Lafayette 148’s unique take on femininity, where style is imbued with confidence, purpose with romanticism, heritage with modernity,” Smith exclaimed. “Studio Sofield has designed it with the modern woman in mind, for whom flawless quality, luxurious and well-considered materials and a dynamic New York sensibility are of equal importance. Created and crafted with a lightness of touch, the space is the essence of Lafayette 148’s modern luxury.” Soon to come are seven new store openings throughout this year, increasing the brand’s presence across the country.
And what can we expect from a fashion lens? Lafayette 148’s latest Spring/Summer 2022 collection is a “feminine riff on workwear,” designed with New York in mind and inspired by the workers and makers who built the city that L148 calls home. Featuring elevated jumpsuits, tailored jean jackets, striped sweaters, carefully crafted patchwork, denim pants with trend-forward details, and more, L148’s SS22 assortment is nothing short of perfection — filled with fashion meant to build confidence through purpose, romanticism, heritage, and modernity.
The womenswear brand continued to capitalize on the arrival of warmer weather by unveiling L148 Swim — a Made in Italy line full of beachwear created from recycled ocean plastics. This new swim line focuses largely on reversible swimwear, with the addition of crop tops and a double-layer terry beach-towel to round out the collection. L148 Swim has mastered the “sophisticated mix of cutting-edge design and construction, exquisite and sustainable materiality, versatile dressing, and self-expression,” as the brand puts it.
With their spring line also comes the evolvement of the brand’s commitment to size inclusivity, harmonizing pricing for every single design — no matter the size. L148 currently produces fifty-eight sizes across their line. The womenswear label explained that they are “devoted to making beautiful, meticulously constructed clothing for women everywhere, regardless of size or shape.” Furthermore, to ensure accuracy, the in-house team personally tries on and tests every garment made to guarantee that the fit is flawless for all females. As a customer-focused company, L148 promises that if a customer cannot find their size, the brand will happily create made-to-order custom fits, as a dedication to inclusivity.
The designs of this dynamic team have even been introduced into the realm of couture celebrity dressing, having been worn by stars including Amy Adams, Jodie Comer, Barbie Ferreira, Rosario Dawson, Laura Dern, Tiffany Boone, and Oscar-winning actress Marlee Matlin, who wore a custom L148 red carpet gown for the SAG Awards in February 2022.
This season, Lafayette 148 is also celebrating the launch of the L148 Outdoor collection. Smith became the visionary for this outerwear assortment, partnering with Italian craftsmen to reinvent the “traditional construction details into modern designs.” The sustainable practices of the brand’s European partners also influenced the creation of this collection, which features thermo-sealed taped seams to heighten water resistance and eco-conscious fabrics. A traditional Trench, an elongated Anorak and a Car Coat — each piece in the collection is created with quality in mind and fashion-forward function to carry on Lafayette 148’s luxury legacy, while introducing a new realm of modern ready-to-wear womenswear to the world.
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