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When Sander Lak closed his label Sies Marjan in 2020, he decided to fulfil his original childhood dream, moved to LA and began writing a screenplay. But when he worked on a book about Sies Marjan with publisher Rizzoli three years later, it reignited his love for fashion. And so, he put his film ambitions on pause, secured (undisclosed) angel investment, and this month, launched his eponymous brand, Sanderlak. It’s a contemporary label, more casual than Sies Marjan, and while it will debut this week at Paris Fashion Week Men’s, it’s not specifically for men or women (just don’t call it unisex).
Lak had a nomadic childhood, growing up across the Middle East and Europe, but the designer is synonymous with New York fashion. He launched Sies Marjan in 2016 after holding design roles at Dries Van Noten and Phillip Lim, with funding from billionaire investors Howard and Nancy Marks, quickly becoming a bright spot on the New York Fashion Week calendar (not least because of his adept use of bright colours). He was stocked across the world at the likes of Mytheresa, Net-a-Porter and Nordstrom, and won the CFDA Award in 2018, after just two years in business. But after pandemic-related challenges, including heavy exposure at shuttered retailer Barneys, the brand closed in 2020.
And now, Lak’s back, five years older and with a fresh outlook on how to run a fashion business. Sanderlak feels more everyday than Sies Marjan’s gowns and tailoring. The first collection is based on Los Angeles, where Lak has spent much time over the last five years. And as the business is based in New York, but produced in Portugal, Sanderlak will be creatively nomadic, taking inspiration from a specific place each season. For the LA collection, Lak worked solely with local talent and creatives to develop the lookbook, with casting director Anita Bitton. He will apply these rules going forward, to root each collection in a given locale.
Lak announced his return last week with a Vogue interview, which secured the brand plenty of buyer appointments in its Paris showroom on Friday, before he even dropped the lookbook. He then released the 51-look lookbook on Monday, featuring pink denim separates, blue and brown shearling, buttery yellow sweat suits and swirls of pastel hues that evoke the early moments of an LA sunset.
Ahead of his appointments with the wider industry, Vogue Business sat down with Lak to understand how he’s evolved as a business founder, and how he feels this proposition is filling white space, even in a saturated industry.
Vogue: Sander, congratulations on the launch of Sanderlak! It’s been five years. What led you back to fashion?
While making the book with Rizzoli about Sies Marjan I kind of felt that that love [for fashion] coming back, not necessarily for my own work, but the love for the craft of making clothes and putting worlds together; telling stories. I was working on telling stories with words for a while, working on my film. But suddenly, I started thinking about fashion again in that way. I was like, ‘Let me jump back in.’
Vogue: So how did you jump back in? Where did you start?
[After Sies Marjan] I’d closed all doors. I’d told all the recruiters, ‘For a couple of years, I’m not interested. Don’t come to me. I’m doing something else.’ When I opened that door again, there were all these jobs, you know, with the creative director spinning wheel. So I was doing that for a second, and then I was like, ‘There’s something that doesn’t feel right.’
Vogue: So you were applying to be the creative director of a house?
I was up for [some roles]. It’s an amazing opportunity for anyone creative to be able to do something on a platform that already exists, and spin it your own way. But I just didn’t think that was how I wanted to return. I really felt that if I wanted to make a return, it had to be under my own name, on my own terms, in a system that makes sense to me.
Vogue: So that’s when you landed on launching Sanderlak?
Yeah, I’ve always been very entrepreneurial, and I realised that’s what makes sense to me. When I look back at my own experiences with Sies Marjan and before that, with Dries Van Noten and Phillip Lim, and even a little experience at Marc Jacobs, it made me realise I want to build something — not from scratch because I’m not straight out of college, but from the beginning. It really was a fork in the road that I was about to green light my movie, and then I was like, ‘You know what, I think if I don’t do this now, I might just miss the opportunity.’
Vogue: I know that in order to launch the label, you secured angel investment. How did you find that process?
The process was really interesting. I had to really be entrepreneurial and convince people that this is not just investing in somebody who can make a nice pair of pants, this is also investing in an opportunity that can be really fruitful and will grow into something really impactful.
Vogue: Why do you think it is an opportunity? What white space do you think Sanderlak will fill in the industry?
On one hand, it is a really strange time to start something new, because the industry is in such a fragile position. But how I see it is really the other way around: I think customers have been a little bit overexposed to really big [brands] that have shoved a lot of stuff in their faces, and I think there is something quite interesting about the idea of being a smaller, independently functioning boat in between those big cruise ships. You can maneuver around a little bit easier. It’s something people feel they are discovering, and it’s not something that everyone else wears, or that you can buy at any airport.
Vogue: Do you feel that you’ll also attract former Sies Marjan customers?
A lot of the investors I spoke to said there is that kind of sweet spot, since Sies Marjan closed, that the gap was not really filled by anyone. It’s not that I am filling that gap with Sanderlak; I’m doing something different. But obviously, that is a legacy I left behind. And to this day, I hear from people at The RealReal, or just random people who love the brand, that they still can’t replace some of the things we did there. So there’s a proof of concept. That made it a little bit easier.
Vogue: Of course, this is your second turn as a founder. What lessons have you taken from Sies Marjan when it comes to running a business?
