Altuzarra Brought 'Wuthering Heights' Romance to Old Navy

Joseph Altuzarra sees it this way: women no longer buy within one price tier. Instead, he says high-low dressing is the "norm," with shoppers frequently mixing a designer item with more affordable wardrobe staples. “There’s so much more cross-pollination in customers at different price points now,” the founder of Altuzarra tells Marie Claire in August. “Some of our customers are buying a great jacket at Altuzarra, but they’re also buying their jeans at the Gap, or they’re buying some great T-shirts or dresses at Old Navy. There’s much more of an ecosystem of mixing different price points”

It’s fitting, then, that Altuzarra is the latest name to join forces with Old Navy. Launching September 30, Old Navy x Altuzarra is the third installment in the mass retailer’s American designer collaboration series. Priced from $24.99 to $139.99, the limited-edition collection spans women’s, girls’, and toddler clothing—and marks the first time Old Navy has extended one of its designer collaborations into coordinating looks for all three.

The partnership started organically. After Zac Posen joined Gap Inc. (which owns Old Navy) as executive vice president and creative director, Altuzarra spotted the designer at a party. “I was like, ‘Oh, I’d love to do something together,’” Altuzarra recalls. There was a personal connection to the retailer, too: “I’ve been a customer of Old Navy for so long. When I had kids, I became even more of an Old Navy customer. I think that they stand for this kind of ease and joy of American sportswear and optimism... that I was really attracted to.”

“I’ve watched Joseph’s work grow over many years. We kind of grew up in this industry together,” Posen says of what drew him to Altuzarra. He adds that, as leader of an American company, focusing on American talent has been an important part of his vision for the brand, which has previously teamed up with Anna Sui and Christopher John Rogers: “Joseph is one of the stars of American fashion.”

Altuzarra didn’t treat the project as a scaled-down version of his namesake line. “I wanted to approach it in a very similar way that I do my own runway collections,” he says. As with many of his collections, that meant beginning with books as inspiration.

At the time, Altuzarra had recently read Emily Brontë'sWuthering Heights and Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and was “steeped in this world of romantic literature and romantic heroines and these windswept Scottish moors.” The novels became the collection’s central references, informing a wardrobe built around what he describes as a “sense of yearning, of desire, that kind of deep romance.” Or, as Posen puts it: “bringing your Jane Austen fantasies into today.”

The resulting collection combines these feminine references with Old Navy easy wardrobe must-haves. There are floral dresses with scarf sashes that can be wrapped around the shoulder or tied at the neck alongside Fair Isle sweaters, denim, and outerwear (including a parka that nods to an early Altuzarra best-seller). “The whole storytelling around the collection is really around books and literature and reading,” Altuzarra says. Even the details nod to the theme, with the collection’s hangtag designed to double as a bookmark.

Still, he didn’t want the literary references to make the clothes feel costume-y. “A big part of how I wanted to approach this collection was to make it feel… like a capital-F fashion collaboration,” he says. “But then, when you take the pieces apart, they’re great, easy pieces that can work in people’s wardrobes and can go from school drop-off to work to weekend to dinner with friends.”

That versatility comes through in printed bias-cut dresses inspired by Altuzarra's signature prints, embroidered knits, and wide-leg and straight-leg jeans. The designer also used the project to dive deeper into Gap's denim expertise, traveling to the headquarters in San Francisco and combing through vintage jeans to study washes and techniques: “I had never really done denim in that way, so it was just amazing to work with the teams.” Posen is particularly passionate about that part of the process. “Making a pair of jeans is like making a Hermès Kelly bag,” he says, pointing to the number of treatments and hands involved in producing denim. “There are so many artisans and hands that touch it that you don’t even realize.”

Much like comparing Old Navy jeans to one of fashion’s most coveted handbags, Posen says these collaborations are intended to surprise existing Old Navy shoppers while introducing them to designers they may not otherwise encounter. Altuzarra is equally interested in reaching an audience beyond his own. “A lot of them don’t know who I am or what Altuzarra is,” he says of Old Navy shoppers. “I think that there was such an opportunity to speak to the Old Navy audience and tell the story about who we are and what we do.”

At the same time, his existing customers may be just as interested. When Altuzarra previewed pieces for friends, he says, “I think they were as excited about this as they were about the collection that’s in my store now.”

Shop the Old Navy X Altuzarra now: