Irish designer Anna Guerin spent 16 years honing her craft in the fashion industry before starting her label, The Landskein, in 2019. It offers a small, evolving collection of voluminous coats and blazers made in fine Donegal tweed. Every one is designed to be worn for “at least one lifetime”, says Guerin.

Researching the intangible value of heritage fabrics for her master’s degree led Guerin to the understanding that there was something very special about sourcing materials such as tweed from artisanal weavers in Ireland, rather than getting them for a lower price in other parts of the world. “People often have an emotional attachment to that sense of heritage,” she says. The Landskein tweeds are woven in lambswool by Seán and Kieran Molloy, fifth-generation weavers in County Donegal, while the jackets are cut by hand and sewn in European factories, allowing Guerin to keep a close eye on production. Longevity is always the primary goal, with silhouettes chosen for their enduring appeal rather than the latest trends and styles.

It’s the uncompromising volume of fabric that makes every coat feel so sumptuous. “To put four metres of Donegal tweed into a coat is extremely generous and it just looks so incredibly beautiful,” she says. The Landskein operates from a studio showroom in the Dublin seaside suburb of Dún Laoghaire, where customers can come in for private appointments to find the coat that is right for them. Some find that they can’t quite choose between two styles and end up coming a second time. “People are willing to make the investment if something is really good quality and feels luxurious,” says Guerin.

Florentine boutique Switch is well known as one of the most elegant addresses in the Tuscan capital. This year the shop moved to the upmarket Oltrarno district, debuting an updated look and refreshing its line-up of clothes and accessories. Owner Lorenzo Armati, an accomplished carpenter, worked on remodelling the storefront and dressing the windows, tapping in to his past experience in window design for the likes of Prada and Louis Vuitton.

Inside the shop you’ll find labels such as La Paz, Portuguese Flannel and California-based Gramicci. A selection of wetsuits and surfboards are also on offer, given Armati’s love of surfing. “I offer brands not found elsewhere, as well as items I would wear myself,” he says, pointing to Finnish trainer label Karhu and Antwerp-based womenswear brand Girls of Dust. “Switch always reflects my interests – that’s the best way to put together a shop,” he says. “You have to believe in the products that you are selling.”
switchshop.it

Marie-Lise Jonak and Baptiste Bouygues, the mother and son behind fragrance brand Ormaie, have successfully combined their professional backgrounds (Jonak’s in fragrance consulting, Bouygues’s in fashion communications) to establish a family-run label in a market typically associated with mass production. “Scents are deeply linked to memory,” says Bouygues. “All our inspirations come from people and places that we know, so it’s easy for us to work together. When I mention the smell of the soap in my grandmother’s kitchen, my mother knows exactly what I’m talking about.”

The 10 eaux de parfums in their collection are rooted in personal experiences: the memory of a childhood classroom inspired the spice-and wood-layered Papier Carbone scent, while the smell of the family garden has informed the rosy Yvonne. Each fragrance takes months to perfect, with Jonak managing the back and forth with perfumers in Grasse and Bouygues sourcing ingredients from rose plantations in Marrakech or vanilla farms in Madagascar.

What’s more, the brand’s art deco-inspired bottles are collectable objects in their own right: the glass is made by a specialist in whiskey bottles, the sculptural tops are carved by a woodworker and the labels are printed by Imprimerie du Marais in Paris. Given the amount of detail that goes into each fragrance, new releases are rare. Ormaie’s latest scent, dubbed 18-12, launched in 2023, six years after the original collection. This autumn it  has made a line of extraits de parfums based on the best-selling Yvonne and Toï Toï Toï. “These will be more opulent counterparts to our poetic fragrances,” says Bouygues.
ormaie.paris

After working as a fashion buyer for more than a decade, London-based Lucy Bacon decided to launch her own brand, Yoke, specialising in knit and loungewear. “I became well versed in how to make clothes and the art of maintaining relationships with factories, pattern cutters and mills,” says Bacon. “I get emotionally attached to clothes and with Yoke, I want to create pieces that will never age.”

Since the label’s debut in March, Bacon has released colourful, brushed mohair knitwear, as well as relaxed Cuban shirts, pale-blue and white gingham sets and cream linen utility jackets, all combining minimalist cuts with playful colour combinations or graphic patterns.

A family-run artisanal mill outside Perugia in Italy manufactures Yoke’s knitwear, while the cotton sets are cut and sewn in north London, using end-of-roll fabrics from luxury houses. “Every fabric is made from natural fibres so that, if the clothes do end up in landfill, no microplastics will be released,” says Bacon. By working with surplus fabrics, designs can only be released in limited quantities, sometimes as little as three at a time. “You won’t see many people walking down the street in the same outfit,” she says.

This autumn, Yoke will be releasing shirts and trousers cut from a “tonic cloth”, a wool-and-cotton fabric mostly used in suiting and featuring the faintest sheen. “My ambition is to build up a library of perfect pieces that can be updated in terms of fabric and colour,” she says. “Over time I’ll continue to add to the library.”
yoke-studio.com

Szeki Chan began designing clothes while working as a singer in her native Hong Kong. Frustrated by the tight-fitting outfits she wore on stage, she created looser, more comfortable pieces that would become the foundation of her clothing brand, 7115 by Szeki, which made its debut in New York. “I focused on creating the kind of clothes that I had always searched for: comfortable, well-crafted and reliable,” she says.

Over the past 16 years, Chan has refined her offerings, particularly after relocating to Copenhagen, where she opened her first shop not in the US. “People here do minimalism like no one else,” she says. “This city has solidified the look of the brand.”

Drawing on the simplicity associated with both Nordic and Japanese design, Chan’s brand continues to appeal to a global audience. “With every new collection, we edit out pieces that won’t age well,” she says. For autumn, we have our eye on the boxy cotton blazers, smart ribbed-knit cardigans and corduroy sets.
7115byszeki.com

Paris’s favourite contemporary fashion label, Soeur, is expanding into menswear with a dedicated line appropriately named Frère. In true French fashion, founders and sisters Domitille and Angélique Brion have always blurred the lines between masculine and feminine style codes so turning their attention to their male counterparts was a natural next step for the fast-growing business, which operates 48 boutiques across France, Spain and the UK.

“We’re into men’s tailoring – details like internal buttons and linings have become strong signatures for us,” says Domitille. The Frère style is “relaxed yet refined”, with cosy knits, smart tweed coats, tailored shirts and brown gilets – ideal for autumn. “We are striving to [offer] an affordable designer brand and tapping into the longing for individuality, to have a sharper outlook and responsible manufacturing processes,” Freja Day, the brand’s ceo, tells monocle.
soeur.fr

Accessories trends come and go but a classic tote bag never loses relevance. The best ones are big enough to fit all your belongings, yet compact enough to carry from the office to a chic restaurant. This season there’s an array of options to choose from, including Prada’s new Belt bag, Loewe’s popular Puzzle styles and Celine’s extra large bucket bags.

Picking sturdy leather that will age well is essential – independent label Manu Atelier is known for sourcing high-quality skins for its bags, including its new Du Jour tote. We recommend adding a personal touch such as a charm.
manuatelier.com; loewe.com; prada.com; celine.com