Impeccable and discreetly elegant, Talia Loubaton looks like the antithesis of a lazy dresser. But by her own admission, the designer is a ‘real cheat’ when it comes to clothes. Her hack? Tailoring that does the heavy lifting for you. ‘I just throw the jacket on my shoulders and go. I think it’s very French,’ she says. ‘It’s part of the Parisian dress code to have a uniform.’
Designing for herself (‘made by me for me, and I’m a working mum of two’) was the ignition spark for Loubaton’s own brand, Liberowe. The label is making a name for itself with its perfectly proportioned jackets and steadily growing fanbase, including influencer Leandra Medine Cohen and Hannah Dodd. This season, the brand is part of Net-A-Porter’s Vanguard program – the luxury e-tailer’s young-talent incubator. Precisely cut as if ‘borrowed from a couture show’ – fit-and-flare peplumed styles and long, lean Nehru-collar designs are signatures – there is a refreshing pragmatism to the clothes, as well as a swish of sleek, Seventies glamour.
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Raised in France, Loubaton came to London to study knitwear at Central Saint Martins. Shortly after completing her graduate studies, she had her son. At this time, while doing (mostly unsatisfying) freelance jobs, she started toying with ideas.
She began to make pieces for friends of friends and, before long, had a buzzing side-hustle taking bespoke commissions. But Loubaton credits a trip to India with truly setting Liberowe into motion. In ‘awe of Indian culture’, she ‘got this obsession with the Nehru-collar jacket’ and set about making one herself (in their confluence of French and Indian references, her classic-yet-modern jackets share a sensibility with the iconic Pierre Jeanneret Chandigarh chair).
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Loubaton emphasises that Liberowe was ‘not a business at that stage, I was just exploring how to make a jacket I liked’. Now, the expansive glass dining table she worked from in those early days has a second life as a desk in her north-west London studio. Liberowe’s casually chic launch was hosted by a bespoke client, ‘a real fashion lover’ who put on a drinks party in her London flat.
‘It was the first time I got to see the jacket on other people. There was no sizing system. [I] took a little notebook and just started taking orders.’ Buoyed by the enthusiastic response, she took the designs to Paris, then New York. ‘I went to get my customer,’ she says. ‘I had huge energy to just go get people and go find people.’
Why does she think the brand is resonating? ‘I think I was offering something new because the jacket was unique – but also something that they knew they could trust and invest in,’ she says. ‘A jacket is a good product. A woman always needs a jacket!’
Despite the exactitude of her vision, Loubaton aspires to broaden Liberowe; the shirting is excellent, as are the modish dresses and the sumptuous cashmere knits that just launched. As Loubaton puts it: ‘I’m realising I’ve got a lot more to say.’
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