Art has always been in Jesse Kamm’s blood—but designing clothes was never part of the picture. “I grew up in the Midwest, and fashion was just not something I thought about,” the Illinois native recalls. “It never occurred to me that there was anything other than jeans and sweatshirts that we bought at a convenience store in my little town.” But with mom who’s a sculptor and dad who’s a guitarist, the designer spent a fair amount of her childhood years in the studio “making sculptures, instead of watching TV”—honing and appreciating the craftsmanship that would later prove helpful in launching an eponymous line of clean and classic pieces.

She started said line in 2005, after a post-college move to California and a half-decade-long modeling career. It was in those runway years that Jesse acquainted herself with the aesthetics of fashion and discovered the gravitational pull of simple, well-made pieces. “I’ve