Google search Louis Machicao Couture doesn’t say much about the fashion designer’s 35-year career: they don’t just update Instagram and LinkedIn pages, and a website with the 2021 collection. Dig a little deeper, and you’ll find that he’s been spotted The Hunger Games In the year In 2013, he won the Best Designer Award at Paris Fashion Week. But you won’t find out much about the designer himself or the high-profile clients he dresses.
It is not that he is shy or indifferent. Machikao is warm and friendly, and loves to talk about his work and travels. He prefers to keep his client base to himself, and often signs non-disclosure agreements preventing him from revealing the celebrities he works with. He does not promote his Charlotte design studio Machicao Couture or include contact information on the site.
Designs from his 2022 collection. Photo by Andy McMillan.
When we spoke on the phone in October, he was about to take a flight to Paris to find fabric for a wedding dress for a client; Last week he was in New York to do a fitting before a charity gala. “All my clients come to me because another client sent them to me,” he says. “I want a personal relationship with you. That’s why clients stay with me for years.
Machicao is known for his unique red carpet gowns, wedding dresses and tuxedos ranging from $800 to $5,000. He works by appointment only and spends up to eight months wearing a single gown. “If it’s an old customer, I know exactly what they want,” he says. “We have a one-hour consultation for new clients. I ask what colors, textures and shapes they like. But I look at them and know exactly what color to use for their skin, eye and hair color. If you have dark hair, fair skin and blue eyes, cobalt blue everything. It pops and makes it amazing.
Machikawo works with master seamstress Milady Martinez. Photo by Andy McMillan.
Machicao grew up in Peru and studied fashion design in Paris. He began his career in Lima, designing costumes for soap operas and local theater. As his talent and fame grew, he served as a designer for the Miss Peru Pageant and later dressed the President and First Lady. That exposure led to international fashion shows, and his collections were seen on runways in New York, Paris, London and Milan. He became a regular at New York Fashion Week, and in 1998 decided to make America his permanent home.
“I have been visiting America since I was a child and I always came to Miami for fashion shows,” he said. “It was the weather that got me to Charlotte. I’d love to see four seasons here.”
Machicao posed for selfies with models at the “I Dream of Dior” fashion show at 811 The Gallery last fall, where he presented his spring-summer 2023 collection in Paris. Photo by Daniel Coston.
Today, he employs a staff of five at his East Over studio, where they do everything from pattern design and fabric cutting to embroidery and accessories. Machikao takes at least 50 measurements of each customer before the team selects the fabric. Once the client approves his design, he typically orders the fabric from New York. “What you can’t get here is lace and raw silk,” he says. “Chiffons, too. If you want a good silk chiffon, you have to go to New York or Paris.”
With limited galas, weddings and fashion shows in 2020, Machicao taught product design at UNC Chapel Hill for a few semesters. He now gives seminars at High Point University, and exhibits his collection every March at the Mint Museum Uptown.
As the only Charlotte-based fashion designer to show in Paris, Machicao says he can base his career in any urban city, but he has no plans to leave his adopted hometown. That doesn’t mean he won’t jump on a plane to find the perfect fabric though.
“I had a bride get married at the Duke Mansion 10 years ago and she wanted burgundy lace on the back of her dress,” he says. “I couldn’t find him in New York, so I flew to Belgium. That was the best wedding dress I’ve ever made. But to me, extreme doesn’t mean crazy. It means something that makes one’s jaw drop.”
Taylor Bowler is the Lifestyle Editor.
