Lou Dallas (Q5065)
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Lou Dallas is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Lou Dallas |
Lou Dallas is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
Today marked the return of Lou Dallas to the NYFW runway. After taking a little hiatus, designer Raffaella Hanley brought back her label last summer with a renewed interest in making things that she could actually produce and sell. For fall, Hanley was guided by the materials. “I had 50 fabrics collected from different sources and at one point I was like, ‘Whoa, is this going to work?’” she said inside a small office that doubled as a backstage at the carpet showroom in Tribeca where her show took place. “But I was thinking a little about country pop star singers, and a little of Sid Vicious, when he used to wear a scarf around the leg.”From Sid, Hanley wrapped little ruffles around the thigh of one of her pairs of signature seamed leggings in hunter green with gray contrast stitching that was paired with a very easy, but very cool long-sleeve cotton top with a deep scoop neck and abstract seams throughout. “I love those shirts,” she said. “Putting the lines in just felt very flattering; there was just so much thought put into those seams, how the garments were constructed and how they needed to feel effortless.”Although her clothes are often patchworked and collaged from many different materials, they have an innate simplicity. Take the opening look, a patchworked suede jacket in shades of coffee brown, pink, and purple paired with a gathered and ruffled mini skirt in shades of red, pink and purple, or a long floral print bias-cut semi-sheer slip dress with red lace trim on the seams that wrapped around the body. Hanley can cut a mean trouser, low slung, tight around the hips and with a straight or flared leg; they looked like they were tailor-made for each model. Two ’70s-ish boho coats were especially covetable; one in green with oversize faux-fur trim at the collar and cuffs (in bright green and acid yellow respectively), and another in denim with black and white trim at the collar and lavender trim at the sleeves. It was a collection filled with the things that made Lou Dallas a darling of the cool arty downtown girls, distilled to its best iterations: colorful mesh shirts, pieced-together hoodies, and ruffle-y mini dresses ready for a night out.
14 February 2024
After a brief hiatus, the designer Raffaella Hanley has returned with a new Lou Dallas collection. “I wanted to hone in on the vision and make sure the quality [of the clothes] was matching what was in my brain,” she explained on a recent morning at her Chinatown studio. “Looking back, I was so scrambled and I feel like I was going in 8,000 directions and that was great, it got people to know the brand, and I made so many connections, but I felt personally dissatisfied.” She added, “Taking a break is literally the smartest thing I’ve ever done.” It seems that waitressing at Lucien—her “year of rest and relaxation” job—was a catalyst for her creativity. She brought in a business person, moved to a new studio, and set about creating Lou Dallas version 2.0.Hanley hasn’t lost her appetite for fantasy and the very feminine—she said this collection was inspired by rhythm gymnasts, ergo the very short skirts with ruffles and tulle details, and the dresses pieced together from mismatched tights. The real surprise lay in the sporty thread that ran through the season. A series of collaged leggings and bike shorts in her signature melange color palette were made of strong cotton able to withstand a vigorous workout or a brutal New York summer day (Hanley was wearing a pair of short-shorts on the day of our visit). In the look book they appeared under gauzy watercolor-esque slips, or were worn with matching hoodies (cropped and regular length), becoming a sort of Lou Dallas wardrobe building block in the process.Elsewhere, chunky coats made from deadstock upholstery with brightly colored fleece were absolute standouts. Their ineffably cool energy was bolstered by Hanley’s attention to details; like the way she cut their silk lining extra-long, recalling both a well-loved coat reaching its final days and a glimpse of a slip being worn underneath. She added, “I really want to focus on making everything feel special and like you will wear it forever, because a part of me is also like, ‘there’s too many clothes’, you know?”
1 August 2023
T-shirts and hoodies, by Raffaella Hanley’s estimate, are some of fashion’s most overproduced garments. Every charity initiative, 5K run, or group trip seems to come with a graphic garment, and after a bit of wear it becomes—what?—trash. Hanley happens to be a master of turning trash into treasure at her brand Lou Dallas by Raffaella. This season she collaged dozens of vintage tees into magnificent tops and dresses. She does it by hand in her own home, stitching, drawing, and beading with the help of an intern. (The intern is a friend of a friend who deferred studying at Central Saint Martins. His specialty is straight-line beadwork. Hanley does the more erratic, freehand beading herself.)A visit to her Brooklyn studio reveals garments in progress, beads, ribbons, and fabrics laid out over the couch, table, and chairs waiting for her magical treatment. She’s also found ways to splice and dice the old Juicy Couture tracksuits and pants she buys at the Salvation Army into skirts, suits, and trousers. The motifs from her past collections carry over: Savage Capitalism is printed on pants, and the phraseThink Otherwiseappears on tees and dresses. Small Earth Day patches with a footprint over the globe appear throughout.Hanley has spent most of 2020 reading books about business. Outside of her handmade pieces, she has found ways to create repeatable patterns that can be made from deadstock and vintage materials in factories. In this category, there are striped jackets with long lace linings and slim little vests that layer over dresses.The question she asks with her collections—and then elegantly answers—is how can you maintain anti-capitalist values in fashion? Her aesthetic is not the slick fusion of old into new popularized by other high-fashion designers. She works nostalgically, patching the past together to make the future. Isn’t that a kind idea for now? As the industry imagines its future, it would be wise to find ways to support designers who work as thoughtfully as she does. As we parted ways, Hanley wondered if she’d have to move abroad to receive support for her label. That would be a real loss for American fashion.
