# How LilyEve Turned Vintage Hermès Into the Coolest Slow-Fashion Status Symbol By The Current Tribune · Fashion · Published Wed, 12 Aug 2026 13:23:15 GMT · Updated Wed, 12 Aug 2026 19:23:15 GMT Source: The Current Tribune — https://currenttribune.com/article/lilyeve-upcycled-hermes-slow-fashion LilyEve isn’t supposed to exist in the age of micro-trends and overnight drops. The slow-fashion label, built almost entirely from vintage Hermès textiles, started with something as unglamorous as a too-thick face mask and has quietly grown into one of the most interesting luxury upcycling stories right now. Founder and Parsons graduate Lily Clempson has turned old Hermès beach towels, blankets, and scarves into one-of-a-kind coats, vests, tops, and bags—proof that slow fashion can still feel wildly covetable. And crucially, she’s doing it without pretending sustainability is a marketing angle; it’s baked into the DNA of LilyEve. ## Inside the origin story of LilyEve The idea for LilyEve was born in the middle of the pandemic, when Clempson was staying at her parents’ house in the Hamptons. Staring at her grandmother’s old Hermès beach towels, she had a simple thought: cut them up, turn them into masks, and use them to raise money for FoodBank NYC. The first LilyEve pieces were exactly that—Hermès face masks that looked incredibly chic and, as Clempson jokes, were “very, very hot” and practically impossible to breathe through. She sold them through Instagram and did local drop-offs for customers, part fashion experiment, part mutual aid project. But the Hermès masks did something else: they sparked a wave of requests. People wanted more upcycled pieces in those archival prints—custom orders, special commissions, anything that would give their vintage textiles a new life. Clempson said yes to almost everything. By her own admission, she wasn’t a master sewer. What she did have was an eye for proportion, a Parsons education, and an instinct that people were hungry for luxury that didn’t feel mass-produced. That mix was enough to turn a pandemic side project into the LilyEve brand. ## What makes LilyEve’s Hermès upcycling different Upcycling has become a buzzword, but LilyEve is operating at a different level. The brand works exclusively with vintage Hermès textiles—think cashmere and wool blankets, silk scarves, and plush beach towels—cutting and reimagining them into new pieces. Today, a typical LilyEve drop might include: - Blanket coats and blanket trench coats - Cropped trench coats - Shearling vests lined or paneled with Hermès silk - Silk tops made from repurposed scarves - Oversize tote bags - Bucket hats and cropped jackets from old towels The designs lean into the graphic, often maximalist nature of Hermès prints. One jacket might be sliced from a raspberry-and-tangerine blanket; another vest might showcase psychedelic scarf artwork originally meant to drape over shoulders, not structure a garment. Other pieces are more restrained, but still far from quiet luxury. A blue-and-white blanket trench coat worn by actor Kelly Rutherford takes a more demure color palette and pushes it into statement-coat territory through scale and silhouette, not logos. Then there’s the “Terry Towel Series,” one of the clearest expressions of LilyEve’s point of view: cropped jackets cut from vintage Hermès beach towels, covered in stylized seagulls, parrots, and cheetahs. It’s resort wear reimagined as armor for a maximalist city winter. ## The slow-fashion ethos at the heart of LilyEve Every LilyEve piece is truly one of a kind. That’s not a euphemism for “limited edition”—it’s a function of the raw material. Hermès never made two towels or blankets exactly the same way forever, and Clempson is cutting into textiles that already have their own history. Because she’s working with finite vintage Hermès stock, there’s a natural cap on volume. Rather than fighting that constraint, she’s built LilyEve around it. New pieces are released in small, tightly edited batches, and there’s no attempt to chase a traditional wholesale calendar or flood the market. Clempson is clear that she doesn’t want LilyEve “to be everywhere” or overproduced. In practice, that means the brand functions like a hybrid of ready-to-wear and studio practice: a steady stream of new silhouettes and categories, yes, but always dictated by what she can actually source and reuse. In an industry where “sustainable” often means little more than recycled hangtags, LilyEve’s slow-fashion model feels refreshingly literal. Scarves become tops, blankets become coats, towel scraps become patchwork details or future accessories. Waste is not an afterthought; it’s raw material for the next idea. ![LilyEve slow fashion studio with upcycled Hermès-inspired coats on a rack](/media/2026/08/lilyeve-upcycled-hermes-slow-fashion-inline.webp) *Upcycled Hermès textiles in the LilyEve studio become one-of-a-kind statement coats.