When Jenni Kayne started her eponymous label back in 2002, she envisioned it as an all-encompassing lifestyle brand. She strove to follow in the footsteps of American designers who were household names, like Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein and Donna Karan.
Ms. Kayne set out fixated on the idea of providing the modern woman with the tools to build her own uniform and became known for an aesthetic viewed by many as the definition of California minimalism.
All of the brand’s retail stores mirror the serene image of Ms. Kayne’s home in Los Angeles; warm, whitewashed boxes with plenty of breathing room that are filled with bleached wood cabinetry, anchoring stone surfaces, and woven rugs bathed in natural light. It’s a blank slate that sells the promise of a more laid back lifestyle with every cashmere cardigan, pleated skirt and strappy sandal on display.
Even as the White House is getting a gilded Mar-a-Lago-esque makeover and a divide remains over whether beige is sophisticated or “sad,” Ms. Kayne’s signature style hasn’t wavered as she has grown her business to 31 stores, broadened into beauty, interiors and hospitality, and made plans to expand globally in 2026.
“I don’t follow trends,” Ms. Kayne said. “I’ve always had a very innate sense of style, which comes from this concept of, How do you want to feel when you’re walking into a room? How do you want to feel when you’re spending time in there? How do you want to feel in your body and your clothes? What makes you feel good?”
Next month, Ms. Kayne, 42, will return to New York Fashion Week for the first time in 14 years. Although it felt like a difficult decision to make at the time, she now believes that taking that step away contributed to the brand taking off beyond clothing. Even though the first retail store opened in 2007, she didn’t expand to the home category until 2017.
“It wasn’t until the last couple of years that I really had the bandwidth to go into those categories more and really bring the lifestyle to life,” Ms. Kayne said.
The formal invitation into her interior world arrived when she began testing the grounds for hospitality with a retreat near Lake Arrowhead, Calif., in 2018. Ms. Kayne followed that property with a hillside home in Los Angeles’s Brentwood neighborhood, and then a ranch on 20 acres in Santa Ynez, Calif., northwest of Santa Barbara, that was mostly used for brand shoots, influencer and celebrity stays, and private events.
Kate Berry, the U.S. editor at large of Cabana Magazine, thinks that the business has evolved slowly and thoughtfully with Ms. Kayne, insisting it’s built to last and “does reflect the way she lives.”
When she was first introduced to Ms. Kayne while working at Martha Stewart Living in 2014, Ms. Berry recalled how the designer decorated a holiday-themed table with Belgian linens, glass jars and a tree branch from her yard. While there wasn’t a name for the aesthetic at the time, today it is recognized as “quiet luxury.”
“What’s often overlooked is Jenni Kayne’s role as an early interpreter of quiet luxury within interiors,” said Leonora Epstein, founder of the design newsletter Schmatta. “When she unveiled her Santa Ynez ranch in 2022, she was channeling the aesthetic at least a year before it was codified in the mainstream and attributed to bigger design names like Jake Arnold or Jeremiah Brent.”
During the pandemic, the company was able to adapt “in a more meaningful way,” Ms. Kayne said, through decorative accessories, such as blankets, pillows, candles and ceramics, that were designed to foster a calm and comfortable environment. She also introduced a line of skin care products in 2021. Since then, Ms. Kayne said she has “invested more into home” with larger furnishings like sofas, beds, chairs, and rugs.
A $9,995 oak dining table is among the site’s best-sellers. While the price points can be steep, they aren’t too far from those of brands like RH, Lulu and Georgia, and Anthropologie, although the $1,995 price tag on a cedar stump side table last year did lead to ridicule on some corners of the internet.
Ms. Epstein noted that some Jenni Kayne items are priced much higher than comparable items at other companies. The brand’s linen Harbor Sofa, for example, is $8,645 (or $6,916 for members) compared with the $2,925 starting price for Maiden Home’s Dune.
“To me, that implies that either Jenni Kayne shoppers are hard core devotees of the brand, and willing to pay more just for the label, or that much of their business comes through the trade,” Ms. Epstein said.
