Lela Rose’s Reimagined Dallas Store Is the Chic Texas Welcome You’d Expect
It’s not easy to make a store feel like a home—especially a beautiful home at the start of a very promising cocktail hour. But Lela Rose has pulled it off in her newly redesigned Dallas flagship boutique. The fashion designer opened the space in Highland Park Village earlier this month to expand her line’s footprint, as well as to introduce Lela Rose Ranch—a Western-inspired capsule—to Dallas. She’s bringing favorite vintage pieces and a curated selection of lifestyle products to her home state of Texas too.
“I want customers to feel like they are walking into a familiar place, somewhere they want to always feel welcomed,” Rose says. “My mom instilled the value of being a gracious host in me from a young age, so my motto as an entertainer has always been to ‘greet everyone with a specialty cocktail and a smile.’”
Rose, who knows a thing or two about throwing a great party, worked with the New York–based husband-and-wife design firm Studio DB to make sure the space felt like a warm welcome. “Their projects all had such a sense of warmth and personality,” Rose says. "That was the most important thing for me because I wanted this store to feel like an extension of myself."
Rose's sense of fun greets you at the door with an entry table doing double duty as a swing (somewhat of a signature for Rose whose dining table in her Tribeca apartment hangs from the ceiling), showcasing scarves and items from Rose's collection as well as ceramics by Bzippy.
“Lela wanted a one-of-a-kind space that would draw people in and, most important, a place people would gather and love shopping in and spending time,” says Britt Zunino of Studio DB. “The biggest challenge designing this space was fitting all of the desired program into a relatively tight space,” her partner, Damian Zunino, adds.
One side of the room features clothing racks set within timber niches a bench upholstered in a Dedar velvet and demin wallcovering by Kufri. At the far end of the room, floral curtains in a Lela Rose print topped with hand embroidery by William Storms flank a horseshoe-shaped checkout counter sheathed in a woven Holland & Sherry leather. Vintage gloves and belts handpicked by Rose fill the drawers. The best part? The counter, backed with antiqued mirrors, also functions as the tequila bar with shelves displaying BDDW ceramics and packages of nuts for sale made with Rose’s grandmother’s recipe.
The adjoining room which was once a back-of-house area now includes two dressing rooms partitioned by terra-cotta breeze block.
In a nod to Rose’s late father, a bird-watcher, aluminum bird mobiles created by Catherine Hicks, float above the dressing rooms. Adjustable wood shelves were custom made to slide into the breeze block (inspired by Rose’s terra-cotta-walled tequila den in her New York apartment) and hold anything from an item on display to a customer’s cocktail. Sculptures from the Texas-based Webb Gallery and a custom puzzle painting by BDDW are displayed within the walls of one dressing room. Rose’s dressmaker details carry over from the textiles to the rivets of the hardware, and custom-made metal knobs throughout depict florals take from a Lela Rose brooch.
“The process of redesigning this store was so special for me because it was one of great reflection, and truly every detail is imbued with personal meaning,” Rose says.
Her big Texas welcome is not to be missed.
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