Ali LaBelle has a way of making things feel considered without overthinking them. Whether it’s a brand, a dinner, or a simple moment in her day, there’s always a quiet intention behind it.

We’ve followed her work for a while, and what drew us in wasn’t just what she does, but the way she moves through it. She isn’t confined to one lane, she works across projects, ideas, and mediums with a sense of ease, and there’s a clear through-line that connects it all.

It also feels like she pays attention to the right things. The in-between moments, the details that don’t ask for attention but end up staying with you.

In this conversation, we talk about her path, the way she approaches building brands, her love for hosting, and the things shaping her world right now.

Based in Los Angeles, Ali LaBelle is a creative director and brand strategist whose work sits at the intersection of design, culture, food, and storytelling. Through her studio and her writing, she explores the ways creativity shows up in everyday life, from the objects we collect to the rituals we create around food, conversation, and home.

I never quite know how to describe what I do because it involves so many different avenues, but I love it that way! I started as a graphic designer working for an accessories company, and I stayed there for eight years as I grew, learned, and took on more responsibility. Eventually I became an art director, then the creative director, and when I left in 2020, I was overseeing a lot of different aspects of the business, like product design, brand, and partnerships.

I didn’t really have a plan when I left, I just knew I wanted to try my hand at working for myself. Since then, I’ve started a brand consultancy, through which I work with small-to-medium sized businesses on all things creative. I also write a newsletter called À La Carte, run a side project called Pasta Girlfriend, and dip in and out of all kinds of other things. I’m leading an inspiration trip to Milan in the fall, and I’m in the middle of writing my first book! 

I feel most connected to brands that are layered and that keep things interesting. I just think there’s nothing more boring than a 1-color brand identity. I think people think that their identity needs to be super narrow to work, but most of the time, it works against them. I love when brands work with artists, explore new concepts, try a new medium… It keeps things interesting and shows what’s important to them.

I start with word association. My client and I will have a long discussion around their inspiration, the things that drive them, where they see their business in the future… I really like to get to know my clients on a personal level, because most of the time, the thing they’re building is really close to them—I don’t work with a lot of built-to-sell DTC brands. Once we have that conversation, I do a word association exercise where I list out adjectives, phrases they’ve said, artists, places, colors, other brands, or anything else that comes to mind, and I sort them into “buckets” that ultimately become the basis for the concepts I’ll present and the mood boards I’ll build.

I look to the past a lot for inspiration—I don’t know what it says about me that I don’t care about trends, but I just don’t! Lately I’ve been paying special attention to old signage in LA, or what’s left of it. I spend a lot of time in my car, and I’ll find myself staring at a wall that used to have hand-painted signage on it for a laundromat or a fruit stand, but it might be lightly painted over or faded with time. Developers and new businesses are slowly replacing these spots that have been a part of this city forever, and I want to try to mentally catalog what I see before it’s all gone.

The act of paying attention as a kind of preservation. What disappears when no one is looking. What stays because someone bothered to remember.

It’s hard! There’s so much to look at all the time, and there will always be people who are doing what I want to be doing or seem to be doing it better than I, and it’s tempting to play the comparison game. For the most part, I try to avoid looking at the work of other creative directors and branding studios—it might mean I’m slightly disconnected from what’s considered “cool” at any given time, but it ensures that I’m still staying true to my own voice.

I also think developing that voice takes time. I didn’t sit down and think, Okay, this is what I want to be—I just worked and worked, and over time I learned what I was good at, what interested me, what got me excited, and I leaned into it more intentionally. I think it’ll always be like that, a forever evolution.

There’s no rush to define yourself too early, no need to have a clear answer from the start. Just doing the work, following what feels natural, and letting it take shape over time. It makes finding your voice a lot more real. 

For me, hosting is an act of love—it’s so intimate to let people into my space, and if I’m inviting someone over, I want them to know that I care about them and that it’s meaningful for me to have them over (without being like, weird about it). I want there to be a snack when they arrive, drinks at the ready, a really good playlist, a place for them to hang while I finish cooking… I just want it to be an experience worth leaving their own homes for.

I hosted a birthday party for myself right before the pandemic, and for the entirety of lockdown my friends and I would joke that it was “the last fun time we ever had”. I rented out the private room at an Italian restaurant downtown and really decked it out with custom designed menus, colorful flowers, and tassels tied to the napkins. At each guest’s spot, I drew their face on a place card—they actually turned out so well and everyone was really excited about their little portrait.

Also, my sister randomly fainted in the middle of dinner, and my friend’s husband, who was luckily an EMT, had to bring her back to life. It was all very dramatic (she was fine!) and made for a memorable night.

A bowl of Lactaid. I know it’s corny, but I’m lactose intolerant, and it turns out that a lot of my friends are, too.

My grandma’s end tables. They aren’t even totally my style, but I took them from her house in Palm Springs when she passed and they’ve been in my living room ever since. Even if I end up not using them someday, I’ll never part with them.

I love London, and I could see myself living there someday. If I could go every year at Christmastime I would!

Jenny Walton’s new book, Jenny Sais Quoi. It’s a gorgeous book filled with illustrations, musings, photographs, outfits, vintage finds, and tidbits from Jenny’s life in Milan, and it’s just an explosion of inspiration as I work on my own book!

This is so random, but I started taking ashwaganda gummies right before bed, and I’ve never gotten better sleep in my life. I used to wake up dreading whatever I had to do that day, and lately I’ve been waking up happy and excited for whatever’s next. So unlike me!

