Brittany Kelley
NEW YORK — Small-town Wimberley graduate Sam Lallement is achieving big-town things with the fall 2026 launch of her own brand — Apparé.
Lallement has loved fashion for as long as she can remember, spending afternoons as a toddler drawing her own dress designs and shouting to those who would listen that her favorite color was “rainbow.” There were, of course, not any clothing pieces that could fulfill her dreams as a child, she said, so her mother simply made them.
From there, her interest grew and in eighth grade, she browsed the likes of iconic names — Marc Jacobs and Calvin Klein — and realized they had all gone to fashion school.
“I really started actually realizing that fashion design could be an actual career,” Lallement recalled, cementing her future.
After graduating in 2017 from Wimberley High School, she moved to Massachusetts, where she attended Massachusetts College of Art and Design and majored in fashion design. It was there that she learned how to design for human anatomy, conceptualizing tailoring and draping and more, but when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, she took the time to sit down and think about the aspects of design she really enjoyed.
“When movies like ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and ‘Rocket Man’ started coming out … the different costumes that they wore left such an electric shock through my body of, ‘Oh my God. All of these costumes create such a moment for whatever the performer is wearing,’” said Lallement.
Her love of music and fashion was further tied when she began analyzing David Bowie and his alter egos, becoming “obsessed with [his] story.” Her time spent being engulfed in Bowie’s story during college would follow her throughout her career, as she stated that she often looked toward him and his personas for inspiration to stay motivated.
A move to New York followed her college graduation, where she’d hold several jobs in the fashion industry. From designing pieces that would be seen in Anthropologie to private couture brands, the designer gained five invaluable years of experience through several companies.
Lallement recalled the first time she saw a design out in the wild, “I was with a friend at the time and it was a powder blue coat and it was floor length. It was very much a statement coat and I told my friend, ‘Oh my God. I designed that coat.’”
As cool as it was, there was also part of her that got a reality check. She realized that she was designing clothes that she didn’t particularly love, despite loving the process: “That was always kind of my North Star.”
So, in June 2025, Lallement asked herself what she would want in a brand.
“I’ve always wanted a brand, [but] what is that? First of all, what does that brand feel like? I began thinking about how electrified I was designing [with] the performance in mind and thinking back to the whole David Bowie project and then, at a friend’s birthday party, she brought up Bob Mackie. He loved performance design [and had] this design relationship with Cher. So, I really started getting into the weeds of watching his documentary, reading [and] watching interviews and going to exhibitions of his work. It was beautiful, but it was all couture, of course,” said Lallement. “I wanted to create a regular brand that was unique and exciting enough for performers to wear on and off stage, as well as for regular fashion-loving women. And that moment that’s created on stage, where the power of the performer’s look, the production and the song morph into one electrifying thing — that’s the feeling I was anchoring onto and that’s the feeling I wanted to grant regular women access to.”
From this feeling — Apparé by Sam Lallement was created.
She spent the next several months putting together a business plan that led to a Kickstarter to fund the project and pitch to suppliers.
“I remember getting my first email back. It almost felt like I was role playing,” Lallement said, recognizing that she was finally in the position she had dreamt of. “Fast forward and now, I’m answering many, many factory emails every single day. It just felt surreal.”
She was involved in every process of the creation, from design to material to being the fit model, which is when people are essentially human mannequins to figure our draping, sizing and more: “As hard as it has been … the word fail never came to my brain ever. No matter how many things have gone wrong, it’s always just been a mindset of learning and adjusting.”
The upcoming fall drop, titled “Babylon,” was inspired by both its ancient history and the 2022 movie of the same name, she said. According to the designer, the movie has to do with the beginning of Hollywood and the fashion drop is the beginning of her brand. One piece called “Aurelia Asymmetric A-Line Top” was inspired by the difference between the wealthy and the rich in ancient Babylon, said Lallement.
She explained that, “The wealthy were wearing super rich colors and a lot of them were wearing these types of garments that were asymmetrically hanging on one shoulder. So, to really represent the overabundance of greed and wealth, I wanted to make a top that just felt like you were wrapped in gold. Then, also thinking about the Gates of Ishtar and the almost terracotta, peach color that was going on with that. I wanted to find a way to really incorporate that. I thought it was a cool way of having some ombré just to create something that felt a little bit vintage, but in a modern way.”
Apparé’s fall drop is available for a two-week pre-order beginning Friday, Aug. 21. There may be one additional order opportunity, but Lallement emphasized that exclusivity is part of the experience.
She plans to “just keep designing” in the future and continuing her brand, as she’s already working on spring and summer collections.
For more information, visit www.shopappare.com.
