After working in public relations for two decades helping to support other brands, Sarah Bonello is launching her own.
Available for preorder on Thursday, The Park is a line of base layers designed to complement clothing by other designers.
Think skirted leggings, a tube dress, sexy catsuit, bodysuit, slim-fit T-shirt, bralette and outerwear underwear in black, navy or camel, made to layer under a Chanel sweater or Saint Laurent jacket.
It’s a full-circle moment of sorts for Bonello, who moved from New York to Los Angeles during the pandemic. Before working in journalism and PR, she attended FIT in New York, but realized that being a designer wasn’t her forte. “But seeing the artistic work of Dries [Van Noten] or Karl [Lagerfeld], who I’ve been obsessed with forever, I realized my girl, The Park girl, wants to live on the arm of the designer,” she said.
“Someone in their 20s can love this as much as someone in their 60s or 70s. I know as a 20-year-old working at Dan Klores, running around, I would have taken this dress and worn it six different ways and gone out at night and maybe gone to work the next morning in it. And now I’m 50, and I’m still wearing it,” she said of The Park’s black long-sleeve Elizabeth dress.
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Bonello’s influences for the collection include the 1980s New York sophisticate uniform of all-black stretchy clothing, as seen at Limelight and other clubs in the day, and embodied by fashion icon Norma Kamali.
But her aha moment actually came during COVID-19 when she found an old pair of fold-over skirted leggings she used to love, slipped them on and ended up wearing them pretty much daily. They were threadbare, so she asked a tailor if he could find a similar material and make a copy. “The beauty of them being that it didn’t matter how much I ate, walked or lounged as they stretched comfortably with me and my body,” she said.
Even after lockdown, she didn’t put them away. In fact, she wore them to Paris Fashion Week, pairing them with a Chanel sweater. “I got stopped first on the plane, then in the airport, then at the hotel,” she said. “After that I wanted to really try and create something that I loved thinking maybe others will love them too.” The result was the Joy skirted legging, The Park’s hero style.
She’s producing the collection in L.A. With an eye toward the least possible environmental impact, pieces are made of micro Tencel and recycled elastane, which has a substantial weight and provides some support, and all have a tiny bow emblem. “I’m a bow girl,” Bonello said of the branding device. Prices range from $210 to $500 and the line is being sold at theparkfashion.com, Elyse Walker and Switch stores.
Preorders are being taken now, with deliveries in September of the Joy skirted legging, the Lia baby T-shirt, the Elizabeth long-sleeve midi dress and the Donna bodysuit. Other styles will deliver in October and for holiday, including the Liat mock neck bodysuit (named after celebrity stylist Liat Baruch), a tube dress and wide-leg pant.
“I really went into this because me and my friends who are all busy…you could have a closet full of clothes, whether they’re from H&M or Chanel, and not know what to wear.…Sometimes I’ll wake up and want to wear that colorful blazer I got from Libertine, but I don’t know what to wear with, right? I wanted to create something that would answer that question.”
