By Bennett Marcus

Rebecca Hessel Cohen founded her fashion brand LoveShackFancy in 2013, and the company has grown over the years to now comprise 27 stores across the U.S., with one in London.

The line has grown from a few styles of dresses to over 100 each season, including children’s, teens’, and women’s styles, from fancy beading to everyday cotton to silks, swimwear, activewear, robes, and sleepwear. They’ve expanded into other categories, adding fragrances, beauty, smaller accessories, home, bedding, pillows, and towels. They even offer a bit of men’s swimwear now.

Trusting Her Intuition

LoveShackFancy’s aesthetic is unapologetically feminine and romantic, featuring vintage-inspired prints, florals, ruffles, lace, bows, and lots of pink. This was Hessel Cohen’s vision from the beginning, and she has never swayed, ignoring industry naysayers who claimed it wouldn’t sell.

When she started out, wholesale showrooms insisted this style wasn’t trending at that time; they wanted monochromatic, modern, bold colors. Hessel Cohen followed her instincts and never wavered. “And they were totally wrong,” she says. “I always say when someone says, ‘This isn’t going to work,’ you have to trust your gut. I wasn’t about to change for them. I was like, well, this is what it is. This is what I do; it’s romantic, it’s feminine, it’s soft colors, and if you don’t want to be a part of it, well, then that’s okay.”

An Emotional Connection

Hessel Cohen has built her business the old-fashioned way, trusting her sense of what customers want, rather than being led by marketers and trends. “I’ve been a huge collector of vintage clothing for as long as I can remember. My mom was a big collector; I sort of grew up around all of that, antique lace, vintage textiles. So it was really always my vision: how can you recreate that?” Hessel Cohen’s process reminds me of Ralph Lauren, who has similarly achieved great success by consistently following his particular sensibility over the years.

Hessel Cohen believes that big retailers are suffering today because they are not connected to customers. “I was always very connected to whoever my customer was, whether it was through social media or just one-to-one. That’s why I love to be in our stores, I love to connect directly with every single girl or woman who’s wearing our clothes.” She reaches her customers on an emotional level, something that simply cannot be achieved through algorithms and spreadsheets.

Bricks & Mortar Stores

LoveShackFancy’s physical stores still draw shoppers in droves, even in this era of online shopping. “We really have a very multi-generational clientele, we say it’s ‘babies to 80s’,” Hessel Cohen explains. “We have from little girls all the way to grandmas that connect through LoveShackFancy; they love to come to the stores together, and they go shopping. It’s very experiential for them. And the minute you walk into our store, it’s like you’re walking into the brand’s world. It’s an extension. It feels very emotional from all different touchpoints, from the music to the florals, to the pink colors, to the clothes.” The brand does have robust online sales, but Hessel Cohen says that shopping in stores is very different. “It’s warm, it’s welcoming, it’s as if you’re walking into your home and you’re meeting your best girlfriends, and you’re all just having a party. You try things on, you talk, just comfortable and friendly and girly.”

Collaborations

LoveShackFancy has become so well-known that they’ve done collaborations with major companies, including Hunter Boots, The Gap, Target, Stanley water bottles, Bogner skiwear, and a line of furniture with Pottery Barn. When we spoke for this article, a collaboration with Crocs was launching the next day. “It’s like the new licensing,” Hessel Cohen says. “Instead of that, we work closely with these amazing companies that have incredible abilities to produce, for the most part, at much better prices than we do.”

Lively Events

Events are essential to the brand, both in stores and elsewhere, for everything from product launches with collaborators to New York Fashion Week shows. These events are always lively, often featuring music, dancers, and live performances. Hessel Cohen works with her friend Marcella Guarino Hymowitz, a professional dancer, choreographer, and owner of a dance fitness studio, on these. “Whether it’s a consumer-facing event or a fashion show, we’re putting on a show,” says Hessel Cohen. “And Marcella is my creative choreographer, producer, creative director in that sense.”

Company Origin

When Hessel Cohen married in 2010, she couldn’t find bridesmaid dresses that she liked, so she decided to design her own. As a fashion and beauty editor at Cosmopolitan, she often visited showrooms in Manhattan’s garment district. She bought some fabric, found a patternmaker, and designed an ethereal halter dress for her wedding attendants. People liked the dresses, asked to order them, and Hessel Cohen began making them and doing pop-ups in the Hamptons as a sideline. Eventually, she realized it could become a business, left the magazine world, and launched her company.

Why “LoveShackFancy”

What started as her bridesmaid’s dress was the fancy. And then Hessel Cohen wanted to wear the same dress to the beach as a cover-up, so she needed a shacket version. And then she would wear the same dress every day as the go-to, and that’s the love version. “So, we still think of the line as having all three parts of it. There’s the beachy, undone, easy part. There’s the love, which is what you’re putting on every single day. And then there’s the fancy, which is the occasion and more special pieces.”

The company is still family-owned, and Hessel Cohen is the brand’s creative director, working on sourcing, concept, visuals, and storytelling. “I source all over the world, beautiful vintage clothing for inspiration. We’re recreating French lace from the 1800s, beautiful embroidery, we’re making it our own, customizing it. I’m taking antique florals or jacquards or textiles and reinterpreting them and giving them new life.” And then she works with her design team to come up with a concept. “We really get in there and design the story together.”loveshackfancy.com

YAGP Honoree

One philanthropic cause to which Hessel Cohen has devoted much energy is the Youth America Grand Prix (YAGP), a student ballet scholarship audition. Its mission is to develop world-class dancers, ages 9 to 19, from all economic, ethnic, and geographic backgrounds through scholarships, and provide an entree to the finest ballet companies and teachers. She was introduced to the organization through her friend and creative collaborator Marcella Guarino Hymowitz.

“It’s Marcella’s greatest passion in life. She feels so connected to teaching, to helping young dancers get an opportunity. And so just by watching her, I became involved,” Hessel Cohen says. She had already been involved with the New York City Ballet, having chaired the Nutcracker Family Benefit numerous times.

Hessel Cohen was honored at YAGP’s 2026 gala for her work on the organization’s behalf. “I’ve always thought dancing felt like such an important creative expression,” she says. “And I remember just being blown away when I found out how they handpick these dancers, train them, place them, give them this opportunity. And it’s such an honor to be involved and to be able to help spread the word.” yagp.org