The Los Angeles-based fashion label Lady White Co began with a simple premise: to perfect that most perennial of garments, the white T-shirt. A decade on – the brand was founded in 2015 by Phil and Sarah Proyce – Lady White Co now houses a library of jersey and sportswear basics, each produced in family-owned factories within a ten-mile radius of its East Los Angeles design headquarters. They call it an ‘uncommon approach to familiar classics’.
The tenth anniversary of the brand prompted plans to refresh its first-ever store in Los Angeles’ Silverlake neighbourhood, which is known – in the brand’s typically straightforward style – as ‘LW-C1’. ‘We needed more space,’ say Phillip Proyce and Taylor Caruso, the brand’s co-owner, who has worked with Lady White Co since its beginnings. ‘But mainly we felt like the level of detail that we put into our clothes was not being mirrored in our old store build-out. We wanted space for customers to take in the clothes at a slower, more thoughtful pace – a little breathing room.’
They drafted interior design studio WOE (Width Over Ears) to help conceive the new space, which doubles the store’s original footprint (‘but it was tiny to begin with – so nothing too massive’, say Proyce and Caruso, who took over the entirety of the building which previously housed both their storefront and offices). Also based in Los Angeles, WOE founders Nicole Choy and Justin Coates say they had been wanting to work with Lady White Co for some time, having been fans of the brand’s clothing, and eventually connected with Proyce and Caruso over shared influences. ‘[We are both] enthusiasts of esoteric fabrics, modernist architecture, and art and fashion photography,’ Choy and Coates tell Wallpaper*.
The influence of the modernist movement is felt throughout the newly renovated store, with Choy and Coates noting inspiration from the work of Eileen Gray, Pierre Chareau, Juliaan Lampens and Charlotte Perriand, among others. ‘The building was not architecturally specific in any stylistic sense, but given the brand’s ethos, some early influences included the very personal, yet enduring expressions of Eileen Gray’s E-1027, and Pierre Chareau’s Maison de Verre,’ they say. ‘Further on, we were looking at the work of Juliaan Lampens, and in particular, the plywood “closets” that he would build into his otherwise continuous concrete structures.’
As such, the store has a utilitarian feel, from industrial accents – like studded rubber floor and aluminium accordion doors (‘commonly used in institutional settings’) – to storage and displays in painted, rather than natural, wood (‘as a nod to a less precious, more utilitarian sensibility’). ‘The design is meant to complement the qualities of the brand: subtle but sharp, distinct but familiar, utilitarian but beautiful,’ the pair continue.
‘We have a very odd love for municipal looking spaces – which can contradict WOE’s aesthetic a little. That juxtaposition is why we chose them,’ say Proyce and Caruso. ‘We didn’t want someone to regurgitate our look and vice versa. It is not easy to make something look ‘real’ these days, but WOE achieves that. They have an identity.
‘The clothes we make always felt simple and pragmatic,’ they continue. ‘When trying to harmonise an environment with our clothing, we kept ending up at municipal-looking buildings – waiting rooms, educational facilities, things with very little ornamentation. We found beauty in that normality, and that thought stuck with the brand for the last 10 years.’
The same can be said of the building itself, which Choy and Coates describe as ‘nondescript... a 1950s relic blending seamlessly into the iconic Silverlake throughway that is Hyperion Avenue’ (the first iteration of the store opened in the building’s former garage). ‘Silverlake has always been an anchor for midcentury architecture,’ say Proyce and Caruso of why they chose to stay in the neighbourhood, rather than reopening elsewhere (a second store, LW-C2, opened in Los Angeles’ Arts District in 2021).
‘Within a couple blocks there are several great works by Neutra, Schindler, and others,’ they continue. ‘All that great architecture is the foundation for further creativity in and around the neighbourhood.’
Lady White Co’s LW-C1 Los Angeles Flagship, 2431 Hyperion Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90027.
