Future Fixation: DDC Lab Opens L.A. Store
Call it the science fiction of fashion.
DDC Lab founders and designers Roberto Crivello and Savania Davies-Keiller take stainless steel and other materials not typically associated with fashion and, with their own brand of alchemy, create denim, hoodies and tuxedo jackets for men and women.
For much of the New York–based company’s decade-plus history, DDC Lab has consulted on fabric development for DuPont and Levi’s. However, Crivello and Davies-Keiller also designed clothes for the DDC Lab label, and they opened a Los Angeles boutique Dec. 9. The label will build two to four stores in 2006, according to a company spokesman. Boston-based footwear and activewear company New Balance financed the retail rollout. DDC helped to design New Balance’s 2005 apparel line and its PF Flyers sneakers.
DDC Lab opened its first store in New York. In Los Angeles, the company’s futuristic store is near one of the city’s most venerable fashion addresses. It’s a stone’s throw away from the pioneering fashion retailer Maxfield on Melrose Avenue. However, the fashion alchemists have created a retail world all their own.
Inside the store, mannequins hang from a moving rack, intended to give the illusion that they are floating in space. Behind the store, there’s a courtyard for events.
Price points range from $98 for the DDC version of the basic T-shirt to $2,600 for a nylon jacket covered with cork. Price points for jeans are $200–$500. For the Spring 2006 season, DDC Lab intends to return to the 20th century. The theme for its upcoming collection will be Cuban modernism. —Andrew Asch
