LONDON — Alexandra Spencer and Teale Talbot have harnessed the power of dresses with their label Réalisation Par.
Now they’re entering stage two of the business: retail.
The Australian business partners are opening a store on 104 Mount Street, taking over from J&M Davidson and neighboring with the likes of Toteme, Scott’s, British jeweler Pragnell and Christian Louboutin.
“We both love the Connaught Hotel and Carlos Place, we did definitely make a conscious decision to put the brand in a luxury environment — that was something that was really important to us,” Talbot said in an interview with Spencer.
They chose the location for its sophistication without bordering too much on the mainstream, as well as the female businesses that surround the area such as Jessica McCormack, Dr. Barbara Sturm and Simone Rocha.
Mount Street has become the playground for jet setters and has tended to an international clientele that’s going from Mexico and Ibiza to Dubai.
The brand has tapped into a Middle Eastern clientele, a region just like Britain that still values dresses for modesty and then style.
The two-floor store takes after a minimal gallery space with whitewashed walls that almost feels like a hotel suite to try dresses on and lounge around.
“We pulled the back wall out for the basement floor so it doesn’t feel like you’re going to a lower floor. It has open light,” Spencer said.
Talbot and Spencer commissioned a black pony skin bench chair for the store and hung black-and-white portraits and red light fixtures and decorated the space with green and white flowers.
Réalisation Par prices start at 75 pounds for a tank top and go up to 355 pounds for a silk dress. However, it’s the sweet spot of 250 pound dresses that the business has soared on.
All the dresses are produced in China, the country of origin of silk, and they entered the Chinese market two years ago, which has become their second-biggest market after the U.S.
When Réalisation Par launched in 2015 it used Instagram as a launch pad to reach its customers. But as the algorithm has changed, Talbot and Spencer have experimented with pop-ups at Violet Grey, Selfridges and Galeries Lafayette, which have proven to be successful and sold out.
“There’s just this urgency and excitement that you can’t match online,” Talbot said.
Réalisation Par has stayed far from wholesale to avoid the traditional markup and to control the brand’s longevity.
Each print is made inhouse and the dresses are designed by Talbot, while Spencer takes control of the visual language of the brand and photographs everything.
The business partners met when they were teenagers. Talbot was running a clothing brand called Friend of Mine, where she hired Spencer, who was running the blog 4th and Bleeker, to model her clothes.
“When we met, we felt like we were sisters — there was an instant bond,” Talbot explained.
Spencer started styling for the business and then eventually photographing for it, followed by a collaboration. They lived in Los Angeles together for a while and then Spencer moved to New York.
When Talbot was slowly walking away from her business, the idea of Réalisation Par came about during a drunken luncheon with Spencer.
Running a business gave Talbot some hard truths when it came to starting another.
“Wholesale dilutes the brand message and you get lost, where nothing is in your control. Financially, from the time you sample a product to the time you get your money takes nine to 12 months, whereas with online, you get paid before you even ship out,” she said.
Even though the business is strictly direct-to-consumer, the dresses of Réalisation Par have found themselves on Julianne Moore, Cindy Crawford and even a collaboration with Claudia Schiffer.
