Not Just a White Shirt: How Paloma Turned an Obsession into a New Kind of Luxury

Photography by Sophia Leon S. & Camille Roe S

There are brands that arrive with a full wardrobe, a drop calendar, a dozen colorways, and a hundred SKUs. And then there’s Paloma: one shirt, one idea, one woman who refused to compromise.

The Paloma Shirt is deceptively simple—a white button-down with a clean line and an almost quiet presence. But behind it is Jessica: a mother, sales leader at Pinterest, ex–Condé Nast, and now the founder obsessed with building a billion-dollar business around a single, perfect essential.Where most of fashion chases “new,” she chose devotion. Where most founders want to go viral, she wants to go deep.

“Mastery is born from obsessing over one idea and refining it over time,” she says. “For me, that idea is a white shirt that makes a woman feel instantly put-together the second she puts it on.” 

Paloma is the proof.

The Woman Behind the Shirt

Before Paloma, Jessica Lauren Payne lived inside the media machine. Six years at GQ under Condé Nast, selling digital ads and watching legacy publishers slowly lose ground to the platforms that could move faster, target better, measure more. Then Pinterest: a platform she chose because, as she puts it, “it’s the only place on the internet that quietly makes people’s lives better, not louder.”

By day, she runs a sales team in tech. By night (and during nap times, and in the 20-minute pockets between calls and bedtime stories), she’s building Paloma. On our call, Eloise—her six-month-old—sits in her lap, chewing on a toy while Jessica talks about slow growth, fabric science, and why a white shirt can genuinely change how a woman moves through the world. There’s no chaos in her energy, no frantic founder buzz. Just a calm, precise decisiveness: she knows exactly what she’s here to make, and she’s okay with it taking time.

“In a world of fast fashion and endless collections, I wanted to create something meaningful and lasting,” she tells us. “Something that challenges the idea of what luxury even is.” Luxury, in Jessica’s definition, isn’t about volume or logos. It’s about the feeling of knowing one piece will never let you down.

The Moment the White Shirt Became the Whole Story

Paloma didn’t start as a “brand platform.” It started as a personal frustration.

Jessica loved a white shirt—the way you can throw it on with nothing else figured out and somehow look like you have your life together. But every shirt she owned betrayed her in some way: too stiff, too flimsy, too transparent, too boxy, too tight across the shoulders, limp after a few washes, or collapsing into a sad, creased thing after one commute.

She kept buying men’s shirts from places like Massimo Dutti and Zara Man. The first few wears, they were fine. Then they lost their shape, wore at the seams, or looked tired after a couple of spins in a suitcase.

“I realised I was re-buying the same white shirt every time I needed to feel good,” she says. “There’s something broken about that.”

So she did what very few people actually do: instead of complaining, she designed the shirt she was missing.

Five years of testing began. Fabrics, washes, finishes. Trips to meet shirting specialists. Prototype after prototype. She hunted for a material that felt sharp but soft, draped instead of clinging, and survived real life: travel, steam, kids’ hands, meetings, late nights. The final fabric is a premium TENCEL™ Lyocell blend by LENZING™, produced in Europe using a closed-loop process that reuses resources and dramatically reduces environmental impact; a tech-forward textile choice hidden beneath an ultra-classic silhouette. Then came the details: cuffs deep enough to turn, roll, or flare. Buttons set at deliberately uneven intervals to create the “perfect open” at the neckline—no gaping, no accidental cleavage, just a clean, intentional line. Every millimeter measured, re-measured, and refined.

“It sounds extreme,” she smiles, “but every inch of the shirt is intentional. If we’re only making one thing, it has to be obsessive.” Paloma, by design, is not a range. It’s a destination: the one place you go when you’re done compromising on the most important piece in your wardrobe. 

Photography by Sophia Leon S. & Camille Roe S

One Product, Not a Launch Calendar

In a culture conditioned to expect “What’s next?” every three weeks, it’s quietly rebellious to say: This is it. This is the thing. “I want to build a billion-dollar business with one product,” Jessica tells us, deadpan. There’s no irony in her voice. This is not a “phase one before the bags and shoes.” It’s the vision.

The Paloma Shirt is manufactured in Portugal by a family-owned factory that has specialised in shirting since 1973. The same people who know how to make the perfect men’s shirt are now using that generational knowledge to make women’s shirts with the same seriousness and craft, but more importantly, they hold a standard.“Fast fashion will give you 30 versions of something that’s only okay,” she says. “I’d rather give you one version that’s excellent.”

She’s not interested in artificial scarcity or drops. No color explosion just to create hype. Paloma evolves slowly: each small, run an opportunity to tighten the fit, refine the drape, listen to the women who wear it, then iterate. Her promise on the website is simple: I will continue to listen to the women who wear Paloma and evolve the shirt as we go. 

It’s not a marketing line. It’s the operating system.

Slow Growth as a Strategy, Not a Limitation

Founders are told to chase virality. Jessica is actively afraid of it. “Going viral would be the worst thing for a small brand like mine,” she says. “If a celebrity posted the shirt tomorrow and I sold out instantly, it would actually damage the business.” She’s not being dramatic. Without the data of what sizes sell, which regions convert, and how women are actually wearing the shirt, a viral spike would create the illusion of product-market fit without the infrastructure to sustain it. Her next production run could be completely wrong.

