She does politics in her own way. One of his latest posts on Instagram shows a small knitted flag reading “I voted” alongside the American banner. A few days before the end of the American presidential campaign, Ella Emhoff, the daughter-in-law of Kamala Harris, combines her passion for knitting and her family position.
Kamala Harris, in “Momala”
Aged 25, she owes her first name to the famous singer Ella Fitzgerald. His older brother Cole owes his to saxophonist John Coltrane. His father Douglas Emhoff is a lawyer, his mother Kerstin is a producer. If her mother is rather strict and her father rather easy-going, it is Kerstin who encourages her six-year-old daughter to knit during a trip to Disneyland. The couple divorced when Ella was 9 years old.
Five years later, the young girl meets her new stepmother during dinner in a restaurant in Malibu. For this first contact with her stepchildren, Kamala gives them a box of cookies, surrounded by a ribbon. The start of a beautiful blended family story. “A few years later, when Doug and I got married, Cole, Ella and I agreed that we didn't like the term mother-in-law. Instead, we made up the name Muslim” says Kamala Harris. Mother and stepmother are close enough to cheer Ella together during her basketball games at Wildwood School in Los Angeles.
Towards a fashionable it girl status
Ella graduated from Parsons School of Design in New York in 2021. During her studies, she perfected her skills in knitting, with a preference for pastel tones. But it was on January 20 of that same year that she was noticed by America and part of the world.
In Washington, Ella accompanies her mother-in-law, the vice-president, to the inauguration of new president Joe Biden. While the outfits were rather dark and dull, Ella, then aged 21, appeared wearing a long Miu Miu tweed coat decorated with a multitude of pearls on the shoulders and revealing a pointed white collar. Pronounced eyebrows, curly brown hair styled back, round glasses, the young woman is unleashing the fashion world on social networks.
Soon after, Ella signed with IMG Models, a major modeling agency. A revelation for her. “All my life, I have had very low self-esteem and very low self-confidence so this project seemed to me to be a way to get back to this feeling. I have a lot of hair, I have tattoos (…) She’s not what we could consider the most classic model,” she admits. Ella confirms her new status during her appearance at the MET Gala. Her arrival in an openwork dress, red Adidas and signed Stella McCartney leaves no one indifferent. Released in full light, she then worked for Balenciaga and Mulberry, but also Rochas and Lacoste.
Soft Hands: a knitting brand that is causing a sensation
Her first collaboration as a designer with the American brand Batsheva was a success. All his pieces are sold within minutes. In January 2022, Ella launched her own knitting brand “Soft Hands”. Her first twenty handmade models are available on her site where she presents herself as “a multidisciplinary artist”. Whether it's knitting, embroidery or crochet, her Instagram account reveals her creations and her very colorful world, sometimes inspired by childhood.
She knits her neck warmers and scarves, but above all she likes to wear socks on certain social outings. In 2023, her pop-up boutique opened during New York fashion week attracting crowds as she continues to walk the catwalks from London to Milan to Paris. On the pages of magazines, Ella appears with her arms raised, not shaved and sometimes without makeup. A free will that she assumes like many young girls of her generation.
She was quickly nicknamed the “first girl from Bushwick”, in reference to the Brooklyn neighborhood where she lived and where she created a knitting club. Unfortunately, she has to close it following her mother-in-law's candidacy for the American presidential election for “security reasons”.
While her background and personality could have been explosive, or exploited, during the campaign, Ella remained rather in the background. But she reacts when Donald Trump declares that her rival is “an old cat lady with no children”. Ella immediately responds on social media: “How can you be without children when you have cute kids like Cole and me.” Quite funny when you know that his mother Kerstin discovered his tattoos… on her Instagram account.
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