Eckhaus Latta

If you value distinctive, hand-considered pieces over logos, many fans say yes. The label is known for unexpected materials and a real focus on texture and tactility, and knitwear is where that obsession shows most clearly. You are paying for design you genuinely will not find elsewhere rather than brand recognition.

Because the clothes are developed and modified in ways most labels skip. Eckhaus Latta is built around exploring texture and tactility, and that experimentation, plus small-scale, intentional production, costs more than churning out basics. The price reflects design labour and process more than marketing.

Experimental and tactile, with art-world DNA. The brand is known for unexpected materials and for folding writing, performance and video into its practice, so a collection often feels closer to a project than a product drop. Expect off-kilter proportions and texture you want to touch.

Sustainability is a recurring theme in how the duo talk about their work, though we will keep specific claims to what is verifiable. What is clear from the brand's identity is a focus on considered materials and process rather than fast, disposable fashion, which tends to mean fewer, longer-lived pieces in your wardrobe.

Designers Mike Eckhaus and Zoe Latta, who launched the label in 2011. They met as students at the Rhode Island School of Design, where Mike studied sculpture and Zoe studied textiles. That sculpture-and-textiles pairing explains a lot about why the clothes feel structural and material-led.

Both came from inside the fashion machine before breaking out. Eckhaus worked as an accessories designer at Marc by Marc Jacobs, while Latta ran a textiles business, Ruth Prince, selling prints to designers such as Calvin Klein and Proenza Schouler and designing knits for Opening Ceremony. They started the label to move beyond those more commercial briefs.

Yes, it is an American fashion brand with locations in Los Angeles and New York City. That bi-coastal footprint suits a label that treats its stores as part of its creative practice rather than just shops. It is firmly a New York and LA fashion story rather than a European house.

Yes, unusually so for a fashion label. In 2018 it opened a show, Possessed, at the Whitney Museum, the first fashion-related exhibition there in 21 years, and it had earlier featured in group shows at the Hammer Museum in 2016 and MoMA PS1 in 2015. That museum presence is a big part of its credibility.

Within the industry, very much so. Beyond the museum exhibitions, the label was nominated for the 2018 edition of the LVMH Prize, one of the most closely watched awards for emerging designers. It is a critics-and-peers favourite more than a mass-market one.

Yes, collaboration is woven into how they work. The duo periodically team up with people and brands they find inspiring, from commissioning furniture for their stores to working with Camper on a line of footwear. If you like the brand's outlook, the collaborations are a more accessible way in.

Yes. The label is known for using non-professional and unconventional models, and its first large-scale ad campaign drew attention for showing adult models having unsimulated sex in the Spring 2017 collection. It fits a brand that has always treated advertising as part of its creative practice rather than a safe sales tool.

Lean toward relaxed. The brand's design language favours texture and unexpected shapes over body-con tailoring, so pieces often read oversized or sculptural. If you are between sizes, think about the silhouette you want rather than assuming your usual number, and consider trying on or checking measurements first.