The Tamesis
Founded in 2016, La Ligne is both a product and a precursor to increasingly rapid fashion cycles. Even though Instagram is just a small part of what it is now, and TikTok hasn’t launched yet, then—Fashion Editors Meredith Meling and Valerie Macaulay, as well as Rag & Bone’s former head of business development Molly Howard, have all set their sights on developing modern uniforms for the busy, social and stylish women around them.
Now, ten years and numerous physical stores later, La Ligne is celebrating its tenth anniversary with the launch of the Perfect 10 Anniversary collection. The edit, which accompanies a campaign starring Connie Britton, details every version of the team’s “favourite” core wardrobe pieces, including loose-fitting suiting and The Big Lebowski– Inspired by robes from earlier collections.
Below, Melling, Macaulay, and Howard reflect on what they’ve learned from running an independent label, their cringe-worthy 2016 style choices, and how their women have grown around them.
Fashion: La Ligne was founded in 2016; the capsule collection celebrates ten years of independent brand design. Ten years on, what’s the most important thing you’ve learned about running a fashion business?
Molly Howard: We put our best foot forward in everything we do. We didn’t have the team support that we have now, so we were involved in every aspect of the business in a way that we can’t now. I think the biggest takeaway is that I know to some extent from my previous work at Rag & Bone and other companies that the vast majority of what makes a brand successful or successful is the prosaic stuff.
Photo: Zoe Grossman
What is the most valuable aspect of it?
MH: It’s fun to look back at the photos – it’s crazy. You know, behind the scenes of every photo shoot, every trunk show, every store opening. But another thing that I have a lot of pictures on my phone—whether I’ve taken them or friends have taken them and sent them—are pictures of strangers on the street wearing La Ligne. You can feel like you played a role in getting people to wear this thing – walk into your store or order your product with their hard-earned money.
Meredith Merlin: We have a La Ligne “in the wild” Slack channel – everyone on the team is excited. And, the era we launched in 2016 was the pinnacle of DTC, where everything was possible online and wanting to open a store almost seemed obsolete. When we finally opened a store in New York in 2019, it was such a big feeling that I feel like crying right now.
