Rose Society Atelier, Debuting at Paris Couture Week, Wants to Be Empowerment and Self Care in a Silk Robe
PARIS — Where would you get a silk robe that isn’t part of a lingerie lineup?
It’s in the time it takes to answer this question that Amy Madison Luo saw an opportunity for Rose Society Atelier, a silk specialist label she is debuting at Paris Couture Week.
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Although “robe” is the closet descriptor, the pieces are also meant to be worn in daily life, thrown over a T-shirt and jeans with sneakers or worn for an evening out.
While her line is geared toward women, a handful of designs could also appeal to mean, such as a lush silk velvet robe printed with stylized snakes that is finished with golden cuff-link buttons at the sleeve.
There are also silk shirts, shorts and trousers in the line, owing to Luo’s belief that you don’t need to settle for sweatpants for a coffee run or to walk the dog.
Priced between 2,000 euros for a silk crêpe-de-chine version lined with charmeuse and 9,000 euros for a black number with 100 hours’ worth of hand-embroidered seed pearls, there are more than 80 references in her initial collection, ranging from short jacket lengths to full-length robes. Some are edged in marabout feathers.
The Boston University School of Law-trained lawyer with a degree in international business from Canada’s York University had been working for more than a decade in entertainment and private equity before diving into cryptocurrencies.
A rare woman and attorney in that field, she became senior counsel at currency exchange platform Coinbase, leading its legal teams in institutional sales, global business development and stablecoin before being promoted to general counsel of U.S. Dollar Coin, a type of digital asset pegged to the U.S. dollar.
While on the rise of her career in a male-dominated industry and with multiple offers to go even higher, Luo felt something was amiss.
“In all those industries, I was surrounded by men all the time, all this masculine energy and I went through a long period of my life when I thought I had to be really masculine and play up masculine characteristics to be successful,” she said. “I did and it was very successful, but I never felt in touch with my feminine energy. As I’d reached a point in my career where I was able to pause, I did, to take care of myself.”
Luo realized that, just like in the Miley Cyrus song, she could buy herself flowers — and silk robes.
“When I started doing that, I genuinely felt so much sexier, so much more feminine, so much more creative and confident and beautiful,” she said.
A lifelong globetrotter, Luo was born in Beijing, grew up in Canada, went to law school in the U.S. before moving to the Cayman Islands, London, Hong Kong and South Korea professionally. Her next move was Italy, on a search for suppliers and ateliers who could make the robes of her dreams.
What she wanted to encapsulate in the Rose Society Atelier line is nothing less than magic, which she wants to share with as many people as possible through this Made in Italy line she initially launched by word of mouth.
Ashley Graham is said to already be a fan and has been spotted wearing a richly printed velvet number on Instagram.
“It’s a reminder to celebrate ourselves, with the ease of putting on a beautiful silk robe, because when we do, the magic happens,” she added. “This feeling empowered me to quit my job, my whole career and book a one-way ticket to go start a robe company with no connections, no nothing, no design background.”
But that brought her back to the opening question of where to find designs of a quality and style she liked. “Ask anyone you know, you’ll see,” she insisted during her Paris showcase.
“There’s a lack of options in this category that should be bigger because it’s so versatile,” she continued. “The concept of a robe or kimono goes back all the way to ancient cultures when royalty was wearing it, particularly in silk. So I am bringing it back and I want to own this category.”
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