RETAIL Therapy

SHOPPING TODAY often feels more like mindless SCROLLING than BUYING something because it makes you feel SPECIAL. One writer discovers the beauty of a more PERSONAL, CUSTOMIZED EXPERIENCE.

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Inside One/Of's Upper East Side atelier; One/of founder and designer Patricia Voto's mood board and a finished dress design; the writer, Eliza Brooke, during her fitting with Voto; shoes for fittings; Voto in the atelier; sketch details and fabric swatches

ON A LEADEN day in October, I stood in front of a mirror on the fourth floor of a town house on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, getting my measurements taken for a pair of pants.

The space was elegant and cozy, scaled as though for an intimate conversation at a friend's apartment, except I was in the studio of designer Patricia Voto. Fabric swatches covered one wall, sketches lay on a round table, and small bowls of nuts, M&M's, and dried apricots sat next to a display of shoes.

Disenchanted by the distancing effect of online shopping, Voto-a veteran of Altuzarra, Brock Collection, and Gabriela Hearst-launched her atelier concept, One/Of (shopone of.​com), in 2020. Voto and her team release two capsule collections a year, but she views them more as suggestions than dictates: Clients can purchase pieces made to measure, "demi-bespoke" (with) changes to an existing design), or fully bespoke, all created with deadstock fabrics produced by mills for other brands that would otherwise languish in a storeroom.

I decided I wanted some tweed trousers in the vein of Meg Ryan's wardrobe in When Harry Met Sally.... Voto chatted with me while taking my measurements, and we consulted the fabric wall, from which she snipped a piece of muted purple tweed for me to consider. We could make a pair of pants from her collection in a similar fabric, she told me, or create a custom design.

Voto radiates a warm sense of calm that quickly quelled my nervousness about trying on clothing in front of a stranger. It's all in service of creating a low-pressure environment for her clients: She doesn't process transactions during fittings, and she doesn't talk sizes.