Kallmeyer's Pre-Fall 2025 Collection Fuses Strength and Comfort
Founder and designer Daniella Kallmeyer built the next great womenswear brand based on the unique experiences and needs of real women in the workplace.
When Daniella Kallmeyer was first launching her brand, the then 25-year-old put a word to paper: Wit. Over a decade later, the designer is in her lower Manhattan studio talking through her Pre-Fall 2025 collection, and the sentiment remains. “Not everything has to be so serious,” she explains.
Out of her pocket, Kallmeyer pulls out a printed image—a Hildegard von Bingen painting she’d seen at the Getty Museum earlier this year, and a source of the color inspiration for the latest designs, the signature blacks and browns punched up with evocative summery hues with names like Citron and live Oil.
The South Africa-born, Maryland-raised Kallmeyer didn’t plan to strike out on her own. Having graduated from London College of Fashion, working for Alexander McQueen while still in school, Kallmeyer landed in New York in a post-recession job market and began freelancing for labels like Alice + Olivia. But she felt that something was missing. “As a queer woman, I have such impressive peers; watching the way that they became not themselves when they dressed for work was so frustrating.” And so, in 2012, she set out to solve the problem—to make workwear the women in her life were sorely missing.
Thirteen years later, the Kallmeyer brand is still known for the suits that first put her on the map, but she doesn’t want to be pigeonholed as a tailoring brand (“everyone has become a suiting brand”), or to be compared to minimalist, ultra-luxury labels. “People have wanted us to fit into this category of quiet luxury… we're actually so much more romantic than that; my sensibility is more in tune with objects, artifacts, and antiques.”
This season, that complexity can be seen in the way that a black blazer or pair of tailored pants are styled, or a perfectly slouchy ripped jean, a silky powder-blue anorak, or a swoopy Fortuny-inspired lemon skirt. Rather than seeing work clothes as armor in which to do battle with the realities of the corporate world, it's about confidence through comfort; how the clothes make the wearer feel. “You’re not in costume. You're not dressing as a man to speak to men. Women are inherently strong,” Kallmeyer, 38, says.
Kallmeyer sees the prescriptive rules of men’s fashion as a framework begging to be broken. “That's how our three-piece suits came about. That's how our tie shirts came about. It's the way that I cut my tailoring,” she explains. “Sometimes, parameters actually give us freedom.” Hair slicked back and dressed in jeans, a striped tee, and a perfectly tailored long black coat (all Kallmeyer), the designer is perhaps her own best model, a representation of how even serious clothes can feel easy. ”I am the same person wearing this coat with ripped jeans as I am when I wear it over a dress for a wedding.”
Kallmeyer’s deeply personal point of view has paid off, as she’s steadily built a cult following around the brand, a tribe she calls “women of excellence” who range from athletes and celebrities, to corporate VPs, to women interviewing for a new job. Stars like Sophia Bush and Chloe Fineman rank among fans. As we’re waiting to start our interview, a celebrity stylist asks about a T-shirt a client wants to gift to her daughter. Kallmeyer is a family affair.
“As a queer woman, I have such impressive peers; watching the way that they became not themselves when they dressed for work was so frustrating.”
Word of mouth is a fickle metric, but the numbers don’t lie. “We have more customers who are repeat [buyers] than not.” Kallmeyer clients don’t just know her signature silhouettes, but talk about each piece by name, from the Clemence jean to the Warner blazer. “It's really fun that they feel like these are their friends. They know all the names. They've bought into it,” Kallmeyer says.
As a slow swell of interest in the brand began to grow, opening up a storefront in 2019 was the next step in bringing women into the Kallmeyer world. “I have such a privilege of being so close,” she says (her studio space is just around the corner from the Lower East Side store). “I get to see people come out of the changing room and see themselves for the first time." Next came the runway: Kallmeyer’s Spring/Summer 2025 collection last September marked the brand’s first official runway show.
In a year in which a dozen or more beloved independent fashion labels closed their doors for good, it’s a rare win to see word of mouth lead to such steady growth. “This entire brand is built on profit; that makes us a unicorn in this business,” she says. She attributes that success to a “scale with intimacy” mantra—organic growth without raising funds or taking outside investments. The brand is looking at a new store in 2025 in addition to another runway show for the Fall/Winter 2025 season—a collection that will be “a little bit deeper, richer, more grounded.”
Kallmeyer will continue to infuse touches of modern nostalgia into the brand as it grows towards her vision: Becoming the next great American heritage brand, one that years from now new generations will be borrowing from their mothers’ closets or scouring eBay to buy in 2050. “We always talk about, like, the Goldilocks effect of our pieces… they’re not too formal and not too casual. Not too oversized and not too fitted. Everything is a little bit new, but still grounded in classic elements.” Even as your style evolves, and your lifestyle changes, there’s a way to wear Kallmeyer.
Through all the success and newness in 2024, that original goal remains: Dress women in a way that makes them feel good. “Even though I am just making clothes, it’s important to be creating something that matters: I'm dressing people who make a difference in the world.” It may sound earnest—and surely it is—but moments later, we’re laughing. A small moment between serious women who don’t take themselves too seriously.
Keep scrolling to see more Kallmeyer looks from the runway.
