Et Ochs (Q3068)
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Et Ochs is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Et Ochs |
Et Ochs is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
Quiet luxury is the word—well, TikTok expression—on everyone’s lips. For designers this season, the concept has translated into two evergreen fashion buzzwords: streamlined and essential. For Michelle Ochs at Et Ochs, resort is less about the viral TikTok trend and more about what it has to say about our current mindset.“Going into resort, I really wanted to make power silhouettes and beautiful pieces for that modern woman,” she said, evoking ’90s style oracles like Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, and Gwyneth Paltrow inGreat Expectations(1998). Their look, as Ochs describes it, was stripped down, beautiful, and all about “quality essentials”—the three boxes the designer looked to check with her new lineup.With this lineup, the designer set out to give her client “a little bit more polish.” Utility details remained, but this time, in the shape of flowy silk cargos and straps hanging off waistbands and pockets. The idea of exposing garments’ inner construction returned too, with inside-out seams and darts applied to dressy skirts and slips. Power viscose tailoring expanded the daywear offering—a dynamically cut vest and its jumpsuit version were the most contemporary interpretations of Ochs’s source inspiration.For a designer who has made it her signature to design close to the body, this collection sees Ochs expand her lexicon. Loose diagonal ruffles decorated her dresses, and simple blouses were elevated by deftly draped sheer chiffon overalls, which, together with her sheer slips, best captured the essence of what she’s after. (This is a good time to give Donna Karan’s enduring influence a shout-out.)Folks may be hyper-focused on quiet luxury at the moment, but Ochs has the right idea taking the elements of the trend—ease, simplicity, sophistication—and incorporating them into her design verbiage. If anything, what’s worth taking away from Gen Z’s fascination with this affluent minimal look is that we’re witnessing their aesthetic evolve as they age. “She’s still fun, but it’s time to grow up,” Ochs said of her woman. “The world is making her grow up, and she has to get to work!”
8 June 2023
In a sunny showroom in Hudson Yards—its view of the Manhattan skyline covered by scaffolding—Michelle Ochs was wearing an oversized gray blazer paired with a white tank top and jeans: thinkWorking Girlif Melanie Griffith was in her 30s and had a job in the city in 2023. “As you see, we’re surrounded by scaffolding,” said Ochs, which today, rather than a nuisance, was the perfect stage for her fall lineup.“Most of us are back in the office by now, and as I go in every day, I think about the American woman being surrounded by office buildings and construction,” she said of this season’s inspiration. “This woman is dressed in subtle undertones inspired by New York, so what I wanted to do here was rethink the idea of female American power dressing.”While Ochs is still offering her tried and true evening gowns and dresses, here cut and softly draped in vibrant skyline blue and lavender haze jerseys and stretch viscoses (this was another NYFW collection that featured hooded evening styles, something we’ll surely see more of this season), she turned her eye to wardrobing the daily life of her customer. Separates are a growing category at Et Ochs, and fall saw her successfully explore her range. The lineup included worthwhile additions to her indigo denim offering and the introduction of true wear-to-work tailoring. The latter she cut in boiled wool and viscose suitings; these roomier, structured silhouettes felt fresh in her world; look eight was a particular standout.To amp up the edge and industrial feel, Ochs decided “to take construction elements,” she said, but not “literal construction” (unlike, say, Heron Preston, who incorporated building-site found objects into his fall lineup), but the idea of bringing the inside of a garment to the outside. This worked best when she exposed seams finished with bias trims, placed technical seam seal tape on the outside of garments, or applied contrast stitching on trousers and jeans to cleverly expose pattern pieces placed on top of each other. Ochs always finds a way of imbuing some edge into her ready-to-wear to make it just distinct enough.So what is today’s woman wearing to work in a city like New York? Truth is, it’s anyone’s guess, but Et Ochs is a pretty good one.
