MEET EILONI COUTURE, THE AUSTRALIAN LABEL MAKING VINTAGE FEEL NEW AGAIN

Aug 24

5 min read

Less than a year after a one off birthday dress unexpectedly became a brand, Eiloni Couture has made its way from Australia to Mayfair.

There’s a certain type of dress that keeps appearing in my saved folders at the moment, lace, crochet, slightly sheer and with that imperfect quality that makes you wonder whether it’s new or some incredibly good found vintage.

Eiloni Couture sits very comfortably in that world, except the vintage part isn’t manufactured for effect. The Australian label works with vintage lace, crochet, embroidery and found textiles, reworking them into handmade to order, limited and sometimes completely one of one pieces.

It’s also less than a year old. In that time, Eiloni has already been worn by Sammy Robinson, Dekota Thompson and Sam Guggenheimer and Ella Squire, built a following almost entirely online and made its way from Australia to Mayfair, where founder Billie and her mum, Toni, are opening the brand’s first physical space, The Eiloni Apartment.

The whole thing began rather unintentionally. Billie was looking for a dress for her 30th birthday and couldn’t find what she wanted, so she and Toni made one themselves using vintage textiles. After they shared it online, the response turned what had been a one off birthday dress into the beginnings of a label.

What’s interesting is that the way they made that first piece still dictates how Eiloni operates now: rather than starting with endless metres of newly produced fabric, they work with what they can find and allow those textiles to shape what can actually be made.

Three Generations Behind Eiloni

There’s another woman in the story too. Billie’s 92 year old grandmother Eileen has spent years collecting vintage, making Eiloni a genuinely three generational project. Eileen brings a lifetime love of collecting, Toni the making and reimagining, and Billie the creative direction. Even the name Eiloni comes from combining Eileen and Toni.

It’s a lovely origin story, but it also makes sense of the clothes. Vintage isn’t being used as a loose reference on a moodboard, the materials themselves have already had a life before they reach Billie and Toni. Old lace, crochet and embroidery are reworked into dresses and separates that retain some of that history without looking like actual vintage clothing.

Working this way also means the fabric has a much bigger say in the final garment than it would in conventional production. There might be enough of one textile to create several pieces, while another find could only ever become a single dress. Once that particular lace or crochet has been used, there isn’t necessarily another roll sitting somewhere waiting to be reordered.

That naturally gives Eiloni a mix of handmade to order, limited and one off one pieces, and it’s probably one of the reasons the brand has stood out so quickly online. There’s still that thrill you get from finding something vintage and knowing you’re unlikely to walk into a room and see three other people wearing it, only here the silhouette and styling feel decidedly current.

The Clothes Themselves

Eiloni’s wardrobe is romantic without being overly precious. There’s lace, crochet, embroidery, sheer details and soft, feminine silhouettes, but the vintage textiles give everything a little irregularity that stops the pieces from feeling too polished. They look like clothes that have been collected rather than clothes designed specifically to look “vintage inspired”.

That distinction feels particularly relevant at the moment. Fashion has fallen heavily back in love with lace, slips, crochet and pieces that look as though they could have been found after hours of digging through an incredible vintage store. Eiloni is working with the actual materials rather than simply reproducing their appearance in new fabric, then using the cut and styling to bring them into a contemporary wardrobe.

There’s also a nice tension between how delicate some of the pieces look and the way they’re actually worn. They don’t need to be saved for an occasion or styled as something overly romantic. Part of their appeal is seeing old lace or crochet treated as something you can wear now, rather than something so precious it stays folded away.

It’s clearly resonating. In less than a year, the label has found its way onto Sammy Robinson, Dekota Thompson and Sam Guggenheimer, helping Eiloni reach an audience well beyond the original birthday dress without losing the small scale feeling that made people interested in it to begin with.

From Australia to Mayfair

Until now, Eiloni has largely existed online, which isn't necessarily the easiest place to fully understand clothes built around vintage textiles. A photograph can show you the silhouette of a lace dress, but not necessarily the texture, tiny variations in the fabric or the details that make one vintage textile different from another.

The Eiloni Apartment changes that. Opening to the public in Mayfair from Friday August 21 through Sunday August 23, it’s the first opportunity for the brand’s community to step inside the wardrobe rather than experience it through a screen. Visitors will be able to try pieces on, see the textiles properly, be measured in person and speak with Billie and Toni about custom orders.

For an online, made to order label, the move into a physical space feels particularly fitting. These aren't clothes where the experience necessarily ends with choosing a size from a dropdown menu. When the amount of fabric available can dictate how many pieces exist and customisation is part of the conversation, being able to meet the people making the clothes and see the materials in person adds something useful rather than simply creating another retail space.

It’s also quite a milestone considering how recently Eiloni began. Less than a year separates Billie and Toni making that first dress for a 30th birthday from taking the brand to Mayfair, yet the growth doesn’t seem to have changed the original proposition very much. They’re still working with found materials, still making pieces in limited quantities and still allowing the availability of those textiles to determine what comes next.

There are plenty of new labels recreating the romance of vintage right now, but Eiloni has found a more interesting way into it. The old textiles aren't there simply to give the clothes a certain look; they're part of how each piece is conceived, how many can be made and, in some cases, why it can never be made again.

What began because Billie couldn’t find the dress she wanted has become a label making exactly the sort of pieces that are increasingly difficult to find, clothes with a little history already built into them.

With love (and frankness),

Bea x