Fast lane fashion

Irish designer Laura Weber, famous for the exquisite beading on US First Lady Jill Biden’s inauguration outfit, tells Marie Kelly about launching her own luxury athleisure range.

If there’s a prize at the end of all this for best Zoom backdrop, designer Laura Weber wins. She appears on my computer screen from her chic, dual-aspect New York office, with its slick snapshot of Midtown Manhattan’s Garment District — the epicentre of fashion manufacturing in the US. From my makeshift home office in sleepy suburbia, I feel I’d have to travel light years, rather than six hours, to get to such a fantastical place.

If I’m distracted by the cityscape initially, I’m soon fully focused on Weber herself, who is nothing short of remarkable. It isn’t just that the Dubliner has become a household name since First Lady Jill Biden wore a coat, dress and mask for the evening event of her husband’s inauguration day, designed by Gabriela Hearst and exquisitely beaded by Weber.

It isn’t simply that the company, LW Pearl Atelier, which she founded just six months before the pandemic hit, has continued to grow despite lockdowns and logistical nightmares. Nor is it the fact that she’s about to see the passion project she’s been working on with her husband, Joseph Rein, come to fruition with the launch of an athleisure range in Ireland and the US. What’s really extraordinary about this woman is the drive, determination and fearlessness she’s shown since she bagged her first babysitting job at 13.

Crop top, €360; bicycle shorts, €108; leg warmers, €61; scarf, €222; bag, €3,000

If you’ve ever wondered what it takes to succeed in the US fashion capital, Weber’s background gives a valuable insight. From Rathfarnham in Dublin, she grew up the eldest of three and was raised by a single mother, who she describes as a “strong woman and creative thinker”.

Throughout Weber’s years at Loreto High School Beaufort and NCAD, Weber held down part-time jobs as well as babysitting gigs (22 to be exact) to fund herself. Towards the end of her first year at college, she suffered what she describes as a “horrific car accident” at the intersection of the Luas line and St Stephen’s Green in Dublin. She was left in a wheelchair temporarily, and the damage caused to her neck and back prevented her from completing her final-term project, causing her to miss out on a place in the fashion degree course she desperately wanted. Despite feeling “distraught”, she studied for a degree in textiles at the college instead and excelled.

She specialised in embroidery, and at age 22, Weber landed in New York with no contacts, no job and no place to stay besides the three nights she’d booked in a hostel. She arrived at 2pm, dumped her bags, went straight to the Garment District and had a job by 5pm.

Within 12 weeks she had been promoted twice, and within two-and-a-half years, she was company VP. Today, she is her own boss and her 18-month-old atelier is the go-to place for embellishments and embroidery for global brands from Altuzarra to Thom Browne. That’s some trajectory for a woman of only 30.

She describes her involvement in the First Lady’s inauguration outfit as “humbling”. “To have contributed to a moment in history, and to have followed in the footsteps of Irish icons like Sybil Connolly, who dressed Jackie Kennedy, is incredible.”

Weber credits her achievements to a strong work ethic. “I’ve never been afraid of hard work,” she tells me. “I’ve always been first into the office and last to leave, and taking responsibility has always felt very natural to me.”

Top, €360; sunglasses, €160

Writer, philosopher and activist Simone de Beauvoir once said: “There is something in the New York air that makes sleep useless.” I think this must be true as I reflect on Weber’s daily routine. She rises at 5am to exercise in Central Park, works on her athleisure range until 8am, walks to the studio of LW Pearl Atelier where she manages a team of skilled craftspeople before returning home and refocusing on her athleisure venture from 9pm until midnight.

Weber is not fazed by the pace of life in New York. In fact, she buzzes off the energy and sense of urgency the city exudes, and this is in part what prompted her and her husband to spend the past five years developing a luxury lifestyle range. “Life is fast here. One minute you’re working out and literally the next, you’re on a Zoom call. This collection of separates works, whatever you’re doing throughout the day.” The range includes everything from leggings and cropped tops to a quilted coat, sunglasses and scarves in luxury fabrics like washed jerseys, double-faced satins and crepes.

