In a sunlit Los Angeles apartment, where her garments are often photographed against the backdrop of a white fireplace, designer Erik Charlotte VonSosen is quietly reshaping the landscape of contemporary womenswear. With no formal fashion education and a deep-rooted DIY ethic, her brand channels a romantic, rebellious vision steeped in theatricality, structure, and self-expression. Her designs – a lush mix of steel-boned corsetry, gathered tulle, and prince-like tailoring – evoke a world where femininity is both distorted and celebrated, where every garment dares to dream out loud.
That vision has quickly found fans among LA’s alt-it girls: Rebecca Black, Emma Chamberlain, and Marina and the Diamonds, who wore a Marie Antoinette-inspired Erik Charlotte gown for her Coachella performance.
Raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and taught to sew at 15 by her grandmother, Erik’s journey into fashion began as an act of both escapism and self-definition. From early drag costumes made with thrifted fabrics to full-fledged collections drawing from the sea, anatomy, architecture, and video games, her work is as textured and multi-layered as her identity. Her upcoming collection marks a powerful shift, diving into more personal, emotionally raw territory – a reckoning with gender, visibility, and vulnerability that she describes as “cathartic and vulnerable” yet thrilling to create.
In this way, Erik Charlotte exists at the intersection of fantasy and grit – a designer whose work is as informed by oceanic romanticism as it is by real-world resilience. Her aesthetic walks the line between decadence and distortion: bubble skirts bloom beside sharp tailoring, and corsets contour space as much as they shape the body. Outside of fashion, Erik is a DJ, a collector of vintage lingerie, and an unapologetic lover of shiny fabrics and K-pop girl groups. With each piece she creates, she builds not just clothing, but an atmosphere – immersive, emotional, and wholly her own.
Let’s start at the beginning! What were your earliest inspirations to study/practice fashion design?
I loved dressing up and drawing as a kid, and had such a fascination with princesses and mermaids at that young age where it was still acceptable to dress up like one. Those cheap, scratchy organza and tulle dresses were my favorite thing to wear. As I got older, I was really inspired by fantasy worlds in video games, likely as an escapist outlet away from my increasingly restrictive childhood growing up strictly religious and closeted. In high school, my grandmother taught me to sew and I eventually started doing drag and making all of my own costumes from scratch. Even now, I still identify with the gutsy approach to design that I had when I was making costumes out of thrifted fabric and lying to bars so they’d let me perform in them. Ever since the beginning, my work has always been inspired by scrappiness and escapism.
Who or what has inspired your upcoming/most recent collection?
I’m currently developing my first full collection, which draws a lot of inspiration from my identity and experience as a trans woman, a theme I don’t often touch in my work. I want this collection to take a departure from my typical instinct to create escapist fantasies, and instead tap into grittier, more raw experiences. It feels really cathartic and vulnerable to be developing, but I’m truly so excited to continue production and create something so earnest. At its core, the collection is a journey of reckoning through fetishization and the stripping of oneself to submit to expectations, while retaining my signature maritime inspirations and love of corsetry, undressing, and headwear.
I want my work to leave a cloying, almost saccharine taste in the mouth of the viewer, like an old piece of sticky candy whose flavour you can’t quite entirely identify.
My inspirations typically develop in a really intense way – I’ll get hit by a big meteor of an idea that forces me to put everything down and sketch it out right away. Once the idea has been designed, patterned, and constructed, I can then pick apart the inspiration behind each detail. Sort of like creating a moodboard, but in reverse. I find myself often returning to maritime details and a mishmash of historical silhouettes, but also find a lot of inspiration in architecture, nature, and video games.
How would you describe your label / aesthetic in your own words?
Erik Charlotte is unabashedly feminine with a distortive twist, like a collection of porcelain dolls walking through a hall of funhouse mirrors. I play with traditionally masculine – sort of prince-like – elements, then squeeze and twist them into something strange, sweet, and compelling. I want my work to leave a cloying, almost saccharine taste in the mouth of the viewer, like an old piece of sticky candy whose flavour you can’t quite entirely identify. The ideal Erik Charlotte look smells like the ocean, and is ridiculously puffy, near impossible to breathe in, and always topped with a hat.
Are there any materials that are significant in your work?
Foundationally, I think my work is reliant on a few building blocks: cotton twill, steel boning, metal grommets, and tulle. Every corset is built with those first three materials no matter what, and tulle is essential to creating the type of bubbly volume that has become a signature of my work. I think the use of shirting and suiting fabrics really stands out in my work as well, as they contrast quite intensely with the almost aggressive femininity of a lot of my pieces. Taffeta definitely has my heart though. I just love shiny things, I can’t help it.
How do you like to present your work? Do you think this will change in the future?
