Loeffler Randall

Loeffler Randall

Jessie Randall sketched the brand's first collection from a Cobble Hill garden apartment in 2004, her dog in her lap, while her husband Brian worked full-time in advertising to support them both. He cut up their wedding invitation and tucked pieces of it into the footbed of an early prototype alongside her middle and last names, which is how the brand got its own. Bergdorf Goodman picked up that debut collection in its very first season, and Jessie went on to win the CFDA's Swarovski Award for Accessory Design just two years later.

Jessie Randall named the brand's first pump after her grandmother, and the raffia, embellishment and bow details that still show up across the sandals here trace back to that same sentimental, handmade instinct rather than a runway trend cycle.

The boots and ballet flats round out a footwear line that grew slowly and deliberately. Loeffler Randall stayed a small, family-run business, Jessie on design and Brian running the business side, for its entire first decade and beyond.

The brand didn't open its first physical store, in SoHo, until 2021, sixteen years after founding, which tells you how much of this business was built shoe and bag by shoe and bag rather than through a splashy retail rollout.

Our honest take

Loeffler Randall's whole story is proof that a slow build still works: two decades in, it's still run by the same husband-and-wife team that cut up their own wedding invitation to name it. If you take one thing away, it's that the raffia and embellished sandals are the closest thing to the brand's original DNA, so start there.