Luca Laurini founded Label Under Construction in Perugia in 2003, after three years at Carpe Diem running planning and production. He trained at Polimoda in Florence and at FIT in New York, but the more useful inheritance was his father Adriano’s knitwear factory, which spent more than half a century producing for major Italian houses. Laurini grew up around the machines, and it shows in a label whose name describes a method rather than a mood.
Label Under Construction at W Department
The house is known first for knitwear, built through process: overdyeing, laser work, reversible construction, and stitching that treats the seam as the drawing rather than the thing that conceals it. What W Department carries is the cut-and-sew, and the same discipline governs it. The Parabolic Zip Seam Tee runs a structural seam across the back shoulders, then finishes with a raw hem and a deep neck. The Crew Neck Arched Tee is a raw-cut hem and almost nothing else. The Over Shirt is linen, with a mandarin collar, mother-of-pearl buttons, and again a raw hem. The Yoke Pockets Wide Jean is linen rather than denim, wide and straight-legged, with structural seaming worked into the back pockets. None of it announces itself. The seam is the signature.
We carry four pieces, $470 to $1,250, every one of them 100% linen or 100% cotton. That is a small holding, and deliberately so. This is a house that rewards owning one garment that is right over three that are nearly right, and these are the four we would wear ourselves.
Continue Exploring
- All Label Under Construction. All four pieces in one place.
- Daub. The other Italian house here working in ramie, hemp, and linen.
- Massimo Alba. Italian linen and cotton, unstructured and unlined, bought in depth.
- NemeN. Leonardo Fasolo’s Milanese line, built the slow way in small runs.
- Shirts. Every shirt on the floor, men’s and women’s.
- SS26. The rest of the season this arrived in.
- Knitwear at W Department. Label Under Construction is a knitwear house first. This is the knit we do carry, from other houses.
- Visit W Department. 54½ Lincoln Avenue on The Plaza, open daily, 11 to 5.