Currently, the majority of my work is presented in my studio in front of my fireplace, which I’ve become really fond of. I think there’s something compelling about presenting almost every piece in front of the same backdrop, on the same model, with no distractions other than the plaster of the fireplace or the silver of the wall sconces. I like how it forces the viewer’s attention to the details of the garments, and allows for a lot of creative freedom when it comes to styling. Since the pieces kind of float in this sea of white walls and hardwood, it means they can be transported easily into any kind of environment using the viewer’s imagination. In the future, I would really like to show my work on different models and in more interesting locations, but there’s something charming about the white hearth that I keep coming back to. But, maybe that’s just because it’s technically my living room.
I think people would be shocked by the way young designers are thrown around – a lot of people expect free, incredibly rushed work all for your name in 8pt text at the bottom of a magazine page. In many cases, you have to fight for a social tag or any form of payment, and even then you’ll be getting paid weeks or months late.
What barriers or challenges, if any, have you experienced in accessing the industry?
As a self-taught designer who didn’t have the opportunity to access higher education in fashion, I’ve definitely struggled with overcoming just how closed off the industry can be. To many, it really does matter where you went to school and who you know there. I’m really grateful to have developed an incredible network of stylists and designers here in Los Angeles who are eager to work together despite my lack of formal education, and that’s something that really keeps me here. LA is full of unbelievably talented designers who are often written-off due to an unorthodox career path or a lack of prestige education.
However, I think the biggest hurdle I’ve had to deal with in this industry is finances. I still work a full-time job on top of running a budding fashion label, and am unable to sustain myself on fashion alone, even when running my practice out of my own apartment. I think people would be shocked by the way young designers are thrown around – a lot of people expect free, incredibly rushed work all for your name in 8pt text at the bottom of a magazine page. In many cases, you have to fight for a social tag or any form of payment, and even then you’ll be getting paid weeks or months late. I’m incredibly grateful for every opportunity I’ve gotten in this industry and have taken on loads of free work just to get my name out there, but I really want to see young designers treated with more respect.
How do you think the fashion industry will evolve over the next five years? How do you feel about that change?
I feel like the industry is changing for the better, albeit very slowly as it typically does. The way social media is democratizing fashion is allowing for a lot of underrepresented designers to really shine in ways they haven’t been able to before. I think having a more level playing field is going to keep having incredible effects on the industry, and I’m so excited to see so many young designers bring ideas to the table that feel truly fresh and inventive.
What’s one piece of advice you would tell other emerging designers getting started in the fashion industry right now?
As simple as it sounds, just start making and posting stuff. I think people are really scared to be earnest and open themselves up to the world when it comes to their work, but you have to be comfortable sharing it, even if you think it’s bad. You could have the most groundbreaking, beautiful design sketched out on paper or half-finished on the dress form, but unless you’re vulnerable enough to create and share it, it will never receive the flowers it deserves.
What are you blasting on repeat while you’re working in your studio/space?
I’ve been really into Rose Gray, Ravyn Lenae, Oklou, and Erika de Casier lately, and of course I have Addison on repeat. I want to dress her so bad! I also have such a soft spot in my heart for K-pop girl groups. I love listening to WJSN when I sew — I was such a huge fan of them when they were active, and I feel like their music would fit so perfectly into the Erik Charlotte world. I also adore LOONA, and I play their music a ton on CDs in my car to and from the fabric store.
And who IRL would you love to see wearing your designs?
My ultimate number one is and will always be Hunter Schafer. I adore her so much as a person, and I also think she’s such an incredible sponge when it comes to fashion. No matter what she wears, she soaks up the essence of it and becomes this really fab character, while still remaining uniquely her. She’s so cool. I also always want to dress musicians that I love: Kelela, Florence Welch, JT, the J-pop group Perfume.
Getting to create something custom for Marina’s Coachella performance was probably the most exciting moment so far… I remember the night that she DMed me on Instagram that she loved my work and wanted to work on something together – I was just like, shit! I need to text my mom about this!
What’s been the most exciting / memorable moment so far since launching your label?
Getting to create something custom for Marina’s Coachella performance was probably the most exciting moment so far. I tried to play it so cool when I was meeting her for our fittings, but I seriously used to have a five-foot tall poster of the “Froot” album cover in my bedroom as a teenager. Like, I was such a megafan. I remember the night that she DMed me on Instagram that she loved my work and wanted to work on something together – I was just like, shit! I need to text my mom about this!
I’m so proud of the look I created for that performance, and I loved working with the amazing stylist Nancy Kote on it. I was so happy seeing that look on the Coachella stage, and I got to watch the livestream with some of my best friends cheering me on. It was a super emotional day for me.
What are your plans for the future?
There’s so much I want to do! My world keeps shifting so quickly that it’s hard to keep up. Overall, my biggest hope for the future is to finally be able to pursue fashion full time, as I’ve spent my entire career juggling two taxing jobs at the same time. I feel like there’s this massive well of energy I just don’t have the resources to tap into yet, but I have faith I’ll get to open those floodgates soon.
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