Inside the Closet of ANT/DOTE Founder Lauren Amos

If you’ve ever been perplexed by a runway show and asked yourself, But who actually wears that in real life? One woman in Atlanta—Lauren Amos—embodies the answer to that question. Amos sits at the helm of ANT/DOTE, a retail destination that brings some of fashion’s most eccentric pieces to the South’s burgeoning cultural hub, and she often does so outfitted in Comme Des Garçons and Rick Owens.

Alongside co-founder Eugene Rabkin, Amos uses ANT/DOTE to expose Atlanta to boundary-pushing designers like Kei Ninomiya, Issey Miyake, and Iris van Herpen. All of whom she personally champions via her closet. “I'm not really interested in the standard ideals of sexy and beautiful,” Amos muses. “I like to wear things that can cultivate a conversation or that often present themselves as armor for me.”

ANT/DOTE isn’t Amos’s only local creative endeavor. In 2004, she opened WISH—now a destination for sneakerheads. The aesthete also sits on the board of the High Museum of Art and advises several foundations in that sphere. “You have more opportunity [in Atlanta] to bring great things that no one has seen before,” she explains. “In New York, people can kind of be jaded, but they're not here because there's just not as much access.”

The austere architecture of the closet itself strikes a stark contrast to the colorful annals of fashion history Amos has cultivated within it. There are pieces from Alexander McQueen’s legendary Spring 2001 VOSS collection, Nicolas Ghesquière’s lauded tenure at Balenciaga, and Rei Kawakubo’s sartorial legacy at Comme des Garçons. For those who don’t mentally catalog the industry’s greatest runway shows, the textures alone will draw you in. (Think sculpted breastplates, crunchy lamé, and fuchsia sequins.) Peek inside Amos’s museum of a closet, featuring beautiful feats of construction courtesy of Iris van Herpen, and learn more about the thought behind her personal collection, below.