Lauren Manoogian (Q4994)
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Lauren Manoogian is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Lauren Manoogian |
Lauren Manoogian is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
“Being soft when things are hard.” Lauren Manoogian’s approach to her dreamy new collection is a fitting description for the overall vibe of the spring 2025 season in New York, where flou prevailed and air was the predominant element. The designer said she was “really focusing on having lightness,” with knits and wovens both. That quality was present in the twisted “I-wandered-lonely-as-a-cloud” Cupro skirts and dresses, which were an evolution from her resort season’s bubbles. Among the most weighless of the knits were the pointelles, a few of which patchworked all the different stitches together. Manoogian referred to a group of tiered pieces made of a fine, almost translucent Mercerized cotton as “the veil group.” These wafted around the body. “The motion element of the collection is more and more important,” noted her partner Chris Fireoved.More gestural were draped pieces made using a partial knitting technique. Complementing these were compact ruched knits that puckered a bit like seersucker, Manoogian noted. Most romantic, with a Pre-Raphaelite prettiness, and perhaps most representative of what the designer called her “delicate mindset,” were cotton linen Modal dresses and separates whose texture was created with elastic.Drawstrings, which can be used to customize fit, were applied to a group of pima cotton and linen pieces, including a long vest and wide-cropped pants, with simple ’80s-ish geometric silhouettes. Adding weight to the offering were knits made using cut strips of cotton. Denim is a newish category; she showed a pair of jeans with a generous draped leg, a neat little chore outfit, and a smart car coat.This Manoogian collection was defined by a certain delicacy. It just so happens that the designer’s inner state is a mirror of what’s happening on the outside. “Somehow,” she said, “there’s a little bit of fragility happening, and tenderness and nostalgia.”
12 September 2024
Hot and cold, casual and dressy, for home and away… Resort is a season that caters to very disparate needs; needs far different from those of the elite sun-seekers for whom croisière (cruise) collections were originally devised. The audience for fashion has changed, as has the pace of life, the climate, and even HVAC technology, leaving designers with an almost impossible task. “For us, it’s kind of a funny combo season; people want sweaters before Christmas from a commercial standpoint and then other people want transitioning-into-spring clothing,” Lauren Manoogian said. “It’s kind of fun; anything goes.” “It’s a good Frankenseason,” added Chris Fireoved.As is her way, Manoogian quietly takes her client to a place apart, an oasis of calm. Rolled hems hint at a more relaxed attitude. Light, semi-transparent knits in what the designer calls a “seasonless weight” let the air in. For all their breeziness, the opening looks are marvels of ingenuity; knit circularly they are seamless garments, even the bubble-skirted hem of look 3. (There’s also a handknit turtleneck pullover that is seamless, the sleeves an extension of the body.) Twisted halter and wrap tops manifest Manoogian’s wish for “everything to be a little bit gestural and kind of undone.” Undone within the context of her confident vision that is.Other knit stories include “furry” yarns and checkerboard-like patterns that the designer more poetically describes as dimensional “tessellation.” Manoogian’s nod to “holiday” is a deconstructed jacquard knit ski-style sweater.When it comes to wovens, Manoogian continues to work with the “dressmakers” top, adding cap sleeves and showing it with a beautifully shaped skirt (look 7). A group of paneled looks can be customized in different ways through buttoning, but their volumes might be challenging for some. Blue sky touches enter the picture through blue-washed denim; a group of striped pajama looks in a cotton cupro silk have the fragrance of Morocco.Abstract is a word Manoogian dropped a few times, and it is best exemplified by a seemingly simple black rectangular dress that drapes lavishly on the body. In the lookbook it slips provocatively off the shoulder. Sturdier and more straightforward, yet surprising here, is a black leather bomber jacket with knit trim made from the same yarn as the sweaters. No ordinary topper, it is crafted by a Peruvian saddler, which gives it a different kind of horsepower than Marlon Brando’s.
