Once I decided to launch this year I began brainstorming ideas for exactly what I wanted Rebecca Elizabeth to represent, I came up with a list of seven essentials:

  1. comfort & ease, something you can wear out to a nice dinner, the beach or relaxing at home

  2. elegance

  3. understated femininity, not too froufrou

  4. complimentary silhouettes, you should look and feel absolutely fabulous when you put our dresses on!

  5. more inclusive sizing and less negative sizing labels, why do so many brands stop at size 10?

  6. building a brand that’s ethically made and sustainable

  7. building a slow fashion brand organically, small batch production via pre-sales not over producing

For the first season I want to take the time to really grow the brand slowly the right way. So I chose to focus on launching with a capsule of dresses, which also happens to be my favorite clothing category. :)

Eventually I plan to grow Rebecca Elizabeth into a lifestyle brand adding categories I’m especially looking forward to developing footwear and swimwear!

Once I landed on launching with dresses, I began looking through years of my gathered design inspiration, keeping in mind my core essentials. Images that really stood out to me were ones I took in Italy at the Naples Archeological Museum. They have many fantastic statues of ancient Roman Goddesses. The figures and their flowing, draped robes are so elegantly effortless and ethereal exactly the look and feeling that I’m trying to evoke.

I then started looking for a compelling story for the theme. After some searching I stumbled onto the story of “the Pleiades” the seven sisters. The mythical story goes that the sisters were the seven nymph daughters of the Titan Atlas. After Atlas was forced to hold up the heavens for eternity Orion began to pursue the the daughters. Zeus then transformed them into stars the Pleiades star cluster found in the Taurus constellation. I find the story quite captivating and magical! Elihu Vedder did a beautiful painting in 1885 of the sisters pictured below. It’s been such an inspiration for the collection especially the central sister, her dress inspired our Persephone dress!

What do you think of our essentials & theme? Please comment below, I’d love to hear your honest thoughts.

Love,

Rebecca

Elihu Vedder The Pleiades 1885