Up on the mood board of Patricia Voto’s latest collection for her brand One Of, in the studio she’s built out of her apartment on the Upper East Side, is a photo of Blair Waldorf’s and Serena van der Woodsen’s backs from an episode of Gossip Girl. It’s a blurry screenshot, but something I notice instantly, maybe even embarrassingly so. And yet Voto squeals with delight when I point it out: “Ah—you’re one of the few who noticed!”
Maybe it’s because, having growing up as a fashion-obsessed teen in New York, as Voto did herself, I’ve watched the series more times than I could possibly count. I can spot a Gossip Girl screen-grab from a mile away. For so long, the show represented a level of dream and glamour I hoped to achieve but wasn’t sure would ever become a reality for me. When I’d started up the steps to Voto’s apartment/atelier minutes earlier, I’d been thinking about how the moment—standing there on East 70th Street, about to meet a designer who creates made-to-measure garments with vintage fabrics—felt like the show. It was one of the rare instances when I really felt like I was present in my 14-year-old self’s dream life. When I walked in and saw that shot pinned on the board, I just couldn’t help but notice. It had already been on my mind.
Voto’s concept for One Of also feels a bit like the stuff of fashion fantasy. After working in the industry for 15 years alongside designers like Joseph Altuzarra, Rosie Assoulin, and Gabriela Hearst, she decided to take her knowledge of textile development and design to create something she hadn’t yet seen before. “I found that we always had leftover fabrics, for whatever reason—canceled colorways, we ordered too much, whatever it was—a lot of different factors came into play,” she tells me. “And so we would be sitting on all these fabrics at the end of each collection.”
Now, One Of uses those leftover fabrics to create made-to-measure pieces, an idea that was also inspired by her own personal shopping experiences. “I was never sample size,” she says. “That’s why we don’t do sizes! We do measurements.” Then she asks if I’ve ever been measured before. When I shake my head no, she quickly pulls out a sketch of a mannequin and a measuring tape, which she wraps around my waist and arms while jotting numbers down. “Are things always cropped on you?” she asks. “Because you have a long torso!” She’s right, they are—but it’s something I’d just accepted, never understanding exactly why.
Voto tells me the idea of made-to-measure fashion is abstract for most people. “Obviously, there is menswear and bespoke suiting and tailoring; it’s way more common for them,” she says. “But with womenswear—and especially the types of designs that we’re working on—it’s not something you would expect to hear. Sure, made-to-order might be something that’s a bit more common—but made-to-measure? That’s something that you’re not hearing about as much. And I think, for me, it was really important, because there’s so many women in my life for whom shopping off the rack is always challenging.”
She goes on to describe her friends’ struggles to find things they love, because they are too petite or tall or have long torsos they aren’t aware of. “Being able to introduce made-to-measure was really important to me, because I want everybody to feel like when they come in here, they have the opportunity to wear something they normally wouldn’t get to wear because of whatever reason.”
One Of does release collections, but there is no stock. You come in to meet with the brand’s team and see what you like, but anything can be made in a different fabric. Voto keeps a handful of fabric samples tacked up on the wall next to her mood board for each collection, so you can see and touch all of the possibilities. “We force people to think and reflect, because it’s not this instant ‘click, click, click, a bunch of stuff shows up.’ ”
One of her clients calls it “delayed gratification.” When I ask Voto to define the concept, she explains: “It’s like she’s excited when she first comes in, because she’s like, ‘Okay, what are we going to make next?’ And then she’s excited when she gets to fit it, because she’s like, ‘Oh, this is looking good.’ And then she’s excited again when she finally gets it. She’s like, ‘I’ve been building up to this thing, and I now get to wear it and share it and show people.’ It’s a totally different way of looking at wardrobing.”
Voto doesn’t even call her collections collections, really. “I call each capsule and all the different pieces that we make suggestions!” she says. “They are conversation starters.”
And because it’s all so personal, working with the brand is the kind of experience her clients go on to tell their friends about—and then the friends come to One Of themselves to see what it’s all about. “A client yesterday came in, and she brought her friend, and said her friend is gonna book an appointment with us,” Voto says. “It is like a family, in a way.” Most of One Of’s clients know each other, and the brand has taken off largely through word of mouth. “A lot of them are going to be at the Central Park hat luncheon, actually,” Voto mentions, and I think, There’s the Gossip Girl connection again.
As for the brand’s latest capsule—or series of suggestions—which comes out today, Voto notes there is always a vintage undertone to everything she makes. “I always go out and shop for vintage and see what’s out there. But the big jumping-off point for this collection was the matador,” she says. She looks over her shoulder and points out a framed black-and-white picture of a Spanish matador on the wall. “A friend of mine gave me this photo three apartments ago, and I always loved it.” She loved it mostly because she was inspired by the rich embroideries on the jacket.
“So I started looking at some of the images I had pulled recently and noticed a thread. I’ve been pulling matador jackets for a while, and anything with these kinds of rich embroideries,” she continues. “That was the jumping-off point.”
What resulted was a 12-piece collection of rich colors and prints, especially polka dots, spotted pony hair, and red-and-blue tartan. And of course there’s a matador-esque two-piece set in a rich pink floral pattern, adorned with rich red velvet flourishes, that feels like something I could wear out to dinner, rather than a bullfight. I mention how the pattern would look great on the skirt with a peplum waist detail, which Voto has envisioned in a baby-blue polka-dot print, and she smiles.
“See, I love that, because I like collaborating! So much of what my role was with these creative directors before was being a sounding board. And now our clients will be like, ‘Patricia, what do you think?’ And I’ll sketch it out for them and help them put together a mood board and pull inspiration and fabrics, of course—and embroideries! But really, being there as a support to them was the most satisfying part of my job.”
Before I leave, Voto slips me my measurements, jotted down neatly on her hand-drawn mannequin, and smirks warmly. “It’s just such a rewarding role to be the right hand to somebody,” she says. And suddenly it feels like I’m truly in a fashion fantasy—one I didn’t even know I had.
One Of Collection Eight Lookbook
Tara Gonzalez is the Senior Fashion Editor at Harper’s Bazaar. Previously, she was the style writer at InStyle, founding commerce editor at Glamour, and fashion editor at Coveteur.