7 June 2024
The serenity of Lauren Manoogian’s mostly cream-colored fall collection belied any turmoil or sense of toil—which was a labor-intensive feat in itself. Behind the scenes Manoogian and Chris Fireoved had been working nonstop on the collection while simultaneously applying the elbow grease to renovating their not-yet-opened boutique on Broome Street, where they shot the look book on actual film. This brand takes a slow-and-steady approach. An example of this was the new-for-the-season diamond-quilted double knit that was developed over the course of a year. The material, which looks puckered from a distance, takes its texture from an alpaca-mohair mix on the exterior; cotton is used on the inside.“I was working on a lot of stitches that reference quilting or are dimensional,” Manoogian said. “Everything’s padded and quilted. I just want to be hugged and soft.” She made use of Ottoman stitches to create a ridge effect and added sleevelike ties to light separates that gently draped as well as allowed customization. Wearing the sleeves wrapped, noted Fireoved, captures the gesture of putting the sweater around your shoulders. This piece and its styling were also in line with the swaddling we’ve been seeing so far this season. Embracing curves softly was a hand-knit peplum sweater stitched to emphasize the waist.Also new, and quite unexpected, was Manoogian’s use of a grungy plaid; a skirt in the pattern was cleverly cut like shirttails, giving it an easyNevermindlook. This was a roll-up-your-sleeves moment for the brand, and Manoogian, who has been wearing painter pants, decided to create her own abstract version. A silver-printed, brushed-wool car coat that resembled metal appliances or peeling paint also connected back to the construction of the store in the subtlest of ways. Despite the newness, the collection included many foundational looks that customers keep coming back for. “We really wanted to feature those pieces that sort of made it all happen,” said Fireoved. Success breeds success.
13 February 2024
“It takes a village….” Lauren Manoogian and Chris Fireoved, who work closely with artisans in Peru, have just wrapped a video project that had them thinking a lot about the collective effort that goes into producing their line. “So many people’s hands are involved in this process; human hands that are actually doing things that they have a lot of pride in,” said Manoogian. “I feel like what sets our brand apart is that we still can do a lot of handmade processes that are very complicated and time consuming.” The lightness of this collection belied that effort. Airiness was another quality that defined this offering, on openwork crochet-knits, wovens, and nylon pants or gauzy skirts that you could see the linings through.The mood of the collection was set by the first look, a draped and twisted dress made from one piece of fabric that Manoogian constructed on herself. “The pattern looks like a blob,” joked Fireoved; the end result was elegant and easy. It was designed within the limits set by the narrow width of the fabric; Manoogian worked in the opposite direction with hand-pleated looks that gathered broader widths of fabric inwards. By adapting to, and working with, the limits of the fabric, it was as if Manoogian entered into a gentle dialogue with the materials. “As a designer you can’t be so rigid, you have to just keep flowing with whatever’s happening in the process,” she said. This collection, which was particularly harmonious, had a nice ebb and flow between textures and techniques. Manoogian described it as being “softer and more fragile and more delicate…and sort of vulnerable too.”Softness was there in the gentle slope of a bias hand-knit; fragility in the raw edges of sweaters made of shredded pieces of fabric worked into a textured weave. Basket making was on Manoogian’s mind and this fluid under and over pattern might work as a metaphor for a serene collection that took into account the perfect imperfections of handwork and those of the fibers. You can “massage them into doing what you want, but in the end, the material has its inherent value and it’s kind of going to do its own thing anyway,” said the designer who managed to work with, not against the grain, and in so doing created a collection that went with the flow while at the same time having a point of view.
