Locally-based Cerise has launched its colorful housecoats in recent days. (Images courtesy Cerise)
One Richmond woman and her longtime travel companion have spun up a new company focused on colorful housecoats.
Alyssa Alward recently co-founded fashion brand Cerise, which launched with an inaugural product of a colorful cotton housecoat, meant for wearing over clothes or nightwear while relaxing at home.
After selling out their first small batch, Alward and her Los Angeles-based business partner Ashley Steen have recently received their second batch and are ramping up to expand their product line next year.
The roughly $300, all-cotton coats are meant to harken back to the colors and textiles that Alward and Steen have seen across the world as lifelong travelers and longtime friends, particularly in their frequent visits to India.
Alward and Steen first met while college roommates at the University of Colorado Boulder in the early 2000s, later spending their 20s together in New York City.
Steen’s background includes stints at multiple creative agencies in New York and Los Angeles, while Alward, who came to Richmond several years ago, has held roles at Refinery29 and most recently at Zillow as a brand program manager. She was previously the director of creative operations for local ad agency Arts & Letters Creative Co. for six years, from 2019 to 2025.
The two took their first trip to India together in 2018, amid other international trips to places like Mexico and Italy.
“We are the type of people who bring an extra suitcase … and a folded duffel bag in that extra suitcase, because we’re buying so many little trinkets and textiles, pottery,” Steen said.
Inspired by the artisans and colorful textiles of India, the duo decided to create their own product. They had the idea to make a line of housecoats for several years before pursuing it.
“We are both always very, very cold, and both of our homes are quite cold and drafty, and we came up with this idea for the housecoats,” Steen said. “We wanted them to be fun, and patterned and incorporate block print, a big craft in India.”
The two began collaborating with a textile house in India, working with them for around a year-and-a-half sending samples back and forth before finally launching in around December of last year.
The brand’s name, Cerise, means “cherry” in French, and harkens back to Alward’s hometown of Traverse City, Michigan, often called the cherry capital of the world.
Wanting to launch with a small batch, the brand’s first line consisted of 100 coats in two colorways, including a burgundy-yellow-and-blue color scheme and a clementine-and-blue color scheme with a swirling print, that is hand-block printed, a process where an image is carved onto wood or rubber, coated in dye and stamped onto the fabric.
The cotton coats cost $295 apiece, and are made and hand-block printed in Jaipur and sewn in Delhi. Alward and Steen travel to India every so often to meet with the craftspeople working on the coats.
Alward said that Cerise’s first batch of sales included both online orders as well as some local delivery and in-person sales on the ground in Richmond.
Cerise founders Ashley Steen (left) and Alyssa Alward on their travels.
“My friend’s husband bought one because he loved it,” Alward said. “People are sending in their photos, they’re working from home in them, they’re sitting out on their porch in them, we have people wanting to use them at their cottages on the river.”
After selling out of the first batch in recent months, Cerise has received its second batch of 100 housecoats to begin selling in time for this year’s holiday season. The newest batch of coats are now reversible and also include a petite size option, though they remain in the same two existing colorways as the first batch.
Starting this fall, some of the housecoats will also be available in local women’s boutique Mattie’s. Located at 15 E. Main St. in downtown Richmond, the sustainability-focused boutique is Cerise’s first brick-and-mortar retailer; Alward said she and Steen are hoping to get into a few Los Angeles boutiques soon, too.
Alward said she and Steen are looking to expand Cerise into other products.
“The housecoats not only are big and bulky, but they’re a little bit of a higher price point, so we’re doing scrunchies, we’re working on nightshirts, pajamas,” Steen said.
Cerise will do some markets this holiday season in Richmond like the Quirk Hotel’s holiday market, as well as some in Los Angeles.
Alward and Steen are self-funding Cerise. They declined to comment on how much they’ve invested in the brand thus far.
Alward and Steen run Cerise together, albeit from opposite sides of the country. They currently receive and ship orders out of their homes, though Alward said they could potentially look to a third-party logistics business for product storage and shipping in the future.
“We’re trying to keep things light, and we’d rather be spending our money on going and meeting with the craftspeople in India and developing new prints,” Steen said.
Alward and Steen are running Cerise part-time. Alward continues to work at Zillow while Steen runs her own designing and creative consultancy out of Los Angeles, per their LinkedIns.
The post Richmonder co-launches housecoat-focused fashion brand Cerise appeared first on Richmond BizSense.
