Crewcuts x Loeffler Randall! All About The New Mommy & Me Collab
Written by Erin Feher
Photography by
Photos Courtesy of Jessie Randall and Crewcuts; Family Photo Via The Daily
Loeffler Randall has long turned out covetable shoes and handbags inspired by the iconic style of its founder, Jessie Randall. But with LR’s latest release, the stylish designer is passing the torch to her 11-year-old daughter, Clementine. A capsule collection of children’s styles will be available though J.Crew’s crewcuts. The brand-new crewcuts x Loeffler Randall collab—available starting today!—came to fruition when the team from crewcuts attended a Loeffler Randall sample sale and spotted the fashionable pre-teen sporting vintage high-waisted jeans and high-heeled boots, and confidently offering style advice to customers.
The collab collection includes vintage-inspired straight-legged jeans (just like mom’s), the perfect leopard-print tee, and sparkly gold leather wrap sandals adorned with silver hearts and stars. And to further honor this memorable mom/daughter fashion moment, two of the sandals from the kiddie collection are being offered in women’s sizes, as well.
In order to find out more about this style milestone, we sat down with Jessie Randall, mom to 11-year-old twins, Clementine and Casper, and 7-year-old son Harry, to get the behind-the-scenes scoop on how the collection came together and what it’s like to have a little sartorialist following in your fashionable footsteps.
As evidenced by her Instagram feed, your daughter Clementine has a strong sense of personal style. How did she inspire this line?
“Clementine has always been totally obsessed with fashion and has always had a distinctive eye. She puts things together so well. Even when she was very young, if she liked an outfit of mine, I knew it would work well and if she didn’t, I needed to go change! What’s so cool about Clem’s style is that it truly is a mash-up of my feminine style and her dad’s super sporty style. Clem loves to create that mix. The collab came about because some of the people from J. Crew’s crewcuts were at our sample sale one year. They saw Clem at the sale, parading around in our high-heel boots and her vintage high waist jeans, helping women try on shoes and offering styling advice. They reached out about doing a collab with her, and of course it was so exciting for us. Clem has a strong personality and is very opinionated. She was super involved in the whole process. She was involved at every step of the way in designing this collection, and I know she’ll be wearing it all summer long.”
Loeffler Randall is truly a family business—can you tell us how you and your husband launched it?
“I founded Loeffler Randall with my husband, Brian, almost 15 years ago now. We met working in advertising, but I have always had a deep love of fashion and decided to go back to school to study design shortly after we met. The process of crafting and making things is so personally rewarding and is so important to everyone on the LR team—it’s what inspired me to change course at the time, and what still inspires us to this day as we design our collections. I’ve also always had a passion for shoes, so after a few years designing handbags for other brands, Brian and I decided to take the leap and start a label together. We were very lucky to sell to Bergdorf Goodman our first season. Now, years later we are so pleased with the brand’s success. I love designing the things I want to have in my own wardrobe each season.”
How has becoming a mom affected your business or the way you work?
“It definitely has affected the business. Having children has made me more efficient and forced me to clearly set boundaries with my time. I love that my children are watching us grow this company. They see how hard we work each day and know that everything we do is in support of them. I hope that hard work and entrepreneurial spirit will rub off on them. They love to come by the office to learn and help out when they can. The other way that being a mom affects the company is that I understand even more now how important it is for us to create comfortable shoes that our customers can wear throughout their day—things that work for the school run straight into work and off to dinner at night. These are designs that work for multiple occasions and last year after year.”
Your personal style is so incredible—how would you describe your aesthetic and do you have any rules or philosophies for putting together the perfect outfit?
“Thank you! I would say that my style is very feminine. I like things that feel special but are easy to wear. Comfort is so important for me! I like for there to be an ease to the things I wear, but also for them to be distinctive. I don’t like the idea of fashion ‘rules’ because what works for one person might not work for someone else. I guess my philosophy is to wear the things that feel authentic to me, are comfortable, chic, and beautifully well made. I tend to favor smaller designers and pieces that were crafted with love and care. I like brands that have a personal story to tell and products that have a unique point of view.”
What about motherhood makes you most excited?
“I absolutely adore children and babies and always have. So, just the idea of motherhood excites me. I love watching my children grow into unique people who are caring and creative and have personalities all their own. I guess I didn’t realize the emotionally difficult parts of being a parent. Before I had kids, I could only see the joy and excitement. But almost 12 years in, I now know that parenting is a tough thing and things will happen that might feel like a punch in the gut. It’s so hard to watch them get hurt or upset. Things come up that you never could have imagined, and you learn to deal with those things.”
What makes you most nervous?
“Pretty much everything! A huge part of motherhood for me has been learning to manage my anxiety. We started right out of the gate with a lot of nerve-wracking things: From a twin pregnancy and a scary delivery, to double NICU stays and surgery for my daughter at 9 days old. So, right away, my world was plunged into a lot of scary things. But you have to learn to live with the anxiety and you have to let them grow and become more independent, even if that is so incredibly hard.”
Tell us what a typical day looks like for your family.
“I get woken up early by my youngest wanting to snuggle in bed. Then we run around trying to get dressed and fed and out the door—it’s a mad dash. I love to walk my kids to school when the weather is nicer out. I work all day and then when I get home, we talk about our days. Lately at night we’ve all been playing this board game together called Carcassone. It’s great because a range of ages can enjoy it. Then the kids do their baths and I snuggle each one of them before bed. It’s an incredibly long drawn out routine involving things like ‘last hugs’ which is actually 12 separate hugs. I read to my youngest Harry. Right now we are working our way through the entire Anastasia Krupnik series I loved as a kid.”
For more on Jessie, take a look at our “Coffee With…” feature from 2015. And to peep the new Loeffler Randall x crewcuts line, click right here and shop the entire collection in the slideshow below!
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