1 December 2020
Lou Dallas has gotten a sizable publicity bump thanks toEuphoriacostume designer Heidi Bivens. On the hit HBO show, Hunter Schafer’s character Jules, an enigmatic teen new to slowed-down suburban life, wears several Lou Dallas pieces that emphasize her charismatic, if slightly out-of-place nature. In real life, Schafer and Bivens were in the audience of Lou Dallas’s Spring 2020 show today in artist Ray Smith’s Gowanus studio. The actress sported a ruffled apron worn over a leather coat. It’s this kind of offhand layering and quirky sweetness that have become designer Raffaella Hanley’s signatures, helping the CFDA/VogueFashion Fund finalist expand her renown and her business.But on the runway today, Hanley pivoted ever so slightly away from her past collections. Yes, her sense of whimsy and craft—almost unparalleled on the New York scene—remains, but her garments were more traditional, finished, and formal than ever. The best pieces were upcycled trousers and color-blocked slip dresses, both commercially minded but not lacking in loveliness. Hanley’s sense of mixing materials is also developing in innovative ways, leading her to incorporate ostrich and upholstery fabrics alongside satins and homespun knits. She’s always been a fan of bustiers and crop tops, of which there are many for Spring, but Hanley’s most curious numbers this season are little ostrich dinner jackets with upcycled Swarovski crystal buttons.Those little jackets have a strange appeal in the Spring 2020 season, where a sense of ladylike dress-up has already started to permeate many shows. Is it really worth it to adopt formal modes of dress in a time when we need to take radical action on climate change, the economy, and our political structure at large? Backstage, Hanley spoke about using the symbol of the blue rose as one of resistance. Tattoo artist Will Sheldon airbrushed the flower onto pant legs, sweater shoulders, and the models’ skin, making the point that even in the clothes of the upper crust, the resistance is everywhere—and quite well dressed.
9 September 2019
Big things are happening for Lou Dallas designer Raffaela Hanley: She’s just been named a CFDA/VogueFashion Fund finalist and is showing her first Resort collection. One couldn’t help but see a parallel between the designer’s newly accelerated schedule and her muse this season. For Resort, Hanley has conjured a fantasist who lives in an enormous loft, never leaving but always dreaming. “She doesn’t actually go anywhere,” Hanley says, making her muse’s trips more like mental vacations than excursions to the far-flung destinations the Resort season is named for.Operating on the indie fringes of fashion with the time and space to daydream is a luxury Hanley has enjoyed so far, but one she might not be able to maintain for long. That’s not a bad thing. As she thumbed through her collection, made primarily from upholstery fabrics she sourced in the Garment District, she said that Resort is an attempt at a balance between the hand-done, homespun pieces she loves to make and more commercial options. In the former category are imaginative knits, slashed and dyed with a carefree abandon. If a patched-together bustier made in Pepto pink is a little inconceivable, even for the daydreamers out there, a long-sleeved sweater in gradient dyes seems ready for wintry layering. As for the more salable items, Haney collaborated with artist Andrew Gonzalez on a graphic tee and has cut a white column dress in stretch fabric with raw edges that is as close to minimalist as she’ll go.Finding the balance between the commercial and quirky seems easy enough for the young designer, who glitzed everything up with a new jewelry line made in partnership with her friend Aurelia Cotton. With fleur-de-lis charms and crystals, the line is inspired by a recent trip to New Orleans. Mental vacations are well and good, but Hanley is going places in the real world too.
25 June 2019
Raffaella Hanley envisions each Lou Dallas collection as a dream. This season, she’s riding on horseback through a parade, only to fall off and seek help among revelers. Textures of celebration and peril are scattered through her collection, from verdant greens to bloodred, though the narrative will be obscure to any not presented with Hanley’s explanatory text.Instead, focus on the clever ways Hanley has expanded her oeuvre. Craftiness has long been the idea most associated with her work, and while she still patches together bustiers and frocks in the most delightfully lovely ways, Hanley has also developed a mature sense for knitwear and draping. A color-blocked maxi dress and pumps stand out as particularly posh pieces, as does another maxi in reflective silver. All are more minimalist than Hanley’s fairy-tale dresses, but none lose any of their charm. It’s a good place to see a young talent, pushing forward with wearability without giving up on the dream.
