Lauren Manoogian: Casual Elegance with Peruvian Craftsmanship, especially made in Alpaca
As autumn sets in, it’s time for cashmere season again. Starting with Lauren Manoogian, let’s dive into premium designer brands that focus on cashmere materials.
Lauren Manoogian currently has only one offline store in New York. Otherwise, her products are available through online platforms like Net-a-Porter or various boutiques and retailers worldwide. In Beijing, the brand is available at SKP Select and DT51 Select, but interestingly, it’s not seen at Lane Crawford. Other boutiques in Beijing that carry the brand include 𝐃𝐎𝐔𝐁𝐋𝐄 𝐁𝐎𝐎, and also stores I mentioned in my article “5 High-Quality Hidden Gem Boutiques Worth Visiting in Beijing” such as CHICUN and Dong Liang.
Lauren Manoogian’s designs are known for their minimalist silhouettes. The collars are often variations of the shawl collar, paired with thick alpaca yarns that offer a structured yet cozy feel. The brand exudes a sense of casual elegance that appeals to those who favor laid-back sophistication.
The overall color palette leans towards warm almond, soft white, and light gray. The hues are subtle, exuding a sense of understated simplicity. The yarn colors are blended naturally, creating nuanced tones like white with a hint of gray, gray mixed with green, or brown with a touch of purple. Many of the fabrics are left in their natural, undyed state.
Although Lauren Manoogian is a New York brand, all its clothing and accessories are handcrafted in Peru, which explains the heavy use of alpaca wool — a fiber Peru is famous for.
In the past two to three years, the brand has gained popularity in China, with many quality-conscious bloggers and artists gravitating towards its signature alpaca coats.
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2010: Lauren Manoogian was founded by designer Lauren Manoogian, starting with the release of two sweaters in different colors. The brand is known for its handmade knitwear and accessories, using natural fibers and eco-friendly dyes, with a commitment to sustainable and low-impact production methods.
2014: The brand began selling in boutiques in New York and Los Angeles, quickly catching the attention of the fashion world with its minimalist designs and handcrafted details.
2015: Lauren Manoogian made its debut at Paris Fashion Week, showcasing its unique knitwear collection and gaining recognition from international fashion buyers and media.
2018: The brand launched its first full ready-to-wear collection, expanding its product line to include a broader range of garments while maintaining its signature natural tones and handcrafted textures.
2020: Lauren Manoogian was available in high-end fashion retailers worldwide, continuing its focus on sustainable fashion and minimizing waste in its production processes.
2022: The brand ventured into digital fashion, enhancing its online presence through virtual showcases and digital sales platforms.
Lauren Manoogian grew up in a creative family and had a love for animals from a young age, even dreaming of becoming a veterinarian as a child. This affinity for animals and ethical practices translates into the brand’s commitment to handmade craftsmanship. The choice of knitting as a medium also reflects Lauren’s appreciation for the skill involved in the craft. Despite being American-born, her decision to produce in Peru was a serendipitous coincidence.
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Lauren Manoogian’s best-selling items include mid-length and long alpaca coats and alpaca shawls, which are the main products purchased by boutiques in China. These items are made from two main fabric compositions: one is 43% baby alpaca, 29% merino wool, 25% polyamide, and 3% elastane; the other is 93% alpaca. The former is often used for thicker coats, like the ones shown below:
The second fabric is mainly used for lighter coats. Notice the oversized pockets on the coats; this is another distinctive feature of Lauren Manoogian’s design.
As mentioned earlier, Lauren Manoogian’s colors are nuanced and natural, like white with gray, gray with green, or brown with purple, avoiding the starkness of industrial solid colors and instead offering a gentle, textured feel.
Other ready-to-wear items include base layers, sweaters, and pants, using fabrics similar to those above: blends of baby alpaca with merino wool or pure alpaca.
There’s also a line made of 100% pima cotton, typically used for summer wear.
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While the designs are worth looking at, I wouldn’t buy them. It’s clear from the pictures that Lauren Manoogian’s materials are not particularly robust — they tend to be on the lighter side.
The main issue is the fabric quality. Despite claims of softness, some customers still find the collars itchy. In my article “My Favorite 6 Cashmere Brands”, I included a chart showing fiber fineness for high-end materials. For alpaca, unless it’s the 10–15 micron suri alpaca (comparable to Tibetan antelope), the wool can be quite coarse. True suri alpaca products are often heavily marketed for this reason, unlike Lauren Manoogian’s vague claims of softness.
At best, Lauren Manoogian uses baby (huacaya) alpaca at 18 microns, which is not as fine as the raw guanaco fibers.
Many of the fabrics also contain merino wool and nylon. If they were genuinely using high-end suri alpaca or guanaco, brands would prefer 100% composition rather than blends. As a manufacturer, I’d use the best fibers to make pure cashmere/suri alpaca/vicuna garments, while lesser fibers get blended. Given the same price range, I’d always choose an Erdos coat over Lauren Manoogian or even Icicle, since Erdos owns their pastures and yarn production, ensuring the material quality is robust.
The coat below is made of 43% baby alpaca, 29% merino wool, 25% polyamide, and 3% elastane.
Alpaca wool is still relatively rare in the Chinese market, given that the four main types of camelids are native to South America. China is more familiar with cashmere, and the awareness of these materials remains low, unless one frequently deals with brands like Loro Piana. Many people can’t even distinguish between the four camelid types — llama, alpaca, vicuña, and guanaco — and their translations are often unclear.
Epilogue
Despite its less-than-perfect materials, Lauren Manoogian’s design aesthetic and craftsmanship have earned appreciation from a niche audience of artistic and discerning consumers, ranging from 19 to 65 years old. Lauren herself often responds to customer emails, and as the business has grown over the past decade, she continues to invest in researching better yarns.
Well, I’ve penned another brand intro to add to the collection. It would be great if domestic cashmere brands could take inspiration from Lauren Manoogian’s design style, instead of sticking to middle-aged aesthetics.
Lately, I’ve come to realize: those who can make movies don’t “consume” others’ films, and those who write novels don’t “consume” others’ stories.
Since I started writing my own content for my public account, my subscriptions are now just myself. Once I learn how to create videos, I’ll focus more on my own work. After all, it’s about creating and expressing oneself, not just consuming others’ content.
by: pamperherself
