Horn Owner Debuts Dress Collection
For retailer Susanne Zenker, owner of the Horn boutique on Los Angeles’ Robertson Boulevard, necessity was indeed the mother of invention when her search for a white dress to wear to a white party came up empty. Faced with the situation, Zenker decided to craft the dress herself, leading to another creative outlet for her—designing.
Her new line of dresses, called Zenker, is an 11-piece collection that is represented through the Basix showroom at the New Mart. So far, retailers Undercover in Santa Monica, Calif.; Body in Encino, Calif.; H. Lorenzo and Traffic in West Hollywood, Calif.; and Musette in Las Vegas have signed on to carry it. Zenker hopes to add more accounts when she debuts the line at New York’s Fashion Coterie Sept. 24–26.
“The feedback I’m getting is great—people are looking for a great-fitting dress that’s not superexpensive,” said Zenker, who has studied design in Milan and Paris.
She uses comfortable Soft Touch jerseys and Lycra blends for her animal-print and solid creations in chocolate brown, cream, black, raspberry red and fuchsia. Named after cosmopolitan cities including London, Paris, Madrid and Lisboa, the dresses sport different cuts ranging from halter to tube styling. They retail from $225 to $380.
“Dresses are a tough category, but her dresses were able to sell out in a few weeks,” said Lori Mattix, a store manager at H. Lorenzo.
Horn, which has a following with such celebrities as Reese Witherspoon, Julia Ormond, Penelope Cruz and Mira Sorvino, carries Blumarine, Tufi Duek, Antonio Berardi and other lines exclusive to Robertson Boulevard and often Los Angeles. Zenker’s family has another Horn boutique in Berlin. —Nola Sarkisian-Miller