* ## From Broadway costumes to a Brooklyn studio For all its digital-age origin—Clempson sold those first Hermès masks through Instagram—LilyEve is also rooted in old-school garment-making. In the brand’s early days, Clempson went looking for a production partner who could help her translate her cuts and concepts into durable, wearable pieces. She found Michel, then 89, a seasoned designer who had created for Jacques Fath and worked on Broadway costumes for shows like *Funny Girl*, before spending more than three decades running a womenswear boutique in East Hampton. The introduction came not through a fashion gatekeeper but via a recommendation from a local at Stuart’s Seafood Market in Amagansett. Michel became a key collaborator, bringing decades of pattern-making and tailoring know-how to Clempson’s vision. After he passed away, Clempson chose to honor him in the most concrete way possible: by re-creating his original studio in Brooklyn as the heart of LilyEve’s operations. That decision says a lot about how the brand sees itself. LilyEve might pull its audience from Instagram and online consignment platforms, but its soul is a workshop—a place where garments are cut, pinned, and stitched, not just rendered on a moodboard and outsourced. ## How LilyEve hunts down vintage Hermès Ask Clempson what part of running LilyEve thrills her most, and sourcing is high on the list. She tracks down every Hermès blanket, scarf, towel, and tie herself, turning the brand into a kind of ongoing treasure hunt. Being, as she puts it, “chronically online” helps. She spends time stalking resale platforms like The RealReal and combing through auctions for standout pieces and rare designs. Over time, LilyEve has also attracted the attention of serious collectors, some of whom now approach her directly with their most precious finds, ready to see them turned into something new. Nothing is too small to be considered. Clempson saves scraps and offcuts from past projects—tiny squares of toweling, slender bands of silk—and treats them as prompts rather than leftovers. A narrow strip from a scarf might become the basis of a strap or trim; a cluster of towel fragments might inspire a textural panel on a future jacket. ## What’s next for the Hermès upcycling label LilyEve may be rooted in coats and outerwear, but the brand isn’t staying in one lane. Clempson is already experimenting with new categories that keep the focus on vintage Hermès while exploring different ways to wear it. One of the most promising developments is an evening clutch bag series made from Hermès ties. Instead of simply layering ties side by side, Clempson is testing out weaving techniques that interlace multiple ties into a single structured surface, with each bag color-coded according to the bundle of ties it came from. The clutch project sums up LilyEve’s sweet spot: repurposed materials, high-luxury details, and a construction method that makes each piece unrepeatable. Once a particular color story of ties is gone, that exact clutch can’t exist again. Even as she expands categories, Clempson isn’t chasing scale for its own sake. The focus remains on small-batch drops, thoughtful design, and the thrill of knowing that your coat, vest, or bag has a history that didn’t start on a runway last season. ## LilyEve and the future of luxury slow fashion Luxury fashion is in a strange moment: brands are talking about circularity while still churning out thousands of units a day. LilyEve sits in the tension between those two realities. It’s luxury—Hermès textiles, meticulous construction, an A-list sighting or two—but it’s also quietly radical in how strictly it adheres to slow-fashion principles. By building a label entirely around vintage Hermès, Clempson is doing a few key things at once: - Preserving and recontextualizing archival textiles, rather than letting them sit in storage. - Offering one-of-a-kind pieces that can’t be replicated, which is increasingly rare at the top of the market. - Using up every possible scrap, so that upcycling is more than a buzzword. - Proving that “slow” doesn’t have to look earthy or minimal; it can be loud, graphic, and unapologetically glamorous. That last point might be what makes LilyEve so compelling. Slow fashion has often been coded as neutral-toned and quiet, all beige knits and careful basics. LilyEve is the opposite: psychedelic prints, animal motifs, technicolor towels that used to live poolside now heading out to dinner layered over jeans and heels. ## What This Means LilyEve shows what happens when slow fashion stops trying to imitate the big luxury houses and instead rewrites the rules around scarcity and desire. Every upcycled Hermès coat or clutch is a reminder that the most interesting “new” piece in your wardrobe might start life as something decades old. If the rest of the industry is serious about sustainability, this is the model to watch: small batches, obsessive sourcing, deep respect for materials, and a willingness to let constraint—not trend forecasts—drive design. For now, LilyEve is still a niche name. Given the appetite for distinct, traceable luxury, it may not stay that way for long.