Inside Attersee’s Upper East Side Studio
Isabel Wilkinson Schor launched Attersee in 2021 with the goal of creating elegant, tailored clothing in easy-to-wear silhouettes. The online retailer quickly gained fans, including Sofia Coppola and Riley Keough, not to mention ELLE DECOR A-List designer Michelle R. Smith, who wore a duchesse satin evening shirt and pant set on the cover of our April 2023 issue.
Even with the brand’s quick success, there are certain limitations that all online retailers come up against, like conveying the quality of the garments in a digital image, or picking up the delicacy of a pinstripe on an iPhone screen. Some clothes need to be seen in person to be fully appreciated.
Thankfully, the wait is over for Attersee fans. Wilkinson Schor has added a by-appointment studio to the Manhattan office, located behind the eaves of an 1880s townhouse on the Upper East Side. “Everything has been pointing us to this space,” Wilkinson said during a recent tour of the studio. “It was time to renovate and reopen it in a way that shows what the world of Attersee looks like.”
Prior to Attersee, the space most recently served as a fitness studio, complete with mirrored walls and gym equipment. For the past year, the location functioned as the back-of-house office for Attersee’s six full-time employees, who, when not working around a communal table, took a few appointments for private clients. “I always find that in any kind of renovation project, you have to live with it and then find out where all the pain points are,” Wilkinson Schor said. She also made a few calls to friends and family for advice, including her aunt and ELLE DECOR A-List designer Fabrizio Casiraghi.
The studio has since been transformed into a warm and inviting space, with the same effortless sensibility that guides Wilkinson Schor’s clothing. “It’s been such a labor of love,” Wilkinson said. “So many people in my life have helped with this.”
The first order of business was to create an area where clients could come for fittings and try on the clothes. Wilkinson Schor opted to divide up the long, rectangular floor plan into three discrete portions, with a dressing area and office flanking a central vestibule. The partitioned dressing room on one end of the studio features custom walnut millwork and shelves (courtesy of Chris Brinson of the design/build firm Lineweight Consultants), which display racks of clothes arranged by color, as well as an elegant seating area with a pair of Swedish chairs, a Maison Jansen–style cocktail table, and a 19th-century chaise longue.
The center vestibule, meanwhile, functions as an enveloping oasis and a chance to display special Attersee pieces and the work of its partners. Here, the walls are painted in Benjamin Moore’s Creamy White (Casiraghi weighed in on the paint choices) and display watercolors by the brand’s newest collaborator, the Rome-based artist Wendy Artin, whose work adorns beautiful silk pleated skirts and strapless column dresses. Custom tables display knitwear and the brand’s shoe collaboration with Italian company Drogheria Crivellini. Art books and personal objets Wilkinson Schor has picked up on various travels over the years (with the help of her aunt) are thoughtfully placed throughout.
“My hope is that this will be an experiment for us, with retail in general, and that eventually we’ll be able to expand in more of a brick-and-mortar way,” Wilkinson Schor says.
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