Studio Tour: The Elder Statesman®

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we dropped by the West Hollywood three-room bungalow of CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund winner Greg Chait of The Elder Statesman. it was (predictably) piled high with stacks of dreamy cashmere and equipped with a killer pair of Mission 770 speakers.
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Tucked into a leafy private street in West Hollywood is Chait’s enviable setup: an atelier/showroom (a New Yorker’s dream) with oversize picture windows that look out onto a wildflower garden that the knitwear designer tends to himself. As for the piles of blankets stacked neatly on the floor? They’re all The Elder Statesman.

A look around Chait’s by-appointment-only studio reveals an exacting eye for detail and patina: a leather safari chair, stacks of old books artfully piled on the floor, records, frayed dhurrie rugs, an old loom from the 1800s that he picked up from a swap meet in LA. And then there are the knits—cardigans, Baja pullovers, ski caps, scarves—a handful of which in unexpected color pairings reflect the designer’s studied rebellion.

There’s cashmere he had dip-dyed by a Red Hook artist, cashmere bracelets made from excess yarn from his production process (woven by Eddie, a guy Chait met one day in downtown Los Angeles), assorted leather jackets (which, like many of the other items in his line, aren’t widely publicized but have been produced for years for private clients), a Navajo crochet bag made with local dyes, handmade buffalo horn glasses.

Chait’s also something of a spirits aficionado, so he’ll pour you a stiff drink. (The day we visited, he graciously poured us a glass of Midleton whiskey and put on Peter Sarstedt.)

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Photography by Bryan Derballa.

Read more about the lead-up to the launch of the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund collections here.

And to shop the exclusive The Elder Statesman collection and the rest of the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund designs, click here.

Welcome Companions

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Before designer Laurel Consuelo Broughton began making clever accessories for her line Welcome Companions, she had her sights set on something larger-scale. In 2006, she finished her grad studies at the Southern California Institute of Architecture and immediately jumped into designing houses, shops, art centers, and more with the firm Johnston Marklee in Los Angeles. In the back of her mind, though, she knew she wanted to make something a little, well, littler. “I’ve always been an accessories person,” she explains. “My clothes tend to be minimal, but it’s the addition of the accessory that’s more the point of novelty. In the end, it was a natural direction for me to go.”

So in 2009, Laurel took a job teaching at USC’s School of Architecture and began working on a line of structurally focused bags, clutches, wallets, and scarves on the side. “Obviously designing a house and designing a bag are totally different, but there are underpinnings of conceptual ideas and design ideas that, for me, are very similar,” she explains. Today she creates playful-yet-functional accessories that marry the visual and the tactile—think a purse the looks like a piece of toast. “A lot of the work has to do with this idea of shapes and how we use shapes and recognize shapes,” she explains. Well, we can’t wait to see the shape of things to come. —monica derevjanik

welcomecompanions.com