Sensible Chic

Lafayette 148's Edward Wilkerson, Flying Below the Stratosphere and Above the Norm

NEW YORK Designer Edward Wilkerson has suppressed his ego in exchange for success.

In a fashion industry that produces $200 T-shirts without embarrassment and describes Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen as the ideal customers, Wilkerson is contentedly democratic, blatantly unpretentious and proudly price-sensitive -- although his clothes are by no means cheap.

Wilkerson, a veteran of Anne Klein, Calvin Klein and Donna Karan, designs for Lafayette 148. In the fashion hierarchy, Lafayette 148 is a bridge collection, which means that it's situated -- by price and aesthetic -- below all the flashy designer labels that peddle an esoteric sensibility at restrictively high prices. The company doesn't mount splashy runway shows or rely on elaborate advertising campaigns. Wilkerson does not make jackets with padded humps, advocate that a woman wear 10 layers of clothing at once, or encourage a businesswoman's daydreams of being a rock star.

Yet Lafayette 148 is more expensive than the mass-market sportswear produced by merchants who strive to appease the lowest common denominator and little else. Wilkerson does not design bland boxy jackets, matchy-matchy separates and cookie-cutter dresses that camouflage a figure rather than enhance it.

Lafayette 148 is solidly in fashion's middle ground -- a place that has a reputation for businesslike, but boring, frocks. Wilkerson argues that clothes for working women don't have to be dull.

"Bridge has been underrated. It's not supposed to be considered fashionable," Wilkerson says. "But we have a fashion business."

The high-end fashion market typically hurtles forward in pursuit of the next trend and will often recklessly declare a fad stale long before customers have grown tired of it. Lafayette 148 pays attention to trends, but it sets itself apart from fancy houses by its willingness to pause so it does not outpace its customers in a zeal to produce something new and fresh. The company will give customers what they want, even if what they desire is several seasons old.

"What a lot of people in fashion don't understand is people outside New York are about five years behind," Wilkerson says. "Fashion doesn't turn as fast as we pretend."

If, for instance, a woman is obsessed with a pair of trousers that are no longer in the collection but that the company still has the capacity to produce, it will do so for a fee of approximately $30. And if enough customers start asking for those trousers, the company will simply return them to the line. In most companies, particularly high-end ones, old designs are not revisited, no matter how much a customer pleads. Designer Isaac Mizrahi, for instance, once noted that customers adored a particular pair of pants in his line. But he discontinued them because he was bored.

Wilkerson strives to dress as many shapes and sizes of women as possible. So in addition to producing a line of clothing that ranges from size 0 to 16 -- a spread worth noting because so many prestige design houses stop cutting at size 12 -- the company also manufacturers petite and plus sizes. Even most bridge lines, which are aimed at a mainstream customer, typically don't offer such a broad range of sizes. (Lafayette 148 is the best-selling label in Salon Z, the plus-size department at Saks Fifth Avenue.)

For some designers, this wide sweep of sizes would pose an image problem. Many designers like to envision their customers as some version of a professionally slender model, preternaturally stunning actress or moneyed socialite. Wilkerson is not so narrow -- or delusional -- in his focus. Working for a bridge label, he can't be.

"Edward says that he wants to dress all women," says Deirdre Quinn, company president. "The large-size customer really appreciates what Edward can do for them."