Lined up in a panel of windows across Sylvie Millstein’s sprawling floor-through Soho apartment are key pieces from her fledgling sportswear line, Hellessy.
The racks hold dozens of cleanly cut separates in a mostly neutral palette — black, creams and pinky beiges, with only a few patterned pieces.
The line, celebrating its second year come November, is essential chic — a style honed during the designer’s years as a Chanel exec, but also innate to the half-Japanese, Paris-born Millstein.
“I was obsessed with working for Chanel. And I knew the safest way to enter a big house like Chanel was to get the best diploma you can,” says Millstein, 40, dressed for a weekday afternoon in her own designs, her long blond hair flowing over a sleeveless black top paired with leather pants and wedges that vault her tiny frame another five inches.
“So I went to business school and studied economics and marketing,” she says.
After finishing at Hautes Études Commerciales de Paris (think Wharton, en français) in 1996, she worked for Givenchy while Alexander McQueen was still designing for the house.
Then on to Chanel, where she worked for nine years, eventually as the head marketer in Japan. She met her husband, financier Lee Millstein, in Tokyo, and in 2006 the couple moved to New York, where they proceeded to have two kids.
Family life inspired her fashion endeavor: Hellessy is named for her two sons, Hendrix and Lennox.
“My husband didn’t make the cut!” laughs Millstein.
She says her designs are made for a busy woman like herself, who needs to get from school pickup to a dinner party in one fell swoop of a killer outfit.
That could mean an ultraskinny leather jacket, a knee-length tunic over pants or a blouse vented up to the midback.
The sleek separates are of a feather with the simplicity of Stella McCartney or Phoebe Philo for Céline, but Hellessy’s coup de vogue is knitwear, which luxury department stores such as Barneys and Harrods stock and sell in piles.
One of her standout fall pieces is a sweater jacket made from what seems like pounds of cashmere. Straightforward elegance is fitting for a designer who says her singular pet fashion peeve is being a fashion victim — “c’est le faux pas,” she says.
Knowing yourself, explains Millstein, is the most important step to looking good.
“Don’t try to force anything, don’t force yourself to explore something that doesn’t work for you,” she advises. “Find your own style.”