It is little more than 24 hours until Mike Eckhaus and Zoe Latta are scheduled to fling open the doors to their new store at 27 Ludlow Street on the Lower East Side, and there is still a mountain of work to be done.
"There are little scuffs on the floor," sighs Latta, looking around the space. "Don’t mention those."
"It’s a new concept," jokes Eckhaus as they pass by two exposed dressing rooms currently waiting for their curtains to be delivered. "It’s all about sexy! It’s like the Barneys Warehouse Sale!"
Looking at a suspended clothes bar filled with fall’s fresh arrivals, Latta cracks a smile: "Ten minutes ago, we were like… We should hang some clothes."
"Yeah… Vogue is coming," Eckhaus adds.
For nearly a decade and a half, Eckhaus and Latta have cultivated an aesthetic that marries uncompromising avant-garde design with an approachable, lived-in realism. It is this charming, make-it-up-as-you-go ethos that renders their independent brand so uniquely bewitching. Their approach reflects a real-world cool that they have managed to evoke season after season, standing in stark contrast to the overly polished, impersonal megabrands that dominate much of contemporary fashion.
While the creative duo is currently prepping to celebrate 15 years in business—coming off the heels of a couple of high-profile collaborations with mainstream names like Mango and J.Crew, alongside a hot streak of increasingly finessed runway shows—the designers have resolutely retained their feisty founding spirit. It brings to mind a conversation earlier this summer when Eckhaus affectionately referred to themselves as a "geriatric independent small brand."
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This new venture is hardly the duo’s first dalliance with brick-and-mortar retail; physical storefronts have long been a cornerstone of their distinct business model. They opened their very first shop in Los Angeles, where Latta is based, back in 2016. They followed that up in 2018 with a New York retail outpost located on the second floor of a buzzy Chinatown mall.
Yet, in the eight years since that Chinatown location first welcomed shoppers, the brand has grown significantly, and the surrounding mall has similarly evolved from a quiet pocket of small art galleries into a sprawling vintage mecca. "There were window displays of people selling second-hand Eckhaus Latta next door," laughs Latta, explaining why they ultimately felt it was time to look for greener pastures and brand-new digs.
"For us, a store is much more about building a world than, like, just some strategically fancy place," Latta says. "We love retail, we love brick and mortar."
Latta is something of a pathological real estate hunter and managed to track down this new Ludlow Street space earlier this year through a mutual friend. The pair first visited the property on the morning of their fall show in February, eventually inking a deal in August. Since then, it has been a frantic, six-week mad dash to get the new location ready for its official opening.
The move gives them more than double the selling space of their previous location. More importantly, it brings together retail operations, the design studio, secure storage for their extensive personal archives, a dedicated photo studio, and a stock room, all unified under a single roof.
"It’s our epicenter," Latta notes. "Estamos condensing from seven different leases into one."
Because the new storefront had not previously been set up as a street-facing commercial property, it required substantial infrastructure work, including comprehensive plumbing and electrical overhauls, alongside the usual creative and architectural flourishes. To bring the vision to life, they tapped into their trusted network of creative friends and collaborators.
Their in-house fit model, Camilla Deterre, stepped in to serve as project manager, while Latta’s childhood friend, Emma Price, took the lead as the architect handling the interiors. Meanwhile, Sophie Stone managed the floral arrangements and the painted rope-and-cardboard art pieces that double as unconventional rugs.
"These are people we speak to and hang out with and work with on a daily basis," Latta explains. "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.
Collaboration is rarely a straight line in the Eckhaus Latta universe. "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."
Visitors stepping inside will now find rails suspended from the ceiling and an honest-to-goodness cash register positioned near the front entrance. Dressing rooms and additional standing racks occupy the back half of the space, totaling 940 square feet of retail floor. Directly behind that lies the studio, an extra 700 square feet illuminated by a generous skylight.
Unexpected color palettes—a signature trademark of the brand—are vividly expressed through deliberate paint choices: pale yellow walls and creamy gray floors, utilizing Farrow & Ball’s "New White" and "Lamp Room Gray," respectively. Furniture pieces were thoughtfully sourced by their friend David Lê and given custom touches, such as an ottoman outfitted with a brushed shearling topper sourced from Latta’s hometown of Santa Cruz.
Indeed, even as they race toward the finish line—with the store flinging open its doors following an opening party—the duo considers the physical space less of a fixed, permanent installation and more of an ongoing, living project.
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"That’s the thing we’re thinking about, too: how things adapt," Latta says. "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."
Consider the building’s exterior: a space-age, silver-painted cinder block facade featuring craggy stones and weathered air conditioning units that give it a wonderfully gritty, wonky appearance.
"At first we were like, ‘We need to get rid of everything,’" Latta recalls. "And then we were like, ‘This rocks. This is a story of the neighborhood.’ 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 brand’s Los Angeles shop, this move marks a new chapter for Eckhaus, who will experience the same close proximity to retail operations for the first time in New York.
"Sometimes from where I’m sitting, I can hear people in the dressing room giving notes," Latta shares. "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," he quips.
As for how they feel about the reactions to their recent collection—which was met with overwhelmingly positive reviews, with many critics hailing it as a definitive highlight of New York Fashion Week—the response is one of deep gratitude.
"We feel really supported," Latta says.
"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."
"I think we’re ready to take some big steps," she concludes, before sharing a knowing look with her co-founder. "We’re open to a lot of different things."
They pause, exchanging another look.
"We’re looking for investment," Latta says.
"We should say that out loud," Eckhaus adds with a laugh. "Email us!"
