In 2016, La Ligne was founded as both a product of and a precursor to the increasingly rapid trend cycle. Though Instagram was only a fraction of the behemoth that it is now, and TikTok had yet to launch, then-Vogue editors Meredith Melling and Valerie Macaulay, in addition to Molly Howard, Rag & Bone’s former head of business development, had already set their sights on developing a modern uniform for the kinds of busy, social, and fashionable women who surrounded them.
Now, one decade and numerous brick-and-mortar locations later, La Ligne is celebrating its tenth anniversary with the Perfect 10 Anniversary collection. The edit—accompanied by a campaign starring Connie Britton—expands on each of the team’s “favorite” versions of core wardrobe items, including a relaxed-fit suit and a Big Lebowski-inspired robe updated from an early collection.
Below, Melling, Macaulay, and Howard reflect on what they’ve learned from running an independent brand, their cringe-worthy 2016 style choices, and how their woman has grown up right next to them.
Vogue: La Ligne was founded in 2016; this capsule celebrates a decade of design as an independent brand. Ten years in, what’s the biggest thing you’ve learned about running a fashion business?
Molly Howard: It was just so all-hands-on-deck, every single thing we did. We didn’t have the kind of team support that we have now, so we were all in every aspect of the business in a way that we can’t really be now. I think the biggest thing, which I knew to some extent from my prior work at Rag & Bone and everything else, was that such a vast majority of what makes a brand be successful or work is all the unglamorous stuff.
Photo: Zoe Grossman
What’s been the most rewarding aspect of it?
MH: It’s funny looking back at photos—it was just crazy. You know, behind the scenes at every photo shoot, at every trunk show, at every store opening. But the other thing I had so many photos of on my phone—whether I took it or friends took it and sent it—were photos of strangers on the street wearing La Ligne. You can feel a sense that you had a role to play in getting a person to wear this thing—taking their hard-earned money and walking into your store or ordering your product.
Meredith Melling: We have a La Ligne “in the wild” Slack channel—everyone on the team gets excited. But also, the era we launched in, 2016, was peak DTC, where everything was possible online and it almost seemed old-fashioned to want to open a store. When we finally opened a store in 2019 in New York City, that was such a big feeling, I could cry now.
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