office sat down with brand founder and designer, Lottie, to get a sneak peak at the new SS22 collection and discuss what it means to take a stand for better practices in the fashion industry.
LOTI is Peruvian made and LA based — how do you reconcile these two identities and backgrounds?
I would actually add a third identity, which is Italian — so I think it's three identities. Peru has inspired me in a lot of the social aspects, as well as how I kind of wanted to structure the brand. Because, of course, there's a design side, but a brand can stand for so much more than that, which is why I decided I wanted to make everything in Peru, in order to create jobs. Honestly, it's not only to create jobs, it's to connect with the community there as well. I'm meeting so many new people that I'm so impressed by and there's so much talent there. My heart gets a little more full the more work I do — there's an indescribable feeling of working with Peruvian people. I moved to the United States when I was 15, so I am at this point where in the United States, I am Peruvian and in Peru I am American. I feel like a lot of people have this identity crisis. But I think it translates into the brand positively. Living in California has opened me up to wearing brighter colors and to experimenting a little bit more with my style. There are definitely subcultures and subgroups in Latin American countries that allow people to explore their identity more through fashion, but it's not something that I personally grew up with in Peru. Fitting in and looking like the others was definitely 'better.' So as a person that really loved fashion, that was kind of difficult at times. But now there's much less of that. And again, there are these subgroups, especially the people that I'm meeting in Peru through the brand, which has brought me so much closer to understanding the big picture of Peru. Growing up in Lima was a bubble. So through LOTI, I'm getting to know Peru better.
I love that this collection is all about embracing comfort. How do you feel about the current tide of the industry moving toward more casual wear becoming the norm?
I mean, personally, I love it. I just think for designers, it's so important to be aware of the times and the culture and what's happening around us. Of course, these past two years, a lot has happened. So staying aware is really important. I mean, if you look at history, this is always happening. You can tell a lot of what is going on in the world by how people were dressed, which I love. So that's coming into play here now. I took it a step further and I went back to looking at a lot of my vintage nightwear pieces, which this collection is inspired by. I am a big vintage collector, so I have a lot of these gorgeous pieces. And, of course, the materials that I upcycle, which are made of 100% cotton — the super breezy and crisp quality lends itself well to this kind of style. Effortless has always been a word that I've used to vet my design process, and for this collection, we added the qualities of elegant and comfortable too. Those three characteristics were really important for this collection.
It definitely looks like everything has that effortless, cool vibe to it. You talked about upcycling materials, which was a big draw to the brand, for me. Why was incorporating sustainability integral to you when creating LOTI?
To be completely honest, if I didn't figure out exactly the kind of positive impact that I wanted my brand to make, I wouldn't have started it at all. I personally care a lot about textile waste reduction. I think that comes from being from Peru. Peru is one of the countries that clothing just gets dumped to. You know, here in America, we say, 'Oh, we're donating. We're giving it away,' but there's no such thing as 'away;' clothes don't just disappear. They go to countries like Peru. So I see it in my country and then also through working in the industry here, we would go thrifting a lot and vintage shopping for inspiration samples. When I used to work in corporate fashion here in LA, that exposed me to seeing the sheer quantities of volume that gets thrown away. So I knew I wanted to tackle textile waste reduction. The sustainability umbrella is huge. And I actually think it only works when a brand is focusing on one or two aspects — a couple of things that they can do really well. If not, it's not actually moving the needle or making an impact. So we are an upcycling design studio. That's what I call the brand because we're also an education platform for the general textile waste crisis. How do we do better with our clothes and our choices regarding the fashion industry?