Herb Sundays 147: Zoe Latta
The Eckhaus Latta co-founder gets sad: "sometimes I would take the "best" (saddest) songs and gate keep them for myself.. this is an attempt to compile those songs, and share them this time around.”
Herb Sundays 146: Zoe Latta
Playlist: Apple Music, Spotify
Art by Michael Cina
“I'm not trying to be a downer, but now seems like a time we could all use some catharsis, and driving around and listening to heartbreakingly sad music is the most direct way for me to do that.
I have always loved sad music. Maybe it's genetic but some of my earliest memories are driving the cliffs with my dad in his beat-up convertible blasting Tori Amos and not saying a word.... after he died a few years ago, I went to make a playlist for his memorial and he had already made one by virtue of all of his recently played music on Spotify was just that - music for a funeral.
When I was in High School in the early 2000s in Santa Cruz, there was a radio show on the local college radio station at 7am on Wednesdays called "Toaster in the Bathtub." It was the saddest music in the whole wide world and accompanied my puberty hormones unlike anything else. My friends and I would tape the show and then make mixes, mostly from the music we heard there, occasionally from other albums we had bought.
This was such a loser thing to do, but sometimes I would take the "best" (saddest) song OFF of the mixes, and gate keep them for myself. Part of this playlist is an attempt to compile those songs, and share them this time around.” -Zoe Latta for Herb Sundays
From the bio:
is a fashion designer and co-founder of the innovative label Eckhaus Latta, which she established in 2011 with Mike Eckhaus. Known for her experimental approach to design, Latta creates garments that challenge conventional aesthetics by incorporating unconventional materials, textures, and silhouettes. Her work often blurs the line between art and fashion, earning recognition for its inclusivity and avant-garde appeal. Zoe studied textile design at the Rhode Island School of Design alongside her co-founder, where she cultivated a deep interest in sustainable practices and experimental fabric techniques. This background is reflected in Eckhaus Latta's use of handcrafted and recycled materials, making the brand a pioneer in eco-conscious high fashion. She writes on Subtack under .
It’s helpful to look at other industries and vocations for inspiration and to find other ways of doing things. Sometimes, you realize these nearby but alternate universes have ways of approaching decisions similar to your own or have collectively found pathways for communication you may struggle with. The nice thing about growing up is that my envy to do any of these romantic jobs (film director, fashion designer, etc.) has greatly diminished with time. I now realize that everything cool is about 2.5x harder than you’d expect to execute.
I don’t own any Eckhaus Latta (“a contemporary sportswear brand”, Latta has said) items/pieces but have always kept an eye on the brand. The campaigns, the art direction, and just the general tastefulness of it all have been inspiring to see. The Eckhaus Latta appeal to a fashion outsider is that is feels like it is being led by a tight-knit community of artists, models, muses (Hari Nef, Chloe Wise, etc), and the like, or asort of a pre-pandemic idea of Dimes Square (pre-meme), or a cool kid circle of people who actually make things. Their choice of design and music collaborators was perhaps what caught me first. Sound. Designer (graphic and the like) Eric Wrenn is an acquaintance I met through Jakub Alexander, aka Heathered Pearls years ago and is now the “best designer you don’t know about” working with firms and brands like Bode, Helmut Lang, Martine Rose, Supreme, Peter Marino, and maintaining a long-time run at Eckhaus Latta.
Or, as Alex Vadakul wrote for the New York Times: “As Bode was becoming the men’s wear brand of the moment, Mr. Wrenn remade its logo into something spare yet punchy. And when the gender-fluid fashion brand Eckhaus Latta was barely known, he started an enduring creative collaboration with its founders….The invitations he designed for one of the brand’s early runway shows were printed on Ziploc bags. He went on to direct nearly all their campaigns, including the provocative ads featuring photos by Heji Shin of couples actually having sex.”
If real people in flagrante in marketing it makes you a little uncomfortable, it should, and that’s prob the idea, but what it also shows is how loyal and passionate the community is that allows this dance to happen. The company is not a shock brand however, it is something more subversive, leaning on the intelligence of its audience to pick up on its signals and signifiers. The print media and visual/audio materials add a layer of character and depth around their work, everything is everything.
Indeed, for a kid from Michigan in the mid-late ‘90s I wasn’t steeped in fashion, but having an older sister meant some magazines I would check out, and I got the bug for mainstream fashion ads somewhere around 1996 when I started to look at them for an aesthetic rush, or something to pick up signals from. Hip-Hop had a full-blown affair with luxury right at the moment too, so I was learning about brands from records.
