It typically starts with a question: “Can I make you a dress?”
In his TikTok videos, Joe Ando-Hirsh often asks with a cheeky grin as he approaches a prospective client. Increasingly, celebrities including Dakota Johnson, Odessa A’zion and Laufey have taken him up on his offer.
Then, viewers — sometimes millions of them — are mesmerized as he draws, procures samples, cuts and drapes the fabric and alters the gowns, often taking feedback from his muses. The clips end with a grand reveal, where his clients sashay in his designs to an upbeat tune.
“There maybe at the beginning was more of a viewpoint on anyone pursuing fashion in the way that I am, by showcasing it on the internet, as corny or nonprofessional or you can’t really take it seriously,” said Ando-Hirsh, 30, who runs a made-to-order business designing custom dresses from his studio in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. “For what it’s worth. I don’t really take myself too seriously, and that’s kind of like something I hope to continue to maintain.”
Designers typically move from ready-to-wear garments to bespoke items for celebrity clientele as they advance in their careers. But not so with Ando-Hirsh. After dressing stars for red carpets and onstage appearances since becoming a pandemic breakout on TikTok, he will on Thursday introduce his namesake label, Joe Ando — a ready-to-wear women’s wear offering that is his attempt to make his designs accessible.
The label is also an opportunity for Ando-Hirsh to pivot from being known only as a dressmaker to being a bona fide designer with a distinct point of view. Despite sharing his journey on social media for more than six years, Ando-Hirsh will be at his most vulnerable with his Joe Ando label. He will be sharing his design vision with the consumer, as opposed to the made-to-order garments that cater to the client.
The brand is influenced by Ando-Hirsh’s Japanese American heritage, as well as his prep-school days on Long Island. (Ando-Hirsh is also of French heritage.) The first collection is a departure from his more colorful and sculptural bespoke designs and features minimalist styles and garments including tank tops, skater skirts and knit dresses made with premium fabrics such as cashmere and silk. The label is also leaning into “easy wearability” and comfort and has pieces that can be mixed and matched, said Alexander Chen, the design director of Joe Ando. On occasion, Ando-Hirsh also works with interns.
Customers can expect to spend $75 for a tank top and $495 for a sweater-jacket hybrid. Though this is a far cry for the five-figure sums a bespoke gown would fetch, Ando-Hirsh is aware that some in his audience might find the prices to be steep.
“I have a lot of insecurity,” he said. “I’ve worked so hard. Like, every day of my life for the last six years, I’m in a fashion studio. I’m touching fabrics.” He said that he understood that he will need to “explain to people why it’s worth that in the world of all these companies and brands that are in their face,” he said.
Ando-Hirsh was born in India and spent his early days traveling with his “hippie” parents before the family settled on Long Island in 2000. He was “always artistic,” according to his mother, Shigeko Ando, a chef, who recalled her son’s affinity for patchwork sketching and knitting. In college, he decided to study finance and then pivoted to acting. He eventually found his way back to textiles, and enrolled in a one-year associate degree program at the Fashion Institute of Technology. He graduated with few job prospects because of the pandemic.
He moved back home and started making TikTok videos in which he shared his design process and what he had learned in fashion school. At first, he was reluctant. “I did everything out of my parents’ garage,” he said. “I built a cork board table and set up there and just would make clothes for anyone who would let me.”
But things quickly started to pick up. And as the videos gained momentum, Ando-Hirsh started getting tapped to dress stars like Millie Bobby Brown and Japanese Breakfast.
His designs also reached the political stage in 2024, when Ella Emhoff, the stepdaughter of Vice President Kamala Harris, wore a bespoke powder blue and white, off-the-shoulder midi dress to celebrate Harris’s acceptance of the presidential nomination at the Democratic National Convention.
“During that time, I was just getting a lot of hate for how I looked,” said Emhoff, an artist and designer based in New York. “So I just wanted to feel really good.”
Ando-Hirsh understood that Emhoff was thrust into the spotlight in the whirlwind political campaign. He considered the pressure she was under in a way that a “capital-D designer from a big brand” might not have been able to cater to, she said.
Ando-Hirsh is not the only designer who has benefited from a social media audience. Luxury brands like Loewe have also been experimenting with TikTok, including by posting behind-the-scenes videos showing how their products are made.
With his ready-to-wear brand, Ando-Hirsh does not want to lose the intimacy and connection he has had with clients for bespoke pieces. His designs, for the time being, will be available only on the brand’s website and at a two-day pop up shop in Brooklyn this week. Shoppers will also have the chance to enter a sweepstakes for an opportunity to have Ando-Hirsh and his team design a custom garment, including wedding dresses, free of charge.
“Fashion really lacks, like, a sense of humor. There are a lot of elements of it that are very cold and exclusive,” he said, adding, “I feel like fashion forgot about accommodating the people who buy their clothes.”
Yola Mzizi is a reporter for The Times covering fashion and style.
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