Hope For Flowers (Q4767)
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Hope For Flowers is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Hope For Flowers |
Hope For Flowers is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
Tracy Reese was “really feeling one-shoulder this season,” she said over Zoom, adding that she’s not a fan of “tricky” clothes, but does want her collection to feel interesting. To that end, for resort 2025, she used the silhouette for tops with sash details, dresses with drawstring waists, and a flouncy cropped blouse. Small details—like mini pom poms along the side seams of wide-leg pants and eyelet peeking out from the hem of slip dresses—added a touch of whimsy to a collection that allowed the wearer to “look feminine but still feel powerful,” Reese said. “I think it's great to be able to balance the two.” Oversized, pajama-inspired looks and gauzy fabrications with smocked detailing will allow them to be comfortable, too.The collection’s cohesion is not so obvious; prints run the gamut from candy-colored stripes to a trellis ironwork, and the range includes both slouchy suiting and structured, A-line mini dresses. But there’s a through-line in Reese’s use of eco-friendly fabrics like washed organic linen (for a boxy, cropped button-down), Tencel jersey (for cutout dresses), and Naia satin (for slip skirts). A leader in sustainably-made fashion, Reese is approaching two years in the Detroit design studio that also houses the Hope for Flowers showroom, apprenticeship program, and production unit. (The aforementioned one-shoulder dresses will be fully produced there.)All of Reese’s prints come to life in Detroit as well, like the oversized gingham on a pair of linen short-shorts, and an overcoat, among other separates. “I took a giant piece of watercolor paper and mixed the paint, and I drew a very light grid and mixed my tones and filled in my boxes,” Reese says of creating the gingham. “I'm always a little intimidated when I get started,” but it's worth the effort because sometimes it works out.
21 October 2024
How Tracy Reese chose to introduce her Hope for Flowers fall 2024 collection—at a trade show and not with a splashy runway production—mirrored the nature of her most recent designs: relaxed, pragmatic, and made to resonate more so with her customer than with an editorial eye. “Runway shows were so much fun,” she says. “We did that for 20 years and it was fantastic, but it does kind of pull you away a little bit from the actual needs of the customer. You start designing a little bit for editors, and they’re way ahead of the curve in terms of fashion. I always want to bring the customer forward, but I want to offer her something that is going to be useful in her life.”This season, that effort was realized to the tune of flowy cotton poplin blouses—some embellished with linen embroidery, others patterned with woodblock prints—and satin stand collar dresses in dark, abstract florals. Pencil skirts in the same fabric featured sleek, dramatic bustles. Research on navy uniforms resulted in Reese’s version of a workwear set: belted double-breasted jackets and wide-leg trousers in linen. The use of sustainable fabrics is a pillar of the brand, and one such textile—an organic cotton rib sourced from the Netherlands—was employed for sweater dresses, asymmetrical midi skirts, and boxy cropped polos. “This is our first ‘Made in Detroit,’ foray,” she said of the pieces, noting that the brand recently launched an apprenticeship for expert sewing aimed at getting the skills in Detroit “up to a global standard.” A Motor City native, Reese has long desired to one day produce the bulk—or the entirety—of her collection there.A cotton-lined boiled wool was fashioned into a casual oversized pullover (“we call it a popover,” Reese said) but also employed for a mini shift dress with a dropped waist. Again, clothes made for a client with everyday personal and professional commitments. “My thrill is seeing a real woman walking down the street wearing our stuff,” Reese said. “It's great to dress celebrities; red carpet is fun. But how can I solve problems for real women who are spending hard-earned money on our stuff?” These pieces are one way.
28 February 2024
Tracy Reese always goes back to nature for her spring collections. Her brand is called Hope for Flowers, after all, so a permanent fixation on flora makes sense. Specifically, Reese was inspired by the Piet Oudolf garden in Detroit, which opened in 2021. Spanning three acres, it’s lush and green, dotted with purple, blue, and pink. The image of that garden was translated into an abstract, Monet-esque print Reese used liberally in her collection: on easy slip dresses, cardigans, sheer jackets, smocked shirts, and more.There was a sprightliness to the spring collection. Reese experimented with flirtier styles via shorter hemlines, open backs, and cutouts (though not all at the same time). She also started to use a translucent Tencel fabric, which she found to be the best sustainable option after she couldn’t locate a certified organic sheer cotton. “But that’s about as sheer as it’s going to get,” she said with a laugh. It was put to work in a pantsuit with wide-leg trousers and oversize blazers. Reese is known for her prints, and in addition to the abstract floral, there were ombré stripes, a blue tile, snakeskin, and a rainbow stripe. Still, nothing was so precious you couldn’t wear it for a walk through one of Oudolf’s famous gardens.
