How Janessa Leoné Found Her Niche

Happy Wednesday! Today, we’re sharing all the new things to incorporate in your life, from J-Beauty to home decor to leggings (yes, you read that correctly). Plus, a new Close-Up with Designer and CEO of her namesake label, Janessa Leoné, who delves into the regenerative and sustainable practices she lives by in work and beyond, along with the ‘90s inspo she can’t get enough of. — Samantha

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THE CLOSE-UP

Janessa Leoné on Regenerative Design and Dressing with Intentionality

By Samantha Wu

Welcome to The Close-Up, where we indulge in conversations with tastemakers, entrepreneurs, designers, and others paving the way in their respective industries. Focusing on the people at the forefront of innovative companies, join us as we uncover their style ethos, guiding principles, challenges, and insights that have made them successful in the worlds of fashion, beauty, art, and beyond.

This week, I had the pleasure of speaking to Janessa Leoné, founder of her namesake sustainable fashion label. Ahead, we chat about how she built her line with little to no fashion background, the sustainable and regenerative practices she lives by, and the ‘90s ‘city girl’ inspo she adores. And, of course, she shares the top three pieces she’s designed (that I’m already adding to my holiday wishlist).

Samantha Wu: What was the catalyst for starting your business?

Janessa Leoné: I'm not necessarily trained in design or fashion, but I always had an interest. I didn't necessarily have the family to nurture it. I was on that pre-programmed path to go to law school, but I was always very creative, making my own clothes. I went to Paris on a college graduation trip and found this hat in the Marais. I fell in love with the idea of starting with a small capsule hat brand because I didn't have any funding or family money; I was funding this myself. I loved that Chanel and Halston started with hats. For someone who doesn't have a fashion background, [it’s] a wonderful way to create a niche product that's really well-made and still uses heritage hand-making techniques.

All of our hats are one hundred percent made by hand by people. There's no standard operating procedure for making hats. It's a hand-feel. You go into the factory and people's eyes are closed and they're just feeling the felt to see if it's the right thickness. It's such an artisanship. I wanted to use that as the jumping-off point and start the brand. The goal was to always evolve and grow the brand from there. We're 10 years in now. We have different categories that are now taking up bigger shares of the business, but hats are always going to be the main backbone of the brand.

SW: Can you tell me more about your brand’s sustainable practices and regenerative design?

JL: When you're a small business, things are innately sustainable because you're making everything locally, and you're involved in the whole process. You don't have huge inventory budgets; you're not buying things that are going to waste. Doing things well-made and small batch is very intentional at our core, but also we're scaling a business. Where do we fit into this consumerism conversation?

That was at a point in my life when I had a personal health crisis and found regenerative agriculture for myself to heal my body. Essentially, it’s a way of land management utilizing animals and crops. It's using the whole ecosystem of anything that goes on land to heal the soil. We're using wool, we're using cow leather, all of our raffia and different materials are grown from the earth, from trees. All of this can be raised regeneratively, meaning that it's being raised on the land in a way that is healing the soil so that the soil is storing more carbon and has more ability for water retention.

It's actually creating an ecosystem that benefits from the process of the animals being there rather than depleting. We're actually benefiting the biggest resource that we have on the planet, and nurturing it and creating it in a way that’s able to restore and give back in dividends by storing more carbon, storing more water, and being able to create more biodiversity.

SW: Can you tell me more about your personal style and how that manifests into the pieces that you've designed so far?

JL: It's very paired down and classic. I think because I shop so little, I'm okay to spend higher on the initial investment in an item because I know that I'm going to wear it for years, and worn in so many different ways. When I travel, I think of my whole wardrobe around a travel capsule because I like to just take a carry-on. It's like, ‘What's the one sweater that I need while I'm in Paris?’ If I don't have that, that's what I'll design. It's like what clothing materials am I going to wear year-round and be a classic silhouette?

SW: Where or who do you look to for style inspiration?

JL: I think classic '90s is kind of my style. Jeans, a sweater, a white T-shirt, a blazer, and loafers. It is very timeless. I love seeing women in cities living their lives. I obviously have a huge draw to Paris, but similarly, to London and New York. It's probably because I'm from California and this is relatively foreign to me, but women have to be so intentional about their outfits. I'm going to be gone all day; I'm not going to come back. I'm going to be on foot all day, what am I going to wear when it's cold in the morning, gets hot in the afternoon, and colder at night. I find that so inspiring and I love to dress myself because it's thoughtful, but it's practical. It requires an innate sense of awareness to know what your personal style is and how that's going to make you confident walking through the day and getting shit done.

I love this day and age of being a woman. We don't have to just be pretty housewives. We can be if that's what we choose, which is great, but we could be anything. I love that women embrace that in their wardrobe and represent that in their outfits.

SW: Lastly, can you share the top three pieces that you've ever designed?

JL: My current favorite is called the Bode Bag. It’s a crossbody bag. We just released it, and it sold out in two hours. I designed it while I was living in the city. You can do so many different things with it, and it's so versatile. It can be like an evening bag. We dress it up. It fits my life and I'm so obsessed with it. I love that everyone else is loving it because it took so much effort and it has so much of my heart and soul in that bag.

There's a hat called the Tinsley. It's our go-to summer-wide brim. It's been a bestseller for two years now. It's actually packable. It is big, but I do take it on my carry-ons because you can roll it up.

Lastly, I would say that we have this fisherman Genevieve sweater, which is very classic, boxy menswear-inspired, and a hundred percent wool. I feel like when you actually get your hands dirty in the actual soil where these sheep are raised, you're so intimately connected to the wool that they give you. Those are right now my must-haves that I can't really live without.

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