California Apparel News

In Hanna Cousins’ new collection, Mor & Dotter, the designer mixes inspiration as much as she mixes fabrics such as silk, leather, viscose and ponte with hand knit and crochet details. Mor & Dotter is a blend of Cousins’ LA upbringing, fine-arts education, New York experience and Swedish roots.

“It’s rock ’n’ roll mixed with cute girlie, hippie, California and this whole Scandinavian old-school culture,” Cousins said.

“Mor & Dotter” means “mother and daughter” in Swedish and is both a homage and acknowledgement of Cousins mother, Suss Cousins, known for her Suss Designs collection of contemporary knitwear, her former knit boutiques in Los Angeles and New York, her knitting books, and her knit designs featured in films such as “The Matrix” and “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.”

Made in Los Angeles—in some cases, by hand—Mor & Dotter includes dresses and jumpsuits, tops, pants, shorts, and sweaters. There are bikini and halter styles, which are hand-loomed with hand-crocheted edges and fringe. Some feature recycled denim and Ultrasuede.

The versatile pieces can be worn in a number of ways. Some feature details that can take pieces from demure to edgy by unzipping a zipper on a hip-high slit or opening a row of snaps along a side seam to expose a bit of skin. Knit dresses and long cardigans can be worn as beach coverups or layered over jeans or leather shorts for a night out. Sweaters and long-sleeve tops have thumbholes and slits, and a dress has a strip of crochet at the midriff.

“I like hidden ways to transform pieces,” Cousins said. “I want women to have options.”

The designer, who studied painting at University of California–Santa Barbara, views the body as a canvas and the fabric and yarn as her medium. She talks about balancing the negative and positive spaces on the body and experimenting with mixing fabrics to see how they fall on the body.

“I like to play with the weight and the space and the texture,” she said. “It’s all about shape and where things fall on the body.”

Cousins’ mother taught her to knit at 6 years old. By the time she was 12, she was teaching a children’s knitting class in the Suss store on Beverly Boulevard in Los Angeles.

“Since 8 years old, I was in the store restocking yarn,” Cousins said. The experience gave her an appreciation of knitwear and how different yarns can change the look of a garment.

“Yarn is so cool because you can get so creative,” she said. “You create harmony of space on the body.”

The line includes a coat made with chenille yarn, the lofty yarn popular for sweaters in the 1980s and ’90s. “Nobody uses chenille anymore,” Cousins said. In her hands, the black and ecru chenille style becomes the knit version of a chic vintage leopard-print coat. Going forward, Cousins is planning to incorporate more of her artwork into the line. She found a local printer who will put her original designs on fabric.

Wholesale prices for the line range from $56 for T-shirt to around $129 for most pieces. A deerskin and hand-crochet maxidress is priced at $520.

Cousins describes the collection as “rock ’n’ roll and rebellious but also sweet—and all influenced by my mom. It’s such an ode to her. She’s my mentor. She taught me everything. There’s a lot of soulfulness behind [the line].”

For more information about the line, contact the Darlene Valle Showroom (213) 622-4678 or visit www.mordotter.co.