The menswear designer's latest enterprise OTD (On This Day) lately opened up its first Los Angeles location on the Sundown Strip.
Longtime menswear clothier John Varvatos is reinventing himself together with his eight-month-old model OTD, a unisex clothes line with shops in New York and Los Angeles.
“After I began this, it was a few new story,” Varvatos tells The Hollywood Reporter concerning the beginnings of OTD. “I actually felt like I had a brand new story. I needed to reinvent myself. It was that second throughout COVID that I had this type of lightning bolt. I had this story that I’ve been enjoying round with, which is what this model is.”
OTD stands for “On This Day,” and its collections characteristic clothes, jewellery, footwear and equipment for all genders. With its flagship retailer positioned within the coronary heart of Soho in New York Metropolis, the unisex line has discovered a second dwelling in Los Angeles on West Hollywood’s iconic Sundown Strip in the identical area the place H&M beforehand stood. It’s the newest in Varvatos’ ongoing journey to spherical out his enterprise ventures. From his personal document label to tequila model Villa One (that he began with Nick Jonas), Varvatos isn’t targeted on simply menswear anymore. This summer season, Varvatos and Jonas launched a pop-up tequila bar on the Las Vegas Strip to advertise their model Villa One.
As for OTD, the model is the designer’s follow-up vogue firm after his eponymous menswear line filed for chapter in 2020, following the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. This time round, OTD encompasses girls’s, males’s and unisex types. Because the identify implies, patrons are inspired to make the most of vogue and private model to jot down their very own story “on this present day” — dwelling within the second, every day.
“Regardless of the phrase is, I don’t actually care,” Varavtos says in regard to the variations between males’s and ladies’s clothes. “I simply know that when individuals stroll via the shop, they’re simply taking a look at garments. They’re not figuring out usually if it’s a guys or women factor. So, you already know, we don’t wish to put that on them.” Save for variations in sizing for sure items, the designer says that a lot of the OTD collections are “pretty fluid.”
He continues, “The unisex half is a enjoyable a part of it since you don’t have to clarify it to individuals, they simply get it. Ladies get it, guys get it. It’s a part of lots of people’s lives in the present day of their wardrobe.”
The thought for On This Day was sparked by a selected Fb notification, through which the platform reveals customers recollections from previous posts on every day through the years. In a single’s Fb newsfeed, the notification reads: “On This Day.”
“I'd get this stuff in my Fb feed. And it will say on this present day, April 25, 2017,” Varvatos explains. “It made me take into consideration celebrating nice moments in time. And that’s what that was. By some means their algorithms picked up that it was one thing particular, or that being along with individuals is one thing particular.”
With OTD, Varvatos has created an elevated model that's nonetheless purposeful, designed to be dressed up or down for every particular person. For ladies, blazers, outsized knits and plaid overalls take a luxe strategy to androgyny. For each women and men, trendy tracksuits led the best way for the autumn assortment, together with cozy knits, sweaters and coats that every one match into that “between-season dressing” class. There’s a ton of sports-inspired items from French terry sweats to hockey jerseys and basketball tanks — all designed for versatility that may be transitioned for day to nighttime put on. There’s additionally a sustainability aspect, with a few of the clothes being made with materials from recycled plastic bottles.
The superstar designer zeroed in on popular culture as one other main affect for OTD’s essence. “You go to an NBA recreation in the present day and it’s like a runway present there,’” he says. “Once you take a look at who’s within the viewers, who’s within the entrance row. Modern arts has change into such an enormous a part of our tradition, as properly. I needed to be impressed with these sorts of issues.”
Going ahead, Varvatos anticipates opening two or three extra OTD shops this fall, along with pop-up shops within the meantime. “Pop-ups have been actually enjoyable and never difficult,” the New York-based designer says. “Constructing a retailer takes six months. Opening a pop-up you are able to do in two weeks. That’s enjoyable, you already know?”
However with regards to the long run, Varvatos strives for his enterprise to succeed. “I’m not making an attempt to repeat,” the designer says. “I actually am simply making an attempt to do one thing new and galvanizing to me and to my workforce that we could be profitable with, you already know? In the long run, you wish to achieve success. I want it was only for enjoyable, however it will possibly’t all be only for enjoyable.”
OTD is positioned at 8580 Sundown Blvd, West Hollywood, CA 90069.