Founder and designer Janessa Leoné: 'Slow growth has been our biggest asset'

Ten years ago, despite a lack of fashion experience, Janessa Leoné launched her L.A.-based namesake fashion brand best known for “cool girl” hats. In the years since, after admittedly leaning heavily on Google to learn the ins and outs of running a fashion business, she’s grown the brand sustainably and without outside investment. It’s earned celeb fans including Meghan Markle and Taylor Swift and, as of 2021, it has a store in Los Angeles. 

“I started this [brand] quite blindly; I didn’t have a business plan or go out with this extraordinary intentionality,” Leoné said on the latest episode of the Glossy Podcast. “If I did, I might not have done it, because I didn't realize what was actually required.” 

Leoné owed the brand’s success to its authenticity and slow, organic growth. Its birth at the start of the Instagram era, as well as its early fans in the fashion industry, worked to get it off the ground. More recently, Leoné has worked out some kinks in-house to ensure the brand’s growth trajectory. 

“I used Covid to pause and assess and analyze what was working and what wasn’t working,” she said. “There were a lot of broken systems within the business, plus unsustainable ways that I was trying to show up in this business and that I was expecting other people to show up. And so we went through a metamorphosis… I hired a contract COO to help me problem-solve and look at the org chart, and say, 'What roles are we missing?' We now have extraordinary subject matter experts, and it feels like this massive machine that is growing.”