Toast, the Low-Key Brand, Expands Its U.S. Presence

At the end of last year, the lifestyle brand Toast quietly opened its second store in the United States on Elizabeth Street in New York’s NoLIta neighborhood.

Suzie de Rohan Willner, its chief executive and an unassuming and warm presence, had flown in from London opening week.

Standing by the newly installed store shelves, with glasses and close-cropped hair, she could easily be mistaken for a Toast customer. She also likes to wear Toast’s clothes, which are utilitarian and no-nonsense.

On the nearby racks hung smock dresses in earthy colors called basalt and scarab, barrel-leg ecru denim trousers and seaweed green hooded wax-cotton parkas.

“I always think that when you’re sitting in a concept store, you should be able to identify a brand from a distance, just by the colors and the silhouettes,” Ms. de Rohan Willner said. “With Toast, I think you can do that by our colors that are inspired by nature, as well as the pops of color that bring it all to life, as well as the craft pieces.”

Evidence of her vision was in practically every element of the space, including its hand-thrown stoneware mugs and its repair station, where customers can bring old Toast pieces to be mended free of charge.

Ms. de Rohan Willner — who previously was the chief executive of FitFlop, and has worked for brands such as Levi Strauss, Timberland, Dockers and Puma — joined Toast in 2015. She slowly put into motion a plan to revitalize the fashion brand, which, at the time, one fashion writer for The Times of London described as “a bit hippy” and “too expensive.”

“With clothes that are loosefitting and comfortable, there’s always a danger,” said Rosie McKissock, the brand director of Toast.

“We went back to basics,” Ms. de Rohan Willner said. “It’s always a joy to be able to do that, right? Just to say, ‘Let’s pare it all back.’”

Toast’s founding ethos was strong. It was started in 1997 by two archaeologists, Jessica and Jamie Seaton, as a mail-order business out of their farmhouse in West Wales. They initially offered just nightwear and loungewear.

“A piece of toast is a very humble thing,” Ms. Seaton once explained in an interview with The Modern House.

But their romantic, hippie aesthetic — what today might be labeled cottage-core, with a touch of bohemian chic — caught on quickly. Catalogs from the brand’s heyday in the early 2000s feature wholesome-looking models in “sari apron trousers,” “kurta dresses” and Uggs.

Kate Berry, a creative consultant and editor at large for Domino, hosted a breakfast for the opening of Toast’s Brooklyn store on Atlantic Avenue last year. She remembered well the power the brand had early on and how it held weight in certain circles for its rustic style.

“When I worked at Martha Stewart in 2007, every art director had Toast catalog images on their mood boards,” she recalled.

Ms. de Rohan Willner knew she needed to remind customers of Toast’s original philosophy while making the brand feel more contemporary.

The Seatons, who sold their final stake in Toast in 2018, “had a beautiful appreciation of navigating the world in a slower way,” Ms. de Rohan Willner said. To her, the name conjured an image of a lazy breakfast at home on a Sunday, with a hot cup of tea.

First, Ms. de Rohan Willner hired a new head of design, Laura Shippey, who had worked for eight years at the British brand Margaret Howell, followed by a stint at J. Crew. For inspiration, Ms. Shippey looked to Japanese and European workwear, menswear-inspired silhouettes and vintage textiles worldwide.

Ms. de Rohan Willner then began “dialing up the craft,” she said.

Collections heavily feature hand embroidery, shibori, tie-dye, indigo and hand-printed fabrics, such as ikats and block printing. Toast also began to spotlight local artisans. The brand now resells creatively repaired pieces and vintage and newly returned secondhand items, donating a portion of the sales revenue.

It also hosts clothing swaps and mending events at its stores, where consumers can bring in items they want repaired using various techniques, including sashiko, the Japanese practice of decorative reinforcement, and darning, patching and appliqué.

In addition to its two American stores, Toast has a robust presence in Britain with 20 stores..

The brand had thrown a quiet dinner at the Elizabeth Street shop a few weeks before the opening. The walls were bare. Boxes of clothes still needed to be unpacked.

Even the event — during which humble dishes like white bean soup and braised kojinut squash cooked with local ingredients were served — kept a low profile and did not have a photographer shooting publicity and marketing images.

The actress Beanie Feldstein had stopped by during cocktail hour. Ms. Feldstein first discovered Toast when she auditioned for the film “How to Build a Girl” in London.

“The casting director in the audition was shaped like me and she was wearing these amazing overalls,” Ms. Feldstein recalled. “I told myself that if I got the role, I would buy the overalls. And I did. And it’s actually how I met my wife, from that movie. Then the director and the writer, all of us bought the overalls.”

How many items of Toast clothing does Ms. Feldstein now own?

“Between me and my wife?” she asked, and paused. “A lot.”