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Above: Leset’s new office, with a custom conference table and vintage 1970s chairs.
In 2019, Lili Chemla founded her fashion brand Leset with the idea that clothing could both feel like loungewear and still look polished enough to wear out. The concept took off with customers and celebrity fans like Zoë Kravitz, Jennifer Lawrence, and Dakota Johnson, who are often spotted in the brand’s tees and drawstring pants. Her business grew quickly and so did her team, so much so that Chemla decided Leset needed a new office—but she didn’t have to go far.
After starting the search, Chemla heard that the office one flight upstairs from their existing Los Angeles space—where she launched the business—had become available. Constructed in 1924, the building originally housed a paper company and the upstairs unit, with its palatial proportions and stained-glass windows, truly reveals that history. “Everything just felt so unbelievably special about it,” Chemla says.
Simran MalikLeset founder Lili Chemla sitting on a cowhideEames lounge in her office.
She then turned to designer Phoebe Little, who also conceived the brand’s New York retail flagship, to transform the space into a workable office. They arranged workstations around the windows, while keeping the middle of the main room open and available for showing collections: “a plug-and-play area,” Chemla says. As for the design, Chemla and Little wanted to “really maintain the natural beauty of the space,” Chemla notes. They left it open and loftlike, while peppering in a mix of vintage and custom pieces.
But most important, perhaps, was the kitchen, where the whole Leset team eats lunch together every day around a 16-foot-long stainless steel countertop. “It really just is the center of the space for us,” says Chemla. Below, as part of our Front Office series, Chemla shares all the details about Leset’s new workspace.
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The kitchen, where the Leset team has lunch together every day, features more than 20 feet of stainless steel countertops.
What’s your favorite part of your office?
We have these vintage 1970s conference table chairs that have small hooks on the back of them for you to be able to hang your bag. I am just obsessed with them. We didn’t receive them until three months after moving into the office because they were stuck in customs, but I was like, “I don’t care. We are waiting for these chairs.” Finding and sourcing vintage pieces like that gets me so excited.
When we showed our first collection out of this office, we had about 30 people in for the meeting, and everyone who came in hung their coat and their bag on the back of the chair, and I was just like, “Yes, it’s happening! All my dreams are coming true.”
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Oversized plants from Serpentine LA are dotted throughout the office.
What’s the oldest thing?
The floors. They’re an original concrete that hasn’t been changed or modified since the building was built in 1924.
The newest?
The kitchen and the conference table, which we fully built out from scratch. It’s a 20-foot-long glass and steel table, custom-made, which is really beautiful.
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A white leather Corbusier seating group in one of the workspaces.
What’s the most sentimental item?
I have a number five installed on the wall of my office. It was sent to me by my dad because that’s our family lucky number and I see it every single day when I walk in.
Is there anything you want to change?
Not yet, but give me like a month or two. Honestly, it’s just figuring out how we’re going to continue to grow into this space and keep it organized. I feel like there are always ways to organize space better and build out our storage systems better. But no, I don’t think there’s anything drastic that I would change at this point.
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Shared workspaces are clustered around the office’s windows.
What’s your work setup when you really need to concentrate?
I have two spaces in my office. I have my desk, which is this beautiful 1970s French mahogany architect’s desk. I love that a piece designed for creative work has found a new life within my office. When I’m really buckling down, my door is closed and I’m on my desktop at my desk—that’s more when I’m doing the CEO/CFO type of work. When I’m doing the creative director type of work, I have this little nook area that has a built-in daybed. It’s just a bit more quiet and comfortable, and gives me a place to relax and get into a more creative mindset.
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Chemla at her 1970s French mahogany architect’s desk.
Any funny stories?
My COO Alex Basch and I put a wall up in a larger room to build out both of our offices, which means that we share an A/C vent. I like it when it’s freezing cold, and she likes it when it’s hot, and so I’ll just walk by her office sometimes and she has a scarf around her and is in a puffer jacket when it’s 85 degrees outside in L.A. We didn’t realize it was going to be an issue before moving in, and it has just become a joke now because people go into meetings in her office, and she’s just completely bundled up like it’s the winter.
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Leset COO Alexandra Basch’s office with a glass-and-aluminum sawhorse desk, a Mid-Century Cleopatra daybed by A.R. Cordemeyer, and perforated metal chairs.
Annie Goldsmith is the senior editor and digital lead at ELLE Decor, where she covers design, culture, style, and trends. She previously held positions at The Information, covering technology and culture, and Town & Country, writing about news, entertainment, and fashion. Her work has also appeared in Vogue, Rolling Stone, and the SF Standard.