The Designer

Laine Sou was raised in the Twin Cities after being adopted from Korea when she was almost 4. After learning to sew from her mother at an early age, she started experimenting with pattern making as a young teenager. While studying fashion design at the University of Minnesota, she started KOKOON with her then-boyfriend-now husband, Richard Weinberg.

“He took my first sample line and hit the road, traveling cross country and knocking on boutique doors. He returned a week later with our first retail orders and I started sewing them out of my mother's basement. We were young and lacked fear (among other things), so we just kept going and never looked back!" 

That was the beginning of an entrepreneurial life together as the Weinbergs spent the next decades forging a fashion business and raising two wonderful kids.

Minneapolis-based KOKOON got its real start in the fashion industry in 1987 designing and selling to major retailers such as Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Bloomies By Mail, along with hundreds of boutiques in the US, Canada, and Puerto Rico.

KOKOON has been featured in Cosmopolitan, Bazaar, Glamour, and many other publications.

To hear Laine Sou talk about the history of KOKOON, listen to this Breakthru Radio interview.

Visit Laine’s Blog for her behind the scenes stories, retro tales, fashion, and a dose of humor.