18 September 2023
For resort, Lauren Manoogian leaned into subtle forms of disruption, offering a wide range of textures and yarn weights. “By putting two irregular things together and seeing what comes out, I feel like you end up with this unusual surface that you sort of don’t have control over, but it’s still structured,” she said of her process. The most dramatic example of this approach is a citified shepherd’s cape with defined shoulders that’s knit, but has the look of shearling. On the opposite end of the spectrum is a lightweight double knit that “blisters” and which was used for an apron/miniskirt/peplos, an intriguing layering piece that was apparently a big hit at the lookbook shoot. As important as texture is the play between opacity and transparency. This dichotomy defined the “threadbare” grouping. Machine and hand-knit sweaters in this technique resembled the delicate bark of birch trees.Manoogian views resort and pre-fall as opportunities both to circle back to unfinished thoughts from the main collections and to have some fun. “I feel like the pre-seasons are an interesting moment to try new things…or just focus on making something really special,” she said at a preview. The openness of this method resulted in one of her strongest offerings yet. All of the different themes were in a constant back-and-forth dialogue, which you can see in the lookbook where gauzy superfine basics, such as leggings, are layered under more substantial knits, like a cape-jacket with fringed edges that is a wonderful alternative to the classic cardigan jacket. Among the wovens punctuating this collection is a group of hammered silk bias-cut slips and skirts—yet another texture—that capture both ’90s cool and old Hollywood glamour. As special as Manoogian’s pieces are, they also lend themselves to modular dressing that gives customers the reason to come back for more, over and over again.
7 June 2023
Coolheadedness is underrated in these emotional times. Much of the discourse in politics and online is impassioned, reactive, and myopic in the sense that there’s not a lot of room for big picture views. Lauren Manoogian bucked that trend with her fall line-up. “The mood I was in was a bit more analytical, whereas the last collection was very emotional,” said the designer. “It’s good to use both sides of your design brain.”Manoogian’s instinct was to pare back her already minimal offering and refine its “infrastructure.” The designer was especially excited about a double-knit she developed that has a sturdy flatness and can be worked almost like a woven. This was used to create almost a capsule wardrobe within the collection. “Any of those pieces could be in the collection for the next five years,” noted Manoogian.The first look had a built-in apron (that can be tied forward or back or left to hang), mimicking the skirt over pants layering look that is enjoying a second fame. Sun-drying crinkled fabric was made into a somewhat heavy looking coat, while a twill was used for a boyfriend blazer with a workwear touch. That jacket silhouette can be found in many collections; an over-scale puff suit with what Manoogian called a “soft duvet feeling,” felt more signature.Another kind of coziness was evoked by the designer’s use of a speckled donegal knit. “It’s almost like a pattern, but without having to actually have any type of pattern,” said Manoogian. “It’s nice that it’s irregular and you don’t really have control over it.” There are a lot of heritage wovens in use across the board this season, and this felt like the knit equivalent. Manoogian’s use of buttons in decorative and functional ways dotted the i in this collection.
15 February 2023
Lauren Manoogian didn’t set out to be a fashion designer, she accidentally fell in love with textiles. “When I was a freshman in college I saw the textile wing of the school and there were people stirring dye pots and all these machines and I was like, ‘I want to be with those cool witches in there.’ ” It’s then that Manoogian learned to knit; she’s been exploring its magic ever since, driven by the idea that “there’s something really accessible about clothing,” and that garments “can impact peoples’ actual experience in their body and the way that they feel in the world.”Spring is one of Manoogian’s most introspective collections as it records the physical and emotional effects of the grief she felt at the loss of her beloved grandfather. There’s a spectrum of feeling within mourning and this is reflected in the palette of white, ecrus, beiges, blushes, and, for the first time since 2015, black. In parallel with the self-reflectiveness of the lineup, the clothes moved back closer to the body, an exception being an oversized and intentionally holey grandpa-style sweater. Its woven counterpart was an open-weave wrap. “I feel like what’s cool about knitting is it can be really quick and gestural,” said Manoogian. She approaches wovens–of which there are many for spring—the same way. A light cotton dress featured knots and one style of sweater had a row of ties that could be fastened or hung like streamers. Knowing the backstory of the collection, it’s easy to see these as being symbolic of stages of grief, the awful pit in the stomach, the sense of things left hanging; but on the rack what you see is an interesting object. And to be clear, this was a gentle collection, not a depressive one at all; in fact there were polka-dots.It wasn’t just the geta-like sandals that made this collection feel a bit Japanese; some of the cardigan shapes were kimono-like, and they embraced the body lightly. There were many keepers in this collection, though it was lower key than her exploration of volume for resort 2023. The designer says she’s always been more drawn to sculpture and architecture than prints; when you’re working in “three dimensions it’s like you’re creating this little space around your body,” she enthused. This season the focus felt more surface than shape focused, understandably so; it takes time to fill a hole in the heart.
