RÓHE TAKES ITS QUIET AMSTERDAM AESTHETIC TO SOHO

Quiet luxury became one of fashion’s most overused phrases because it attempted to describe a real change with a slogan. Consumers were responding to clothes built around fabric, cut and repeat wear rather than visible branding. Róhe, founded in Amsterdam in 2021 by Marieke Meulendijks and Maickel Weyers, is interesting precisely because its identity arrived before the phrase became exhausted.

This September the label takes a significant step beyond wholesale distribution with its first standalone New York store, opening at 77 Mercer Street in SoHo on 11 September. The move places a relatively young European house inside one of fashion’s most competitive retail districts, during New York Fashion Week, without abandoning the calm, measured visual language on which the business has been built.

FABRIC BEFORE NOISE

Róhe’s proposition is based on a wardrobe rather than a sequence of attention-grabbing drops. The founders talk about a personal garderobe that transcends seasons, and the clothes follow that logic: sharp tailoring, sculptural outerwear, fluid dresses, leather, knitwear and restrained accessories, often in a neutral palette where construction has to do the work that a monogram would do elsewhere.

The Financial Times traces that approach back to the founders’ Amsterdam base, Huis de Vicq, a seventeenth-century canal house that contains the studio and in-house atelier. The setting matters because Róhe has turned its own environment – art, architecture, Dutch craft and domestic calm – into part of the brand’s language rather than treating headquarters as invisible infrastructure.

BETWEEN AMSTERDAM AND NEW YORK

For the American opening, Róhe has made movement between cities part of the story. Its official site presents Between Cities, a short film following Dutch ballet dancer Igone de Jongh between Amsterdam and New York. Dance is an apt choice for a label whose clothes often depend on drape, proportion and controlled movement rather than surface decoration.

The SoHo address gives Róhe a physical stage on which to control the entire experience. Until now, American clients have encountered the brand largely through multi-brand retail and e-commerce. A standalone store can communicate scale, material and pacing differently: the distance between garments, the feel of a fabric, the relationship between clothing and objects, and the quiet confidence of not needing every square metre to sell loudly.

WHAT COMES AFTER QUIET LUXURY

The more interesting question is whether Róhe can grow without losing the restraint that made it distinctive. Fashion has repeatedly turned subtle ideas into mass trends and then moved on. A brand built entirely around being quiet can become just as formulaic as a brand built around logos if calm becomes a costume rather than a conviction.

Róhe has some protection against that because its point of view is material. Exclusive Italian fabrics, tailoring and draping are difficult to fake at scale. The founders also remain closely tied to the creative environment of the company, giving the label a coherence that many rapidly expanded brands struggle to maintain.

New York is therefore more than another shop opening. It is a test of whether Róhe’s European intimacy can survive translation into a global luxury market. The smartest move may be the least theatrical one: build a beautiful room, make clothes that reward touch and repetition, and allow the customer to discover the brand at her own pace.

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