Only Hearts Pop-Up shop NYC

My first memory of Only Hearts  by Helena Stuart was a brown spaghetti trap tank top circa late 90’s   that without exaggeration can be called ” the best tank top ever made”.  The straps were thin, adjustable and the fabric was stretchy cotton not too clingy or sheer and, sit easily mid hip with no constant tugging. I created ways  to wear it and layer it.  It was the kind of tank that you could really dress up or dress down. Needless to say  I was excited to hear that , Only Hearts, will launch its first-ever vintage pop up shop during the holidays. Starting  November 1st, OH: PoP  shop will offer in Nolita (230 Mott St. B’twn Prince & Spring ) an entire outpost dedicated to the labels history.Unworn, limited-edition vintage lingerie and ready-to-wear from the Only Hearts design archives of the late 70’s, 80’s and early 90’s available to the public for the first time ever! More info and images on the next page.

It began innocently with a childhood heart collection. Fast-forward to the 1970’s, NYC, and a teenage Helena Stuart was up to her heart-shaped earrings in Manhattan youth culture. As a DJ and club-kid, she used clothes to craft a unique persona. As a student at FIT she experimented with deconstructing and recombining vintage and contemporary pieces. A bustier became a top, slips became dresses, and boy’s vintage pajamas became pants; it was both sweet and provocative in an era when “under things” remained strictly under wraps.

The O H: PoP story started at the original Only Hearts store, opened in 1978 on 73rd and Columbus Avenue, then an edgy outlier neighborhood on the Upper West Side. The shop overflowed with all things heart-shaped. Obsessed with clothes, Helena made simple lace-trimmed camisoles and tees, hand dying cotton and cutting pieces on the floor of the Manhattan apartment she shared with her partner, Jonathan. Soon enough, a baby boy arrived, followed quickly by a daughter. Family and friends pitched in, embroidering, baby-sitting, keeping shop, and stitching garments.

Displayed at the store, the pieces quickly sold out and the line expanded to tee shirt dresses and leggings, lace trousers and itty-bitty tulle tanks. Customers embraced it, wearing pieces in, under, or out, as they pleased. Helena called it inner outerwear™ — and lingerie, now outed, was never the same. OH: PoP sketches the origins of Only Hearts and a style that has influenced fashion for over 30 years, attracting shoppers like Madonna, Kate Hudson, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Chloe Sevigny and Eva Mendes. The shop runs in through January 1st.

About Only Hearts

From DIY beginnings grew a distinctly Manhattan-made line of lingerie, sleepwear, and ready-to-wear with international distribution, and found in major retailers nationwide. Headquarters, production, and sales remain in New York City; Only Hearts retail includes stores in Manhattan on the Upper West Side and in NoLiTa, plus additional stores in Los Angeles and Rome. Helena Stuart continues to run the business and designs the collection in collaboration with her daughter Kaya Stuart.