Actress Reese Witherspoon recently launched her own lifestyle brand, which includes a new fashion collection. Named Draper James, the collection is 40 percent crafted in the South of the United States and inspired by Reese’s childhood growing up in the Southern area. Reese explains that she feels there is a big fashion-following in her home region and she hopes she has designed pieces that will appeal to these fashion-loving women:
”The interesting thing is that women in the south, and all over the country, are reading Elle, Vogue and WWD. They have such a sophisticated knowledge of fashion. I wanted to create a line that made them feel seen. It will have all those touches of my southern upbringing but also revealing what the south is today. In the south, there’s a lot of colour, prints, tradition, traditional fabrics like gingham, plaids, stripes. There’s also definitely a feeling that what you wear makes you feel better, especially if you’re wearing colour, prints or joyful things.”
Reese adds that she felt very emotionally connected to the project because her family’s name is on the clothing and so she was very particular about the quality. She felt it was “a big deal” and didn’t allow anything to pass through her tests unless it was perfect:
”When things came back and they weren’t good enough, I was like, ‘Not good enough. Not good enough. It’s a big deal that my name is on something. It’s not just my name. It’s my grandparents’ name, which is a big, big deal. And you know I feel very emotional about it.”
The actress explains that she has always been interested in fashion and would love when her family made a trip to clothing stores when she was young:
”It was like a big deal [when] we’d get to go to Chicago or Atlanta where they actually had stores and I got to pick out two dresses, which was super exciting.”
