Elaine Kim Launches Her Label

Elaine Kim is the influential force behind Los Angeles boutique Ecru as well as fashion forward womenswear label Product. Now, after a decade-long sabbatical from fashion, she is launching her eponymous label. The debut collection is named after Gustav Klimt's painting Expectation and offers a highly personal vision of decadence, opulence and sensuality.

The concise assortment of day-to-evening dresses and separates was inspired by the decorative richness of Klimt's canvases as well as László Moholy-Nagy's photographic studies of urban industrial texture. The colors encompass the mysterious metallic black and gray hues of industrial materials, accented with the decadent saturated jewel tones of sapphire blue and quartz purple.

Of her inspiration, Kim explains: "I find much beauty in Moholy-Nagy's textures created out of carefully observed details from mechanized, post-industrial urban settings. His images convey a strength that I find helpful in counterbalancing the predictably feminine." The collection will initially have exclusive distribution in New York and Europe, but members of Kim's clientele also have access through her Los Angeless studio.

For more information, see www.elainekim.com.

  —Kristina Dryza