Spanish label Paloma Wool is behind Kaia Gerber’s Instagram book-club outfits

Paloma Wool is a new species of fashion label. Founded five years ago in Barcelona by long-time friends, business graduate Paloma Lanna, 30, and graphic artist Tana Latorre, 34, this small-batch fashion project is nurturing local production and educating its progressive online following about their shopping habits, one homespun psychedelic knit at a time. Just don’t call it a ‘brand’.

Instead, the unconventional label is defined by the community of bright-minded fans who are drawn to Paloma Wool’s experimental ethos — among them Spanish art director Carlota Guerrero, Berlin-based visual artist Riya Hamid and Kaia Gerber, the supermodel whose love of literature has spurred a Gen-Z reading movement.

“We don’t design the project as a fashion brand, but as an online creative platform where people come together around the act of getting dressed,” Latorre tells Vogue over Skype from her home in Barcelona. The heartfelt ‘everyone is welcome’ approach, that’s been a pillar of the project since day one, is also one of the reasons for its sweeping success during lockdown. With its jumbled feed and spontaneous live-guest performances from musician friends, Paloma Wool stands out among a sea of homogeneous boutique Instagram labels that boast overly curated profiles, where well-rehearsed shots of vintage beige furniture, or a sunlit glass of wine, mingle with ‘fit pics’ treated with identical grainy filters.

“We really admire anyone who creates their own language to express themselves creatively,” Latorre says, adding that their admiration often organically flourishes into virtual friendships. Gerber had been buying Paloma Wool unnoticed (she owns the cult Camu sweater) until the duo came across her name on an order and wrote to her. The feelings — OK, a full-blown creative crush — were mutual. “She was so, so lovely. She was like, ‘Oh my goodness, I love your project so much, I admire what you guys do.’ We were like, ‘We really like what you do!’” Latorre sighs. “Kaia is an example of someone who is very down to earth, she has her feet on the ground. It was such a surprise to us that she was on her book club live stream with Lena Dunham wearing the pieces that she had bought.”

Blockbuster IG live streams are just one way that Paloma Wool’s unconventional approach has been rerouted, rather than quashed, by the pandemic. “Ordinarily, Paloma [Lanna] will come into the office wearing something we’ve just created and ask the rest of the team to try the pieces on and to describe how they feel wearing it. Then we do a poll. If we realise the majority of us don’t feel completely comfortable in it or that we would wear it all the time, then we won’t produce it,” Latorre explains of their entirely seasonless offering. The nine-person team, who are all in their twenties and thirties, are currently working from home. “As a project, we have taken it as a creative challenge — it’s more important than ever for us to be close to our community. Spain has been one of the countries hardest hit by the coronavirus and manufacturing was stopped, but for the past week everything has been up and running. We currently have one person back in our warehouse (rather than the three we had before) until restrictions are lifted after 2 May.”

Closures have also inspired new ways to connect. “We had to cancel all of our photoshoots, so we reached out to our friends and asked them to photograph themselves in their favourite pieces at home. We didn’t give them a brief because we wanted it to be as free as possible,” Latorre continues. Paloma Wool’s pop-up world tour, which started out as an exhibition and has taken the project on the road to London, Berlin, Paris and New York so far, will resume in LA once it is safe to travel and gather in small groups. “It’s been so nice to feel the sense of community behind Paloma Wool. We’ve had a waiting list for some of our pieces and we were afraid that our clients would have to wait a little bit longer than usual, but everyone has been super understanding while factories were closed.”

There are other positive lessons to draw from the past few months. The pandemic’s far-reaching impact on non-essential consumer spending has, for many entrepreneurs, upheld the importance of focusing on local craftspeople and needs-based production — something Lanna’s parents drilled into her as a child through their own socially conscious fashion and accessories project, Nice Things, which they started from scratch in their Barcelona apartment. Only very small batches of any Paloma Wool style are made (usually just 50 pieces), with 90 per cent of the line produced in Spain and neighbouring Portugal, using the same local manufacturers that her mother has worked with for the past 30 years.

“Overproduction and overconsumption are some of the biggest problems the fashion industry has,” Latorre explains. “We make limited production in order not to mass produce, which is a way of educating ourselves and our community not to over consume. If a piece sells out, we won’t make it again unless there is a very high demand.”

The lockdown’s laissez-faire dress code has also found a match in Paloma Wool’s comforting, homespun pieces. Particularly the Aries and Yin Yang intarsia sweaters, which Latorre even wears to bed. “The clothes we make aren’t for special occasions. Barcelona isn’t a ‘chic’ city, it’s very laid back. For us, it’s about crafting clothes that you can wear all the time, which make you feel special and natural, even now when you’re not dressing up for anything,” she says. Then, as if reading my mind about the pile of laundry mounting up in the corner of my bedroom, adds: “You don’t even have to wash them that often, you just have to air them out, as the quality is amazing.”

What does she hope the fashion community can learn from the international lockdown? “I really hope that people will consume differently. It’s hard to think of the future, but from a personal and business point of view, we have realised it really is fine to go back to square one; we can start all over again,” Latorre says, as our Skype session draws to a close. “In the end, it’s about making less and we’re all for it.”

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