Archive note: This newly written account revisits VEER NYC and its founders, Jenny McClary and Allie Leepson, subjects from Grandpa Style’s earlier history. It uses separate published interviews and a studio visit. The original Grandpa Style interview and its photography have not been recovered.
A retail idea built around fit
VEER NYC began with a problem of choice: finding clothes that expressed a particular style and also fit. In a February 2013 interview with Autostraddle, Jenny McClary and Allie Leepson described their plans for a retail project serving women interested in androgynous dress.
Their proposed selection drew from men’s, women’s and unisex collections, with attention to shape, size and presentation. McClary connected that approach with the comfort of expressing oneself within a community. The project’s early focus was on making a carefully considered selection available to people who struggled to find it elsewhere.
Selection as a practical process
A studio visit published by Posture in August 2013 describes the work behind that selection. The founders visited trade shows and showrooms, trying on clothes as they considered what to offer. Their different preferences helped broaden the edit.
The report discussed a forthcoming online launch, while a physical shop and in-house designs remained ambitions. Keeping those stages separate matters: an early plan for a space is not evidence that the space opened. What the visit does document is a retail practice grounded in evaluating clothes on people.
Developing a design language
By a March 2015 interview with Twin, the discussion included VEER’s own line and its DRIFT [01] collection. McClary described a restrained palette with complexity in fabric, hardware and construction. Both founders emphasized the ways wearers could change the character of a piece.
Layering was central to their account of designing beyond a strict seasonal framework. Fit also remained an open question: a less gendered approach to design still required attention to sizing and the silhouette a wearer wanted to achieve.
What the archive makes visible
Our reading of these sources is that curation and design can begin with the same act of attention: noticing which choices are missing. For everyday dressing, the useful questions remain concrete. How does a garment sit, what can be layered with it, and does its shape express what you want? These historical accounts offer a way to consider clothes without making the department label the deciding factor.
Continue with Jill Wenger and Totokaelo for another approach to curation, or browse the Grandpa Style Archive.
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