How Little Joe Woman Began: Gail Elliott on the Photograph That Started Everything
There's a photograph I keep coming back to.
It was taken approximately twenty years ago on a beach in Turks & Caicos, and every time I look at it, I feel the same thing — grateful, a little disbelieving, and very glad I had the confidence to pull those dresses out of my bag.
I'd been booked on an editorial shoot for a British fashion magazine. One of those extraordinary jobs where they fly everyone to a beautiful island and you find yourself thinking, is this really my life? The location was Como Parrot Cay. The other girls on the shoot were Cindy Crawford and my beautiful Yassy — Yasmin Le Bon — two of my closest friends in the world, women I'd worked alongside for years during the shows. The magazine had flown our husbands out and invited Cindy's children too, so there was that rare and wonderful feeling of being both at work and completely at home.
Somewhere between setups, I reached into my bag and pulled out the dresses.
They were my first Little Joe Woman samples — a handful of slip dresses I'd been quietly working on, feeling my way through what I wanted them to be. Not a collection, exactly. More of a response. A feeling I couldn't find anywhere else, so I decided to make it myself.
Building something beautiful
We'd been living in Amagansett, New York — a town I adored, at the very edge of the Hamptons. And like everyone who was in New York in those years after September 11th, Joe and I were carrying the particular weight of an uncertain world. We weren't the only ones. But we were in a position, perhaps, to do something about it — to make something beautiful, because the world felt like it needed beautiful things.
Little Joe Woman was born from that impulse. The name is my love letter to Joe Coffey — my husband of now twenty-eight years, and the person who has built this brand alongside me from the very beginning. We launched from the garment district in New York: learning the business by doing the business, as you do. The first pieces were simple — slip dresses and camisoles in different colours, the kind of thing I'd been searching for and simply couldn't find. Easy to pack. Easy to wear. The sort of dress you reach for every morning on an island and every evening somewhere else.
The photograph
Back on the beach in Turks & Caicos, Cindy looked at the dresses and said, we should shoot a quick photo. That was Cindy — generous, instinctive, never doing anything she doesn't mean. So we did. Joseph Montezinos — our photographer on the editorial — shot a few frames. Stylist Liz Thody had her eye on it. Ric Pipino was there for hair; Leslie Lopez on makeup. It was the end of a long day and none of us took it terribly seriously.
But the resulting image became one of the most treasured things I have.
Two women I love dearly, wearing my first three samples, on a beach in the Caribbean — because they believed in what I was making before I'd quite figured out what it was. I still can't believe it, if I'm honest.
Twenty years on
Little Joe Woman is still the same impulse that began it — something beautiful, made with intention, for a woman who knows who she is.
We've never produced collections in the traditional sense. Instead, Joe and I release three or four new pieces each month — so the brand is always current without being seasonal, always evolving without chasing trends. Joe photographs every piece. We make everything in our own factory, which means every dress leaves our hands exactly as it should be.
The woman I design for hasn't changed, either. She's the woman I was on that beach — someone who wants to feel extraordinary in something effortless. She doesn't need to be told what to wear. She just needs the right piece to reach for.
The Superstar Maxi — a piece we keep coming back to. Just like that photograph.
If you've only just found us — welcome. I'm so glad you're here.
Love Gail xx
Photography: @montezinos_photography | Styling: @lizthodyfashion | Hair: @ricpipino | Make Up: @leslielopezmakeupartist