La' Studio ⨰ KAHLO | KAHLO

La Studio is the production house for our sustainable and ethical womenswear label.

Owner and dynamic creative director, Simone Ellis, opened La Studio four and half years ago as a part time gig between designing, making and showing her namesake Couture label at New York Fashion Week.

After meeting Simone, she quickly became a mentor and empowering light behind Kahlo Kahlo. Her experience and wealth of knowledge in the industry is an invaluable part of what she offers.

Her studio is a calming space. It is an atelier of Simone's creations, sewing machines, cutting tables and work stations. It truly is an inspirational and brilliantly curated space for all and exactly where we had envisioned our pieces to be crafted, with love. Simone employs and supports local seamstresses, many she has trained herself.

We wanted to share with you the origins of the production house and the future of the brand, with sustainability guiding our process. Working together with Simone and other creatives at La' Studio to nurture consciously made garments and showcase our designs collectively.

We interviewed Simone to understand the power that guides her and her passion for the craft. Here is where we too learn to appreciate the trans- formative power of the dress and the true value of the process.

Tell  us about La’ Studio, from its origins to becoming a manufacturing house and creative space.

La’ Studio started about 4 and a half years ago and is based in the Byron Bay Industry Estate - at first it was just my part time gig offering clothing alterations, bespoke dressmaking and Couture.  Then the schooling arm began to develop where I opened the workroom up to children on the weekends offering sewing lessons. Teaching is a big part of the business and now its time to produce lots of garments hence moving into small scale clothing production.

How do you imagine the intersection between fashion and sustainability? 

The sustainability movement is needed as we have to become more responsible and responsive to the Earth and also what our bodies need. There will be a great shift, but there is much to let go of first, is my feeling - The real Sustainability is when we design and create clothing from the only truly sustaining energy and that is from the Soul.

Could you give us a sneak insight into any immediate and future plans for La’ Studio?

La’ Studio is not just a production House, we are also a School teaching children, teens and adults the art of Sewing Fashion and Design. At La’ Studio we are breaking down the old stigma of being in competition and comparison with others, we are creating a hub where fashion designers call in to ask questions and resource La’ Studio.  Pattern Making is done with Absolute integrity knowing all garments made off  the patterns will hold that original quality.

La’ Studio will be also putting on future fashion shows and collaborative fashion shoots.  Watch this space for it is indeed expanding with so much magic.

-Simone Ellis in L’OFFICIEL magazine.

Do you have any daily mantras?  I don’t have a “mantra”, for me it is much deeper than saying a few words to myself over and over again….I know that the way I live is in every stitch that is sewn.  When you know this there is so much magic in how you make garments.  The more I am connected to myself when I work - The more present I am the greater the magic.

- Simone Ellis Couture show, NY Fashion Week, BTS

What music is moving through the studio for your good work vibes?  I don't listen to commercial Music or that of the Famous musicians - I am very selective and sensitive to the energy that flows through music so I choose to listen to music that is clear. One of my favourite musicians is Michael Benhayon.  How would you like to see the culture of the fashion industry change/ improve?

For me when I look out into our fashion industry it makes me feel not so great - We have an industry that is driven by false cycles, greed, emptiness and excessive over consumption of material products that are offering us nothing more than a distraction from how disconnected we feel on the inside.  This added with the influx of fashion designers caught up in the glamour of the industry with little to no understanding of the responsibility of creating garments that honour and confirm the essence of the being within, we have quite a mess - and it doesn’t stop there…. when we look even further there is only more rot to see.  The human slavery that is then employed to make the items we then wear on our bodies, paints a not so fashionable a picture but it is one that many are not willing to truly see and instead they fill their cupboards to overflowing with the misery that our Fashion Industry tries to hide.  

There has been some seemingly so called positive steps in sustainability and some major fashion houses like that of Georgio Armani making bold statements about making changes to the excessive showing seasons of collections and the production of them, but one thing I know deep within is that until we make our fashions about the energy that they are designed, made and sold there will be no real and true lasting change at hand.  So while these are indeed steps towards this need to also take that final step into energetic responsibility and energetic integrity and cease making garments that do not serve our humanity.  I know this is a bold paragraph but someone has to say it - we live in a world made of Energy and clothing is not separate from that fact.  

From birth to death we are clothed and fashion designers have an enormous responsibility when you look at fashion in this light.  This is very important and I would love to see the industry pull up its socks and begin to see that its not just about looking hot, stylish, fashionable or what ever you are trying to look like on the outside but it is actually about honouring the inside and dressing to honour ourselves and others equally. .