Bode’s New E-Store Is a Window Into Her Magical Lockdown Greenhouse Studio
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Back at the beginning of March, as orders to shelter in place began being issued in cities around the world, Emily Bode was one of the lucky few who managed to be one step ahead. With her father working as a doctor, she had something of a heads-up on just how devastating the COVID-19 crisis was likely to be for New York City, and had already begun implementing the changes necessary to prepare herself and her team for an uncertain few months. “We shut down the store and got everyone situated to work from home, and then we flew to my fiancée’s family home in Vancouver Island for the foreseeable future,” she explains over the phone. “I’ve set up a studio here in his backyard greenhouse—although it’s not really like any ordinary greenhouse.”
That it certainly isn’t. With its charming mish-mash of antique objects hanging on the walls and shelves stuffed with books, it’s not only a dreamy creative set up, but one that holds strong sentimental value for Bode and her brand. For her fall 2018 show, which paid tribute to an ethnobotanist on Long Island she became friends with as a teenager thanks to his side hustle as a quilt dealer, there was a set featuring a full-scale recreation of this very greenhouse. “It’s a funny privilege to work in the greenhouse that inspired the show from such a pivotal point in the brand’s evolution,” she adds.
While Bode only launched her namesake label in 2016, her imaginative reworkings of heritage and antique textiles into hotly desirable jackets, shirts, and trousers have seen her become one of New York’s most talked-about menswear brands, tapping into fashion’s increasing prioritization of both ethical production and craft. Last year, she was awarded the CFDA Award for Emerging Designer of the Year, and she now counts stockists across 15 countries.
However, like many of her peers, Bode has been largely reliant on her own website and e-store, which is relaunching today with a limited-run summer collection to accompany it, to navigate the uncharted territory of the current pandemic.
The collection is inspired by her family’s ties to a 19th-century wagon-building workshop in Cincinnati, while the website itself, designed in collaboration with Eric Wrenn, neatly reflects Bode’s instinct for storytelling and is intended as something of a digital recreation of the greenhouse Bode is currently working out of.
“We spoke all together about coming up with a website that could capture the essence of the space, and we re also putting up unique items specific to this greenhouse that are one-of-a-kind,” Bode explains. “Then there’s the summer collection that is currently shipping to the stores who are allowing it, with the rest on hold until places reopen. So I ve been shooting the collection on the wall using an old hanger we found in Aaron s childhood home, and it’s all been quite experimental.”
