In my 20s, the chicest things I owned were two pairs of colorful, striped Alice + Olivia pants — a specialty that launched not only the brand, but the visibility of its uber-stylish founder and CEO, Stacey Bendet. “My theory was that all of the greatest brands and designers started with one item,” Bendet, 47, explains. “With Donna Karan, it was the bodysuit; with Ralph Lauren, it was the tie, and then it evolved into the cashmere sweater, preppy styles. With Hermès, it was all about the Birkin bag — everyone had their signature pieces. And so, I decided that mine would be pants. For the first year and a half, I only made pants.
“I’ve really loved fashion since I was a child,” she adds. “From a very young age, I used to take scraps and any other materials I could find and make clothes for my Barbies. I just think it was a part of me. My dad, my grandfather and my great-grandfather were all in the textile and lace business, and I grew up around fabric, around appreciating materials, around appreciating those details, seeing how lace was made.”
Photo by Rony Alwin
Years later, Bendet taught herself to sew, but her biggest lessons came from doing web design. “I started making websites before I started making clothes,” she explains. “I was building websites for some people who were in the clothing business. I started learning hands-on how to get things made.”
Today, Alice + Olivia offers everything from formal gowns and cocktail dresses to embroidered denim. Its collections are sold in flagship boutiques and department stores around the world and worn by loyal customers and celebrities who return season after season for the brand’s signature mix of color and prints. Getting there, Bendet stresses, hardly happened overnight.
“When I look back, I’ve always been driven,” she says. “I’ve always been determined, but scaling the business really happened step-by-step.”
Photo by Rony Alwin
The brand began to take shape when Andrew Rosen, the founder of Theory, became her partner. “Our concept,” Bendet says, “was that Alice + Olivia would, in essence, be Theory’s colorful, quirky, energetic sister.” While Theory became known for muted, structured pieces, Alice + Olivia, which launched in 2002, embraced whimsy, bright colors and bold patterns. That contrast helped define Alice + Olivia’s identity.
Bendet is inseparable from the company, which reflects her own exuberant personal style. Its logo is a stylized rendering of the founder wearing her signature oversized sunglasses. “I am personally a very large part of the brand, because I am my brand,” she says. “I live it, I love it, I breathe it, I am it — and I try on everything we make. My hand still touches everything we sell, and I love what I do.”
For Bendet, her brand’s customers are not defined by a particular age, lifestyle or occasion. “The Alice + Olivia consumer is really every woman,” she says. “She wants to feel strong, she wants to feel bold, she wants to express herself, she wants to stand out.”
Photo by Rony Alwin
The same discipline Bendet brings to her work extends to another defining part of her life: yoga. She began practicing more than two decades ago, under the tutelage of New York yoga guru Eddie Stern. Over the years, the discipline has become as much a part of her identity as her work, a daily ritual that grounds her amid the chaos of running a global fashion house.
“I share it because I want to encourage other people to practice at any level,” she says. “It could be at the most basic — just breathing, just downward dogs. I’ve done this with friends, where they’re like, ‘I can’t do the yoga you do,’ and I’m like, ‘You don’t have to. It’s more about the breath work and the movement than the difficulty of the move.’”
Bendet’s husband, film producer Eric Eisner (a son of former Walt Disney Company CEO Michael Eisner), has been a steady presence behind the brand’s growth since the couple married in 2008. Bendet has described him as an important part of the “village” supporting both her family and her career. She also relies on him to be a sounding board as she balances the demands of her career with raising their three daughters — Eloise, 17; Scarlet, 15; and Athena, who turns 11 this month.
So far, Scarlet has shown the strongest interest in following in her mother’s footsteps. “She has the most incredible style,” Bendet boasts. “She loves fashion, she loves vintage, she loves its history.”
Photo by Rony Alwin
Being in charge of a company that spans hundreds of employees hasn’t dulled Bendet’s hands-on instincts. She still sits in on fittings, weighs in on prints and keeps experimenting with designs. For her, each collection is a fresh chance to push the brand’s playful, maximalist identity further. She has steadily added new categories, including a recent expansion into swim- and resortwear. “We want to dress her for work,” she says of her customer. “We want to dress her for her occasions, her special moments in life. We want to dress her for her date nights and her vacation life.” Alice + Olivia has partnered with PQ Swim and Coniglio Palm Beach to develop what Bendet calls a “beach shop” concept.
“PQ makes some of the best quality swimwear out there,” she says. “It’s just really chic, cute, best of beachwear” — perfect, she notes, for a tropical getaway, a Christmas vacation to the Caribbean or a spring break trip.
She now has her eyes on intimates and loungewear, and I, personally, have petitioned her to bring back those signature pants.
After a summer divided, as usual, between traveling abroad and spending time in the Hamptons, Bendet has turned her attention to the Alice + Olivia presentation at New York Fashion Week, which takes place this month. “It’s an intense time of year,” she says, “but the most fun is that we get to create these worlds of pure magic — fantasy sets — and we get to look at all the clothes and style them.”
Photo by Daniel Paik
The publication WWD (Women’s Wear Daily) has repeatedly praised her runway presentations, calling out her ability to build immersive “worlds” each season, while Vogue has written that the label “juxtaposes the whimsical and flirty with the sexy and sophisticated; a reflection of the personality and perspective of Stacey.”
Bendet has also built a loyal celebrity following. Among those who have been spotted in Alice + Olivia are Katie Holmes, Kourtney Kardashian, Lucy Hale, Millie Bobby Brown, Demi Lovato, Keke Palmer, Nicole Scherzinger, Julianne Hough and Nicky Hilton. In an interview with People, Hilton said, “Stacey is not just one of my closest friends, but a fashion designer, philanthropist and mother that I have long admired. Stacey has an incredible eye. We have been friends for over 20 years, and I have been wearing Alice + Olivia since I was a teenager.”
At the center of Bendet’s philosophy is the idea that clothing should be more than a product; it should be a tool for self-expression. “I look at clothing as the art you share,” she says, “and the way you dress is the art you share with the world each day.”