BRANDS ON FIRE: Sies Marjan

Sander Lak

Sies Marjan is a luxury prêt-à-porter label based in New York City and created by 35-year-old creative director Sander Lak. The brand – made up of the first names of the designer’s parents, his father Sies and his mother Marjan – was founded in 2016 with a small in-house workshop.

The dynamic designer, whose debut at the New York Fashion Week in February 2016 was studded with celebrities such as Anna Wintour, Natalie Massenet and Stefano Tonchi, has immediately conquered a “hard core” of fans who continue to love his colorful and sensual clothes.

Born in Brunei but originally Dutch, Sander Lak has traveled for years around the world (Malaysia, Gabon, Central Africa, Aberdeen in Scotland) and graduated in MA Master’s course in Central Saint Martins with the tutor Louise Wilson, the one who trained him and taught him an “impulsive” approach to creation. His brand, Sies Marjan, evokes a narration of color, proportion and subversive fabrication.

Lak also spent five months working for Phillip Lim in New York. Then, he moved to Balmain, where he worked with Christophe Decarnin and then with Olivier Rousteing. Shortly thereafter in Antwerp, Belgium, he spent five years as head of design at Dries Van Noten.
In 2014, Sander was finally recruited by Nancy and Howard Marks to create a new label in New York. Here, at that point, Sies Marjan.

His debut was held on top of the Barclay Tower, in Tribeca, and was immediately acclaimed by fashion critics. After the show, the designer agreed to an exclusive American department store with Barneys New York. The label began with 28 retailers worldwide for the Fall/Winter 2016 season and now has 75 global wholesalers. Sander Lak was nominated for the Swarovski CFDA award for emerging talents in 2017 and won the award in 2018.

His production process closely affects our country: its products, in fact, are made in part in New York, the rest in Italy and only a part of knitwear in China. Most of the fabrics Lak uses come from the best companies in Italy, mostly from Como and Florence

Complexity and contradictions are the protagonists of its products, together with well-defined colors and games on textures and shapes that make it one of the most interesting and controversial brands of last years.