Meet Delilah Designs, the Creator of Free People's Knit Swan Sweater
Courtesy of Delilah Designs.
Just a few years ago, Delilah Eby never would have guessed that her knitwear design brand, Delilah Designs, would be available to shop online at Free People.
Growing up in Charlotte, North Carolina, and in New Jersey, Eby was always drawn to creative hobbies. What started as a spontaneous attempt to knit during the COVID-19 pandemic soon blossomed into making custom orders for friends, eventually developing into a full-fledged brand. Today Delilah Designs is a vintage-inspired knitwear brand featuring whimsical, coquette sweaters designed in New York City and hand-knit in Lima, Peru. Each piece is a true labor of love, combining Eby’s artistic vision with her commitment to ethical production.
We sat down with Eby to talk about how she turned a hobby into a thriving business, her focus on sustainability, her exciting partnership with Free People, and what’s on the horizon for her growing brand.
Teen Vogue: How did you get into knitting?
Delilah Eby: I never went to school for design or anything like that, but I’ve always been someone who needs my hands on something creative — I’m a big arts and crafts girl, going through every hobby that there is. I was inspired to take on knitting sort of on a whim, just digging through YouTube to try to figure it out and learn. I just quickly fell in love with it. It’s such a meditative practice, and it’s so fulfilling to create a whole garment from scratch.
I think something else that made me fall in love with it is how it combines artistry with design and fashion, which is another thing I’ve always been really interested in. Realizing that these two things could merge was super exciting, and it became an obsession.
TV: And what led you to start your brand, Delilah Designs?
DE: I wanted to create an Instagram account to share the pieces I was working on and follow other knitwear designers to get inspiration, [as well as] dive into this community that exists online. I was posting projects I was working on initially, and then I started to experiment with creating my own designs, patterns, and pieces, and then sharing them.
I ended up getting feedback from this small community that I had grown that people were interested in buying my designs and the things that I was making, which was mind-blowing. I started dabbling in selling, doing one-off pieces and custom orders and things like that, and it just snowballed into what it is today, where I became really interested in creating this brand and this whole world for these designs to live in.
TV: Were there any challenges that defined your brand when you started out? What was that whole process like?
DE: I really have no business background at all, so there was definitely a big learning curve. The first challenge was figuring out my brand identity and what I wanted my style to look like, and sort of the feeling I wanted to portray in my brand and in this thing that I was creating — which was a fun challenge.
The next challenges were, like, how do I do taxes and [what] logistical stuff do I need to figure out? How do I make an LLC? How can I make a grant proposal? How can I better market myself? And that was a lot to learn. I was in school for PR and advertising, so I was able to use what I was learning to, first off, market myself on social media, which is really how the brand originated — but then I had a lot to learn logistically.
When I was still living in Charlotte, I got into this business-incubator program called Creative Entrepreneurs Initiative. It’s basically a grant program where small artists and business owners go through all these business courses, and then at the end they receive a grant for their business. Doing that program was a moment [when I was like,] Okay, this is something that I could really fulfill. It began as a hobby, but it motivated me to put more into it and keep going after I graduated.
TV: Your designs are so whimsical and fun. Can you talk a bit more about where your inspiration stems from?
DE: It’s hard to pinpoint where it stems from. When I began creating my own designs, it felt very much like a direct expression of femininity, in a sense. I was still coming into myself and figuring out the world around me and where I fit into it. Having an outlet to safely express fun, whimsical designs, just for the sake of it, was really important to me. I love creating these sort of dream worlds for these sweaters to be placed in — I have a lot of fun with that.
In my design process, I like to create a world surrounding each design. Like for my most recent set of collections, I was really inspired by these antique paper feeders that were a popular craft in the 19th century. I had some friends help me create this paper set. We did it all by hand, and that was probably the most literal interpretation of where this world forms around a design. That was a really cool thing to see come to life.
I also like to dive into Pinterest and consume other forms of art. I love any sort of antiquity. I’ve always loved beautiful, old things. I love going through a vintage market and looking at little trinkets and getting inspired by designs. Another one of my designs is this bunny crest — sort of like an old timey-looking crest — but it was inspired by these vintage cameo brooches that I collect.
TV: You work with a group of artisans in Peru that specializes in manufacturing hand-knit garments. Can you describe your design process with them and how your pieces come to life?