As taste windows, fashion advertising was a perfect invitation, a speechless meditation, just like record sleeves. Tom Ford was a one-shot inspiraiton for me, him being very ham-fisted with his Le Corbusier and Marcel Breuer meets Studio 54 thing, it was exciting as a taste world you could explore, and when paired with his deeply quotable interviews, it was very “record label” to me in a way I can now explain better. At the same time, the Glen Luchford shot 1996-1998 campaigns for Prada (some of which Idea Books (Herb 103 / 104) published in 2020, Herb ) showed an equally fantastic but more subtle feeling. It helped me understand what the marketing of these brands was essentially about, creating atmosphere, and how subtle creative decisions could change the whole mood around a company. As an adult, I, of course, also see the flaws, including the industry stories, as well as the deepening of the body issues and the model whitewashing in a lot of this stuff, but as a teen hit, it was exciting and something I hadn’t seen before.
As a sonic space, Eckhaus Latta has either dressed, walked, or commissioned some of my fave musicians and artists including a lot of Herb Sundays guests including artists have recorded for past including Ethel Cain (Herb 12), Okay Kaya (Herb 73), Laurel Halo (Herb 134), Martine Syms (Herb 68), Loren Kramar (who they are hosting at their store today in fact, Demdikestare, Mary Lattimore, John Roberts, Doss, AG Cook, Colin Self, Dev Hynes, DJ Richard, James K, Caroline Polacheck, Kelela, and the late SOPHIE amongst many other. A roster that would put most arts orgs or labels to shame.
In 2019, Laurel Halo spoke to Vogue about their budding partnership:
Eckhaus and Latta gave Halo a preview of the collection in their workshop a few days before the show for inspiration and hand-picked some of Halo’s more free-form, textured songs for reference. “They also sent me footage of an Alexander McQueen for Givenchy haute couture runway show, which had a beautifully intense, passionate score,”
Every transmission from the house is a reflexive moment, a reference or a chance to dig in. As
’s writes about their snap bag launch, which made me think about the photography of ADULT.”s Nicola Kuperas:“Or is the bag good because I love the campaign so much? The visuals are strong. The bulk of the campaign is shot on a white seamless that features a hand in a brutal black leather glove that holds the bag three different ways. First, the hand models the burnt sienna bag like a lady; the hand is raised in an old-school Dorian Leigh pose with the fingers lightly holding the strap. Light as air! The brown bag is held upside down, a smart reminder that a zipper is on the inside. Finally, there’s a brutal grasp where the hand grips the green and black bag’s strap. The hand squeezes it. Strangles the bag shut. It’s almost like the bag is gasping for its last breath…The campaign is reminiscent of accessory ads when visuals were product-first.”
In an interview with Erin at
(Jonah is Herb 77), they are humble about their influence and being early on trends that are integral to their world now:Blackbird Spyplane: You started using deadstock materials 10+ years ago, and started doing “gender-neutral” clothing when you launched. What are you doing right now that people will catch onto 10 years from now?
Mike Eckhaus: “I have no idea, because everything you mentioned, we were doing out of necessity. ‘Gender neutral’ has become a sensitive thing for us, though. There are things we make that definitely fit that description, but —”
Zoe Latta: “We’re definitely not here to say that all of our clothes are fit off of a gender-neutral form. I think that’s an impossible act — or, like, from a patterning perspective, it would just mean oversized baby clothes. For us it’s more about cross-dressing fluidity, experimentation regardless of gender.”
I admire their consistent push, and their interview with
is a great look into how they think and how the brand acts, one foot in front of the other. But no matter how good you look, you need some sad music to feel bad about yourself, here and there, and Zoe delivered the goods—over-delivered even.Bonus Beats:
New updates to recent faves, new and old, playlist, Perpetual Dawn.
New on Ghostly: Melbourne’s beloved HTRK (“hate rock” but they are lovely) is back with a new 2-tracker, bridging their Australian summer to ours, gliding on the infinite void. Also on Perpetual Dawn.
Revisit HTRK co-founder Jonnine Standish’s Herb Sundays 30 mix, a real beauty.
New on drink sum wtr: The return of Yaya Bey, in a Soca mood.
Yaya also plays tonight at Big Ears Festival. Get familiar with Queens native Bey, an incredible artist. Added on Perpetual Dawn.
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Deliriously into this...
All hail Zoe!!!