The ‘Wild’ star made her first foray into fashion with her line Draper James, a southern-inspired sportswear and lifestyle brand, which launched online yesterday (05.05.15).
The Louisiana-born beauty has created the line which will reflect “touches of her upbringing” to help the fashion-conscious women in the south of the United States to “feel seen”.
Forty percent of her entire Draper James collection will be produced in the south, and the website also includes city guides for southern regions.Reese said: “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.”
The sportswear line will start at $50 for a T shirt up to $400 for a dress, while leather goods will range from $40 to $325.
The collection’s jewellery line will start at $25 up to $250, with goods from the lifestyle line ranging from $14 for pencils up to $400 for a sterling silver bowl.
The 49-year-old actress will put out five collections a year through Draper James and is keen to put her mark on every single one as she hasn’t lent her name to the brand lightly.
She explained: “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.”
Reese also confessed launching the line was a dream come true as she has been obsessed with fashion from a young age.
She told WWD: “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.”
