Los Angeles Party Clothes for Grown-up Debutantes
When someone thinks of Los Angeles style, prim taffetas and three-piece skirt suits aren’t often part of the picture. It’s something that Chelsea Mak — an independent designer-on-the-rise based in Silver Lake — is looking to change.
Mak, who founded her namesake label in 2018, is immersed in a “rebel debutante vibe” that offers a counterpoint to the neutral linens and knits that have become Los Angeles’ main style currency.
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The brand reflects an amalgamation of Mak’s native Pasadena roots, the formal dresses she wore to Shanghai teenage coming-of-age events, and the tailoring culture she was exposed to while visiting the Chinese city with her mother.
The result are matching sorbet-colored shantung pencil pants and blouse sets, handkerchief hemline silk dresses that tie in knots, and ivory blouses with 360-degree shoulder frills.
It’s all hyper feminine — but with a slightly imperfect and nagging edge. With Los Angeles being a mecca for the perpetually underdressed, Mak’s clothes could be considered a form of counterculture.
According to the designer, that situational irony is intentional. “It reminds me of when I was in high school as a debutante and going to Shanghai and making a matching outfit in Thai silk for high tea and getting so stoned the night before that I woke up late and my best friend had to drive me [to the event] at the Biltmore Hotel,” said Mak, who sources all of her fabrics in deadstock markets in Shanghai.
“I think when people think of L.A. style, it’s all beige and linen and neutral. There is so much more substance behind the culture — there is all of Pasadena and it’s become more popular in recent years to revisit old Hollywood culture like Taix, the old school French restaurant in Echo Park, or Musso and Frank’s or the Huntington Gardens,” the designer added of the Los Angeles that speaks to her.
Mak worked closely with Scott Sternberg before starting her own line — first as a senior designer for his brand Band of Outsiders, and later as a key founding member of the Entireworld team.
She decided to split off and launch her own label rooted in the kinds of fabrics she wanted to wear herself — and quickly attracted a fan base of well-dressed Los Angeles women from across various creative fields.
Blouses and pants run around $350, while dresses are around $600. They are stocked at stores including Mohawk General Store, Fred Segal, Mr. Larkin and Des Kohan — among other select multibrand stores. Almost half of Mak’s sales, though, are made in her home studio where women are encouraged to try on clothes in a palm frond-wallpapered powder room.
In Los Angeles, where social circles are spread out across miles of traffic, Mak knew that she had to project an image of tight-knit community in order to give her brand a compelling narrative. She was strategic from the beginning to invite well-connected, creative types to model for her seasonal look books — giving the impression, both online and off, that her clothes are something worth participating in.
“I spent a lot of energy building a community of women in Los Angeles. Everyone is creative in a way I really admire,” she said.
Mak’s latest challenge is tweaking her line to reflect her own evolving tastes, as well as those of her community. Looking to streamline her signature ruffles, Mak settled on a new blouse and dress pattern — each with little, artistically placed ties that cinch fabric across the chest and nip the waist, culminating in a fistful of little silk bows.
“I noticed I want to dress more womanly and manipulate fabric on the body so it could flatter people. I think these are a natural departure from my ruffles which are so overtly feminine,” Mak said.
For fall, she will reprise the concept in halter tops and new dress styles.
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