15 September 2022
In our unstable, ever-worsening world, the winds of change can instill a sense of dread. Or maybe, “if you don’t approach it from a place of fear,” says Lauren Manoogian, change can be a gift? The designer and her partner Chris Fireoved changed a lot this season, in part as a result of spending more time than usual in Peru with their artisans. They even shot their lookbook in the courtyard of the space. It was the first time in a long time they’d shot where they make—and the first time the impeccably organized Fireoved had presided over a lookbook shoot without his requisite timer and clipboard to keep the process on track.That loosening up is reflected in the clothes, which are bigger than ever before. Positively massive, in fact. The sleek, almost sporty slate bandeaus of a year ago have been replaced by mammoth—but surprisingly airy—latticed hand knits, square poncho vests, bulb-shaped hoodies, and ruched-side trousers in a familiar palette of dust, chocolate, sand, and a beige so fair you could almost call it’s whispering hue air. Finding lightness in the largeness speaks to Manoogian’s prowess as a maker—even a sweater big enough for three doesn’t come off as schlubby or grungy.The real twist, though, are Manoogian and Fireoved’s new wovens. Workwear and gorpcore have sort of fallen from grace in the fashion world of late, one-upped by cottagecore and Y2K sex appeal. But you would be mental to miss out on the cargo trousers and sloped-back jackets in a swishy technical fabric that the couple are offering this season. In a noughties grape and almost neon mint, the pieces look like couture carpenter-wear, elegant without sacrificing durability. Ditto for their mirco-cord trousers with orbital seams at the knee that offer a slightly more butch flavor than usual. It’s an interesting new tack for the designers, one that expands their world into clothing that reads slightly more pragmatic than their standard fare. That’s a good thing: As the world changes we need practical and fanciful clothing to brace us for whatever is next.
13 June 2022
There is so much fashion can’t do: It can’t change your life, it can’t solve your problems, it can’t cure a virus. Lauren Manoogian and Chris Fireoved are the rare duo who have continued to design throughout lockdowns and travel restrictions by simply focusing on their clothing. They’re not about sparking joy or reflecting the mood of our era or many of the other problem-solving narratives that have been spun around Fashion Week this season: Their mission is plainly to make their handcrafted knitwear better each season.Inside their downtown showroom, the clothing is the star. Working in Peru, the couple focused on draping and movement this season, wrapping felted yarn capes around the body and fastening them with giant kilt pins. Hand-knit, hand-felted oversize sweaters are in line with their roomy shapes of the past, while a new pleated skirt, partly drawn from Manoogian’s Catholic school days, adds a swingy spirit and a little more structure. Don’t worry, washed brushed linen woven sets—the Manoogian version of suiting—still come crumpled to keep the raw, earthy look the brand favors. Colors reflect the winter: lichen, stone, smoke, and their signature clay-taupe.In terms of technical progress, the designers have masterminded a new Irish cable sweater made of three different stitch types. “Our version of an all-over print,” Manoogian calls it. The handcraft is spectacular; the sort of thing one can only produce by working hands-on—and minds-on!—with a factory for weeks on end. Manoogian and Fireoved trade shifts traveling to Peru, obsessing over the smallest details. Like their new shoes, for example, made from felted wool in an abstract spot pattern vaguely evocative of their dog Garth’s brindle. That’s the most literal they will ever get—and maybe that’s best. It’s easy to be distracted by sparkle or story; what Manoogian and Fireoved do is really deliver on the clothing.
