Inside Lafayette 148’s newly opened Los Angeles location, you’ll find several nods to its New York City origins in SoHo. Those include a credenza by artist and designer Tyler Hays, who founded the New York furniture company BDDW, custom wallpaper embossed with the brand’s staple L beam logo and, for the next month, a multimedia installation from New York-based photographer Sophie Elgort.
The 2,267-square-foot boutique, located on Brighton Way in Beverly Hills, is the current home to Elgort’s just-debuted “Away We Go” exhibition, a collection of double-exposed analog images spawned by photos she captured on a point-and-shoot film camera while attending a friend’s wedding in Italy last summer. Not realizing she’d already shot the roll of film currently in her camera, Elgort reloaded the film and shot again. The resulting images, which she considers a “happy accident,” were surprisingly pleasing to Elgort’s expert eye, leading her to then intentionally capture a series of double-exposed photos during later travels throughout Cinque Terre and Hawaii.
“The way that I shoot these photos is kind of like I’m on a vacation because I can let go a little bit and let something happen,” Elgort explains. “It’s almost like a present at the end when I get the pictures back. I don’t know what I’m going to get.”
The large-scale images from the body of work seen in Lafayette 148’s storefront window and along its bright beige walls feature tropical pink flowers over travelers wetting their feet in the ocean, laying under orange and green striped umbrellas on a sandy beach, and diving into crystal blue waters.
Sophie Elgort’s photograph ‘Cinque Terre Jump’
Sophie Elgort
The photos complement the brand’s pre-fall 2023 collection, which includes a signature postcard print crafted by creative director Emily Smith that draws influence from vintage postcards.
The exhibition first went on display in the clothier’s flagship SoHo store on May 11 when the print was launched with a line of apparel blending the functional aspects of postal uniforms with the carefree nature of summer wardrobe pieces before it was brought to the Beverly Hills boutique.
The natural integration of her photography with Lafayette 148’s clothing designs speaks to the brand’s ethos of embracing artistry in all forms, Elgort says. “They’re thoughtful about giving a platform to artists to show their own work versus asking them to just create something for their brand. I’m really honored and grateful that they let me have this opportunity.”
Lafayette 148 has been worn by such stars as Viola Davis, Zoe Saldaña, Julia Roberts and Helen Mirren and by current First Lady Jill Biden and former First Lady Michelle Obama.
Lafayette 148’s Postcards Print cashmere sweater ($798) and pintuck skirt ($898)
Lafayette 148