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Knee-length coats in buttery leather, Bermuda shorts with laser-sharp tailoring, high-waisted trousers with just enough slack: The New York label Istok specializes in basics that are the peak of chic. Created by longtime designers and creatives Tijana Masic and Lauren Shooster, who met over a decade ago while working at a shoe brand, Istok has made a name for itself by focusing on the sort of signature pieces (like deliciously luxe button-downs and semi-sheer tanks) that could fit into a wardrobe of any era.
Their latest look book reflects this timeless aesthetic. Shot in Paris, it includes a series of images featuring the Peter Lindbergh muse Janine Giddings. The model, with her short crop of silver hair and iconic cheekbones, is photographed around a lush park, wearing a slip dress, a tank top, and a classic white T-shirt. Giddings, who hasn’t modeled in over 20 years, was connected to the label by her hair stylist husband who has worked with Shooster in the past. “We managed to get her to do a shoot in Paris and she looks amazing,” Shooster says. “She has a supermodel bone structure and the age doesn’t matter.”
The friend-of-a-friend casting approach is nothing new for this brand. (After all, 300 people gathered to celebrate Istok’s launch in Lower Manhattan.) Istok presented its inaugural collection as a series of portraits of the designers’ social circle taken by photographer Adrian Mesko. “It is really a friends and family story. Everyone who was shot has been someone we have known for 10-15 years, which is a mix of artists, designers, and stylists. The people are from all over and are quite different but once you put them in the clothes, it all makes sense together,” Shooster says. The portraits include some familiar faces in the fashion world like the downtown jewelry designer Anna Santangelo (and her unmistakable coif of curls); Ana Kras, the Serbian-born furniture designer; and the photographer and model Sarah Abney. There is also the legendary Erika Belle, a designer who had also been a backup dancer for Madonna during the ’80s. (You can spot her in the music videos “Papa Don’t Preach” and “Lucky Star.”) Masic and Shooster also plucked some unknown, non-industry names, like Danica Selem, an architect with razor-sharp bone structure who was a professor with Masic’s husband at Cornell University. In one image, Masic herself models, wearing a tailored black blazer while holding her baby.
If all of the diverse faces appear as if they seamlessly mesh together, it is because Istok, which means “east” in Serbian, is founded on the idea of a uniform. Masic, who is Serbian and was born in the former Yugoslavia, took much inspiration from the country’s socialist past. For months, Masic sent Shooster footage from home videos of Serbia and Yugoslavia that Masic’s parents took in the ’70s and ’80s, as well as clips from state parades. “The whole idea behind the socialist aesthetic was this utopian performance. There were the uniforms and everyone was wearing the same clothes. They were working towards this big mission and big idea,” she says. “We tried to translate this idea into this moment in time in New York.” As for what is next? The duo plans to bring more people into the Istok sphere. “The idea is to keep finding interesting women from all over the place,” she says, adding that the ideal Istok woman is “confident,” a person “who knows what she is doing in whatever world she is living in.”