23 February 2022
Of all the designers to have Y2K mania, Lauren Manoogian is by far the least expected. Thoughtful, peaceful Manoogian is about as far as one can get from Britney and X-tina… And yet for spring 2022, Manoogian found herself revisiting design elements she once hated from the late ’90s and early aughts. Ruched pieces, scrunched fabrics, and citron yellow became central to her collection. And then came the bandeau tops, Manoogian explained over a video call from Paris, which she and her partner, Chris Fireoved, used to layer up, over, and under their rich knitwear. The final product looks nothing like the stringy, strappy nostalgic stuff populating other collections—a testament to Manoogian’s sure-footed and stable vision.Being able to spend months in Peru with her knitters helped push new ideas into the collection as well. The most resplendent are the hand knits, cardigans entirely knitted in one piece, radiating out from a central point at the nape of the neck. A bubbled rib skirt, made from distorting a rib, adds a rocky texture that complements Manoogian’s stony palette this season—her colors are called slate, coal, shale, and seaglass. Knit bags made of a hand-painted yarn are woven so tight they even look like stone; a woven dress is called the “vessel dress,” distorting the body into a gentle bulb shape. Manoogian has always been an expert in taking up and building up space through her knits and wovens; now she is giving her clients even more ways to do so. Apron wraps, asymmetric-hem interlock stretch pieces, and ballooning pants push the Lauren Manoogian wardrobe to new, exciting places. How will women wear these pieces? The options feel endless—a good feeling in a season that, so far, feels more prescriptive than collaborative.
29 September 2021
A111-song playlistaccompanies Lauren Manoogian’s new resort collection. It spans Dev Hynes to Philip Glass, with playful diversions into Paulinho da Viola and HNNY along the way. Manoogian and her partner, Chris Fireoved, believe their soundtracks help retailers and the press to understand the vibe of their collections—and vibey-ness is key.Without the vibes, you might fall into the worst trap in describing Manoogian’s work, calling it a “beige knitwear collection.” Eek! Manoogian spends months fine-tuning every knit and purl on a piece, and weeks perfecting the names for her colors. It’s not beige—it’s clay. A muddy, almost violet brown is umber, and a warm oatmeal hue is dust. She actually ventured the risk of calling a pale ivory-greenish shade moth, even as her colleagues deemed it too controversial for a company whose main material is wool.Manoogian traveled to Peru to work with her knitters on this collection. The trip resulted in some of her most abstract pieces to date. A fluffy baby alpaca caftan that looks like a wrap is actually her interpretation of a “blown-up cable-knit,” the wearer swaddled inside the stitch. A three-sleeve sweater she’s worked on “for years” has finally been perfected in an alpaca-wool blend—color options include sagebrush and dusk. A one-shoulder jumpsuit in brushed linen can be folded down to create a trapezoidal waistband on trousers. In their specificity, these might not seem like traditionally easy garments to wear—but that’s an exciting problem for a knitwear brand to have, isn’t it? When everything is thin-ribbed, slouchy, and cozy, a sweater that challenges your perception of what a sweater can be will stand apart in the market and in people’s closets.
9 June 2021
There are four cameras stationed around Lauren Manoogian’s Noho showroom, so that doing a Zoom call with Manoogian and her codesigner, Chris Fireoved, feels like peering in on a CIA safe house. The surveillance-state vibe might at first seem incongruous with their homey, soft aesthetic, but it’s in service of furthering their textile-driven message. If you can’t touch their fluffy Peruvian alpaca–wool knits, you might as well see them from every possible angle.Manoogian and Fireoved are suited to lockdown life. They live and work together, shuttling with their dogs between their home and studio in Brooklyn and showroom in Manhattan. Their beigey swaddled clothing is precisely the sort of stuff everyone else wishes they were making right now, but Manoogian and Fireoved are not like everyone else. They’re knitwear freaks in the guise of fancy fashion designers. One of their innovations for fall 2021 is a “spongy plus sign,” a garment that is part poncho, part wrap that can be styled in countless ways. (To be their customer you must possess the urge to style yourself—not have style prescribed to you.) Other additions were the many stripes and hand-cut fringes, which lent some visual spice to their usually monochrome looks. While the market is careening toward slouch, Manoogian and Fireoved are delicately placing menswear-inspired pleats on brushed-cotton trousers and adding firm soles made of natural rubber to their house shoes. It’s a bellwether for the future; when the knit-for-now crowd has gone back to ballgowns, Manoogian and Fireoved will still be offering smarter, more rigorous comfortwear.
