At Rentrayage, Erin Beatty has been fine-tuning her creative approach to fall more in tune with both retail and production demands. “We’re in a really difficult economy and the stores are just too hesitant about anything that feels too out of the box,” she explained on a recent video call. “With the upcycling it’s always an issue if it doesn’t look similar every single time—you’d think that stores would get it by now but they are not totally comfortable with it.” For spring, only her upcycled denim pieces—pieced-together jeans, jackets and skirts which are the brand’s signature—remained.

Elsewhere, working with a new factory in India provided a new burst of creativity. “Even though right now the tariffs are outrageous, it’s a huge move for us because we’re able to apply all these techniques that you really can’t do here or in Europe at an affordable price,” Beatty said. She streamlined her operations further by producing a tightly edited collection made almost entirely from cotton with delicate embroidery details: See a sweet black cotton dress with tiny embroidered flowers. A made-for-business blue plaid poplin edged with delicate eggplant broderie anglaise trim looked especially cool on a tank top over a puff sleeve button down shirt worn with wide shorts. A tank top and shorts set in white organza brought out a more playful side of the designer. “It’s a little bit sheer, usually I see them done in a preppy way and I was like, ‘Can we do them in a kind of sexy way that you’d want to wear?’”

She added, “I really want to focus on the silhouette. Back in my old Suno days, we designed so many styles. It doesn’t need to be so complicated.”