20 September 2023
Tracy Reese’s clothes are often steeped in optimism—bright prints, unpretentious attitude. This season, she centered around one design idea: the cape. It’s more formal than she usually goes for, but she brought them back down to earth in floral and sunset prints, and on the backs of tops instead of gowns. That’s the big message for the resort 2024 collection. Somewhat related to the capes are the flowing off-the-shoulder tops and tiers, easy breezy.The strongest pieces in the collection have a bit more structure. The evening pieces with Watteau backs, for instance, come in both the mauve floral and the dusky ombre prints. The full-length dress feels fittingly dramatic. Similarly, the high-neck midi dress with bishop sleeves and an accentuated waist looks intentional and elevated.
10 July 2023
Real clothes for real women emerged as a trend in the fall 2023 collections. Tracy Reese is no stranger to this approach, and she says that she’s spent more time with her customers in order to best understand what they want: clothes for work and beyond that look great and aren’t too fussy or cumbersome. This manifested as white cotton blouses, denim dresses and skirts combining several washes in one, abstract prints in tonal shades of pink, blue-green, and gray, and leopard print separates and shifts. It’s easy to view the collection as a wardrobe, where the pieces mix and match with each other.Reese is committed to sustainable practices and, this season, shifted her sweater production to a “a fair trade, women-owned and -run factory in Peru,” per the collection notes. Other notable textiles include organic cotton and two eco-friendly cellulosic fibers, Lenzing Modal Ponte and Tencel linen.The trick with designing a collection like this is to strike the right balance of wearable and special. Some of the strongest pieces in the collection are the bubble-hem shirt dresses in a range of patterns and colors. The voluminous skirt adds drama to a classic closet workhorse.
14 March 2023
While mini hemlines, sheer textiles, and crop tops are sweeping the spring 2023 runways, Tracy Reese at Hope for Flowers is in a more chaste mood. Her previous collection showed several silhouettes with peekaboo midriffs, but after some reflection, Reese is saying goodbye to all that (for now). “When I really looked at what was selling, it was more modest,” Reese says. “I want to be about creating clothes that people love and will wear over and over again. I don’t want to get too caught up in trends. Part of working more responsibly is making sure I’m making things you want to wear four or five years from now. I never want to lose sight of that.”As Reese explains, her core customer base comes to her for luncheon and cocktail party-ready blouses and dresses, and spring 2023 offers many of these classics in a range of patterns and fabrics. The silhouettes—primarily of the trapeze, wrap, and slip variety—are closet workhorses, but with specialness in the details such as cutout embroidery or patchwork prints. The closest thing to a bang-on trend are the wide-leg pants with cargo pockets, but they’re pared back enough that hopefully the customer will want to keep them when the pendulum swings back towards tapered styles.
8 October 2022
Tracy Reese’s approach to her label Hope For Flowers can be summed up in two words: prints and responsibility. Having moved to Detroit during the pandemic, she’s approaching conscious design from two angles: her clothes are made with organic cotton and recycled wool, and she wants to foster local garment manufacturing. The latter, of course, takes more time than the former.“I want to be about more than just more clothes,” she says. “It’s about how I can do this more responsibly and share that.” She’s developing an apprenticeship that teaches luxury sewing techniques, with the goal of producing her line in Michigan (as of now, some made-in-Detroit clothes are available on her website).As for fall 2022, it’s all about color and pattern mixing. “I put solids in the collection and people are like, ‘yeah yeah, yeah,’” Reese says, gesturing to the customer’s ambivalence towards plain colors. “Prints are a passion for me.” She and her team develop these bold textiles by looking at old wallpaper or vintage fabrics. This season there are a few large-scale florals, as well as a stark black and white graphic textile. But while these are dramatic, the silhouettes are imminently wearable. “Part of sustainability is making clothes that people want to wear,” Reese says. For her, that’s fit-and-flare dresses reinforced with petticoats, smocked maxis, with tiny little cutouts. The dresses are the big takeaway from the collection, but there are also some blouses and an organic cotton orange puffer made with recycled fill. The customer may know Reese’s backstory and goals, or they may not. But regardless, they’ll have a dress appropriate to wear to weddings, parties, vacations, and more.
