It doesn’t matter if you’re a mom carting your kids to the playground, a young professional investing in your first grown-up work outfit, or an Emily Ratajowski-level It girl. When you discover Los Angeles-based designer Jamie Haller’s shoes—loafers, sandals, and flats in buttery leather, handmade in Italy—they become the only ones you want to wear. See Meg Strachan, the Dorsey fine jewelry founder, who tells me she ordered three pairs of Jamie Haller loafers the day the ones she wanted came back in stock. Or Ratajkowski herself, who wears Haller’s Penny loafers constantly on walks around Manhattan.
From Substack tastemakers—like Cereal Aisle author Leandra Medine or WhoWhatWear founder Hillary Kerr—to offline but in-the-know shoppers, ordering a pair of Jamie Haller’s shoes any time since its 2020 launch has been a ticket into a not-so-secret fashion society. Its membership is 16,000 strong on Instagram—and once you’re inducted, you end up buying at least two pairs. Sales grew by ten times from 2022 to 2023 and then quadrupled from last year to the present, all on the strength of word-of-mouth recommendations and a few small-scale boutique partnerships.
Walking me through an upcoming collection in a New York City showroom, Haller tells me she’s met women who’ve snagged up to twelve pairs for themselves. She herself hasn’t worn anyone else’s shoes in four years. “I get it,” she laughs. “I’m obsessed with my shoes, too.”
Haller’s buttery-soft leather loafers are a hit among fashion tastemakers.
(Image credit: Courtesy Jamie Haller)
Emily Ratajkowski was one of the first major names to wear Jamie Haller’s shoes. Her casual loafer sighting caused sales to increase by triple-digit percentages in 2022.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Now, Haller is preparing for her brand community to develop a new obsession—with her clothes. The designer is today unveiling her first line of ready-to-wear to pair with her easygoing, trend-proof shoes.
Before striking out on her own with a footwear brand at the height of the Covid pandemic, Haller had spent over twenty years designing clothing, including in an award-winning role at NSF, an LA-based label. Her expertise was obvious to me on a walk-through last May, where, according to my recorder, Haller spent a solid four minutes explaining the precise seam used on a pant for it to fall just right.
Denim, a Haller specialty, is the cornerstone of the new collection. Unpretentious utility pants, a “chameleon” T-shirt, and the “everything pant,” seasonless paper bag waist trousers, round out the initial drop. Prices begin at $198 for a T-shirt and cap at $540 for wide-leg jeans. They’re crafted so meticulously that the cost-per-wear goes down fast—because, ideally, these are the clothes you’ll wear nearly every day.
Jamie Haller’s label began with shoes, but she spent 25 years designing clothing before that.
(Image credit: Courtesy Jamie Haller)
A dedicated tastemaker fanbase propelled Haller from fulfilling shoe orders in her garage to overseeing a full ready-to-wear and footwear label.
(Image credit: Courtesy Jamie Haller)
Haller’s initial designs have won over such a devoted following in part because of their inherent ease. The materials are soft to the touch and made in small batches; the silhouettes are both polished and unassuming, specific and versatile. Both the shoes and the clothing reflect Haller’s intentional way of dressing—quietly but with purpose. “I think you can relate to me on a personal level and be like, oh, I like her style, which is almost like a non-style, but it’s very laid-back, casual, understated,” Haller tells me. I can indeed relate to what she’s wearing for our conversation: a black top, olive green pants, and a loafer from her own line, with silver statement earrings. “Maybe there’s a thread of cool in the way I like to put things together, but it’s very basic and lifestyle-oriented.”
Haller’s clothes aren’t all that’s approachable about her. She’s invited her followers into the making of each piece, sharing on Instagram candid updates about the realities of starting her business from scratch: delayed orders, difficulty keeping up with increases in demand after a celebrity sighting, heartfelt thank-yous when pieces really hit.
Before scaling up to a true warehouse, she rented the house next door as a shipping facility-cum-design studio and fulfilled orders from both that garage and her own. In an email, Meg Strachan of Dorsey recalled picking up her first shoes directly from Haller’s home in Silver Lake. “When I got to Jamie’s house, she packed my order for me in her garage. Her daughter handed me my bag. It reminded me of the very early days of Dorsey.”
Whether she’s working on her shoes or her denim, Haller says that being a good designer “means having a confidence in my vision where I’m not afraid to make a decision.”
(Image credit: Courtesy Jamie Haller)
Haller’s official clothing debut includes unpretentious T-shirts and meticulously cut denim.
(Image credit: Courtesy Jamie Haller)
Unafraid to show every aspect of her work goes back to the start of the business and the first community that supported her ambitions. Haller designed her initial shoes in lockdown, using her neighborhood COVID pod as the sounding board for each piece. “There’s a beauty in that because there was no outside opinion,” she says. It was just me getting to do me and worrying about myself and not having to worry about anything else. I was just making something.”
Four years later, sticking to her internal design compass pointed her toward a debut lineup of ready-to-wear with near-universal appeal. “Being a good designer to me really just means having confidence in my vision where I’m not afraid to make a decision,” she says. An early test capsule of Jamie Haller’s denim, sweatshirts, and utility pants didn’t simply sell—it resonated. “We sold out of almost everything in a day—it blew my mind,” Haller says. “And nobody made returns.”
Fans who haven’t yet tried the clothing are ready to load up their carts. “I’m so excited to see her ready-to-wear,” Strachan tells me in an email. “Fashion often feels disconnected from the lives we actually live each day. Women are looking for wearable pieces. That’s what Jamie creates.”
“I’m my customer and I’m actually the only one that matters because I have to be happy first and want to wear it first,” Haller says of the denim-centric first collection.
(Image credit: Jamie Haller)
No matter how big Haller’s brand gets, she tells me she still plans to design everything herself. “I think what I’m proud to do is to be really honest about being in this brand and having this showing myself—not just being a logo on a background, but being a person who’s like, ‘This is hard or these are my kids,’” she explains. “This is real life, and this brand is me.”
But there’s a hands-off perk to seeing her label expand and her community along with it. She won’t have to pack the clothing orders herself. It’s finally outgrown her garage.
