Ever since she first began developing her unique approach to distressing, deconstructing and hand-dying discarded prison tees in 2007, Raquel Allegra has let Los Angeles, the city she now calls home, help guide her design trajectory.
“There’s something to be said about the way that we live in L.A. that’s very casual,” Allegra said of the premium she places on fabrics while staying focused on an elevated brand of casual that’s helped set the line apart. “I think what I strive to do is create casual clothing in luxe fabrics. You’re feeling casual, but you’re also feeling really chic.”
What started with the search for the perfect white T-shirt ultimately led Allegra on more creative pursuits, for which L.A. was the perfect setting. “I was really just playing with T-shirts,” she said of her intention, “to just really take something that was already perfect and do something to it that wasn’t adding or subtracting, just shifting.”
While the core remains the same, Allegra, who is originally from Berkeley, Calif., has grown the business around the premium materials for which she’s become known, with custom design-printed linens, allover tie-dyes crafted each season by hand, cobwebbing and deconstruction of knits and cottons done by hand in her studio, leather and French lace – just to name some.
“The root and the foundation of it is still casual, comfortable, sensual, chic,” she said of the way she continues to infuse each new fabric with the same appeal, sometimes through washing or dying or her unique shredding techniques. “It was that in the beginning and I think it’s just been expanded on, that idea of dressing for comfort, but staying really chic at the same time.”
And in staying true to those roots, Allegra has continued to work with the same tie-dye “master” she has used since the beginning, and produce through the same factories she’s been working with for years – all out of L.A. “The industry is here in terms of manufacturing and that’s definitely played a big part,” Allegra said.
“All of the tie-dye we do in LA, because we want to control it and keep it close,” she says, adding that everything (save for their sweaters) is still manufactured in Los Angeles. Once back Stateside, everything is tie-dyed by hand in L.A. and then given the Raquel Allegra hand-touch for the incredibly soft feel that customers have come to expect.
“It’s the thing I’m constantly striving to maintain is that hand feel, which doesn’t feel like anything else. We develop our own fabrics so we can maintain that. We’ve got a handful of core fabrics that are our own and then we find fabrics that we love and add those in,” she said of the tactile quality of the collection that people initially responded to – and continue to seek out amidst a crowded contemporary marketplace.
And now, since growing her collection to over 200 retailers worldwide, Allegra has found a new place to call home in L.A. She’s just opened the doors to her very first retail store on West 3rd Street, a flagship space with natural elements that mimic the soft-worn textures and unfinished hems and detailing of the collection.
As befitting this L.A. brand, the allure of Allegra is equal parts ease and expression– and remains as strong as ever.