KHAITE

Catherine Holstein founded KHAITE in New York in 2016 after a decade working under Vera Wang and as a buyer for the New York retail company SVMoscow. The label launched with a thesis that the contemporary American luxury market had abandoned: take the rigorous, mid-century craft language of European tailoring (Hubert de Givenchy, Madame Grès, the early Madeleine Vionnet) and use it to build a wardrobe for women in their thirties and forties whose lives no longer fit either the streetwear-adjacent contemporary brands or the louder logo-luxury houses. The product canon settled quickly: heavyweight cashmere knits (the Mary turtleneck became a phenomenon), wide-leg silk trousers, leather coats cut in the language of 1960s Italian masculinity, the Lotus and Olivia bags. Materials are largely from Italian mills and tanneries; manufacturing is overwhelmingly Italian. Stylists, editors, and the kind of customer who used to buy The Row, Céline (Phoebe Philo era), and Loro Piana found a new home. KHAITE remains independently held under Catherine Holstein and CEO Gabby Welisch. Sales reportedly crossed $200 million in 2023. The brand has been a defining voice in the 'quiet luxury' movement that the post-pandemic American market embraced, and Holstein's own slow, deliberately limited press presence echoes the Olsens' approach to running The Row. Few new American luxury houses have arrived this fully formed.