With barely 24 hours left before the scheduled doors-open at 27 Ludlow Street on New York’s Lower East Side, the atmosphere inside the new Eckhaus Latta flagship is a familiar blend of high-fashion adrenaline and last-minute improvisation. Co-founders Mike Eckhaus and Zoe Latta are surveying the room, dodging scuffs on the floor—which Latta wryly insists must go unmentioned—and waiting on the final delivery of curtains for the brand’s exposed dressing rooms.
“It’s a new concept,” Eckhaus jokes as he gestures toward the open framework of the fitting areas. “It’s all about sexy! It’s like the Barneys Warehouse Sale!”
Looking over a suspended clothes rack densely packed with the brand’s latest autumn arrivals, Latta laughs about the frantic pace of the setup. “Ten minutes ago, we were like… We should hang some clothes.”
“Yeah… Vogue is coming,” Eckhaus adds.
Despite the pre-opening chaos, the overarching philosophy of the brand remains firmly rooted in experiential storytelling. For Eckhaus Latta, a physical storefront is never merely a sterile environment for commercial transactions. “For us, a store is much more about building a world than, like, just some strategically fancy place,” Latta explains. “We love retail, we love brick and mortar.”
That charming, make-it-up-as-you-go ethos is precisely what has rendered Eckhaus Latta so bewitching to the fashion community over the years. Their approach reflects a tangible, real-world cool that they have successfully evoked season after season, standing in stark contrast to the overly polished, impersonal approach of major global megabrands. While they are currently preparing to celebrate 15 years in business—coming off the heels of high-profile collaborations with Mango and J.Crew, alongside a hot streak of increasingly finessed runway presentations—the designers have resolutely retained their feisty founding spirit. It is an enduring indie independence that prompted Eckhaus to refer to themselves earlier this year, with a self-deprecating chuckle, as a “geriatric independent small brand.”
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Physical retail is by no means new territory for the design duo. The brand has long integrated brick-and-mortar spaces into its core business model. They launched their first shop in Los Angeles, where Latta is based, back in 2016. Two years later, in 2018, they opened a New York retail outpost on the second floor of a buzzy Chinatown mall. But in the eight years since that second-floor location welcomed its first shoppers, the brand has matured significantly, and the surrounding neighborhood has undergone a massive transformation, evolving from a cluster of small art galleries into a thriving vintage mecca.
“There were window displays of people selling second-hand Eckhaus Latta next door,” Latta recalls with a laugh. That surreal neighborhood evolution made it clear that the time had arrived to seek out new digs.
Latta, who describes herself as something of a pathological real estate hunter, managed to track down the Ludlow Street property earlier this year through a mutual friend. The pair first toured the space on the morning of their fall runway show in February and finalized the deal in August. What followed was a breathless, six-week mad dash to whip the location into shape ahead of its grand opening.
The new headquarters affords them more than double the selling space of their previous location. Crucially, it consolidates several formerly disparate operations under one roof, bringing together the retail floor, the design studio, storage for their extensive personal archives, a dedicated photo studio, and the stock room.
“It’s our epicenter,” Latta says, noting that the move allows them to downsize from seven different leases into a single, unified location.
Because the storefront had not previously functioned as a street-facing commercial property, transforming it required extensive structural work, including major plumbing and electrical overhauls, alongside the necessary interior architectural design. True to the brand’s collaborative community ethos, the designers turned to their tight-knit network of creative friends to bring the space to life. Camilla Deterre, their in-house fit model, stepped in as project manager, while Emma Price—an architect and childhood friend of Latta—oversaw the architectural planning and interior layout. Meanwhile, Sophie Stone took charge of the floral styling and created the painted rope-and-cardboard art pieces that double as floor rugs.
“These are people we speak to and hang out with and work with on a daily basis,” Latta says. “They’re also designers, architects, trained, skilled professionals.”
“It’s cool to have just these expansions of how we work with our friends,” Eckhaus adds.
The collaborative process was nothing if not democratic and spirited. “Sometimes there are six people talking about one rug and arguing, which is fun,” Latta continues. “And then other times it feels really clear. But I think there’s not a singular vision, and I think it’s very, as Mike has said, ‘Goldilocks,’ where it’s like we figure out the happy medium in a lot of different ways from a lot of different POVs, and we don’t need to consider it finished really, ever.”
Spanning 940 square feet, the front half of the store features suspended ceiling rails, an authentic cash register, and dressing rooms and standing racks toward the rear. Tucked directly behind the retail floor is a 700-square-foot studio space illuminated by a generous skylight. The interior color palette embraces unexpected hues that have long served as a brand signature, utilizing pale yellow walls and creamy gray floors—specifically Farrow & Ball’s “New White” and “Lamp Room Gray.” Furniture throughout the space was sourced by their friend David Lê and customized with special touches, including an ottoman featuring a brushed shearling topper sourced from Latta’s hometown of Santa Cruz.
Even as they race against the clock for their opening day—following a launch party slated for the evening prior—the designers view the physical environment as an ongoing, fluid project rather than a static installation.
“That’s the thing we’re thinking about, too: how things adapt,” Latta reflects. “We’re excited about them, but maybe it’s something we’re going to want to change around more frequently. It’s nice to not feel so concrete, and, like we were saying, fluid, about a process.”
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That embrace of adaptability is vividly illustrated by the building’s exterior: a space-age, silver-painted cinder block facade complete with craggy stones and weathered air conditioning units that lend the storefront a gritty, idiosyncratic charm.
“At first we were like, ‘We need to get rid of everything.’ And then we were like, ‘This rocks. This is a story of the neighborhood,’” Eckhaus explains. “We don’t want to eliminate it yet and don’t need to yet. It’s going to cost a lot of money to replace the facade. Let’s wait and do it when the feeling’s right and when we’re done and sick of it.”
While Latta has long worked directly adjacent to the Los Angeles storefront, the Ludlow Street headquarters marks the first time Eckhaus will experience the same proximity to daily retail operations.
“Sometimes from where I’m sitting, I can hear people in the dressing room giving notes,” Latta says with a smile. “I love it, and our retail staff comes back, and it’s like, ‘Oh, she really didn’t like that color.’ It’s just nice to have the feedback, and it’s not a criticism. I think it’ll be really good for Mike to have that too.”
“I can chase people out of the store,” Eckhaus quips.
The opening of the new headquarters arrives on the heels of widespread critical acclaim for their most recent collection, which was hailed by many industry observers as a definitive highlight of New York Fashion Week. Asked how they feel about the overwhelmingly positive reception, Latta responds simply: “We feel really supported.”
“Part of our excitement is that we’ve seen an immense amount of growth in our direct-to-consumer business,” she adds. “There’s something about that that feels nice—the more things that are under your control [the better], because we know the industry is so volatile right now.”
Looking ahead, the co-founders acknowledge that the brand is poised for its next major evolution. “I think we’re ready to take some big steps,” Latta says. “We’re open to a lot of different things.”
The two designers exchange a knowing glance.
“We’re looking for investment,” Latta says.
“We should say that out loud,” Eckhaus adds. “Email us!”
