How else could J.Crew give us a chunky-knit skirt suit in a flecked acid yellow, like some wayward cousin of Chanel? (Latta says she was looking for “gross” colors, including a “puke green.”) Elsewhere, there’s a riff on the ladylike twinset, in striped cashmere, frisky in its cropped proportions; and classic oxford shirts, now slashed up the back, featuring a deep, overlapping vent. “Some things felt very us, others felt very J.Crew,” Latta says of working together. “If it was one or the other, we’d get rid of it or push it toward the middle. Nothing that’s in here feels preposterous to me. There’s a person for all of it.”
“There’s this foundation with Eckhaus Latta of denim, jersey, and knitwear,” Eckhaus says. “And I could say the same of J.Crew—they’re just realized differently.”
POWER TRIO
J.Crew’s Olympia Gayot with Zoe Latta and Mike Eckhaus. “We celebrate the everyday,” Gayot says, “and then they come and add a twist, a tension.”
Courtesy of J.Crew.
While he and Latta have made their name with wide-cut denim dyed in murky shades; shaggy, sculptural knits; and shirting with sexy-strange cutouts, in recent years their work has gained a finesse that comes with experience, and now includes handsome leathers and more streamlined silhouettes. Much like J.Crew’s elevated staples, these are real clothes worn by real people in their real lives—though from the start, Eckhaus Latta has attracted a coterie of creative types (e.g., indie actors, gallerists) who often sit in their fashion shows’ front row and, occasionally, are persuaded to walk their runway.
“What defines their brand is not only what they design, but the world that they build around it,” observes Gayot, recalling a show where the casting director held a model’s baby as she traipsed the catwalk, or the time a gaggle of friends provided full-throated musical accompaniment. “It’s not pretentious—it’s familial, it’s beautiful, it’s downtown,” she continues. “It’s like all of those things that you look at as an outsider, and you’re like, ‘I want to be part of that world.’ ”
Their 27-piece collaboration, which includes men’s, women’s, and children’s pieces, comes on the heels of a smaller project earlier this year in which Eckhaus Latta reimagined J.Crew’s signature roll-neck sweater, rendering it in earth-toned patches. The entire run sold out in a few hours. “We’re not a hype brand—we’re not used to putting something out and having it be gone,” Eckhaus says. “But selling out that quickly was really fulfilling, and being able to expand that into a full collection feels exciting in a whole different way.”