It’s just one ginormous learning curve. One thing is, as the founder of a bigger brand, you don’t really deal with the smaller things. It’s really nice to be able to jump back in and go back to basics. I’m directly Whatsapping the factory in Portugal. I’m saying, ‘This [piece] is not working out, let’s try this other fabric,’ whereas before [at Sies Marjan] I would have had a team of people giving me the end result. Now, I catch mistakes or issues really quickly, because it doesn’t go through a team of 10 people. It’s ironic that the fewer people, the quicker these things go, because there aren’t all the miscommunications that can happen. It actually just comes directly to me.
Vogue: Will you continue to sort of stay involved in those decisions, even if things do scale to the size that Sies Marjan scaled to?
I mean, obviously we are going to grow to that size and beyond. And where there is a reality of growth, there’s a reality that at some point there are things that you cannot take on. This year, a lot of that work could be done because we weren’t doing anything externally in terms of PR or sales. Now, that is shifting, but I do want to keep communicating with the factory. When it comes down to it, it is all about the making of the product. I want to keep that really close, because if not, it’s like a chef not actually cooking the food. Like, at some point, are you still a chef?
Vogue: You’ve mentioned the brand isn’t strictly menswear. Why did you decide to hold appointments in Paris during menswear?
It just makes sense to launch in the place where a lot of the buyers are going to be. We need to be smart with how we allocate our budget. Of course, it would be great to have several showrooms, and probably in the near future we’ll be able to do something bigger. But right now, it was like, ‘If we only do one thing, if we only set up one showroom, where would it make the most sense?’
So we will be present on the men’s calendar, twice a year. We will then have capsule collections and collaborations that are completely off-calendar. I want us to be flexible and fluid with how we do things. But when it comes to the wholesale calendar, you know, that is relatively set in stone, so we also wanted to be respectful to that.
Vogue: Is the goal to scale wholesale first, or are you also interested in selling direct-to-consumer (DTC)? What kind of balance do you want to strike?
We’re doing both. A healthy balance eventually would be 50-50. You need wholesale for starting a business. You need [customer] eyeballs and hands touching the fabrics and the garments. And I have a really great relationship with all the best stores from all of my experience with Sies Marjan.
But on the other hand, it’s also really important to have a DTC channel where we can communicate purely in our own interest. It’s a great place to test things and say, ‘OK, this is a really fucking weird idea, but why don’t we make a few of these, see what happens?’
Vogue: I want to talk about the nomadic model, where you’re going to be inspired by a certain location each season. How are you going to communicate that with consumers and buyers, and get them on board with this idea? It’s quite a unique approach.
It’s a really unique business model. I mean, the first version of the business model, included actually being a nomadic company, moving operations from one one place to the next. I really crunched the numbers, but it was a bit of a fantasy. It was too complicated.
All of the rules that we set up [like only using local talent] are also tools that we can use to communicate, so we can talk about the LA-based talents in the lookbook, for example. And in the selling process, there’s a lot of activities we can do, partnering with local talent, local stores. The ambitions are very big. Some things might not work, and you know, that’s great. We’re a small company. We can also just try [another model]. But my instinct, my gut, is telling me that we’re on the right path.
Vogue: And you say you’re a small company, how big is the team?
I won’t disclose how big the team is, but it’s big enough for us to function.
Vogue: The price point is lower than typical luxury, and lower than Sies Marjan, what led to that decision?
I’m thinking about myself as a customer, and what prices I believe in, and knowing what it takes to make clothes. And there’s something about some of the prices in the market right now that I just don’t believe in, as a customer, so I wanted to be respectful to that. Obviously, it’s very hard to control your pricing, because it all has to do with how you make things, where you make things, what you make them with. And so we worked really hard to find the right balance of keeping quality, making sure that it is an elevated product.
Vogue: You’re starting showroom appointments today, but what’s the response been to the launch so far?
It’s been really crazy. We announced, two weeks ago, without showing anything, and the showroom is almost completely booked up with appointments, so nobody had seen anything. Now, the collection is out. It’s starting to circulate, and we’re starting to get more appointments. I’m really happy to see some familiar names and stores, ones that I don’t know or have never worked with, you know, some that I’ve always wanted to work with but never have. I mean, the expectations are high.
Vogue: Your launch strategy is interesting. You did an interview with Vogue, then dropped the lookbook digitally, and now you’re doing appointments. Was there kind of a strategy behind doing things in this sequence?
It was important to reintroduce myself to people, and remind people of what I’ve done before, then show the new thing. It worked, because people got really excited. And now the collection is out, and it’s already really going a little bit crazy on my phone, the sales and PR teams are scrambling.
Vogue: You took five years away. How do you feel like you’ve changed as a brand founder in that time?
Things do happen for a reason. I believe there was a real shedding of expectations and ego, and, you know, all of those things that come with success and that come with running something in a creative industry that people find exciting, it feeds some of your demons as well. I felt like I ended Sies Marjan on a high. Then, I needed to refocus my energy. I’ve mentioned going back to basics in the business, with the factory. There was also something really beautiful about going back to basics in my life and not being in the endless rat race. Now that I’m jumping back into that rat race, I feel like a healthy person going into it — and I know where my limitations are, I know what is real. There’s been a lot of growth.
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