Grey Ant Designer Launches New Line
Los Angeles-based designer Grant Krajecki, creator of the Grey Ant label, will launch a new contemporary collection for Spring 2002 during Los Angeles market week in November.
The new line Treat Me Right grew from an initial test run of two dresses—a petal-sleeve dress and a tube dress in vintage 1980s fabrics—carried by Los Angeles-based boutiques Nyse and Aero & Co. and Hoboken, N.J.-based Air Studios boutique. Grey Ant has just shipped its fourth delivery of the two styles to Nyse, according to Shelley Carter, Krajecki’s business partner.
Krajecki launched Grey Ant in 1998, infusing the sportswear collection with ’80s-inspired details. The line is carried locally at contemporary boutiques Nyse and Ron Herman—Fred Segal Melrose, at Barneys in New York and other boutiques in the U.S. and overseas. Krajecki will host a solo Grey Ant runway show during New York Fashion Week this fall as part of the Designer Collections of Los Angeles Fashion Week event sponsored by auto maker Audi and organized by Los Angeles-based public relations firm SPR.
The designer stole the show in 1999 at the Gen Art Fresh Faces in Fashion show in Los Angeles, where he staged a high-energy Grey Ant runway show that featured dancers from Los Angeles-based dance troupe Psycho Dance Sho. Last fall, Krajecki ventured beyond his ’80s roots with a collection dubbed Costume Department, which recast a few silhouettes into looks from several 20th century decades by simply changing fabrics or lengthening or shortening a hemline.
“Grant’s idea behind his designs is he gives you the joke and the customer wears the punch line,” Carter said.
Treat Me Right will have the same irreverent sensibility as Krajecki’s Grey Ant collection, but the senior Grey Ant label will now be more design-based, carrying more avant-garde and one-of-a-kind items, many made from vintage fabrics, according to Carter.
“Treat Me Right will have that funky twist to it that Grant puts into any collection,” Carter said. For example, the full launch will include the tube and petal-sleeve dresses in fabrics that are reminiscent of vintage ’80s fabrics. (Carter noted that stores willing to take assorted styles would be able to order the true, vintage versions.)
The new line will be targeted at a broader consumer base, Carter said, adding that the company plans to keep wholesale price points between $14 and $70.
“This is a way to get Grant’s design aesthetic to a larger audience that is really hungry for it,” she said.
Nyse owner Julie Zamaryonov said the dresses have been “blowing out of here.”
“There have been days where I literally sold 20 dresses,” she added. “The price point is unbelievable.”
Zamaryonov also noted that the Grey Ant line has “always done phenomenal” for the store.
“It’s been amazing to watch Grant grow as a designer,” Zamaryonov continued. “I think he’s so talented. He’s got this knack for fit, I can’t understand how a man does it. It makes your booty look fantastic.”
For more information on Treat Me Right, call (213) 989-0592. —Alison A. Nieder
