Coco Kliks to Design Jak & Rae

Los Angeles–based designer Coco Kliks has signed on as design director of Jak & Rae, the contemporary sportswear brand owned by Hot Kiss. Kliks, who made news earlier this year when she shuttered her eponymous line of dresses and separates, has worked with different brands in the interim. A line of knit dresses she designed for swimwear brand Ashley Paige showed Oct. 19 on the catwalk during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week at Smashbox Studios. Kliks replaces designer Joe Pham, who left the company earlier this year.

“We believe we’re in good hands with Coco. She is very talented and has a lot of fresh ideas to offer. As good as Jak & Rae looks, it is also good to reinvent ourselves,” said Moshe Tsabag, the brand’s owner.

Kliks is inheriting a strong platform. Launched in 2005, Jak & Rae currently sells in approximately 500 boutiques and specialty stores, including local powerhouses Lisa Kline, Blue Bee and Fred Segal Fun. The brand is up for the Best Contemporary Brand at this year’s Dallas Fashion Awards, competing against Vivienne Tam and Biya.

When she closed her business, Kliks said she wanted to focus solely on designing, leaving the business logistics to someone else. With Jak & Rae, she seems to have found what she was looking for. “It’s such a good match. They are providing me with excellent distribution, manufacturing and production so I can fully express my creative vision. I just come in and design beautiful things and they are ready to produce them,” she said.

Kliks said her focus will be adding edge and whimsy to Jak & Rae and its diffusion line, Emphasis. Dresses will be a big push for Jak & Rae. “Right now the focus is on a lot of sportswear separates. I’m going to be doing a lot more dresses,” she said. Stacia Diamond, who co-created the brand with Pham, approves of the new direction. “We kind of missed dresses. Now we want to monopolize that category,” she said.

Kliks said she, like Pham, will continue to draw inspiration from vintage designs for the line. “Going forward we’ll be moving further away from literal references and more toward abstract references. You won’t be able to point to a piece and immediately know it’s a ’40s jacket,” she said.

More than just driving the design direction of the brand, Kliks will become the face of Jak & Rae. “It is a credit to us to have her as a designer. She is very well respected and known in the industry, so we want her to be our front person,” Tsabag said. With her name and aesthetic attached to the brand, buyers and consumers will take the brand more seriously, Diamond said. “Bringing Coco on is saying to the industry, ’We’re here for the long haul and we’re going to blow your minds,’” she said. —Erin Barajas