This isn't just the return of a brand. It's the return of the way fashion should be made.
Growing Up in the Garment District
I remember being a kid in the 1980s, going to work with my father in the heart of New York's Garment District. The energy there was unlike anything I've ever experienced since. Rolling racks of garments moved through the streets, cut fabric flew through the air, and every single building, every floor of every building, was packed with factories making clothing. It was loud, it was alive, and it was real.
That world shaped me. Those were my formative years, and I watched my father build something extraordinary in the middle of all of it: Pierre Labiche.
Pierre Labiche at Its Peak
At our peak, Pierre Labiche was not a small operation. We had sixty people sewing in our factory. We had over three thousand customers across the world and fourteen sales representatives carrying our name. We stocked over a hundred thousand yards of fabric at any given time, and every single garment, whether a customer ordered one unit or hundreds, was cut individually, right here in New York.
We didn't outsource. We didn't hand off the hard parts. Everything was done in house, from start to finish. We were known for our pleating, that was our specialty, our signature. Back then, that's how it worked. You went to Pierre Labiche for pleating. You went somewhere else for a short cocktail dress. You went somewhere else for wool double-face. Every manufacturer had a mastery, a discipline they owned. It wasn't just a brand, it was a craft.
What Fashion Lost
Slowly, things started to change. I watched it happen from the inside.
The shift to overseas manufacturing didn't happen overnight, but it happened. One by one, brands started moving their production out of New York, out of the country, chasing lower costs and faster turnaround. The Garment District that I grew up in began to hollow out. The buildings that once hummed with sewing machines went quiet.
And as manufacturing moved away, something else shifted too. Fashion stopped being about craft and started being about concept. Brands became logos. Clothing became a commodity. Fast fashion exploded, and consumers, understandably, got swept up in the idea that more was better, that cheap was fine, that the label mattered more than what was underneath it.
But New York was suffering. The industry I grew up in was disappearing. And the quality of what people were wearing was quietly, steadily getting worse, even as the price tags stayed high, or got higher. People started to ask the right question, even if they didn't know it yet: if everything is made in the same factories overseas, what exactly am I paying for?
The Pivot — Tom’s Sons International Pleating
Pierre Labiche, as it had been, wound down around 2000’s. I stepped away from the industry for a time, but I couldn't really find my purpose. I came back when I realized that everything my family had built, every bit of knowledge, every technique, every standard of craft was at risk of being lost entirely.
Rather than trying to relaunch the full brand at that moment, I made a decision to do what I knew we were truly the best at: pleating. I formed Tom’s Son's International Pleating, and I took over the reins as my father moved toward retirement. We focused our skillset and we built a reputation. High-end brands started to come to us. They recognized the quality of what we could execute, and we grew. It was good work. Meaningful work. But it was contractor work, and over time, I began to see the barriers.
The Wake-Up Call
Then COVID happened, and everything became clear.
Supply chains that brands had built overseas collapsed almost overnight. The vulnerability of outsourced production was exposed for everyone to see. And yet, even in the aftermath, even as the problems became undeniable, luxury brands continued to move their production overseas. Brands I had assumed would never compromise on where and how their clothes were made were quietly doing exactly that.
I had always discouraged my father's dream of relaunching Pierre Labiche. I knew what it took, the money, the effort, the infrastructure. Launching a brand properly in today's world costs millions. We didn't have millions. And the industry felt brutal, oversaturated, and unforgiving.
But something shifted. Not just in me…in the world.
Why Now
People are tired. They are tired of fast fashion and the damage it does: to quality, to the environment, to the workers behind it. They are tired of being overcharged by brands that can no longer justify their price tags. They are tired of polished marketing campaigns and high-profile celebrity endorsements that tell them what to think and what to want.
People want something real. Something raw. Something honest.
And I realized: that's us. That's always been us.
I also realized something else, something that sealed it for me. Even though there is a growing desire to bring manufacturing back, even though a new generation of makers is hungry to learn real craft again, there are almost no brands left that actually produce everything in house. The knowledge is disappearing. The infrastructure is nearly gone. Most people who want to do it simply don't know how.
I do. I grew up in it.
This Is Not Just a Revival
Relaunching Pierre Labiche is not an act of nostalgia. I want to be very clear about that.
This is not about recreating the past for the sake of it. THIIS IS ABOUT REVIVING THE WAY A FASHION BRAND SHOULD OPERATE. Complete control from A to Z, every decision made with intention, every garment made with care. Start to finish.
My father was not just a designer. He was a master, a grand master, truly of multiple disciplines. He had the final word not only on what a garment looked like, but on exactly how it was made. The construction, the technique, the finish. Every detail. That level of control, that level of ownership over your craft, is almost nonexistent in fashion today.
That is what I am bringing back.
Pierre Labiche is being rebuilt as a living example of what fashion was, and what it needs to be again. Not a concept. Not a logo. A craft made with skill, made with pride, made with love that only comes when you have complete control over every step of the process.
This is my father's dream. This is my family's legacy. And this is just the beginning of the plans we made together!
Welcome to Pierre Labiche!