Ella Emhoff has become one of the most compelling and defining figures of her generation, occupying a unique intersection of high fashion, political lineage, fine art, and authentic Gen Z identity.
Far from being defined solely by her status as the stepdaughter of former Vice President Kamala Harris and daughter of former Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, the Parsons School of Design graduate has meticulously carved out a niche as an established artist, knitwear designer, and model.
Her unexpected ascent to global fame following the 2021 Presidential Inauguration—a moment where her distinctive style captivated the world—catapulted her into a career that champions slow fashion, radical self-acceptance, and a multidisciplinary creative philosophy.
Defining the Multihyphenate: Artist, Designer, and Model
To understand Ella Emhoff’s significant cultural footprint, one must first appreciate her multifaceted professional identity. She is not merely a celebrity who dabbled in fashion; her career is built on a foundation of formal artistic training and a commitment to personal, handcrafted work.
The Artist and Fine Arts Foundation
Ella Emhoff’s primary professional identity is that of an artist and textile designer. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) from the prestigious Parsons School of Design in New York City, where she majored in Fine Arts with a concentration in Apparel and Textiles. This academic background underpins her dedication to the craft of knitting, which she learned from her mother at the age of six.
Her focus on knitwear is rooted in a philosophy that values intentionality, sustainability, and personal expression. For Emhoff, knitting is not just a medium for clothing but a therapeutic and disciplined practice.
As she noted in an interview with Marie Claire, she took up the craft to cope with anxiety and hyperactivity, appreciating the necessity of slowing down: “I don’t even have a choice, but to take time with each stitch, it’s very intentional.”
This dedication culminated in an important shift in 2024 when she debuted an exhibition of “Knit Paintings” at Gotham in New York. These works—art pieces depicting everyday and treasured objects like handbags, lockets, and even self-portraits—represent her evolution from designing wearable garments to creating gallery-worthy fiber art, underscoring her commitment to fine arts over commercial fashion.
The Model: An Unconventional Icon
Emhoff’s modeling career, while significant for her public profile, was, by her own admission, a means to an end. Following the viral moment of her jewel-encrusted Miu Miu coat at the 2021 Inauguration, she signed with IMG Models Worldwide. This was an unprecedented move for a member of the Second Family and instantly positioned her as a beacon of unconventional beauty in an industry often criticized for conformity.
Her image is marked by intentional non-conformity: her tattoos, her natural, undyed hair, and a refusal to adhere to traditional modeling standards, such as her decision to not shave her underarm hair. This authenticity resonated profoundly with the Gen Z audience. Her modeling resume rapidly grew to include:
Runway Debuts: Proenza Schouler (virtual, 2021), Balenciaga, and Miu Miu.
Major Campaigns: The face of Adidas by Stella McCartney’s Earth Explorer collection (2021), a collaboration that aligned with her focus on sustainability.
High-Profile Appearances: The 2021 Met Gala, where she wore an Adidas by Stella McCartney red mesh bodysuit.
The success of her modeling career provided the financial stability to pursue her true passion—her knitwear and creative studio, Soft Hands.
The Soft Hands Creative Studio: A Slow Fashion Philosophy
Ella Emhoff’s brand, Soft Hands, is the central hub of her creative output, though its structure has evolved since its inception around 2021. It started as a knitwear clothing line focused on highly individualized, handmade pieces—from jackets and coats to knitted shorts—but has transitioned into a more expansive creative studio model.
From Knitwear Drops to Creative Consulting
Initially, Soft Hands was known for its limited “knit drops,” where Emhoff would personally hand-make a small batch of items. This ultra-slow, high-touch approach was entirely intentional and ran counter to the mass production model of fast fashion.
However, the sheer labor of running a scalable clothing brand as a “one-woman show” proved challenging. By 2024, Emhoff restructured Soft Hands to operate less as an apparel brand and more as a multi-disciplinary platform. Its purpose is now to explore “opportunities in fashion, design, creative consulting, and hosting events.” This shift allows her to embrace collaborations across different mediums, channeling her strong aesthetic identity into various projects, including her art exhibitions.
Step-by-Step Guide: The Ella Emhoff Approach to Knitwear
Emhoff’s method embodies the principles of upcycling and intentionality, making her design process a practical guide for aspiring slow-fashion enthusiasts.
Conceptualization and Material Sourcing
Find the Spark (Therapeutic Intent): Emhoff often starts a piece not from a commercial brief, but from a personal need or object of affection. Her recent work, for instance, focuses on “knit paintings” of treasured items (e.g., a locket or a specific handbag).
Embrace Scarcity (The Upcycling Mandate): A cornerstone of her process is the use of donated and scrap yarn. She often posts calls-to-action on social media, asking hobby knitters and brands to send her their leftover or unwanted yarn, which she then reclaims. This step aligns perfectly with sustainability principles, giving “new life” to materials that might otherwise be discarded.
Pattern Graphing (Digital to Analog): For complex graphic designs or portraits, Emhoff uses a technique akin to pixel art. This involves translating a digital image or design into a knitting graph, which serves as a map for color and stitch placement.
The Creation Process (Slow and Intentional)
The Time-Honored Stitch (Patience is Key): Emhoff advocates for getting into a “zoned-out state” for knitting. This is the ultimate expression of slow fashion, where the time and effort invested are part of the value. A complex piece, like a large duplicate stitch portrait, can take her a month and a half of “pretty rigorous” work.
The Duplicate Stitch Technique: A specific technique Emhoff employs is the duplicate stitch, where color is hand-stitched over an existing knit stitch to create an image or design. This adds a layer of depth and visual complexity, acting as a form of embroidery on the knitwork.
