Slipper Purveyor Jamie Haller Tiptoes Into Apparel: 'I Don't Like the Idea of Having to Stay in My Lane — I Kind of Reject It'
Photo: Courtesy of Jamie Haller
Jamie Haller spent more than 20 years of her fashion career as a designer and creative director for Los Angeles-based casual apparel brands. It wasn't until 2020, when she ventured away from clothing entirely to launch her own range of shoes — a category she'd never worked in — that she really began making a name for herself.
Four years later, her line of timeless, elegant, glove-like slippers and loafers is a hit, beloved by the most stylish elder-millennial women you know (and many other demographics, probably), including celebrities like Emily Ratajkowski and Mandy Moore. Though she probably could've sustained a long-lasting (if small) business within the footwear category, Haller isn't interested in being boxed in: On Thursday, her namesake brand launches its first apparel collection, with a focus on denim and other everyday wardrobe staples that pair well with each other and with the shoes she's known for.
From outside, the expansion may look like an unexpected left turn (during a particularly precarious time for independent fashion brands, no less). However, Haller sees footwear as a (necessary) detour on the way to making her own clothes, after years spent making them for others.
"If you work for somebody else, it's through the lens of that customer, that brand, that owner," she says. "What are those motivations? Are they to make money? Are they to stay pure? To serve somebody my age? There are so many things that go into the intention behind what you're doing, and when nobody else was there but me... I really needed to exist in that very clean space where I didn't have to think about one other person for a really long time."
The decision to launch ready-to-wear this year was similarly personal: "I didn't give it much thought. It wasn't like I analyzed my business and looked over its stability and decided to expand. It was emotional and impulsive and driven from a place of desire."
In fact, when Haller started working on clothing, she was still struggling a bit with scaling footwear amid her brand's rapid growth. "I actually saw the clothes as a way to create more stability, with more scalability than the handmade shoes I was making in Tuscany," she says.
The debut Fall 2024 "capsule" includes six denim styles, two casual pant styles, a sweatshirt, a T-shirt, a button down and a relaxed three-piece suit. Haller decided on these styles based largely on what she felt she needed in her own wardrobe and couldn't find elsewhere. "The line's really personal in that it's a pretty accurate reflection of my personal style and taste," she says. And while she certainly isn't trying to do everything at once ("I'm still a very young brand that hasn't even launched clothing yet, so there's so much to figure out still"), there's a reason she wanted to tiptoe into several apparel categories with this launch as opposed to, say, only denim.
"It's multiple categories with the potential that it can expand in lots of different directions, with the base of it being a denim line," she explains. "Once I decided I wanted to do denim, then I very quickly decided that I did not want to be pigeonholed by anybody in the fashion industry about what that looks like."
Aside from the suit, just about everything is made in L.A. Pieces range in price from $198 to $985, and begin rolling out now through the next two months.
Photo: Courtesy of Jamie Haller
View the 17 images of this gallery on the original article
Haller understands firsthand the ways that external industry forces can manipulate, and even derail, a brand's trajectory. "I think in fashion, you put out something very pure as a reflection of what you want and then, very quickly, there's a lot of feedback, well intended, from buyers or editors or stores or DMMs (Divisional Merchandise Managers) or sales reps or friends — all of it," she explains. It's common for designers to end up pigeonholed by retailers who expect them to deliver certain kinds of products. In a fickle retail landscape, many independent designers likely ask themselves, at some point, "Should I stay in my lane?"
"[I've heard] 'You should just be the loafer girl because it's going to carry you a long way and you'll have an easier life,'" she reflects. "I think that's true, but it's not me. I have multiple careers and I have lots of different interests, and I want to be all the different things. I just want to express myself very authentically and with a bunch of different things instead of trying to be super item-driven. I don't like the idea of having to stay in my lane. I kind of reject it."
When it comes to wholesale, Haller prefers to keep her distribution "pretty tight." Her ready-to-wear will be available in some of the same boutiques that carry her footwear, including Goop and By George in Austin. "We work with stores that have good reputations for partnering with designers and paying designers. We're pretty selective in who we sell to," she notes.
For future launches, Haller intends to continue with her instinctual approach. As she puts it: "If it's something I personally want, then it can live. And if I end up feeling any indifference to it at all, I usually kill it before it goes anywhere."
Even as she pursues growth as a brand, Haller's focused on doing it her way.
"I hope it grows into something that can sustain my family, but it's really just about expression right now, doing something because I want to do it," she says. "I'm not trying to make any big statements. I'm really just trying to be really true to myself and make myself happy. I don't want it to be narrow — I want it to be big. I have big aspirations, but I also feel like we're starting out in a fairly practical way, a way that's sustainable for us."
Please note: Occasionally, we use affiliate links on our site. This in no way affects our editorial decision-making.