13 February 2023
Pre-fall tends to be a “choose your own adventure” season for designers. Some like to focus on high-summer travel, others look to prop up their customers’ wardrobes for the early fall months, while still more use the pre-season as a testing ground for new ideas. For Et Ochs designer Michelle Ochs, the latter two apply best. This season, she found inspiration in Upstate New York. Its chilly autumn evenings, bright bonfires, and navy nighttime skies informed the color palette, while its endless opportunities for outdoor adventures set the stage for tactical fabrics, trims, and extras.Utilitarian and sensual were the words that kept coming up in our pre-fall conversation. Sexy comes innately to her, and although utilitarian isn’t the term that comes to mind for the slinky dresses that have earned her a loyal customer base, the tactical details she introduced meshed surprisingly well with the stretch cady, gloss jersey, and power stretch viscose that dominated the collection.The utility angle was most convincing in the bungee details scattered here and there, replacing spaghetti straps, and used as button holes or as functional drawstrings. They provided a welcome update to Ochs’s familiar sexy jersey pieces. Cargo pockets, meanwhile, worked best as waist details on a long black column gown and a neon jacket.Welcome silhouette experiments included a hefty puffer vest made out of recycled parachute fabric, and broad, sharply shouldered outerwear and tailoring. Sleek cargos in that parachute fabric tapped into the pervasive Gen-Z trend without sacrificing Ochs’s own point of view. In contrast, a shapewear-like dress and top made sense as a trendy commercial talkback, but there was room here for her to explore the shape further and make it her own.“I try to make dressing as simple as possible for our woman,” Ochs said. The idea of pre-styling has become a recurring theme at pre-fall previews, as designers work to simplify the shopping experience for their customers. Ochs has the right idea when it comes to offering easy but directional items. This might be an adventure her customers are keen to choose.
7 December 2022
For spring, Michelle Ochs discovered inspiration in Emily Dickinson’s dried flowers from her famed herbarium. Ochs found creative propulsion in considering the “mortality of beauty,” as well as theimmortalityof the preserved petals—beauty that doesn’t die, but just shifts. That’s a heady starter, but it was counterbalanced by an element of “just a little bit of ’90s-era” fun, as she put it.If the quaint nostalgia of papered flowers and the shellacked and high-armed obviousness of the ’90 might feel at odds, Ochs did a good job of making them work together. Take, for example, chainmail tank-tops juxtaposed with a knit sweater, crewneck-collared but open and wavy, like a peony, around the hem. Or: A power-shouldered white dress (very Kris Jenner in her [Robert] Kardashian-era) offset with orchid-mimicking chrome hardware attachments. There was a springtime focus on denim, as well, spliced into separates and sometimes embellished with crystals in the shape of wildflowers. A black dress section—“we’re not too morbid, I swear!”—featured the skin-baring cutouts for which Ochs is known, paneled with that chainmail, or even pieced together with more denim, this time dyed noir.There’s a knowing smartness in Ochs’ approach—she’s true to her aesthetic yet there’s something distinct and cool as to how she fuses ideas (which may partially explain why clever celebs like Iliza Vie Shlesinger and Aubrey Plaza are fans). The product outcome can sometimes be esoteric or eccentric, but it largely works—and to broaden her catchment, spring saw the introduction of yet more separates, which started to ramp up last season. They’re “essentials but not run of the mill,” said Ochs.
13 September 2022
Michelle Ochs is now four seasons in with Et Ochs and she’s in growth mode. At a resort preview, she said, “I wanted to build a lifestyle. I’ve been thinking about how to get her dressed again, what does she need? What is she looking for?”Most designers I’ve visited this season had something similar to say about their customer: she’s ready to dress up. For Ochs, this means expanding her range to give her customers more options. “She’s loving the separates, so we’re doing more of those and expanding outside the body,” she said. “Outside the body,” as in beyond the bodycon dresses that have been her signature since the Cushnie et Ochs days. She ventured further into denim and re-introduced leather, translating elements she’s developed so far (see: bias tape seaming, for instance) while keeping the vibe that defines the Et Ochs woman.About those bodycons silhouettes. Made out of power stretch viscose, they strike the balance between the slinky going-out silhouettes that have taken over the runways and the shapewear popularized by the likes of Mugler and SKIMS. The best way of describing the effect these Et Ochs pieces have on the body is through a sound effect we made in her showroom. I won’t bother with an onomatopoeia here, but imagine the noise a suction cup makes.Ochs said she was looking at both mid-century modern furniture and the ’90s children’s animated TV series Rugrats for inspiration. Rugrats? She said she loved the way the cartoons were drawn, and that the wiggly lines that outlined the characters can be found in furniture, too. “The odd and unexpected curvature in the cartoons really stayed with me, so I wanted to translate that into the shapes in the clothes.” The outlines came to life primarily as padded cording; some were functional, containing wires to create shape or serving as thick spaghetti straps, and others were just decorative details. Rugrats also inspired the palette, built primarily with soft fuchsia, cyan, and chocolate brown.The cartoon provided the collection’s playfully saturated tones, and the furniture the grown-up chicness that characterizes Et Ochs. Provocative, sensual, and amusing are three words the designer wove into our conversation, ending our chat by stating she “wanted to be playful.” If you’re wondering, she says she’s a Tommy Pickles. I’m more of a Suzie Carmichael myself.