I’m so excited about this trip I’m planning to Italy. I’m working with El Camino to bring it to life, and they’ve been so supportive in helping me make this the most inspiring, memorable week. It’s 3 nights in Milan, and then 3 nights in Turin, and we’ll be spending our days bopping around to museums, taking private house tours, stopping into ateliers, and ending with aperitivo. We’ve planned all kinds of experiences you can’t sign up for normally, like a tour of the Fendi archive. It’s going to be amazing. It’s at the end of September, and I’m still taking applications if anyone’s interested in joining!

I think we think about design really narrowly, especially those of us that work in design. I’ve had so many conversations with graphic designers who have no confidence in their ability to design their homes, or really fashionable people who don’t believe they can translate that style into their branding, or interior designers who dress terribly. And I think I thought that way for a long time too, that we all have our lanes and that we should keep our scopes narrow. Better to be an expert at one thing than a jack of all trades, master of none, right?

But I actually think there’s something really fulfilling about translating your taste across a lot of mediums. Developing your own taste comes with experience and time, and being able to apply it to your home and your closet and your work takes practice, but I think the best concepts are the ones that can stretch and morph beyond their initial application. 

Does that make sense? I think what I mean is that design is not just one thing. It’s everything, actually.

Taste isn’t something you apply to one thing, but something you carry through everything. Shifting depending on where you place it, but still rooted in the same instinct. The real work is learning how to translate what you see, again and again, in different ways.

My favorite way to spend a day is by just bopping around, popping into shops and galleries and grabbing coffees in between.

I’m starting with breakfast at Wilde’s in Los Feliz. I’ll dip into Pierce and Ward while I’m in the area, then grab a second coffee at Maru. From there I’ll head to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House for a self-guided tour, then read for a bit on the lawn at Barndsall Art Park before it gets crowded. 

Then I’ll make my way towards LACMA, stopping at some of my favorite spots (Danny D’s, Nickey Kehoe, Bode, Galerie Half, Maison Plage, Santa Maria Novella, RLT, Scout) along the way. I might stop for a late lunch at Telegrama or a glass of wine at Stir Crazy at some point. Then I’ll go home for a nap.

Once I’m ready for phase two, I’ll grab an early dinner at Betsy in Altadena, then meet up with a group of friends at Capri Club for cocktails and tiramisu, or maybe Sam’s Place for a couple of glasses of wine. Ideally I’m home and in bed by 9.  

I’m on the hunt for two matching vintage chairs right now—I haven’t found the right thing yet, but I’ll know it when I see it.

Letterform Archive just put out a book of French sign painting alphabets collected from the 18th and 19th centuries, and I need to get my hands on a copy—it looks like such great inspiration.

I have a balcony off my living room that I hang out on a lot, and I want to order the Stissing Martini Table for my 1–3 beverages I have on me at all times.

And lastly, this one’s a long term goal, but I’d love to get a piece of jewelry from Prounis. It’s all so beautiful, I don’t know how I’d choose.

Dunsmoor here in LA. It’s pretty meat-heavy, but I’m a vegetarian and it’s still in my top three, so that really says something about it. It’s just the best vibe, relaxed and cozy but worthy of a cute outfit. The little wine bar in the back is pretty special, too.

I’d tell them to stay at Sunset Tower. It’s not in my favorite part of town, but it’s such a quintessential LA experience. The bar and restaurant and pool are everything you imagine LA is in the most old Hollywood way.  Upgrade your room if you can, though—the cheapest rooms are a little run down these days. 

Go to Wilde’s for breakfast. They just opened and it’s a battle to get a dinner reservation, but having experienced both, I think breakfast is the better choice. Get the egg soldiers and a glass of orange juice.

Huntington Gardens is one of my favorite places in the world, and I’m lucky to live down the street from it. It’s this giant botanical garden that’s actually composed of several gardens, like a rose garden, a Japanese garden, a palm garden… It’s magical. They have a museum on site too that has a great permanent collection—I’d argue it’s one of the best museums in LA.

Two shops to visit: Bucatini in Echo Park and Nickey Kehoe in Beverly Grove. Bucatini is a sweet little pantry shop and home store owned by two of my best friends, Victoria and Sofia. It’s so special, the place where you’ll find Italian ceramics and French chocolates and some Swiss lip balm you’ve never heard of before. It’s my dream store, I wish I had thought of it. Nickey Kehoe is also wonderful, and really, it’s sort of like the sister to Bucatini (although unrelated). One one side is their furniture store, where they sell both their own line and vintage, and they have a huge Astier de Villatte selection. On the other side is their accessories collection, where you’ll find books, table linens, apothecary goods, gardening tools, tons of stuff. It feels like you’re in the Cotswolds… in LA.

Lastly, I’d suggest they go to Malibu. I’m not a beach person myself, but every time I see the ocean I remember how lucky I am to live here. It really is so beautiful. 

I think magic shows up in unexpected, fleeting moments you can’t plan. I feel a little pang of excitement in my gut when I come across it—a weird reflection or a glint of light or something caught in the breeze—and I just try to acknowledge it’s existence when it happens.

Speaking with Ali feels like a reminder that creativity isn’t something separate from life, it’s woven into it. In the way we gather, the way we notice, the way we shape our spaces and the moments within them.

It’s a way of seeing that stays with you, that what you create and how you live aren’t really two different things, but part of the same language.

So keep noticing, keep translating, and let it all connect quietly, in its own way.

Ali LaBelle is a brand consultant, writer, and the founder of Pasta Girlfriend. Find her at alilabelle.com and follow along at @alilabelle and her newsletter, À La Carte.

Cover image by Jackie Russo.

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