"I just wanted it to be
fucking cool," says Pia Arrobio on designing her new brand, LPA. LPA
launched earlier this month, but the buzz surrounding it has been
building up since last year; that's what happens when you're Arrobio,
the five-year designer at Reformation, the L.A. cool-girl label that
reaches nearly 50,000 Instagram followers and counts Emily Ratajkowski,
Kendall Jenner, and Bella Hadid among its most devoted fans.
Below, five reasons we know we're going to love LPA…
[post_ads]But there's no bad blood
here. "It's like that relationship you have in your mid-twenties and
you're like, 'am I really going to be with this guy for ten years, or am
I going to break up with him so I can start something new?'" Arrobio
says. She left Reformation in 2015 and was set to move overseas for a
job at a major fast-fashion company when Revolve got wind of her
departure and offered to back her own line. After deliberation with
friends, family, and three psychics, she accepted the offer. LPA—an
acronym for her full name Lara Pia Arrobio—was born.
2. Arrobio is responsive to women's needs
LPA is not redefining the
current notion of "cool," it's confirming it, offering versions of the
'70s silhouettes and fashion-y sweatshirts that are so popular right
now. But Arrobio's repackaging these pieces in her own way and intends
for the LPA girl to mash up the trends in a fresh way. "It's very much
like Dolce & Gabbana meets Supreme," Arrobio explains. "I'm doing
leopard slip dresses, but I'm styling it with an oversize hoodie that's
embroidered with flames and roses on it."
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Despite having a
traditional fashion calendar planned for LPA, Arrobio still wants to put
a fast-fashion spin on it. She hopes to react to customers' needs or
whenever an idea strikes her, and then to design accordingly. "If I go
vintage shopping and I see a dress and I think 'fuck, this is so good
everybody needs to own this,' I'm going to try to add that in."
3. It's affordable and made in L.A.
[post_ads]"I have taste and my
friends have taste and we all want to buy clothes at a price point that
we're comfortable with," she says. "In a few years, sure, we can buy
Rosie Assoulin, but I can't afford that right now." Thus, the collection
ranges from $58 to upwards of $1,300 for a rose-embroidered leather
jacket, but most of the pieces fall in the $100 to $300 range for things
like knit skirts, off-the-shoulder tops, and floral dresses. Plus, it's
all made in Los Angeles, CA.
4. No fake friends
The entire process of LPA
has been a labor of love. Everyone involved in the brand is "all only
homies," from the models to graphic designers to Arrobio's campaign
videographer that she met a decade ago "while working at shitty little
Italian restaurant in New York." The collection's inspiration is "a
culmination of all my friends: very sexy, very romantic." But her
friends come from a different breed.
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Arrobio
is besties with Emily Ratajkowski, she lists Erin Wasson as a close
friend and mentor, she keeps up email correspondence with Lena Dunham,
and Kim Kardashian recently stopped by her showroom. LPA nails that
particular brand of IDGAF cool that is born and bred in Los Angeles. One
day she hopes A$AP Rocky and Chloë Sevigny will wear the brand, but for
now she'll just have to settle for artists, supermodels, and the
fashion elite.
5. It's all about embracing your sexuality
"Emily and I were saying
to each other 'I'm just, like, feeling myself today,' Arrobio casually
states. "I want girls to be able to feel that way without a man. I don't
want it to be like you put on something sexy because men are whistling
at you. That's the downside of dressing sexy."
Silk
satin necklines are draped seductively but styled with vintage tees and
Nikes. It's an aspirational form of sensual dressing that you would
liken to Rihanna in Vetements. "I don't want girls to be intimidated by
the clothes," she says. The LPA girl is the hottest chick in a dive bar,
the one who makes a hoodie look non-collegiate, and whose life you
vicariously follow on Instagram. Basically, it's Pia Arrobio herself,
and who wouldn't want to be her?
