Eckhaus Latta Opens a New Lower East Side Store Designed to Evolve

A store built to stay unfinished

A day before opening, Eckhaus Latta’s new Lower East Side shop still had scuffed floors and dressing room curtains on the way. That’s more than opening-day chaos: for Mike Eckhaus and Zoe Latta, the store is meant to evolve rather than arrive as a polished, final statement. At 27 Ludlow Street, the designers joked about the exposed changing rooms and last-minute clothing racks. “It’s a new concept,” Eckhaus said, likening the setup to a Barneys Warehouse Sale. Latta recalled that they’d only decided to hang clothes ten minutes earlier. The scene is scrappy, but it fits a business that has built its identity around creative independence and a hands-on relationship with retail.

That looseness is part of the appeal of Eckhaus Latta. As the label approaches 15 years in business, it has added high-profile collaborations with Mango and J.Crew, while its runway shows have grown more refined. Yet the designers have kept the restless energy of a small independent label. Eckhaus once described them as a “geriatric independent small brand”—a joke that also captures their resistance to acting like a corporate fashion house. The new shop is their third major retail chapter. They opened a Los Angeles store in 2016, where Latta lives, then a New York location in a Chinatown mall in 2018, near Eckhaus’s home base. That neighborhood has since shifted from small art galleries toward vintage retail; Latta says secondhand Eckhaus Latta was even appearing in a neighboring window. The move to Ludlow Street reflects the brand’s growth, but it also solves a practical problem. Latta found the space through a friend of a friend earlier this year. The pair first saw it on the morning of their February 2026 fall show and signed the lease in August. A six-week buildout followed. The new premises offer more than twice the selling space of the old shop and bring retail, the design studio, archive storage, a photo studio, and stockroom together. “It’s our epicenter,” Latta said: the move consolidates seven separate leases into one.

The renovation had to turn a space never used as a street-facing shop into one, which meant plumbing and electrical work as well as interior design. Eckhaus and Latta drew on people already woven into their working lives: fit model Camilla Deterre managed the project, Latta’s childhood friend Emma Price worked on interiors, and Sophie Stone handled flowers and sculptural rugs made from painted rope and cardboard. Latta says these collaborators are trained professionals as well as friends. The process included group debates over individual rugs, with decisions emerging from several points of view rather than one fixed design brief. The finished plan covers 940 square feet of shop, with ceiling-hung rails, a cash register, dressing rooms, and standing racks. Behind it, a 700-square-foot studio gets daylight from a skylight. Pale yellow walls and creamy gray floors use Farrow & Ball’s New White and Lamp Room Gray; friend David Lê sourced the furniture, including an ottoman topped with brushed shearling from Latta’s hometown of Santa Cruz. The store was due to open the morning after its launch party. But the point, the designers suggest, is not to freeze the space at opening. They expect to rearrange it as their needs change. Even the silver-painted cinder-block facade, rough stones and weathered air-conditioning units included, makes a case for character over polish.

Growth, with a neighborhood’s fingerprints

The silver-painted cinder-block facade looks rough around the edges, but Eckhaus and Latta now see it as part of the neighborhood’s story. They once considered replacing it; the cost is high, and there’s no urgency. They’ll wait until the time feels right—or until they’re tired of it. That patience reflects a wider shift in how the label is growing. Latta already works beside the Los Angeles shop; Eckhaus will now do the same. Latta can hear customers’ reactions from the dressing room, and says that direct feedback helps the team understand what people respond to. “I can chase people out of the store,” Eckhaus jokes. The response to their latest collection has been strongly positive, with some calling it a New York Fashion Week highlight. Latta says they feel supported. More tangible, though, is the growth in direct-to-consumer sales. In a volatile industry, keeping more of the business under their own control matters. They’re ready for bigger steps, but haven’t defined exactly what those will be. Latta says the label is seeking investment; Eckhaus adds, “Email us!” That’s an unusually candid ending—and a reminder that the next phase of growth will depend on finding the right backing, as much as on the collection’s reception.