I'm Kathleen Wampold. My husband Jay and I make coats, out of Seattle.

My great-grandmother was a professional seamstress. She taught me to sew and to draft a pattern — how a coat is actually built, not just how it looks once it's finished. It's an unusual thing to have been taught, and it's why the small things here get argued over: where a hem falls, whether a cuff turns back cleanly, whether a shoulder still holds its line after a season of being worn.

I grew up in a retail family and built my career in the industry — the large, institutional side of it. JJerrold is this chapter: back to where I started, and making something of my own instead of selling someone else's.

Jay is the eye. The proportion, the restraint, the decision about what to leave out — that's his, and this doesn't exist without it.

The name is for him.

We travel as much as we can, and most of what we love we found somewhere else first. That's how the coats get made: slowly, in small numbers, and only when they're right.