3 March 2022
Based on the label’s name alone, it’s fair to expect florals in a Hope for Flowers collection, but they’re also a Tracy Reese specialty. Scroll through her eponymous brand over the years—though it actually predates Vogue Runway and Style.com, having launched in 1998—and there are roses, tulips, and peonies aplenty. If she knows her way around a pretty print, Reese is equally familiar with the subtleties of how women want to look and feel. Going into our third pandemic year (sorry to bring it up!), she reckons her clients are craving a little joy and optimism. The nearly-neon palette of chartreuse, magenta, and cobalt in this season’s lineup would all but necessitate a sunny outlook to match.Reese photographed her models on a playground and with inflatable pool toys, mirroring her own desire to feel like a kid again. Her choice to style the dresses with rubber sport slides, not heels, also reflects how young women might wear them IRL. Most of the dresses came with adjustable ties and elastic waists; in soft organic cotton and linen, they had the wear-anywhere versatility we’ve come to expect in our clothes. A standout dress in vivid lime came with trailing, cape-like panels at the shoulders—cocktail-worthy, but cool—while other gowns had sultry cut-out backs.Reese is happy to be making beautiful, wearable, mood-lifting clothes, but she’s as passionate about building Hope for Flowers into a sustainable and purpose-driven business. Since launching in 2019, she’s built a training program for craftspeople in Detroit, with the goal of one day being able to produce collections from start to finish in the city. Spring includes her first locally-made garments: a crisp halter dress with raw hand-placed lace appliqués around the skirt and shibori-dyed T-shirts in sheer organic-cotton mesh. Reese is vocal about Detroit’s potential as a creative hub—she once said that “anything I can do in New York, I can do in Detroit”—and with Hope for Flowers, she’s helping it become a destination for fashion, too.
5 November 2021
Tracy Reese’s Detroit-based label Hope for Flowers is one part clothing line, one part platform. She’s splitting her time between designing seasonal collections and building out two major programs: One will train local sewers and craftspeople as apprentices in her studio, with the goal of eventually being able to make custom, hand-finished Hope for Flowers pieces entirely in Detroit. The second will offer art and music classes to local children, many of whom no longer have access to those courses in school as a result of the city’s 2013 bankruptcy.It’s hardly a surprise to hear that art was Reese’s favorite subject growing up, but her enthusiasm goes beyond establishing a creative outlet for kids. She believes creativity is also critical to Detroit’s future, and that with the right support, the city can become a bigger destination for art, fashion, music, theater, and more.The same passion and sense of community are felt in the clothes. Reese isn’t interested in flights of fancy anymore; she’s designing real clothes for real women, the ones shaping Detroit’s future and bringing their kids to art class on Saturdays. They’re pieces that boost your mood and gently enhance, rather than complicate, your life. Fall 2021 continues in that direction with a newly audacious, saturated palette: lapis, cherry, fuchsia. A portrait by Alice Neel of a man in a red striped T-shirt was pinned to her mood board; it inspired the bold, imperfect stripes on a few stretchy dresses, each hand-painted by Reese’s design apprentice. Reese lent her own drawing skills to a charming toile print: Look closely, and nestled among the trees and flowers are tiny hearts, stars, and words of encouragement, likegrace.That dress’s silhouette—smocked at the waist with a sweetheart neckline and full skirt—will be just as appealing to HFF fans for its striking mix of polish and ease. It came in a vivid fuchsia floral print and a simpler black version with scattered blooms. Those flowers were hand-painted, too, and could offer a glimpse of how artful and hands-on Reese’s future collections may become as she builds her team of apprentices.
26 July 2021
Tracy Reese has packed and shipped every Hope for Flowers order that’s gone out in lockdown. After running a global brand for 20 years, start-up life has certainly been an adjustment, but it’s proved invigorating. “I’m having fun again,” she said from her hometown of Detroit. Later this year, Reese will open an H.Q. in the city’s arts district, where she plans to hire and train women of color in the community. The ultimate goal is to shift most of her production from overseas to Detroit and create employment opportunities for women whose skills in sewing, embroidery, and textiles haven’t been utilized in Motor City.Reese launched Hope for Flowers in 2018, and her eco-conscious, community-driven, anti-fast-fashion missive only resonates more today. The pandemic fortified her purpose, but like many of her peers, it also forced a bit of scaling back and editing. The small collection of pieces she chose to produce for pre-fall 2021—launching in stores as spring warms to summer—had to tick every box: They’re ethically made with Tencel, organic cotton, linen, cupro, and NAIA acetate, among other eco-minded fabrics, but they’re also reliably vibrant and mood lifting. Color and print have always been Reese’s things; here, a flowery motif came in an unexpected clash of baby pink, neon lime, and lemon, while another paired shades of cayenne and fuchsia. After a long winter (and year) in gray and black sweats, they looked utterly rejuvenating, even via Zoom.The silhouettes will appeal to the “re-emerging” shopper too. Reese stuck to flowing, comforting shapes, not simply because we’ve been living in leggings, but to offer a gentle transition into our new world. Why suffer rigid lines or fussy layers when you could throw on a breezy, single-sleeve dress and focus on enjoying your time with friends and loved ones? Even her tailoring experiments were cut ultra-oversized and came in buttery-soft Tencel, like a boxy jumpsuit and a pair of ultra-wide trousers. A novel idea was a “trouser skirt” that hung past the hips, which Rees styled with a cute shrunken vest. Most items could be reined in with a belt, should the mood strike, or mixed together (see: the sweet floral tops clashing with plaid trousers). The sustainable shopper tends to favor clothes that can shape-shift and be worn multiple ways, but Reese said the fluidity was just as much an effort to accommodate a diversity of bodies.
12 March 2021