Misha & Puff’s First Womenswear Collection Gives Knitwear a New Point of View
3 min readWomen’s fashion has some of the best designs out there—full stop. That said, every now and then I see a well-dressed kid and think, “Damn, I wish I had something like that.” This is especially true when I see a little one sporting a design from none other than Misha & Puff, a brand known for its ethically crafted, handmade, vintage-inspired children’s clothes. And while my wardrobe carries a playful touch, I’m not necessarily looking for a supersized version of a child’s sweater, but rather the essence of that whimsy. Thankfully, I don’t have to look too far; Misha & Puff just launched its first-ever women’s collection—and it’s more than I could have hoped for.
“Knits are hot. Knits are sexy. The way that they drape, the way that they accentuate your neck, I really do feel like we can do a lot with a knit,” Sophia Roe told ELLE.com over the phone. “For me, I feel really beautiful when I put these clothes on.” The James Beard Award-winning chef—along with her daughter, Mizu—came together with artist Mara Hoffman behind the lens to create a campaign that captures the essence of Misha & Puff, highlighting the craftsmanship and expression of the brand’s new womenswear collection.
“Everything I do with the brand is very authentic and really about what I’m interested in…That’s how the kids’ brand started, with me having my son and then growing up,” Misha & Puff’s founder, Anna Wallack, said on a phone call. “The choice to launch women’s in a bigger way really comes from the pull that I’m feeling as a woman. For me, dressing women and dressing myself is about how we’re working these pieces together. How do I feel in these silhouettes? Who is this character today? I want to keep playing with that in a bigger way.”
Wallack went on to tell me that designing for the collection—which launched today—started with what she described as a “fiber-first” approach. “We work with a Pima cotton in Peru that worked so well for kids because it’s incredibly soft and it’s so wearable, and then to find that I want to wear that all the time for myself; I want to wear our merino wool,” she explained. “Our decision to launch women’s with a bigger collection really was a commitment to doing it instead of just making one sweater here and there.” The result? A range of expressive knits in a color palette reminiscent of the ’70s that encourage the wearer to be who she is as a woman today. With every solid- or heather-hued piece there’s another featuring an eye-catching print or embroidery detail. “I feel a little more permission to explore other ideas in the adult collection and what it means to be a women, too.”
This exploration extends into Misha & Puff’s campaign. Roe shared on a phone call that the idea of partnering with Misha & Puff stemmed from just being a fan of the brand. “I said, ‘I don’t know what we can do but I really want to do something with Anna.’ Little did I know that in the background she was working on this unbelievable adult collection,” she said. Though this isn’t the first project Roe has starred in with her daughter, she explained it was the first where she was shot by another mother, making the experience feel truly special—especially as she comes into her body 15 months postpartum. “I feel kind of hot as a mom. There are a lot of narratives out there about getting back to whatever that pre-baby thing is, and I just kind of rebuke that in every single way. I think what I am now is kind of amazing and I really do feel like Mara was able to bring that out in a way that no one else could have.”
On the vision for the campaign, Hoffman shared that the focus was “seeing how does a woman exist through a space or on the street, and how does she live in it?” Working to capture Roe in a documentarian way, the artist wanted to make sure the imagery felt authentic to both the brand and the people wearing it. “We are lucky to be able to capture little shots of that along the way.” Of course, shooting with a baby can come with its own unpredictability. Luckily, as Roe shared, working with someone like Hoffman helped her relax on set with the reminder, “This is just life.”