Meet Fashion Designer Daniella Kallmeyer
“I never really used the term quiet luxury,” says Daniella Kallmeyer. Nonetheless, her New York–based namesake line was perfectly primed for the wildfire trend, which took off in 2022, drawing critical acclaim and a clientele that remains devoted even after the algorithm moved on. Perhaps that’s because Kallmeyer’s discreet but confident suiting, her minimalist knits and refined staples—like the perfect white button-down—cater to grown-ups who don’t want to fuss about what they wear, women such as Gwyneth Paltrow, Christy Turlington, and Sarita Choudhury. “When clothes allow someone to look like themselves, you give them time back and the emotional space to move through the world without feeling like they’ve put on a costume,” Kallmeyer says.
In September the 37-year-old made a highly anticipated return to the runway during New York Fashion Week. That’s a little over a decade since the South African–born designer established her brand, built a following with her trunk shows, and, in 2019, opened a brick-and-mortar boutique on the Lower East Side. Every stage put a premium not on soulless click-to-buy transactions but on shoppers who want to experience clothes in action. In February she presented her fall 2024 collection at the restaurant La Mercerie at Roman and Williams Guild. She called it Café Kallmeyer.
“We had this vignette of models, and our guests were getting out of their seats and asking them if they could try on the pieces,” she recalls. The spring 2025 show is only Kallmeyer’s second on a runway, a new brand milestone, but the collection is derived from a visual language that has been meticulously honed over time, at Kallmeyer’s own pace. “That’s quiet luxury as a value system,” she says, “as opposed to quiet luxury as an aesthetic.”
This story appears in the October 2024 issue of Town & Country. SUBSCRIBE NOW
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