Flore Flore prices is said to reflect the research and development required to design them, as well as the costs of making them in Portugal, a country recognised for its textile manufacturing industry. Photo: Instagram/Flore Flore
You could buy eight T-shirts from Hanes for the price of a single T-shirt from Flore Flore, a small brand that in recent years has popped up in fashionable boutiques across the world.
That hasn’t stopped some people from “buying them in bulk” at McMullen, a store with locations in San Francisco and Oakland, California, said its owner, Sherri McMullen.
Her stores sell multiple styles from Flore Flore, which are made of organic cotton.
The brand’s offerings include the Car – US$105 (approximately RM460), a crew-neck T-shirt with a shrunken fit and hipbone-grazing hemline; the Esme – US$94 (RM412), a muscle tank; the Steffi – US$108 (RM473), a boatneck top with three-quarter sleeves; and the May Cami – US$89 (RM390), a square-neck camisole.
Florian Van Zuilen, who started Flore Flore in Amsterdam in 2021, said the prices for the shirts reflect the research and development required to design them, as well as the costs of making them in Portugal, a country recognised for its textile manufacturing industry.
More than 80 fittings were conducted to determine the proportions of Flore Flore’s four original T-shirt styles, Van Zuilen said, a process that took about eight months.
The largest sizes of those T-shirts, XL, roughly equates to a size 10.
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“Flore Flore is a bit fitted, but women, mothers, grandmas, all different body types wear it,” Van Zuilen said.
“The fabric stretches, so even though the shirt is a bit shorter, you can wear it with high-waist pants or, for the younger audience, with low pants for a bit of midriff.”
The T-shirts were informed by Van Zuilen’s memories of shopping for basics from a heritage French brand.
“When I was younger, I shopped at Petit Bateau with my mom,” she said. “I wanted to create a kind of cult brand that related to that experience and nostalgic feeling.”
Van Zuilen grew up around the fashion industry: Her mother owns a store in the Netherlands that sells labels like Marni and Chloe, and her great-grandmother was a furrier in Belgium.
At some of the 75 stores that carry Flore Flore, which include Outline in Brooklyn and Amomento in Seoul, its products can be found on racks beside those from luxury brands like Dries Van Noten, Comme Des Garcons and The Row.
Henning Korb, the managing partner at Apropos, a German boutique that sells Flore Flore at locations in Berlin, Hamburg and other cities, said the label catered to customers who want clothes “from companies besides the big luxury brands”.
Other emerging labels are also making T-shirts that cater to those consumers.
Cou Cou Intimates, founded in London by Rose Colcord, makes pointelle-knit baby tees, henleys and cropped long-sleeve T-shirts using organic cotton. Gil Rodriguez, founded by Eliana Gil Rodriguez, a former American Apparel designer, offers 1990s-style tops like a T-shirt made of ribbed cotton knitted in Los Angeles.
Cou Cou Intimates’ shirts start at US$54 (RM237) and are sold in sizes from XXS to XXL; Gil Rodriguez’s tees start at US$60 (RM263) and are available in the same range of sizes.
Gil Rodriguez said her namesake brand’s shirts were designed to appeal to those who, like her, seek styles that “look really good without a bra”.
Bo Carney, an owner of Mohawk General Store in Los Angeles, said that T-shirts designed by women for women have a special appeal. If you aren’t a woman, you probably wouldn’t understand the design elements many female customers look for, as she put it.
“It’s very important,” Carney noted.
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According to her, Flore Flore T-shirts, which Mohawk General Store has carried since February 2023, “have these subtle details that you can’t tell just from looking at it”.
She pointed out: “But when you put it on it’s very flattering.”
Abigail Tananbaum, a 35-year-old product designer in Studio City, California, is a fan of the brand’s Esme tank. She owns it in several colours and has noticed others in her orbit wearing it, too.
“I’ve seen them on another mom I see three times a year,” Tananbaum said.
“They are a thicker cotton,” she added of the tanks. “The look is kind of crisp.”
Dilara O’Neil, a writer in Brooklyn, has also bought an Esme tank and several other Flore Flore shirts. Some of her friends have stocked up as well.
“I was with my friends on vacation in Nantucket this summer and someone made a joke about how everyone had the same Flore Flore tan lines,” she said.
“It feels like the way I used to lust after Abercrombie T-shirts,” continued O’Neil, who turned 30 this year. “But this is the 30s version of that.” – ©2024 The New York Times Company
