Tall women deserve clothes that make them feel empowered. At 6’2” since I was 13 years old, I’ve experienced the discomfort, frustration, and shame of not wearing clothes that fit my body or my style for my whole life. But despite my best efforts to learn brands, trends, and shopping better, my wardrobe struggled because stylish clothes for tall women simply didn’t exist. There’s no tall section in US stores and the few brands that offer longer inseams limit us to their most basic styles or try to pass 32” inseams for tall. The problem was evident, the audience is women like me, and I began this mission to empower tall women with elevated styles for their extraordinary proportions.
What did it take to launch our brand for tall women?
I officially started planning for a “tall wear brand” in March 2019 and spent 4.5 years creating Robyn Bandele. The first step was defining our audience and understanding your needs. Our original vision was to focus on favorite outfits for successful professional women, 5’9” and taller. We want to dress women who have places to go and people to see. Maybe these are special moments in the spotlight like book tours, keynote addresses, their own gallery openings. Maybe these are just occasions where they want to feel good like weekend brunch with the girls or after-work cocktails with their team. Our customer is bold, confident, timeless, cosmopolitan, chic, and joyful. And if she doesn’t wake up feeling that way, our clothes will help her get dressed with a smile.
In December 2019 we launched a survey to make sure our vision matched our customer niche. To our delight, most tall women told us they feel most confident in bright, bold colors with a timeless and elegant aesthetic. To our dismay (but not surprise) over 90% of 500 women over 5’7” told us they struggle to find clothes that fit their inseam, sleeve length, and torso length. If that statistic holds across America, hundreds of thousands of tall women are being underserved by apparel in this country.
We wanted to do something about this problem immediately, but our desire to launch as soon as possible was met with…a global pandemic. While factories were closed and our customer had nowhere to be seen in our styles, I continued to listen to tall women and participate in online communities that support the tall tribe. At the same time, I designed and shared my handmade wardrobe via Styles InSeams. As I sewed myself clothes in colors and styles unavailable to tall women, I learned what brought me the most joy and compliments. Those most joyous styles went into our first collection.
Tall women want to stand up as their full, creative, bright selves in their tall bodies. We want creative colors, bright patterns, and fresh, office-appropriate silhouettes. We want timeless styles and trends like dopamine dressing. In other words, tall women want what all other American women have - clothes to reflect our personal styles.
Our Name
We considered more than 70 options to name our tall clothing line. The options fell into two categories:
- A name that prioritizes height; or
- A name that places our brand in the same space as most designer labels, AKA named after a designer
Ultimately, we decided to go with a designer name because that’s the contemporary, luxury experience we want to reflect and make accessible for tall women. We don’t just want to make functional apparel; we want to elevate tall apparel to where it belongs alongside standard size labels.
“Robyn Bandele” officially became our name in January 2020. Robyn Bandele Nash was my aunt, a dancer, lawyer, and 14-year breast cancer warrior who always inspired fashion and individuality. “Bandele” is a Yoruba name meaning a child born away from home. It reminds us of the duality of being American and Black but also reminds us to be comfortable as an "other" or outsider. As tall women we’re always a bit outside of the norm, but there’s power in that identity.
"I AM THRILLED TO PIECES ABOUT THIS AND MOST HONORED THAT U HAVE ELECTED TO NAME UR BRAND AFTER ME." - Robyn Bandele Nash
Our Logo
Creative, bright, tall - the Robyn Bandele logo needed to reflect the spirit of our brand. Just like tall women, we want to stand apart from the boring luxury fashion trend to use black and white logos with no character. Our Pantone color “Flame” reflects our fierce, unabashed use of color. Lastly, the tall logo font reflects our long limbs that reach out and take up space.
Our logo was the very first sketch from founder Robyn Burgess for our collection and its design continues to inspire our aesthetic.
Our Motto
Stand Tall. The most powerful way to embrace all of your inches, standing tall requires confidence to be physically above the crowd. When you stand tall, you’re not slouching, perhaps to hide an ill-fitting wardrobe or a body made to feel misshapen by the fashion industry. Standing tall is the ultimate “Hi, haters,” to the people who want us to diminish ourselves. So, we hope you think of Robyn Bandele when you stand tall with pride!
Our Values
Fit
We design for tall women first. We’re not adding extra inches to the hem of pants made for shorter women. We optimize every inch of garments to fit, celebrate, and complement our extraordinary proportions. This is body positivity for women excluded from the fashion industry.
Quality
Wear, wash, and wear again. We craft garments with durable techniques like French seams or full linings so each piece becomes a lasting part of your wardrobe. Our quality ensures your investment has great returns in the cost per wear.
Fashion
We want to be your favorite outfit. Our pieces are crafted to make you stand tall and feel excited about your style in every season. We don’t follow trends; we create vehicles for self-expression.
Sustainability
We reject the fast fashion model. We use design practices that reduce waste. We prioritize fabrics that minimize our environmental impact. And we make clothes that will remain in your wardrobe for years to come.
Our Goals
Our goal is simple: we want Robyn Bandele to make your favorite outfits. We want to make the clothes that bring joy to tall women. That is: we want to make elevated style for extraordinary proportions.
Our Launch
Robyn Bandele made its official runway debut on September 10, 2023, during New York Fashion Week. We showed a 10-look collection that imagined the lifestyle of our fabulous tall customer with styles for work, casual days, party nights, and galas. All 15 pieces in the collection were sewn by founder Robyn Burgess for the Harlem Fashion Week show. With friends and family in attendance, the debut felt like a graduation into the world of fashion after a 4.5-year journey developing the vision for our tall clothing line. As NBC News New York reported, it was finally our time for “taking fashion to new heights.”
Thank you for joining us on this journey. We hope that you’ll join our email list and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn so you can continue to connect with us as we grow and launch more styles. And, of course, we’d be honored if you’d support our small business by becoming a customer.
