metro >> on the cover

By Design

Orley started small, but has grown
into a fashion niche hit.

Karen Schwartz I Special to the Jewish News

Designs from Orley for spring/summer 2015

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

The trio started off working out of
Matthew and Samantha's Manhattan apart-
ment, producing a "capsule collection" made
in Italy of five sweaters plus some hats and
scarves. They took samples around to stores
and started taking orders.
And that gave us the encouragement to
say, 'Let's do it again and do it a little bigger,;'
he says. "And so we made a second collec-
tion:'
The second collection also focused on
knitwear, but it was double the size, at about
10 sweaters. They took it on the road, head-
ing to Florence for an international mens-
wear and men's accessories trade show called
Pith Uomo, where they had a booth and met
with a number of stores.
At the show, they caught the eye of
New York-based luxury department store
Bergdorf Goodman.
Their collection was in the store in
January 2013 for the first time.
"Once we hit that point, the wheels really
started to turn," says Matthew Orley. "That
is one of the most well-known stores in the
world, and to have that kind of support and
have that kind of backing — it was a huge
push forward:'
And so they kept going, and their next
collection was even bigger.
They went on to collection four, which
included shirts, pants and jackets, and to
collection five. They showed collection six in
September.
"It's gone by really fast:' he says. The brand
turned three in January.

Beginnings
The Orley brothers, who grew up in
Franklin, and Samantha, who comes from
Toronto, put their heads together in mid-
2011, after converging in New York City for
various fashion-related opportunities.
They saw a hole in the market for what
they were trying to create and got to work.
"We just wanted to do something that
was really impactful, in as concise a way as
possible. And with knitwear, with sweat-

ers, it's not just designing a garment from
a fabric; but ifs more a 360-process, where
you're actually designing the fabric and then
designing the garment:' explains Alex Orley,
27.
"It's a product category that most design-
ers tend not to really explore fully because
ifs really challenging; it's not an easy cat-
egory:'
Now their brand — Orley — has taken
off, garnering broad attention across the
industry. Orley was a finalist for the 2014
Council of Fashion Designers of America
(CFDA)/Vogue Fashion Fund Award, mak-
ing the top 10 out from a group of some 200
brands.
Orley was also nominated for the 2014

Fashion Group International Rising Star
Award in Menswear.
These days, their name adorns shirts,
pants, jackets and all sorts of accessories.
"It might be a retro polo silhouette, for
example, yet it really has a newness about
it though, whether it's the color, the yarn,
the stitches, something that's different," says
Samantha Orley, 29.
Their workspace has expanded, too.
They moved from the apartment to a scant
200-square-foot office in June 2012. By May
2014, they had moved again.
The trio now operates out of a space pro-
vided by the Council of Fashion Designers
of America through its incubator program,
which they entered in April 2014.

That's a big deal. The CFDAs board of
directors includes Diane von Furstenberg,
Michael Kors, Marcus Wainwright and Vera
Wang, among a long list of other famous
fashion names.
As a result, they've got a studio in
Manhattan's Garment District via the CFDAs
business development program, which aims
to "support the next generation of fashion
designers in New York City."
The program brings brands in every two
years and provides them with office space
and mentorships. "It's been a really great
opportunity for us:' Matthew Orley says.
Orley will introduce a women's line for the
first time later this month at Fashion Week
in New York, according to Matthew Orley.

By Design on page 10

8

February 5 • 2015