Nili Lotan

Nili Lotan: Modern, Structured Daily Essentials

Nili Lotan is one of our favorite brands for pared-down essentials with military-influence designs. Her eponymous line features exquisitely tailored silhouettes that feel effortlessly modern. We love how the fluid cuts of each piece offer comfort along with style.

Nili Lotan was born in Israel and got her start studying at the Shenkar College of Engineering and Design in Tel Aviv. After graduation, she moved to New York City to pursue her fashion career. She led design teams at Liz Claiborne, Ralph Lauren, and Nautica before launching her own brand in 2003. Today, she creates timeless luxury staples for the modern woman.

In today’s fashion world, it’s common to find designer pieces that are more art than they are practical. This is not the Nili Lotan way. Instead, she designs for real women with real lives, families and jobs. Her pieces are unmistakably beautiful, but they’re also comfortable, practical, and more likely to feel at home in a coffee shop than on a runway. In fact, she doesn’t do fashion shows at all. Her fashion is more “honest” than most.

Nili Lotan clothing draws its initial inspiration from her time serving in the Israeli Air Force. In fact, her military ID number, 2609988, is printed on the label of each piece. It’s a touchstone to a prior life, one that shaped her early career and continues to speak to her today.

Lotan never intended to become a permanent fixture in the NYC fashion scene. Yet those early years spent managing fashion lines for some of the top brands in the city became the forge that melded her European style with American practicalities. She learned to give each garment an identity, a voice. And eventually, she moved on and began designing for herself.

Today, Nili Lotan still designs for herself. She creates pieces that she would like to wear. A Nili Lotan sweater is made to be worn to the office, to pick the kids up from school, or to meet the girls for brunch. A Nili Lotan dress is not meant to hang on a dress form in a museum, but to glide across the city in the form of a woman with purpose and passion in her life. Nili Lotan shirts and pants offer the comfort of your favorite pair of jeans, paired with a sophisticated style that is unmistakably modern.

Military references pair with soft fabrics. Minimalist shapes are formed from soft and luxe fabrics. There are no pieces here designed for the sake of art alone. Instead, there is a passion for comfort and a sincere love of wearability. It’s a fashion forward aesthetic that has made Nili Lotan a brand worn by everyone from Kendall Jenner to Martha Stewart, Gigi Hadid to Julianne Moore.

If you’re tired of pieces that are beautiful to look at but a nightmare to wear, Nili Lotan is the answer you’ve been searching for. But you don’t have to make the trek to her shops in Tribeca, Madison, or East Hampton. Nor do you have to wait for a Nili Lotan pop up store to be announced in your neighborhood. Instead, shop the Nili Lotan collection online and find the sensuality of intensely practical designer clothing for yourself.