What makes the perfect white T?
Such was the question on Claire Holt’s mind when she set out to create her new fashion brand, Saint Sirène, with Madeline Simmer.
“It was about a year ago, and I was going through my closet,” Holt recalled in an exclusive interview with WWD ahead of the Thursday debut. “Every white T-shirt had either stretched out or it wasn’t holding its shape. So I asked a few friends and asked Maddie, ‘Do you have a white T-shirt you like?’ They all had the same issue. I [then] decided to put a call out on Instagram. There was a ton of different answers, but there wasn’t a clear concise brand. That’s when we started thinking, How hard can it be to make a white T-shirt?”
Claire Holt and Madeline Simmer in Saint Sirène.
Turns out, “really freaking hard,” said Holt.
After a year in development, the former “Vampire Diaries” actress believes she’s designed the Goldilocks trifecta. Available now on the Saint Sirène website is the same basic in three unique silhouettes — The Best Friend, The Girlfriend and The Boyfriend — priced at $78 each. The Best Friend is what the “Vampire Diaries” actress describes as “a crisp white,” form-fitting T-shirt, made from premium cotton; The Boyfriend is the “classic, oversize vintage jersey”; and The Girlfriend is the one that fits just right, designed with a cropped hem and a subtle A-line cut.
The Best Friend, $78.
Originally, Holt wanted to open her line with just one of the three. “We set out [to create] the great white T-shirt. And then throughout the process, we started to realize there’s no one shirt for everybody. Everybody’s shape is different. Their requirements are different, their style is different. And so that’s how we got to the three different cuts. And now we really feel like we have a shirt for every style and every occasion,” said Holt, adding that their priorities were color, wearability, stain-resistance, coverage and accessibility.
The Boyfriend, $78.
Though the market may already be oversaturated with brands claiming to have the same secret sauce, Holt said quality sets Saint Sirène apart from the rest. That and the fact that she and Simmer designed the shirts for themselves.
“We made these for us. We wanted this, and we couldn’t find it,” she said. “Of course, in any industry, everyone’s claiming to be the best of something. And I think for us, it was just important to let our product speak for itself. We spent a year trying to perfect it and and hopefully it speaks to people and the way it spoke to us.”
The Girlfriend, $78.
In terms of expansion, Holt and Simmer have a few ideas up the Saint Sirène sleeve. “I think we’ve realized throughout this process that there are other fashion pieces where people have pain points. Our goal and our ethos as a company is we’d like to perfect and address those pain points,” Holt noted.
That said, they’re commited to the T-shirt category, and these three silhouettes, specifically. “This is what our brand is launching on. And this is the pillar of our company,” she continued.