Why Stylish Women Choose Kallmeyer for Wardrobe Essentials That Exude Quiet Confidence

You’ve probably passed her on the streets of SoHo, cocooned in an achingly cool pebbled leather jacket. Or perhaps you’ve seen her at your favorite low-key dinner spot clad in some artfully draped silk. Or better yet, she’s at your office, where her perfect black trousers prompt a dozen “Where did you get those?” compliments before the meeting even starts. She is confident. She is understated. She oozes good taste and just enough attitude. She is the Kallmeyer woman. 

“It’s not about the runway look. It’s not about the model or lookbook,” Daniella Kallmeyer tells me when we meet in her new light-filled studio in New York City, racks of versatile staples (trouser-inspired denim, “magic” cigarette pants) surrounding us. “It’s all about the customer and the longevity in which [a piece] can exist in her wardrobe, who she passes it down to, and how she re-wears it.”

Such attention to the customer and what she genuinely wants to wear has led to many a word-of-mouth recommendation for the eponymous label. After more than 13 years of quiet growth, the designer is finally getting recognition for her if you know you know line: She’s nominated for the 2025 CFDA Womenswear Designer of the Year award, which will be announced tonight, on November 3. The honor is deeply validating, yet almost beside the point. Kallmeyer has already built a community of like-minded women who come to her line for wardrobe workhorses and subtle statement pieces season after season. 

“I never like to put all of the weight on one specific moment,” she explains of this particular milestone. Don’t get her wrong, “it still is completely surreal,” to be honored alongside fashion icons like Ralph Lauren; but she’s more interested in building something that lasts rather than running hot for a season. “I know that we have built this amazing foundation with an amazing community and culture,” says Kallmeyer, “and really, really good product that speaks for itself.”

It’s true. Kallmeyer clothes have undeniable curb appeal—not just because they’re beautifully made, but because they are made to be worn. “How you move in it, how it makes you feel, how it changes when it’s on you, is as important as the garment itself, because you make the clothes,” the designer explains. In practice, that might look like the brand’s beloved T-shirt—a “surprise hit,” according to Kallmeyer—that hangs just so with a boxy fit, roomy sleeves, and subtly cropped hem that took more than three years to create. Or the stop-and-stare button-up duster coat from her most recent resort collection, which boasts the ideal combination of sharp lines and feminine flourishes. 

Spotting her own pieces during a weekend shopping with her mom and girlfriend on Greene Street or at a breakfast meeting with her advisors is a source of immense joy for the designer. “It means that people are living in our clothes,” she explains. “It’s not just like, Oh, everyone’s wearing it on the red carpet. It’s that people are actually purchasing it and wearing it in their lives.” 

Of course, the brand has plenty of famous fans. This summer, Zoë Kravitz stepped out in a custom pink version of the brand’s Eloise Liquid Silk Mini dress while promoting Caught Stealing. Ayo Edebiri wore a champagne version on her press tour for The Bear just a few months earlier. Many Kallmeyer red carpet moments started IRL. “Sarah Paulson is now wearing our clothes for press tours, but she actually discovered the brand as a customer,” says the designer. 

Kallmeyer’s power is that she designs with the everyday in mind, because she lives it. “There are advantages to me being a female designer with a real figure and a real kind of, like, a schlepper’s life, where I don’t want to ever be uncomfortable,” she explains. That’s why foundational wardrobe staples—the perfect pair of pleated pants, a light-as-air dress made of the brand’s signature “trapped” silk layers, a screen-printed velvet blazer—remain a constant source of inspiration. And counter to some peers, New York Fashion Week is just a jumping-off point; Kallmeyer is constantly finding ways to improve her designs during production, rather than dumbing them down for the mass market. 

“We’re actually making sure that when it arrives to the customer, they’re getting a better product, a better fit, a better quality fabric,” she says. Kallmeyer works primarily with factories in New York’s garment district so she and her team can work hand in hand with the people producing her product as a collection comes to market, tweaking designs along the way. Case in point? One of the jackets from her soon-to-drop resort collection is now reversible. And Look 15’s coat comes with extra-long sleeves so you can cuff or un-cuff to your heart’s desire. This exquisite attention to detail is not just a labor of love—it’s part of what has fostered such a tight-knit community among her customers.

Almost everything about Kallmeyer ladders up to this concept of connection. Attending the brand’s runway shows feels more akin to a fashion friend’s cozy party than an extravagant sartorial spectacle. The brand’s Cafe Kallmeyer event series is more about strengthening bonds than showing off a cute outfit. The latest iteration in Los Angeles included performances, like an L Word monologue, a Diane Keaton tribute, and a First Wives Club–style singalong to “You Don’t Own Me,” together with cool girls and martinis. The plan is to nurture that sense of community even as the brand scales. 

“It’s not that we always want to stay small,” she explains. “I think it’s just about being considered and considerate, like a very measured and considered way of presenting to your clients, where you put their experience before the show of it all. I don’t put myself at the center.” She even speaks about her fellow CFDA nominees—Wes Gordon for Carolina Herrera, Rachel Scott for Diotima, Ralph Lauren, and Tory Burch—like treasured members of the New York design community, rather than remote fashion luminaries: “What connects us all, I think, is just like a deep respect and love for women, and there’s almost like an archetype for each [woman] in each of these nominees.”

It’s apparent in every touchpoint—from her inviting store on Madison Avenue, which opened in May, to the way her sold-out Remy jacket envelopes its wearers—that Daniella Kallmeyer is a designer who genuinely loves and respects women. “I can only speak for myself, but not only as a women, as a woman designing womenswear, but also as a queer woman designing womenswear, my perspective on what women want is different—and that doesn’t mean that people don’t want what [other designers] have created, but I also think it’s what is working for me.”

After all, her customers are united not by a particular age, place, or aesthetic, but by a shared feeling. “One of the easiest ways to kind of categorize all of that—the range of demographic and experience and, like, personhood—is this thing that I say: The Kallmeyer woman doesn’t announce herself, she introduces herself. She is part of something bigger. She carries her power with kindness. And I think that is part of how people find us, and how people continue with us, and why this kind of word of mouth and community spreads as organically as it does. Because that kindness is generous.”

Consider this your introduction (and invitation) to join the world of Kallmeyer.