Draper James, Reese Witherspoon’s fashion and lifestyle brand with a Southern point of view, is expanding into sport for the first time. The collection will be introduced alongside limited-edition ankle weights in collaboration with Bala.
The sport collection will comprise about 20 pieces, including leggings, sports bras, tanks, bike shorts, warm-up jackets and hoodies in three prints: Ditsy floral, navy gingham and pink gingham.
Sizes range from XS to 3X, and the pieces retail from $65 to $150, with most pieces under $100. The limited-edition Draper James x Bala one-pound weighted bangles are $60, and are designed in a blue and white color way to pay homage to Draper James’s signature awning stripe.
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The activewear and bangles will be sold at draperjames.com, as well as Draper James’ three directly owned stores in Nashville; Lexington, Kentucky, and the Houston Galleria. They haven’t extended it to any wholesale partners at this point.
According to Erin Moennich, chief executive officer of Draper James, “It’s very us. We’ve been interested in the category, and we’d spoken to Reese about it, and about a year ago, she emailed my head of design, Kathryn [Suki] and I, and said, ‘I think we should do it.'”
Moennich said it’s very Draper James, print-focused and a head-to-toe look, and a consumer can mix and match all the pieces. “It’s very optimistic and colorful, which is true of the rest of our ready-to-wear line as well,” she said. Most of the pieces come in extended sizes.
She said the looks can be worn for performance purposes. “We don’t consider ourselves a Nike, but we did a lot of wear-testing as a team, and we were all trying out the different fabrications,” she said.
“There are technical elements in seaming, extra pockets, and on some of the warm-up jackets, there are holes for your fingers if it gets cold when you’re running,” she said.
They’ve designed a second delivery, but haven’t triggered production yet. “We want to see how this first one launches. And we can decide the path forward with a little more of an informed perspective on which pieces she’s gravitating toward.”
Draper James ready-to-wear is sold at Nordstrom, Zappos and Stitch Fix.
To date, women’s ready-to-wear is the brand’s biggest business, and within that, dresses is their largest category. Draper James also has a swim business (which they previously did with Lands’ End, but they just brought it in-house starting this spring) and introduced footwear and handbags this year. “The shoes, in particular, have been a really great success for us. Our customer loves the head-to-toe look, and we definitely tried to accomplish that as well with active,” she said. Everything is made in China.
Asked whether Witherspoon herself is athletic, Moennich said, “She is. She posted something working out with her Bala bangles, and she did a running challenge on her own channels and she loves to ski, and I definitely think this will be part of her new active wardrobe.”
As for future categories, she said they’ll continue to pursue footwear and swim and believes they have a lot of potential in the home space. “We’ll be creating some great products for our own site towards the end of [this] year,” said Moennich.
This month, they’ll be opening a travel retail store in the Nashville airport. It’s their first travel retail store. The collection is distributed in about 500 stores, in addition to their own stores.
Separately, Draper James is adding more categories to its Kohl’s collaboration. They will be carrying swimwear under the Draper James RSVP label. They offer handbags and footwear and will be developing home products for Kohl’s. “We’re trying to do a measured expansion there, but I think we have potential in many different categories with them,” the CEO said. She said they are currently in negotiations for renewal.
She said Draper James did very well during the pandemic “We are facing some pressure right now with the recession. We are feeling a little bit of a pullback, but during the pandemic sales were great. Coming out of the pandemic, things were excellent. The first half of [2022 ] was really stellar. People were looking for those dresses and ready to go out.”