20 February 2019
A Lou Dallas runway show is a test of one’s own self-control. The RISD-trained designer Raffaella Hanley hand-makes and hand-dyes most of her pieces, giving each one a sumptuous texture and prized feeling. Are you controlled enough to sit in your seat and not try to reach out and touch those knurly knits or dishabille jackets or brocades? It’s an embarrassment of riches, spun into an otherworldly fantasy.For Spring 2019, Hanley evolved upon the materials from her Fall collection, setting this season’s fantasy in an underwater scene. The music artist James K. performed a live piece to accompany the runway, the sounds of drips and drops and chewing gum smacks echoing throughout St. Mark’s Church on the Bowery. Models were glinting with iridescent makeup, each one also chewing a piece of gum, pouting out the occasional bubble. The garments were mostly high-waisted skirts paired with little cropped tops, each one magically rendered in chartreuse, lilac, or opalescent pink. There were a few surprises, like a swoop-hemmed green knit dress, the most slinky, wearable thing to come from Hanley’s workshop since her debut several seasons ago.The dress should do well at sales, and so will Hanley’s tees. Each season, she prints a “Think Otherwise” shirt with a message on the back. This season’s read “Strong Women, Better Planet.” As whimsically pastel as it might be, Hanley’s Lou Dallas world is not just a fantasy. Mermaids have been cast as temptresses luring men to their downfall since Odysseus. Here, Hanley has reclaimed the underwater world as a place for women to own themselves, their beauty, and their sensuality. Everything’s better down where it’s wetter; take it from Hanley.
12 September 2018
Lou Dallas designer Raffaella Hanley presented her new collection atArsenal Contemporary NY, an art gallery on the Bowery this afternoon. The look of downtown style has cycled through various modes over the years—CBGB, the nightclub widely recognized as the birthplace of New York punk, existed just a few blocks up. These days, though, creative cool kids are drawing on more romantic sources to inform their look. (If you’ve been following singer FKA twigs on Instagram lately, you’ll have noticed that her best selfies are like something out of an 18th-century painting.)There’s undoubtedly a Renaissance vibe to Hanley’s homespun aesthetic, one that even suggests a parallel universe of castles, princesses, and knights on horseback. That said, Hanley has a modern approach to sustainability, producing almost all her clothes from dead-stock interior fabrics. For Fall she expanded on her range of custom-dyed cotton frocks, introducing corseted minidresses with pouf-y sleeves. The designer has a penchant for whimsical cropped jackets, and this season she added portrait collar coats that were laden with personal touches—feathers and sequins—to the lineup. Lou Dallas’s art school princess is no damsel in distress—she likes to wear the pants, too, specifically high-waisted tuxedo trousers with built-in cummerbunds and jumbo bows. They were a nice complement to navel-grazing silk blouses with billowing sleeves. It’s hard to imagine how Hanley could reproduce eccentric, personalized pieces like these in mass numbers, though the deconstructed shirts with patchwork sleeves, including one that read “Think Otherwise” on the front and “Fighting Solves Everything,” were a tongue-in-cheek take on the statement tee that have potential to go viral.
13 February 2018
You could have easily mistaken the Lou Dallas show for an art opening, given the crowd of cool kids that wrapped around the block of Bridget Donahue’s gallery on the Bowery. The label’s designer, Raffaella Hanley, comes from that world; instead of attending fashion school like the majority of her New York peers, she chose to study at RISD, one of the most prestigious art institutions in the country.Hanley has the unbridled imagination that comes with being an outsider, and her references are all born from a fairy-tale never-never land of enchanted forests and wood nymphs. Where the hoodie has lately been a touchstone for many young designers in New York, Lou Dallas has more whimsical sensibilities. Many of her diaphanous lemon yellow and navy blue lace-up blouses and bias-cut slip dresses came covered in a fantastical print created in collaboration with her artist friend Will Sheldon.That said, Hanley’s approach to fashion isn’t all sweetness and light. Behind her distressed cotton tank dresses and pretty, high-waisted, belted short shorts, there lies a real commitment to sustainability. Ninety percent of the collection was made from deadstock fabric, much of which had been hand-dyed with painstaking care in natural pigments such as turmeric. Even the more decadent Renaissance-style cropped jackets were made from a vintage toile de Jouy originally destined for a world of interiors. Then there was the spellbinding hand-embroidery to consider—snaking up the sleeve of billowy button-downs and frock coats, embellishments that seemed to have been wrought by Lilliputian hands. How Hanley will be able to scale that magical homespun aesthetic remains to be seen. Either way, there’s a rare, special quality about her work that feels like a breath of fresh air in New York, and is certainly one of a kind.
11 September 2017