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Lak spent years laying low, focused on projects outside of fashion, including a graphic novel and screenplay. He counts himself a true movie buff, with favorites like Eugene Kotlyarenko’s The Code, Juho Kuosmanen’s Compartment Number 6, and Woody Allen’s Match Point, but he couldn’t quite turn the page completely. After publishing a book of his Sies Marjan work with Rizzoli in 2023, he started developing his new brand.
Sanderlak, as he’s named it, is a conceptual label rooted in what Lak describes as his nomadic childhood. “My upbringing was extremely transient,” he says, “I lived all over the world, and applying that same way of thinking to creating makes a lot of sense to me.” The result will be at least two, possibly more, collections a year of “really wearable clothes—shirts, pants, jackets, coats, a little bit of tailoring,” that are all inspired by a specific place—it could be a city, it could be an entire country—of Lak’s choosing.
“The original idea was to do a company without any real, actual roots, but the logistics of that were impossible,” he laughs. “What I will be doing is looking at what the textures are, what the colors are of a place, and that will be shaping what the clothes will be.” The concept goes beyond local inspirations; he’s set himself some ground rules, which include sourcing material and vintage garments only from the location of his focus, organizing collaborations and capsule collections with companies native to that place, and booking local photographers and models for shoots.
“Creativity happens from limitation. I’ve worked for amazing people and I’ve had freedom, but you can get a little bit lazy with the idea that anything is possible. I like the idea of parameters. I feel the work comes out in really surprising ways because I keep pushing myself.”
Backed by angel investors, Lak has declined to share the region he’s leaning into for launch, preferring to save that information for his Paris debut, but one thing is for certain: he won’t be moving on every season. He’ll “stay” a year in a place, maybe more. “I like the idea of continuing a conversation, instead of talking about Picasso one day and, I don’t know, Greece the next. I find that really disconnected. I like it when an artist works on something and perfects it and goes deeper into it, and then maybe goes elsewhere. This exploration, this deeper search for things, is something I was really hungry for.”
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