20 June 2022
The interplay of plushness and sleekness is well-trod territory in fashion. If I had a dollar for every time a designer uttered the phrase “something hard with something soft” during an appointment, I’d be a millionaire. While Michelle Ochs is exploring popular ideas with Et Ochs, she does it in her own way. Nowhere else on the New York Fashion Week calendar—or in Europe, I’d venture—will we see clothing suspended by moldable metal wires. Ochs’s blazers, puffer jackets, and almost Mugler-ian bustier dresses are all built with metal filaments at the hems, so that the wearer can construct her own silhouette and change it by the day.Adjusting fashion to meet a woman’s needs or mood has been what Ochs excels at with her new brand, now in its third season. Her T-shirt bodysuits, intentionally oversized and grungy, are among her most popular early hits, as are her no-zipper evening dresses that just pull on over the head. She’s added metal buckles this season, somewhat evocative of Seven Easy Pieces–era Donna Karan—on the whole, Ochs seems to operate in a post-Karan wake. Sensuous, cerebral, sexy, and smart, her clothing takes the guesswork out of getting dressed without losing its specialness. Ochs’s steely aesthetic, grounded in postmodern materials, is what makes her stand apart too—it’s a feat to do sexy and cold. That’s spiritually cold, I mean: her giant padded puffer seems ideal for these 18-degree days.
15 February 2022
A week before I met Michelle Ochs on Zoom for a pre-fall appointment, I was in another designer’s New York studio. They were bemoaning the current trend for revealing clothing. “Everything has to be sexy!” said the designer with a furrowed brow, gesturing at a rack of very unsexy stuff. There’s obviously room for both in the market, but for some brands, the swing toward body-hugging and body-baring clothing is a challenge. For Ochs, it’s a gift. As the designer behind some of the sexiest dresses of the past 15 years, finding new ways to flaunt the female form is her area of expertise.For pre-fall, she continues to build her repertoire of mature, slinky pieces. This is not the skin-and-bare-it stuff of Gen Z, hot-girl designers—Ochs finds practicality as alluring as a pelvic reveal. Here she has engineered a new jumpsuit with an adjustable waist; voluminous nylon trousers; and an easy, step-in jersey bodice. Another jumpsuit with a zip front and two tiny slits on the upper leg is devastatingly hot in a knowing, grown-up way. Ditto a white top with a collar that loops from the back to create “negative space” around the wearer’s décolletage.Beyond the stretchy sexy pieces is a renewed focus on separates. Ochs used denim and leather for the first time on curvaceous blazers, wide-leg jeans, and a cropped trench. Zebra-print capris and a “not-really-a-legging” legging flesh out the pants offering, while tops are ruched and adjustable to suit the wearer’s mood. Business, Ochs reports, is going swimmingly, with retailers fighting over exclusive colors and styles. Consider it a testament to the power of a female designer showcasing a woman’s version of sex appeal.
10 December 2021
Michelle Ochs is back and with her new label Et Ochs: she’s bringing sexy, slinky, streamlined dresses back, too—not that sensual dresses needed the help. In the three years since Ochs split up with Cushnie, and with fashion, the trend cycle has swung dramatically in favor of the svelte Ochs look. But while these stretchy, clingy pieces might seem of a kind with the other body-conscious pieces out there, Ochs’s garments are engineered for maximum kindness to the bodies inside them.Take the first look, a stretch olive bodysuit-dress that can be pulled on over the wearer’s head and snapped in between the legs. No zippers necessary! Flare leggings, luxe boxy tees, and sweatshirt fabric blazers push the Ochs look into practical daywear, and even the most sequined evening piece is cut to feel more like wearing activewear than wearing a gown. Yes, she’s still minimalist and yes, she’s still glam, but Ochs’s woman feels a bit easier, more relaxed, and more self-assured than the last time we saw her on the runway.That comes with Ochs’s own life changing; she became a mother during her fashion pause. Accordingly, she has reconsidered some shapes for a woman’s body. “Nothing harsh,” she says. Aesthetically, she seems to be embracing a more eclectic and off-kilter style; no simple symmetries or obvious slits. It will be interesting to see how women raised on Cushnie et Ochs, many of whom are mothers now too, buy and style these pieces. Their lives have matured, and Ochs has matured alongside them without doing the thing so many designers do for women over 30: giving them a drab navy suit or a mumsy tea dress. The Ochs client is unapologetically hot and definitely not a girl. Long live Hot Woman Summer.
9 September 2021