By: Ellie Arbee
Fashion loves fantasy. She’s thin. She’s decorative. She’s on time. She’s unbothered. She carries a handbag the size of a coin purse and seems to float through life without ever needing…anything. But here’s the truth: she’s balancing a series of internal and external pushes and pulls – between the boardroom and preschool pickup, a tee time and a client dinner, and right between being composed and being completely out of breath.
And she needs a pocket.
Ellie Arbee, a Denver-based women’s lifestyle brand, is designing what luxury looks like when function takes center stage. Founded by Natalie West in 2022, the brand approaches design with fresh eyes, free from convention, rooted in curiosity. Instead of designing for ideals, West designs for reality and freedom from single-purpose garments. And at the heart of that philosophy is a deceptively simple feature hiding in plain sight: the pocket.
Photo Courtesy: Ellie Arbee
Natalie West lives and breathes design. She’s spent her life as an industrial designer and carpenter, innovating and engineering, building environments and furniture, and even designing lavish floral installations. A modern Renaissance woman, she writes music, plays the cello, and once tried to build one herself to understand its sound. Her deep curiosity, how things work, and how they could work better, guides every decision she makes. That instinct shapes her approach to fashion, where beauty must serve purpose, and function and style are essential partners.
West’s design philosophy doesn’t come from trend forecasting or fashion school. It comes from intuition and, like most entrepreneurs, solving problems she encounters herself. The brand was born on a cold golf course in San Francisco, where West, underdressed for a windy round realized her wardrobe had failed her. She wasn’t dressed for the day her dynamic life called for, she was dressed for a version of it that included just one thing – the corporate office.
Photo Courtesy: Ellie Arbee
“I went home and Googled how to start a clothing company,” she’s said, half-joking, but entirely serious about her mission. It was a classic Natalie move: if you want something done right, understand it and build it yourself. What followed was a series of questions and iterations, learning, adjusting, and refining as she went. And with each step, one truth became increasingly clear: the clothes women had been given weren’t built for the way they really lived. The need for a practical pocket revealed itself as a necessity through the design process.
Photo Courtesy: Ellie Arbee
The Essential Dress, a signature piece in the Ellie Arbee line, is tailored with thoughtful details: a mandarin collar, cap sleeves, and most notably, functional patch pockets. These are not token pockets for decoration. They are deep, structured, and built to hold whatever the moment calls for. The patch pocket has become a signature styling cue of the brand, appearing across all styles that call for one. What looks simple on the surface is anything but. The signature Ellie Arbee patch pocket took twelve iterations to perfect, each one a careful study of size, shape, placement, and the tactile experience. Designed not to intrude on the natural crease where thigh meets pelvis, it accommodates movement and considers the soft touch of fabric to the back of the hand. Its most surprising feature? The subtle placement on the side of the body that gently encourages better posture, form, meeting function in the most elegant way.
Its power lies not in what it declares, but in what it dares to do quietly: take up space without apology. That’s why the pocket matters. Because it’s not just a design element. It’s a gesture. A nod. A small signal that says: you were thought of. Your needs were anticipated. I’ve got you.
Each piece is made in the United States, using thoughtfully sourced materials, and built to last. Ellie Arbee collections are intentionally small, capsule-style, so women can mix, match, and move without overconsuming or overthinking.
Natalie West doesn’t position herself as a disruptor. She avoids politicizing her mission. She’s uninterested in rage-based branding or adversarial marketing. Instead, she designs for women who are engaged and living full, layered lives, women who thrive on experience, not on how many outfits they can change into in a day. Women who need their clothes to keep up.
She’s direct, she’s creative, and she’s uninterested in posturing. Her approach to fashion is the same: tell the truth, build what’s needed, and strip away everything that is not essential.
Sometimes, the most radical thing you can do in fashion is make it simple.
Tired of choosing between style and function? Step into Ellie Arbee, where elegance is equipped, movement is honored, and every pocket pulls its weight. Because when your wardrobe is built for how you actually live, you move through the world differently.