DE: Whenever I get an idea for a certain motif, I work with these artisans in Peru to figure out how to reproduce my sweater design. All the sweaters are hand-knit in Peru, and then they’re shipped over to me without the designs on the front. So, it’s just the body of the sweater hand-knit, and then — depending on different orders or what kind of collection I’m working on — I do the embroidery on the front.
So I get to have flexibility with what designs I’m playing with and what kind of motifs I want to sell each season. It’s basically like I have all these blank canvases I get to play with. Usually, if I have an idea for a certain motif, I’ll sketch out different variations and play around with creating different grids for the image. It’s really just a lot of stitching on, stitching it, taking it out, redoing it— like over and over — until it looks how I want it to look.
TV: How did you begin your partnership with your manufacturer in Peru?
DE: When I decided I wanted to scale and outsource labor, I did a lot of research. I started asking other knitwear designers who produce hand-knit garments where they looked and if they had any recommendations. One of them had a recommendation for this manufacturer they work with, so I met with this manufacturer in Peru, where knitwear and textile-product design is, like, a centuries-old tradition, and it’s really ingrained in Peruvian culture.
It just felt like the perfect match. They were super helpful and honest and just super transparent about everything it would entail. The designs and having those samples made, and then picking out the materials and just getting hands on everything, I was able to finalize that product and have it made.
TV: Why is sustainability so important in your business, and how did that impact your partnership with your manufacturer in Peru?
DE: It felt like a no-brainer because there’s no way to create these sweaters that doesn’t take time and a lot of care. It just wouldn’t make sense to try to mass produce something like this — that was never the direction I wanted to go. I don’t think I’d want to make something like that because a big part of these sweaters is the love and care that go into it.
So working with this manufacturer has been super crucial. They’re woman-owned, and have every certification you can get, like responsible standards of wool, GOTS-certified, Oeko-Tex [certified], Carbon Footprint Peru Certification, and a Peruvian fair trade seal. They put a lot of effort into keeping their practices sustainable, ethical, and transparent.
TV: What was that moment like when you learned that Free People wanted to carry your designs? That must’ve been such an exciting milestone for your brand.
DE: In June 2024, a woman on [Free People’s] knitwear-buying team reached out to me and was like, “Hey, what are your thoughts on potentially carrying some sweaters on our site? What does your production turnaround look like? Let’s try it out!” And I was like, “That would be great. I just started working with a manufacturer, so I’m able to produce a bit more than usual.”
And then, this last September, they said they wanted to try this black swan design and see how it does on their site. It definitely felt like a big milestone for my business. It feels really surreal. It’s super exciting. They bought a fixed quantity from me and put it on their website in December, and it sold out, I think, in two and a half weeks, which was just crazy. We’re actually working on a new product order of pink swan [sweaters] for Valentine’s Day, which I’m super excited about.
TV: What else is next for Delilah Designs?
DE: I’m looking towards hopefully getting some sweaters in different boutiques around New York, now that I’m living here. It does take more time because I have to prepare the sweaters for that as well, so it’s like keeping up with my Free People and personal store orders, and then preparing quantities for stores on top of that. It isn’t super manageable right now, so I’m looking to hire some help with creating the designs on the sweaters so I’m able to create some quantities to put in stores.
TV: What has been the most rewarding part of seeing your brand grow into what it is today?
DE: People wearing the sweaters. Each sweater really goes through a whole life before it reaches the customer. They are such a labor of love, and they go through so many different hands. Something that’s hand-knit and then worn is just super special. It means a lot when someone reaches out and says they enjoy their sweater — it really means the world.
TV: What advice do you have for other Gen Z women designers who are starting out in the fashion industry?
DE: Having the courage to take yourself and your art seriously is something I wish someone would’ve told me early on. Especially in such a historically female-centric craft like knitting and anything in textiles, it’s been discounted a lot as a hobby. Taking what you’re creating as seriously as to call it art and say it with your chest is definitely something to try to learn early on because I think the moment I started to take my craft seriously is when other people did.
I create sweaters with baby animals on [them] because they’re pretty and fun, and I think it’s totally cool to make something because it’s fun and you want to. It can also be daunting to consider yourself an artist when you’re not creating something so deeply impactful so outwardly, but I think that making something fun and pretty has a huge impact on its own because you get to be an artist if you’re making something, and that doesn’t look one way or another.
Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue
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