Form and Function (The Parsons Influence): Even in her wearable pieces, the structure and shape—often playing with oversized silhouettes, playful patterns, or cropped fits—reflect her fine arts training in apparel and textiles, where form and boundary-pushing are emphasized.
Impact and Trends: Emhoff as a Catalyst for Change
Ella Emhoff’s impact on the fashion industry is best summarized by her role as a catalyst, pushing the mainstream toward more diverse aesthetics, sustainable practices, and authentic personal brands.
The Viral Launch and Market Metrics
Her initial entry into the fashion world was a statistical phenomenon. The moment she appeared at the Inauguration in the Miu Miu coat, the immediate market reaction was measurable and dramatic. According to a fashion forecaster cited by The Zoe Report, her outfit caused a 455% spike in searches for Miu Miu coats on the Lyst platform.
This data point illustrates her immediate power as an influencer—not through traditional marketing, but through sheer authentic visibility. She proved that an unconventional style icon with a genuine connection to slow fashion could drive mainstream luxury market interest.
2025 Trends: The Rise of Anti-Aesthetic and “Quiet” Artistry
As of 2025, Emhoff continues to influence trends, particularly in the post-Tumblr, pre-curated digital landscape. Her movement aligns with several key industry shifts:
The Post-Aesthetic Model: Emhoff epitomizes the move away from heavily filtered, hyper-polished celebrity and model culture. Her embrace of her natural features (like her unibrow) and visible tattoos on the runway set a new standard for modeling that values authenticity over perfection.
The Artist as Icon: The trend in 2025 emphasizes the “designer-as-artist” model. Emhoff’s shift from selling clothing to exhibiting “knit paintings” reflects a broader trend of creatives using high-profile platforms to prioritize fine art and conceptual integrity over relentless commercial output. This is a deliberate, “quiet luxury” version of artistry, where the rarity and personal story of the work supersede mass branding.
Sustainable Celebrity Advocacy: Her reliance on donated and scrap yarn, and her vocal support for sustainable practices in interviews, strengthens the increasing demand for verifiable, action-based sustainability from public figures, moving beyond simple brand ambassadorship.
Political & Cultural Context: The “First Daughter of Bushwick”
Emhoff’s nickname, “The First Daughter of Bushwick,” highlights the cultural significance of her identity. It contrasts the formality of Washington D.C. with the raw, artsy, and unconventional nature of her Brooklyn neighborhood. This duality allows her to bridge the gap between two seemingly disparate worlds—politics and punk-adjacent counter-culture—making her relatable to a broad, especially younger, audience who are often disillusioned with traditional institutions.
This bridging of worlds was on display even during the 2024 presidential campaign, where she balanced her artistic work with public support for her stepmother, notably wearing a custom “Harris Walz” cap at the Democratic National Convention. Her presence demonstrated that political support can be filtered through a highly individualized, non-traditional aesthetic.
FAQs
What is Ella Emhoff’s primary job now that she is no longer “Second Daughter”?
Ella Emhoff’s primary focus is her work as a multidisciplinary artist and designer, specifically in the field of fiber arts. Her company, Soft Hands, has evolved from a knitwear line to a creative studio model that focuses on conceptual projects, art exhibitions, and creative consulting, alongside occasional high-profile modeling work.
What is the significance of the Miu Miu coat Ella Emhoff wore?
The Miu Miu coat worn at the 2021 Presidential Inauguration was the catalyst for her fashion career. The coat—a houndstooth check with a jeweled collar—went viral, causing a reported 455% spike in searches for Miu Miu coats. It instantly established her as a trendsetter and led directly to her signing with IMG Models days later, marking her transition from a private student to a public fashion figure.
Does Ella Emhoff still model after the 2025 political change?
While Emhoff has publicly stated that the modeling world was “intense” and “not a world that I could comfortably work in” full-time, she continues to take on select, high-profile modeling engagements, such as walking in the Coach show at New York Fashion Week (Sept 2024) and attending Paris Fashion Week (March 2025). She views modeling now primarily as a platform to support her artistic ventures, allowing her to keep her brand, Soft Hands, financially independent.
What is the “duplicate stitch” technique that Emhoff uses in her knitting?
The duplicate stitch is a knitting and embroidery technique that Emhoff uses to create intricate designs and images on her knitted pieces. It involves hand-stitching a new color of yarn directly over the surface of a previously created stitch, effectively duplicating the knit stitch’s structure to overlay a color or pattern without changing the underlying fabric. This technique allows for the precise, pixel-like graphic designs seen in her most recent “knit paintings.”
Final Thoughts
Ella Emhoff’s journey is a powerful testament to the value of authentic, self-directed creativity in a world obsessed with instantaneous trends and inherited celebrity. She has leveraged an accidental moment of political spotlight into a genuine career defined by a commitment to the tangible, the personal, and the enduring principles of slow fashion and fine art.
By consciously stepping back from the relentless commercial pressure of a full-time modeling career to focus on her Soft Hands creative studio and the profound solitude of her knit paintings, she has reinforced her status as a credible artist and a true pioneer for the Gen Z generation.
Her impact extends beyond aesthetics; it is a cultural directive that values personal well-being, sustainability, and the therapeutic power of creation above all else, ensuring her continued relevance as an influential figure well into 2025 and beyond.
Her commitment to challenging norms—from her aesthetic choices to her sustainable practices—proves that authentic identity is the most potent form of personal brand, offering a powerful, enduring model for success in the evolving creative economy.
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