About us

Hi, I'm Lauren.

I've rewritten this page more times than I want to admit, because I honestly don't know where to begin. So I'll begin with the thing I feel most.

Thank you. I'm fifty-three years old, and I never thought I'd get to say that I have a store with my name on it. Every one of you who has ordered, or written to me, or just read this far, is part of why it exists. I don't take that lightly. I don't think I ever will.

I should tell you who I am.

I was a shy little girl in the wrong clothes. We didn't have much, and kids at school made sure I knew it. I remember a green corduroy dress my mother saved up for, and I remember exactly what the girls at lunch said about it. I went home and didn't tell her. I just stopped wearing it. I was nine.

I think that's where it started, really. I decided I would understand clothes so well that nobody could ever make me feel that way again. And I did. I spent twenty-two years in this business, from folding sweaters on a sales floor in New York to the buying office, and I learned it with my hands: which fabric holds up, which seam gives, which cut is honest to a real body and which one is just pretending.

And the whole time, quietly, I knew I could do it myself. A small boutique. Real quality, for women like us. Women who've lived a little, who don't want to be sold to like they're twenty-five, who just want something that fits and lasts and doesn't need explaining. I knew I was capable of it. I've known since I was young.

I just didn't believe I was allowed. Somewhere in me there was still a nine-year-old who thought people would laugh.

Two years ago I stopped listening to her, and I started listening to my sister instead, who told me, in the way only a sister can, to get on with it. So I did. I built this at my kitchen table, and she was my first customer.

This is that little girl's dream. I'm not going to pretend it isn't. Every piece here is picked by hand, by me. Fabric first, then fit, then price, in that order. If it wouldn't have protected that nine-year-old at lunch, it doesn't go on the site.

If you've ever felt judged for what you wore, or felt invisible in a store, or told yourself it was too late to do the thing you always wanted, then you already understand this place. It was made for you. It was made by one of you.

Thank you for being here. Truly.

Lauren Whitfield, Founder