The brand has garnered a particular appeal among millennial women. Casi Stewart Strasser, the founder of Kismet Styling, a personal styling service, and Lolo Marais, a vintage furniture studio, has been a fan since making her first purchase in 2023. Last year, Ms. Strasser was invited to join the ambassador program; every month she receives a selection of products in exchange for promotional posts on her social media channels.
Ms. Strasser, 37, points to Ms. Kayne as proof that beige doesn’t have to be boring. As someone who has lived on both coasts, she appreciates how seamlessly her aesthetic can be integrated into any space.
“I ride and die for a neutral palette,” she said. “With everything that’s going on in the world, or just outside of your home, on a daily basis, it’s nice to come back to something that feels relaxing and natural.”
Even though Ms. Kayne is famous for neutral palettes, she isn’t intimidated by color. The designer’s hushed hues are intended as a starting point in the process of figuring out your style, whether that be for home or wardrobe. For example, while beige can be a beautiful base to build off, instead of color-drenching an entire room, Ms. Kayne suggests weaving in color through texture with items like alpaca throws, linen pillows, handwoven rugs or wall art.
“It’s not because I don’t love color, but because color comes and goes for me,” Ms. Kayne said. “If I put something really bold in my house, I get sick of it.”
Recently, beige has been crowned as the color of (new) money and power. Ms. Epstein, a Los Angeles resident, said that Ms. Kayne “embodies a distinctly Californian vision of wealth.” She associates the brand with privileged millennials who might identify as “financially comfortable, but not outright affluent.”
But that vision and aspirational lifestyle is part of the appeal, or at least it is for Ms. Strasser.
“I feel like everyone at some point in their life wanted to be like a California person,” Ms. Strasser said. “For this point in my life, the brand is what I want to be like.”
Instead of keeping up with what’s viral, Ms. Kayne avoids fast fashion and fast furniture, promoting a slow, sustainable approach to living to her 600,000 followers on Instagram. The brand is beloved by celebrities like Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, Jennifer Garner, Hailey Bieber, Jessica Alba, and Courteney Cox.
“The most luxurious experience you can have is things like nature bottled, nature spun into your sofa and what you’re wearing,” Ms. Berry said. “You look at her and the way she dresses is effortless. That’s not a trendy thing that she’s following, it always has been her style. People probably want a bit of that.”
Inspired to recreate these moments on the East Coast, she also bought a farmhouse on five acres in New York’s Hudson Valley region last year, offering an escape from the city with amenities like a cedar hot tub, Thermowood barrel sauna and cold plunge. Unlike the other properties, the farmhouse featured a rusty red sectional sofa in the great room, a bold break from Ms. Kayne’s usual wheel of oatmeal taupes and creamy whites.
What often goes unnoticed, Ms. Berry said, is the sense of earthiness embedded within these nature-inspired details, like how the black exterior looks like burnt wood and the reds are reminiscent of the center of a black-eyed Susan.
“When you have a neutral palette in your home, it gives your eyes a rest to really see other colors,” she said.
With every activation, Ms. Kayne sees an opportunity to immerse customers deeper into her universe through highly curated hospitality experiences at each destination. After being available for the public to book overnight stays on Airbnb this past May, the farmhouse is now listed for $2.85 million.
Still, California, where Ms. Kayne was raised and where she is raising her three children, remains her muse. Her next book, “Pacific Natural Everywhere,” is scheduled for release in February 2026 and aims to capture the ethos of California living and “how architecture lives in nature.”
While her taste hasn’t changed course through the decades, Ms. Kayne’s personal interests have shifted.
“When I first started, it was all about what I was wearing, what I wanted to put on my customers,” she said. “As I started to have children, it became about how I was designing the spaces that we were in, what my uniform was as a working mom, and then evolving into what we’re putting in and on our bodies.”
Ms. Kayne has done some of these real estate projects with her husband, the luxury broker Richard Ehrlich, but the couple isn’t necessarily planning on becoming the next Joanna and Chip Gaines anytime soon. At this stage in her career, she is committed to staying true to her vision.
“I don’t want to be an interior designer, but I love creating these gorgeous spaces and all the products that go in them,” she said. “We’re always testing newness and our customers do want new things, but at the end of the day I really believe less is more.”
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