Couture embroidery to everyday athleisure wear might seem like an unlikely leap, but for Weber the two go hand in hand. “Yes, we make couture, but we consider our athleisure brand to be luxury everyday wear. Similar to former Lanvin creative director Alber Elbaz, we understand women’s needs range, and we apply our couture design to the technical make of both everyday pieces and one-off creations.”

The concept of luxury athleisure wear is not new, nor is the idea of a lifestyle label that will take women from the school gates to a lunch date and beyond. But this range, which Weber has called LW Pearl Brand, is anchored around the often-ignored but very real fact that most women are not perfectly proportioned size 10s, 14s or 20s. It offers customers the opportunity to alter each piece to their specific measurements by way of strategically placed seams for easy tailoring. “I have super-wide hips and super-narrow ankles,” Weber tells me. “In New York, it’s really common to have your clothes tailored. I wanted our brand to easily allow for this, so that every woman gets her perfect fit.”

Weber and Rein, who have been married for four years, have done exhaustive amounts of research and analysis. “We’ve looked at every single sportswear brand out there. We’ve worked directly with a tech lab and our own mills on fabric design. We’ve performed rigorous testing — from colourfastness and four-way-stretch to absorption and performance — and we’ve sent samples to everyone from sportspeople, skiers, runners and yogi, to regular moms and teens to receive as wide-ranging feedback as possible.”

Coat, €1,607; beanie, €90; sunglasses, €160

Weber is as passionate about conscious production and traceability as she is about fit and silhouette. “We have confidence in every thread, process and person,” she explains. “Making is expensive,” she adds, “and we pay our craftspeople a salary that’s appropriate to the 30 years’ experience they bring with them.” The collection is pitched at the midpoint of the luxury market — above higher-end of the highstreet brands but below highfashion houses. A pair of leggings will set you back €139; knitted cropped tops, €360; a beanie, €90; sunglasses, €160; an embellished leather hold-all, €3,000; and a padded below-the-knee coat, €1,607. The last is Weber’s favourite piece from the collection — she’s been wearing the sample every day — because it offers three-way functionality.

“So often here, it’s freezing when you first leave the house in the morning but sunny later in the day, so we designed the quilted coat to have three layers,” she explains. “It has a removable inner lining, a quilter and an outer waterproof lining, so you can wear all three together or remove one or two of those elements if it’s cold but not wet or vice versa.” This 3-in-1 design certainly softens the €1,000-plus price tag a little.

The jackets and sweatshirts also have removable linings and are crushable for easy storage. It seems Weber and Rein have thought of everything, not least of which is the aesthetic of the brand. The separates are mostly navy — a far more flattering option for most skin tones than black — with accents of blue, pink and white peppered throughout the accessories. It’s chic, modern and understated, with slick design details that imbue it with a premium feel.

Weber is fortunate in that her Dominican-born, New York-bred husband was a financial analyst before choosing celebrity couture instead — he manages an atelier that works on speciality gowns for occasions such as the Met Gala and couture fashion week. She understands fully the value his previous experience brings to the business.

Their collection will be delivered in “slow but regular drops” and shipping will be directly out of Ireland for Irish and European customers. The designer explains that items will be targeted at different age groups and body types. “You can’t create one item and expect it to work for every single customer. Not every garment in the range will suit every woman, but there will be pieces that will work for each and every one.” Ironically, by creating a collection that doesn’t take a blanket approach to design, Weber is actually accommodating a wider audience.

Weber’s approach to this passion project has been as thorough and exhaustive as the intricate beading on Jill Biden’s inauguration evening outfit. She strikes me as a curious mix of impulsivity and restraint; she’s not afraid to take leaps of faith or to jump in feet first, but she knows exactly when level-headedness and steadfastness are what’s required. When I ask about the significance of the brand name, LW Pearl, she explains that the initials stand for Laura Weber, but the word Pearl was chosen because: “You have to deep dive to find something special.”

At a time when consumers value authenticity over and above anything, Weber has hit just the right note with this athleisure collection. Beauty, utility, sustainability, traceability and longevity — each box is ticked. We may all have had our fill of loungewear this lockdown, but LW Pearl Brand feels like a label perfect for a positive and uplifting, post-pandemic world.

Originally published in the Sunday Independent Life magazine, April 2021