From Harper

At 10-years-old, Zoe McRorie, the designer behind From Harper, dreamed of being a fashion designer –literally. “I would have dreams and then I’d be like, ‘I want to make this.’ [My mom would take me] to the store, I’d find a pattern that was close to what I wanted, I’d spend the time picking out the fabric, and I’d get so excited,” she says. But 10 year-old Zoe would arrive home to make her dress, only to discover that it was more work than she was willing to take on. Fast forward six years and Zoe asked for a sewing machine for Christmas. She didn’t actually touch that machine until years later, but it’s the very same machine she uses today to sew her children’s fashions.

In high school, Zoe always dressed differently from her peers. She wasn’t interested in following trends; she wanted to make trends. “I thought I looked great,” she says. “These were conscious fashion choices that I was making. I once wore a pendant hooked to a hoop earring like a pirate; I thought it was cool and different. I marched to the beat of my own drum.” Because of Zoe’s natural inclination towards trend-setting and originality, she worked as an intern, and then a fashion stylist for Mode Models for four years before finding her way to building From Harper.

As a stylist, Zoe would interpret a photographer’s vibe or theme and then dress the models. To build her portfolio, Zoe would thrift because high-end stores weren’t familiar with her work. Once she was known, she would pull clothes from stores like gravitypope. “It was a lot of work and responsibility having tens of thousands of dollars of clothing in my trunk,” she says.