Silk, shadow, and October skin

Husk Lab Zone was founded in Tokyo in 2014 by Céleste Mori, a textile buyer who had spent the previous decade sourcing silk and lace for a Parisian ready-to-wear house. She had grown tired of watching the finest fabrics in the world go into garments that were worn once and forgotten. The idea behind Husk Lab Zone was simpler: take the same materials used in haute couture and compose them into intimate apparel that a woman would keep for years. The first collection, twelve pieces in three colourways, was shown in a rented room in Daikanyama in November 2014. It sold out in a weekend.

The turning point came in the winter of 2016, when Céleste was introduced to a Nishijin weaving workshop through a contact at a Kyoto kimono house. The workshop had been producing 19-momme silk charmeuse for a single kimono maker for three generations. They agreed to supply Husk Lab Zone with a small allocation each season, on the condition that the fabric would not be used in fast-fashion production. That agreement is still in place. The Nishijin silk is now the foundation of the Soie Nue line and the lining of every Eaux de Nuit set. It changed the hand of the collection entirely.

Today, Husk Lab Zone operates from a quiet studio in Nakameguro, Tokyo, with a small showroom open by appointment. The collection is composed twice a year, in spring and autumn, and is available through this site and through a handful of carefully chosen stockists in Paris and London. Céleste still selects every lace run in Calais personally, usually in April, and the Meguro atelier still finishes every seam by hand. The house has grown slowly and deliberately, and that is how it will stay.