19 February 2021
Lauren Manoogian’s brand couldn’t be a better fit for our times. Uncertainty and anxiety has the vast majority of us gravitating toward clothes that are easy and ethically made. Manoogian has always honed in on timelessness and craft, on putting fashion into the world that has both practicality and personality, despite its minimalism. This season, Manoogian revisited her archive, building upon the designs that define her cozy, cool brand D.N.A. Her knit tunics were updated in boxier shapes and her dress silhouettes were more voluminous than usual, particularly in the way they were cut to appear puffed out at the back. Elsewhere she did a nice job of updating drawstring trousers and sweaters with graphic woven details. The same goes for new patchwork pants and dresses, as well as her big knit and linen carryall bags.Speaking over Zoom from her studio and storefront in Nolita, Manoogian was excited at the prospect of launching more new patterns, as well as wovens in her lineup. She’s adding more to her shoe offering too. Despite being stuck at home for the last few months, Manoogian is forging ahead in inspiring new ways.
21 September 2020
For Lauren Manoogian, photographing a new collection typically involves an architectural backdrop or point of reference. Last season, she shot her lookbook in the Axel Vervoordt–designed penthouse atop the Greenwich Hotel in downtown New York. For spring 2020, it was Philip Johnson’s Glass House in Connecticut. Manoogian’s earthy, tonal, and textural designs befit those types of settings: structures and landscapes that speak to her sculptural, wabi-sabi knits and accessories. But this season was obviously different. Due to the pandemic, Manoogian was confined to her studio in Brooklyn and as such, her resort lineup, based on some greatest hits and forgotten gems from her archive, had to be captured with a more localized, low-key approach.She hired two models, one that came in the morning and one in the afternoon, and photographed the clothes inside the studio with natural light and a backdrop made from items she picked up at the local hardware store. The finished images are unretouched, further emphasizing the organic look and feel of Manoogian’s new pieces. Soft blue and gray turtleneck dresses and bouclé blanket capes looked right at home in the serene, natural setting of Manoogian’s at-home studio. So too did the roomy, oversized trousers, cozy cardigans, and indoor-outdoor robes.Manoogian’s designs are grounding and unfussy but still striking, ideal for uncertain times like ours. And even without a big name architect or artist attached to the backdrop, there is power in her craft. The work really speaks for itself, plain and simple.
7 July 2020
For those unfamiliar with Axel Vervoordt, you need only to turn onKeeping Up With the Kardashians. He has achieved rock-star status as Kanye West’s interiors guru and the man who turned the Kardashian-West family mansion into a monastic palace of white archways and minimal living spaces. But Vervoordt is a legend in his own right. Since the 1970s, he has been championing ideas of wabi-sabi and organic austerity in the world of interiors. Vervoordt is worshiped by fans of minimalism and design junkies alike. Among them is Lauren Manoogian, whose fashion approach and aesthetic very much align with that of Vervoordt. Both are informed by material and texture, and both are fascinated by the balance of hard and soft, by the natural shape of a thing, whether it’s the way a woven yarn falls off the body or the way a stone wall curves around a corner.This season Manoogian had the opportunity to photograph her newest collection inside the Vervoordt-designed penthouse atop the Greenwich Hotel. The clothes—angular cowl-neck onesies, linen wrap skirts, and belted, oversized robe coats—look perfectly at home inside the moody, seductive space. Manoogian’s monochromatic sand color palette almost blends into the plastered walls and the unvarnished wood-plank floors. The knitwear, sourced between Peru and Italy, is always sumptuous, and this season it felt even more so because of the way that Manoogian played around with silhouette and layering techniques. Her designs are always warm, and Vervoordt too creates an environment of warmth through his naturalistic approach to design.All that said, it would be interesting to see Manoogian break from her mold and try something sharper, maybe more tailored, just as it’s been interesting to see Vervoordt work with an artist like Mr. West. But Manoogian’s clothes are comforting, which is exactly how we all want to feel right now.
