MoMo Falana
Womens Signature collection
While all designers claim to be "unique," MoMo has given the word a new meaning. MoMo SoHo's designs combine couture sensibility and craftsmanship making each creation as beautiful and unique as the person who wears it. Clients know that when the design team creates special garments for them, they are bound to get attention. Sarah Jessica Parker did, when she wore our gold brocade coat on the Season 4 "Finale" episode of SEX AND THE CITY. Joss Stone did, at the Grammy’s when she sang a Janis Joplin duet with Melissa Etheridge. And Britney Spears did, at the BILLBOARD MUSIC AWARDS in her long, electric-orange sheer coat, topped by a feathered fedora. MoMo clients have twice landed on ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT'S "BEST DRESSED" list and often blog about their love of our creations. The line's client list keeps growing, and includes numerous stage and film costume designers and stylists and other notable individuals such as models Agyness Deyn, Jessica Miller, Angie Lindvall, Naomi Campbell, Claudia Schiffer and Stephanie Seymour, actresses Uma Thurman and Frances McDormand and musicians Alicia Keys, Liz Phair, Steven Van Zandt, Janet Jackson and Lil' Kim as well as Paris & Nicole Richie.
In 1995, Maureen Roberts and Michael Lublin set up a booth at the Annex Flea Market at 26th Street. Although their main passion at the time was rock and roll, they shared an eye for design and an incorrigible creativity. Maureen was born into a big, charismatic Irish family in working-class Maple Heights, Ohio. In high school, she lettered in football and track, put on fashion shows, and modeled. At seventeen, her fashion sketches earned her interviews at Parson’s and F.I.T., but her father, a police officer, worried about her safety in New York. Maureen took a detour, first studying voice at the Cleveland Institute of Music and then traveling the world as a model for Ford and other agencies. Michael was born in Merrick, Long Island, to a family with roots in the clothing business. (His great-grandfather was a tailor on the Lower East Side; his grandmother won a scholarship to Cooper-Hewitt for dress design.) In high school, Michael played guitar and refined his image by embellishing and reworking his clothes. After getting a B.S. in business, he took off for Europe to climb mountains and become a ski instructor. When he returned to the States, he worked in interior design and formed a band, Bowery Angels, with Maureen. In their stall at the Annex, Michael and Maureen sold vintage clothing, including slips that they tie-dyed — Maureen mixing the rich colors and Michael doing the patterning. Within just a few years, their line would be featured at Barneys, Henri Bendel, Linda Dressner, Fred Segal Flair, Brown’s and Koh Samui in London, and Joyce and Lane Crawford in Hong Kong; and it would be the only clothing line in Praha — a Tokyo luxury store opened by the owner of Agosto. They would be consulting with Mary McFadden and Donna Karan, Britney Spears and Marisol Thomas would be wearing their clothes on the red carpet at the Billboard Music Awards, Uma Thurman’s entire wardrobe in the 2002 film “Chelsea Walls” would consist of their designs, Sarah Jessica Parker wore a silk brocade coat on the season finale of Sex and the City in 2002 and Joss Stone performed a Janis Joplin duet wearing a shimmering red-gold gown at the 2005 Grammy’s.
The first versions of the now famous MoMo FaLana slip dress were whimsical and charming. The clothes were about color, about the beauty of the female form, and about finding magical dress-up clothes in Grandma’s trunk and giving them an edgy, downtown sensibility. Then the designs evolved. Michael and Maureen started to use exquisite fabrics from the 40's and earlier, and they developed a distinctive dyeing technique, working together without mentors or books, and ending up in a place no designer had reached before. They had reinvented vintage slips and bed jackets as shimmering, elaborately colored, richly textured couture with subtle patterns that highlighted the body’s curves. The stall at the Annex became a mini-boutique, frequented by models such as Shalom Harlow and Kirstey Hume, actresses such as Parker Posey and Kirstey Alley, and designers such as Cynthia Rowley, Anna Sui, and Jill Stewart. In 1999, after opening their tranquil jewelry box of a store in the East Village and Maureen and Michael began to design their own clothes as well as continuing to recreate vintage. Their eleventh collection for Spring 2008 includes the use of printed chiffon, silk velvet suites and their famous long silk & satin gowns. Women of all shapes, sizes feel gorgeous like each individual piece is made just for them. Playful and irreverent, subversive and celebratory, mixing one-of-a-kind vintage with their own designs, Maureen Roberts and Michael Lublin bridge art and fashion with their extraordinary clothing — always evolving, always exquisite, instantly recognizable as MoMo FaLana.
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