For fall, Apiece Apart designers Starr Hout and Laura Cramer looked to the streets of New York City for inspiration. The duo drew from the shapes and colors being worn by the women around their studio, finding creativity in their effortless silhouettes and sleek mix-and-matching. “What we love is seeing our clothes in the wild,” said Cramer. “If we can’t visualize it on the streets and on the women of New York, it doesn’t make any sense to us.”
Modern wardrobe staples are what Apiece Apart is built on. Rather than reinventing the wheel every season, Cramer and Hout focus on updating their core silhouettes—a great wool coat, a perfect barrel-shape jean—and offering them in new treatments. This season, the earthy color palette—infused with pops of moss, merlot, blacks, and denims—was inspired by a recent Cecily Brown show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “She’s one of our strong female muses,” said Hout. You could see that color play on looks like the cherry-red crewneck sweater paired with khaki-brown tapered trousers, or the billowy maxi dresses in tri-toned floral prints.
The designers also focused on pieces that can be worn more ways than one. The buttoned-up cardigan, for instance, was styled asymmetrically and off-kilter—like a cozy shrug, which can be dressed up for night with a loose black dress pant. Ditto for the extra-long beige sweater, which can be worn as a dress and layered over a chic pair of cigarette pants. “We’re always thinking of ways that you can stretch our clothing to have it go from nine a.m. to nine p.m.,” said Hout, “playing on the tension between new shapes, ideas, and proportions.” The result is clothes that you can truly live in—the type of investment pieces where you can roll out of bed, still look put-together, and nobody would be any wiser.
