In New York, a city synonymous with black, Ulla Johnson’s bold, vibrant designs stand out. Even during last year’s quiet luxury boom, her clothes were covered in patterns made by artisans in India and Kenya. Rather than the polished, even strict aesthetic the New York label is known for, the brand is embracing a softer, overtly feminine style with plenty of florals, billowy skirts, ruffles and lace.
Johnson said being visible is her “main strength.”
“Our aesthetic is incredibly well-defined and recognizable,” Johnson told Business of Fashion magazine, “people know it’s our clothes right away. I think there’s something very uniquely ours that we’ve continued to represent and stay true to.”
And the differences don’t end with the clothes: While much of New York’s fashion business typically falls into one of two categories: corporate-owned behemoths or designer-led brands with small, devoted followings, Ulla Johnson is a rare in-between presence.
Johnson has grown slowly but surely since she started the business more than 25 years ago, opening its first store in 2017 and never taking on outside investment — she still travels to far-flung places like Peru to source materials, and the brand still develops its drapes and fabrics in-house.
“We were doing slow fashion at a time when fast fashion was exploding,” she says. “It felt like we were swimming against the tide, and there were times when it actually hurt our business.”
That patience, especially in recent years, is starting to pay off. Over the past five years, the company has doubled in size and grown 130% since 2020. It has nine-figure sales, a rarity for a New York fashion company. It has garnered celebrity fans, including Katie Holmes, Margot Robbie and Michelle Obama. And after years of selling mostly wholesale, direct-to-consumer sales have taken over this year. Now, 55% of sales come from its e-commerce and three brick-and-mortar stores, a number the company hopes to grow.
Competitors have followed a similar path, selling slow, sustainably produced fashion with a bold, recognizable aesthetic and at aspirational but not exorbitant price points, with mixed results: Mara Hoffman, founded a year after Ulla Johnson, closed its business this year, citing the fashion industry’s relentless demands, while Australian-born Zimmerman, founded in 1991, was sold to private equity giant Advent International for $1 billion in 2023.
Thibaut Perrin-Fevre, the former president of Burberry Americas who joined Ulla Johnson in April, believes the brand has room to grow in both new markets and new categories, possibly moving closer to the latter — starting with fragrance and now beauty — and plans to invest more in brick-and-mortar stores as well as expand Ulla Johnson’s international presence, which currently accounts for 30% of sales.
Still, they’re in no rush.
“I’ve seen a lot of brands come and go, they grow and die quickly,” Perrin-Fèvre said. “[Ula]doesn’t want to grow too fast, they want to protect the equity of their brand, and to me that’s the mark of a true luxury brand.”
Slow and steady
When Johnson started his business in 1998, the fashion world, especially in New York, was a very different place. Luxury conglomerates were still in their infancy, and the gap between bootstrapped companies and the biggest luxury brands wasn’t as large as it could be. Small boutiques were plentiful, and department stores still dominated retail, giving new brands an opportunity to get in front of consumers.
“It was a really exciting time in New York and a really unusual time to launch a brand,” Johnson said. “It wasn’t based on a customer acquisition strategy or a marketing plan. It really came from the heart and we were able to execute it on a small scale.”
In her 20s, Johnson felt that the market was lacking “beautiful, purposeful, and long-lasting things.” She started small, selling five pieces in a friend’s boutique. Sales were good enough that she caught the eye of a buyer at the now-closed Barneys New York, who bought her second collection.
For years, smaller collections sold through wholesale partners allowed the brand to grow organically but still keep a low profile: She first presented at New York Fashion Week in 2014 and didn’t have a full-scale runway show until February 2017. Putting the brand on the runway with her 31-look, 1970s-inspired collection was a turning point that “really changed the creative impulse of our studio,” she said.

Unlike some of the recent success stories of American fashion, like The Row or Khaite, Johnson didn’t win over shoppers by offering quality basics, the perfect pair of jeans, or simple-but-chic cashmere sweaters, but by eye-catching, double-take pieces, like the Camaria sweaterdress, made with handmade crocheted paisley and finished with a fringed hem. Even the more basic pieces have a touch of flair, like the fleece Kara sweatpants, which feature lace-up button detailing down the front. Prices range from $500 to $1,000 for most dresses, $250 to $500 for tops, and up to $500 for jeans, making the line more affordable than the big luxury brands but a step above contemporary labels.
“Anyone can buy a Brown crossbody bag, but I would be willing to pay a little more for her design because it’s one of a kind,” Stephanie Covington, an Instagram influencer who goes by the name A Life Well Saved, said of the brand’s Adria Pleated Wave Clutch.
For Johnson, the goal of her work has always been to help women feel beautiful, like their “best selves,” she says. In a way, it subverts the idea of power dressing.
“We’re often described as feminine, which I love, but I also think there’s a lot of power in what we do,” she says. “The woman who comes to us wants to be beautiful, but she also wants to feel powerful. She’s a woman who’s not afraid to express herself. Our clothes are not silent.”
Meet the moment
World-building has always been a priority for Ulla Johnson. The company has long installed billboards on busy Houston Street in New York’s SoHo, a popular location for luxury advertising. Paying homage to the multicultural roots of its prints, campaigns have been shot all over the world, from Antoni Gaudi’s Casa Batlló in Barcelona to archaeological sites outside Fez, Morocco.
Perrin-Fèvre believes the brand’s unique aesthetic will be an advantage as it grows, and while they don’t intend to take a copy-and-paste approach to whatever opportunity presents itself, they feel home goods could be an option (they already advertise in home magazines alongside fashion books).
“The messaging is so distinctive that it might apply to some categories and not to some,” he said. “That’s what’s great about it: If you’re a founder-led company, you can choose what you want to do.”

Before that, fragrance is next. Earlier this year, the company first tried its hand at beauty through a collaboration with French brand Sisley. It plans to open another store in New York next year and is also looking at international expansion, including opening a store in London.
But even as Johnson looks to grow, she’s also continuing to change the way she does things. She has no interest in following in Zimmerman’s footsteps and retreating to Paris Fashion Week or selling a majority stake in the brand. That doesn’t mean she isn’t thinking about what the future holds, but once again, she’s playing the long game.
“I’m currently raising my daughter to be involved with the brand,” she admitted, “She’s still very young, but I can see the sparkle in her eyes.”