14 February 2020
A few months ago, Lauren Manoogian took her Spring 2020 collection to Philip Johnson’s Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut. But rather than shoot in the famous house itself, Manoogian decided to use the Sculpture Gallery, one of several lesser-known buildings on the property. It has a glass ceiling made of linear, sloped panels, inlaid brick floors, and an art collection that includes pieces by Robert Morris and Frank Stella. Manoogian’s clothes fit in well in the minimalist space. This season, her collection was lighter, more attuned to movement, and softer both in terms of fit and texture. Tank and tunic dresses looked like fluid, fabric sculptures on the body, as did a lightweight jumpsuit with drawstrings at the neckline and ankles.Her accessories, too, were airier. She introduced a new two-strap, nearly naked sandal and a crossbody tote that almost molded to the torso. Worn head-to-toe, her garments are the sort of wardrobe pieces you might see on an effortlessly chic artist-mom living in Brooklyn—someone who favors luxe comfort over anything else. They also appeal to women who appreciate the handmade and like to go off the beaten path in terms of trends. Manoogian’s design sensibility may not change too much from season to season, but the softer, less-layered aesthetic of this collection was a nice development.
12 September 2019
Lauren Manoogian and her team have relocated their studio from Brooklyn to a charming storefront in Soho. Walking in it feels like a Japanese onsen. The earth-toned knitwear nearly blends into the white walls and light wood paneling. There are sculptural flowers in ceramic vases, and a counter is set with small wabi sabi dishware. The new space is an on-point physical representation of the Lauren Manoogian brand. The designer’s world consists of cashmere and alpaca, squishy pima bags, and soft Peruvian wool scarves. It’s hygge, but a much cooler, less ubiquitous version. Displayed in the new studio, Manoogian’s Resort collection was a reminder of just how good this brand can make you look and feel, no matter if you are at home or out living life.This season, Manoogian introduced even more coziness into the lineup with a beautiful ivory quilted coat featuring a rope belt. The matching shawl worked well, especially styled with a pair of boxy denim pants. Manoogian’s beige knit tees were lovely, as were the knit leggings and a lightweight cashmere dress that could be worn on its own or layered over leggings or a slip skirt. The collection is zen-inducing. For bonus points she brought back a new version of the travel neck pillow that she originally designed a few years ago. Now you can take the Manoogian lifestyle with you anywhere you go.
11 June 2019
This season, Lauren Manoogian was able to check off one item on her bucket list. The designer and her small team were granted access to stage a photo shoot inside the home and workshop of the late artist and woodworker George Nakashima, whom Manoogian has always admired. He was responsible for catalyzing the American craft movement in the 1940s, and his striking, organic furniture has long served as inspiration for a multitude of artists and designers such as Manoogian. She brought her Fall 2019 collection to the Nakashima Foundation for Peace in New Hope, Pennsylvania, and photographed the garments in and around the grounds of the space: a long, fine-gauge knit dress in front of a giant piece of driftwood, a draped Peruvian wool scarf in the middle of a sea of Nakashima chairs, a brown cardigan and matching trousers outside beneath a snow-dusted tree branch. Manoogian’s clothes looked more than at home—they belonged there.Fall also saw the designer introduce a line of shoes inspired by Japanese house slippers, as well as an expanded offering of knit bags. More outerwear was on display as well, as was a new range of dark indigo, utilitarian denim. Her color palette remains neutral and her silhouettes simple, but Manoogian never fails to give an artistic bent to her sustainable designs. Her collections, including this latest one, are about the luxury of craft and the strength of minimalism, two things that feel appealing right now in a crazy, noisy world. Manoogian can rest assured that Nakashima would have been proud to host her.
21 February 2019