Manufacture III Is a New Lifestyle Concept from Designer Devi Kroell - Vogue.com

Whether or not the name Devi Kroell rings bells for you, it’s good news that the designer is back in the biz⁠. This is especially the case for minimalists with a taste for something extra, like a bag that commands attention or a classic flat that is transformed with blown-up proportions. Interested? Look for the label Manufacture III.

Manufacture III knot ballerina

Photo: Courtesy of Manufacture III

Manufacture III Accordeon bag

Photo: Courtesy of Manufacture III

“Three because it’s my third business; and Manufacture because it’s about working with artisans and very traditional companies that have been in their business for generations and know their craft and know how to make quality products,” explained the designer on a recent visit to the Vogue offices. Just don’t call it fashion. Kroell considers Manufacture III a lifestyle concept with a difference. Though she’s starting with accessories, a category in which she has a fan base, fashion is not the foundation of the business, but one of its many “prongs.” She’s also developing artisanal Venetian glassware with Venini, silver with Puiforcat, and writing instruments with Montegrappa.

A bit of background: In 2004 when Kroell first appeared in Vogue, no fashionable wardrobe was complete without the designer’s metallic snakeskin hobo. Big and beautiful; familiar but new, it had a real visual impact. Building on its success Kroell quickly added shoes, picked up the 2006 CFDA Swarovski Perry Ellis Award for Accessory Design, launched ready-to-wear, and found a backer, only to exit soon after. Kroell resurfaced briefly with Dax Gabler, a now-shuttered line of luxury eyewear named after her grandmother.

Devi Kroell.

Photo: Turtur Pavese / Courtesy of the photographer

All the while she was taking stock of an industry, and a world, in flux. The no-frills name of her new venture, Manufacture III, suggests she’s taken a step back and is looking at things from a broader perspective, rather than an intensely personal one. “I needed a fresh take,” Kroell says. “Something interesting, something that was building relationships between people. “Society is really changing and people aren’t that interested in fashion anymore, [or] they’re interested in a different way.”

The designer’s approach to Manufacture III, is more in line with industrial (product) design and applied arts than fashion design, which is consistent with her training. Kroell, who is Austrian, studied pattern-making and fashion design in Vienna with the Helmut Lang. “We spent a whole year just making a men’s shirt,” she relates. “And we had to do it over and over and over again until it was perfectly done. It was just one year of frustration to get a men’s shirt really perfect.” It’s an object lesson that has served the designer well. “I’ve never been inspired by vintage; I’ve always been inspired by this very practical angle,” she states. “There’s always been a certain functionality to everything I do. I’m really not the embellished type of person, I’m more rational and intellectual, I guess.”

Manufacture III Accordeon bag

Photo: Courtesy of Manufacture III

Manufacture III Accordeon bag

Photo: Courtesy of Manufacture III

Manufacture III Accordeon bag

Photo: Courtesy of Manufacture III

Manufacture III Accordeon bag

Photo: Courtesy of Manufacture III

Kroell might have a cool-headed approach to design, but her work—then and now—evokes positive emotional responses. Take her summer slip-ons of hand-knotted silk: The proportion play makes them pop. Scale was also important when Kroell was making her new boxy accordion bag that has people stopping her on the street. “Obviously it’s inspired by document holders,” she says. “I wanted to do a cross-body bag that was a little bit more voluminous and something that would be more visible on a person, because right now cross-body bags in general are small little flat affairs.”

In keeping with her love of exotics, the bag is offered in alligator as well as calf leather. Both speak to Kroell’s commitment to slow fashion. “The decision that I took when I launched MIII was that I wanted to do things at my own pace,” she says. “My focus is not to offer a lot of things, but to use artisanal and traditional knowledge to make a quality product that can transcend time. It’s kind of my way of doing the whole sustainable thing.” Quality over quantity: It’s the new old approach to creating products with meaning and long lasting value.

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