Another New York store is on the way for Ulla Johnson, this one uptown on Madison Avenue. It’s been a long time coming for this native New Yorker; her Bleecker Street store opened in 2017 and LA followed in 2023, but slow and steady has always been the Ulla Johnson way. If you haven’t been paying attention you might’ve missed the fact that she’s become one of American fashion’s biggest success stories: She’s not just a maker of pretty frocks.
This resort lookbook, shot on location in Paris, is testament to that. At a showroom appointment Johnson said, “I do care a lot about continuing this narrative of a woman on the move. I am that. But it’s especially true in this delivery which is one that touches so many seasons,” from October to May.
As has become her custom, Johnson collaborated with a woman artist for her seasonal prints. This time it was the estate of the late Czech artist Anna Zemánková, whose Art Brut botanical drawings, which are now on view at the Barbara Gladstone Gallery, appeal to her flower-loving side. “She has this surrealist, spiritual, kind of supernatural dialogue with nature, which resonates with me,” Johnson noted. The drawings decorate cotton poplin shirt and skirt sets, a sculptural trench, and a cropped bomber with a pronounced volume in back.
Zemánková’s palette informed Johnson’s, even when she wasn’t incorporating prints, and she put together some fresh, statement-making color combinations: pool blue with burgundy, and violet with palest peach. Elsewhere, Johnson let texture do the talking. A special occasion dress was made in orange and gold fringe jacquard; she pointed to the uneven lengths, “imperfections” that keep it from looking too precious. Other party dresses used a hand crinkled metallic lurex poly satin. “The irregularity gives them a beautiful sense of movement.”
Best of all was a crochet dress, modeled on bedspreads she discovered in Majorca last year and made by a dozen women artisans, that isn’t pictured because it didn’t arrive in time for the shoot. Working with craftspeople around the world is particularly challenging at the moment, given the current geopolitical situation, but Johnson has no plans to change the way she does business. “Amplifying women’s voices and making women feel beautiful and powerful—those are the two overarching threads.”