There’s a particular kind of quiet that happens in a good store. The rack has been picked over, the first round of “I could never wear that” has been said out loud, and someone is standing in front of the mirror in something she’d walked past twice.
That’s the moment I do this for.
For two years, my pieces were carried at Madison — both locations, Malibu and Brentwood. The Ora Dress, the Geo Top, the Charmeuse Kaftan, and many more. Two years is long enough to stop guessing and start noticing. You learn which pieces move, which ones women return for in a second colour, and which ones you were certain about that quietly stayed on the rack.
Almost every time, the piece I expected to be the star sat there while something quieter got carried to the fitting room three times.
What I kept noticing is how differently women talk about clothes when someone is standing next to them. On their own, most people default to what they already know works — the same neckline, the same length, the same safe colour. Put a second person in the room who can say try it the other way, tie it higher, let it sit off the shoulder, and something shifts. They stop shopping and start experimenting.
That’s the whole reason I built the line the way I did. My pieces are made to be worn more than one way, but nobody discovers that from a photograph. They discover it from someone showing them. Having the collection sitting in a store, day after day, with people who knew how to style it, is what made that possible.
And then there was the part I didn’t plan for.
I met Betsey Johnson.
If you’ve followed my work for any length of time you’ll know what that means to me. She’s been an inspiration since long before I had a line of my own — for the colour, obviously, but more for the refusal. She built a career on the idea that clothes are allowed to be joyful and a little bit loud, at a time when the industry was mostly telling women to be tasteful and disappear.
I’ve thought about that a lot while building this collection. There’s a pull, especially when you’re starting out, to make everything neutral and safe because neutral and safe is easier to sell. Betsey never took that deal. Her whole body of work is an argument that personality outlasts trend.
Thank you to everyone at Madison, in Malibu and in Brentwood, for two years of looking after these pieces. And thank you to every woman who pulled something off the rack and let herself be talked into trying it a different way. That’s my favourite part of this work and it always will be
— Keirstin
