DRAFTING W/ DANIELLA KALLMEYER

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Daniella Kallmeyer knows what women want to wear. The South African-born designer, recently nominated for American Womenswear Designer of the Year at the 2025 CFDA Fashion Awards, now stands shoulder to shoulder with industry icons like Ralph Lauren and Tory Burch.

Blending masculine and feminine codes, Kallmeyer brings a modern, deeply personal lens to luxury — rooted in Daniella’s experience as a queer woman. Her designs are romantic yet restrained, sophisticated yet approachable, and have cemented her as one of New York’s most compelling new voices, now crowned by an Upper East Side flagship.

For our very first DRAFTING, Daniella opens up about her creative process through sketches, stacked alarms, and the ultimate karaoke playlist, “Lesbian Linger.” Turns out, it takes 15,000 steps for Daniella to look this good.

The making of our OG famed striped layered tees, which have become so iconic.

Having 30 tabs open on the same browser where half of them are work files and the other half are furniture auctions and vintage resale is the most chaotic, neurodivergent thing ever.

I was sitting outside a bar in Paris explaining what Cafe Kallmeyer is, and talking about club mottos, nicknames and good merch we could make when this British guy walked out and said, “Bye babes, ring us when you’re done. The girls are keen to hang.” We loved that so much, we were screaming. It’s so Cafe Kallmeyer. Going on a tee asap.

This makes my open tabs look organized, but just know it used to be worse.

This gives the same energy as my unread messages.

When we were designing our Resort 2026 collection, I really wanted to play with a dichotomy of elegance and attitude, and masculine and feminine that focused on craft. This sweater was one of my favorite pieces we made and it didn’t even make it into the lookbook, but I know it’s going to be a sleeper hit when it lands in our store next month. It’s sort of a trompe l’oeil meant to look like you’re wearing a boyish sweater over lace lingerie, but it’s all seamlessly crafted in the finest mohair.

My friend Laura Brown’s new book that my mom Jill Mizrachy has a chapter in.

There is a guilty pleasure — or a pleasure guilt — in winning an auction item in the middle of the work day that you bid on at 3 AM 2 weeks prior.

My go-to driving music also doubles as my karaoke playlist.

Obsessed with our new fall collection. Marry me in these pants, bury me in this cashmere coat.

The hatching chick is one of my favorite emojis, I don’t know why. Preferably when it has no relevance to whatever I’m reacting to.

Text me like this or don’t text me at all.

My partner and I recently stumbled into the most amazing pizza wine bar in the neighborhood, Emmett’s. How good is this menu and logo? You know they have good merch, too.

Starting a new collection, I like to begin a kind of mirage — like if I squint my eyes, what is the feeling of the pieces distilled into their essence? I created a set of rules for my latest collection. Especially lately, the collection has expanded so much and so have my references. This gives me a “touching tree” to explore new techniques and shapes, and stretch my limits creatively and commercially — but always have something measured to come back to.

I walk 5 miles every morning. I want to get to a 15k steps average.