We’re often cautioned that mixing love and business is a bad idea—working with those closest to you can jeopardize not only your relationships but whatever you want to achieve, you’re told. Welcome to 2019, when there’s plenty of proof that that’s not always the case: Some of the most exciting work in fashion right now is coming from real-life couples, siblings, or even best friends who have joined forces to create something new.

These personal-professional partnerships go far beyond the designer-muse dynamic. There are codesigners working in lockstep to bring their vision to life. There are duos who divvy up the business and the creative roles. There are pairs who eschew formal titles altogether. And these duos say that the hard work of building a viable company is that much more fulfilling because it’s coming from such a meaningful partnership.

From siblings turned business partners to married couples turned coworkers, meet five fashion duos who create with more than trends in mind: With their own relationships as their guide, they’re working from the heart.

Premme, the plus-size apparel collection by Gabi Gregg and Nicolette Mason, celebrated its first birthday in November 2018. But the friendship behind it goes back much further—10 years, to be exact.

Gregg and Mason first connected on an online plus-size fashion message board. “Nicolette was really my first friend who had a similar body type to me and loved fashion as much as I did,” Gregg says. The two became some of the most prominent voices in the size-inclusive fashion space. They launched Premme to fill a void that existed since their message board days: stylish pieces that actually accentuate—and celebrate—curvy bodies.

Both women have been plus-size for “their entire lives,” says Mason, which gives them insight that some brands simply don’t have: “You have to really know the experience of living in this body to design for it thoughtfully. It’s taking all that frustration and turning it into a labor of love.” Getting Premme off the ground has been just that, but the two were never worried that going into business together would affect their decade-long bond.

Mason and Gregg agree that, at the heart of it all, preserving a friendship in a business setting is a matter of dividing and conquering responsibilities—and of knowing when to take a break from each other.

“As we grow, as we’ve gotten a lot busier, it’s been really important for us to define our roles a little bit more,” Mason says. “So Gabi takes the lead on product and content, and I take the lead on marketing and branding and experience.”

“We’re obviously really close,” Gregg adds. “We spend every day together. But we also have separate lives and separate identities, even though sometimes it feels like we’re sharing one brain. We joke about it, but we’re basically married.”

Rebecca Henry was a New York City lawyer when her daughter Akua Shabaka came to her asking for help making her own clothes on Henry’s sewing machine. That would be their first “collaboration,” one that would set the wheels in motion for a full collection of vintage-inspired made-to-order clothing called House of Aama.

Henry is still a practicing lawyer—only now she coruns House of Aama with Shabaka, who’s enrolled at the Parsons School of Design. “[Fashion is] an outlet and a vehicle for both of us” outside of school and work, says Henry.

The collection goes beyond their mother-daughter bond to reflect the family’s roots in southern Louisiana through turn-of-the-century silhouettes and upcycled fabrics. “We built the whole collection around that lineage and that history,” Henry says. “We consider ourselves storytellers.”

Shabaka says House of Aama has a “bigger focus” beyond clothes: “[We’re] trying to tell the black experience from various lenses and putting that in a modern context. From our lineage we’re able to explore those topics even more.”

Telling the story of their family through fashion has had its challenges—the two admit they’ve butted heads while getting House of Aama off the ground, a result of the parent-child hierarchy. “It’s not always easy,” Henry says, “Because we’re mother and daughter. But at the end of the day, we’re family, so we’re going to figure out a way to make it work.”

Jessie Randall and Brian Murphy got married in 2003. They met while both were working in advertising. It wasn’t until two years after their wedding, though, that they decided to share a household and a business, with the launch of Loeffler Randall.

“We had always worked together anyway, so it was just a really natural thing for us,” Randall says.”We had a wedding back before there was Pinterest and all these things, and we did almost everything custom. It was very stressful. We honestly felt after the wedding, If we could do this, we can do anything!”

With Randall leading the creative and Murphy handling back-of-house business—a divide that speaks to their strengths, they say—the pair have won a CFDA award and expanded their offerings from just footwear to accessories. Still, there mission is about more than enviable shoes and handbags. “We are laser-focused on two priorities in our life: our business and our children,” Murphy says. Every effort they put into their brand is a lesson for their three kids, Randall adds: “My greatest wish for them is to find something they’re passionate about to dedicate their time to, and hopefully, they see that in us.”

Randall even foresees the brand becoming a multigenerational operation: “Our daughter is very into fashion. We would love for her to take over the business someday.”

Chromat has become as beloved for its swimsuits as for its inclusive manifesto. What’s perhaps less known is that its famous runway shows and campaigns are the result of the power-couple collaboration between Becca McCharen-Tran, the brand’s founder and creative director, and her wife, Christine, who leads production design for the brand’s Fashion Week events.

The pair have been a couple for five years and married two years ago. They’ve been collaborators throughout their relationship, but neither expected the other would have such a profound influence on her work.

“I never thought when I was dating that I was also looking for a CEO in my life,” says Becca. “But Christine’s definitely become a business adviser as well as a wife.”

Adds Christine: “We definitely complement each other in our thought process. We’re each other’s sounding board.”

Part of their special balance comes from Christine’s professional experience outside of fashion: She’s a founding member of Discwoman, a New York City music collective and agency. “Music and fashion, there’s so much overlap and understanding of the creative process through a different medium, so we both get it when we have deadlines and when we have events,” Becca says. “We really understand the time and effort that goes into creating and making creative projects come to life. It’s nice that we speak the same language in that sense.”

Proof that their collaboration is powerful? Ahead of Chromat’s spring 2019 show, Christine suggested producing a slogan tee that read “Sample Size” and styling it with Becca’s signature neon swimsuits on the size-diverse models. It became the most talked-about moment from New York Fashion Week.

“A lot of people say, ‘Ugh, I can’t imagine working with my sister,'” says Jodie Snyder Morel. But she and sister Danielle are now 10 years into their jewelry and apparel line, Dannijo. Working together can get intense, they admit, but as siblings who’ve been practically inseparable since childhood, they consider it a blessing.

“There’s a lot of passion, a lot of history, and your lives are intertwined,” Danielle says. “So while you’re at work, everything that happened outside of work [and] that energy sort of carries itself over into your days at the office together…. It’s one of the greatest gifts in the world to be able to work with someone that you love so much.”

When they designed their first-ever collection, the Snyders’ parents gave them a piece of advice that they still think about today. “They were like, ‘Your sister comes first,'” Jodie says. “They just wanted to make sure that it didn’t harm our relationship.” How are they faring, a decade later? “It obviously has its positives and negatives,” Jodie says, “but in some ways it brings you closer because you experience every part of life together.”

They do keep a few rules: Keep competition out of the equation (a lesson passed down from their mother) and cultivate your own interests outside of work. Danielle recently launched a podcast, No Filter With Danielle Snyder, while Jodie flexes a passion for interior design away from the office. In other words, says Danielle, “You also have to preserve being your own person.”

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