“I don’t want a peak,” she explains. “I want a steady climb. Slow, honest, measurable growth. That’s how you build something that lasts.”

Instead of spraying products across Instagram, she uses a more surgical approach. Roughly 30% of her stock is earmarked for gifting—but not the usual “influencer haul” play. She goes after stylists first. The women who work backstage on shoots, pull looks for red carpets, and quietly define what “good” looks like before anyone else sees it. “I want THE cool, credible crowd who give real feedback,” she says. “They’re the ones who influence the influencers.”

It’s less about instant sales and more about alignment: getting Paloma into the hands of the women whose taste she genuinely respects. The ones who will tell her if the cuff needs one more centimetre, or the length needs half an inch. If she’s wrong and they don’t like it? She’d rather hear it now, while the business is small enough to course-correct.

The Shirt As Daily Armour

The Paloma Shirt isn’t designed to sit pristine in a closet, waiting for some perfect occasion. It’s meant to live.

Worn over a Pilates set in the morning. Half-tucked into vintage denim for coffee runs. Thrown on over the same small black skirt you’ve worn a hundred times, suddenly looking new. Buttoned and belted for a meeting. Open over a silk slip for cocktails. Styled with a green satin skirt like a modern Carrie Bradshaw at a rooftop party. Jessica loves that idea: one shirt, five lives in a single day. “A collar does something to your posture,” she says. “You stand a little taller. You feel sharper. It’s the same feeling as a perfect white tee; but elevated.”

The Roe shoot with Paloma leaned into that intimacy: one model, one shirt, clean light, nothing extra. The images feel like a private moment in a quiet apartment; vulnerable, soft, powerful. It’s less product shot, more emotional portrait. The shirt isn’t screaming for attention; it’s quietly holding space for the woman inside it. For Jessica, that’s the whole point. “Clothes are one of the easiest ways to step into the person you’re becoming,” she says. “I wanted to create a piece that helps women do that every single morning without even thinking about it.” There’s minimalism in that idea, but also deep respect. The world doesn’t need another “nice top.” It needs reliable tools for self-expression.

Photography by Sophia Leon S. & Camille Roe S

A New Kind of Luxury

Paloma positions itself as a new kind of luxury—less about exclusivity, more about excellence. The shirt is made from responsible fabric by a Portuguese factory that has been making shirts since the ’70s. The fibre is born from wood pulp, transformed in a resource-efficient way, and spun into a fabric that feels both crisp and soft. The cuts are precise, the stitching meticulous, the fit endlessly tested. But there’s another layer to the word luxury here: time. Jessica is choosing the slow route. No big funding round. No forced scale. She still has her day job. She still changes nappies between emails. She’s allowing the brand to breathe, to collect information, to earn trust rather than buy attention. She doesn’t chase celebrity placements. She’s not paying for a square at the back of Vogue’s shopping pages where any brand with a budget can appear.

“There’s no credibility filter there,” she points out. “You can’t tell who’s truly excellent and who just had the budget.”

She wants Paloma to be discovered, not pushed. Found by the woman scrolling late at night, tired of compromising. Found by a stylist who’s seen every shirt and finally puts one on that actually fits the way she always imagined it should. Found by the woman who wants fewer, better things in her wardrobe; and finally finds one she can wear a hundred different ways.

The Bigger Picture: One Shirt, Many Women

If you zoom out far enough, Paloma is less about a garment and more about a thesis: You don’t need more. You need better. The shirt is a metaphor. For focus, for devotion, for the power of choosing depth over volume. In a world that pushes women to be everything, own everything, and keep up with everything, Jessica is quietly suggesting another way: pick your essentials, make them excellent, and build from there.

“I believe the humble white shirt can change the world for the better,” she writes on the site. “Watch this space.”  It sounds dramatic until you realize what she’s really saying: if a woman feels pulled-together, secure, and herself every time she gets dressed, who does she become? What does she say yes to? What does she no longer tolerate?

Paloma isn’t shouting that message. It’s whispering it. One shirt at a time.

Writer’s Note: Sophia

As we close out this year, this story feels like more than an article; it feels like a full circle moment. This is our final piece of the year, and it marks one year since we launched Roe. A year of conversations, risks, late nights, instinct-led decisions, and above all, a year of choosing to spotlight women who are building with intention, integrity, and independence. Ending this chapter with Jessica and The Paloma Shirt feels exactly right. Jessica represents everything Roe stands for: a woman quietly leading, creating something thoughtful and lasting, refusing shortcuts, and trusting her vision even when the slower path would be easier to abandon. Her work is not loud, t’s precise. Not performative: but deeply intentional. And that kind of leadership deserves space, time, and respect.

The same is true of Taisia.

We first met Taisia by chance, before our launch event, sitting across from her in a café. There was an immediate ease to her presence, grounded, warm, unforced. When she later won the Roe cover at our launch event, it felt less like coincidence and more like alignment. Watching her step into this Paloma shoot felt like witnessing the natural continuation of that first meeting: the same quiet strength, the same intimacy, the same confidence that doesn’t need to announce itself. Choosing Taisia to wear Paloma for this shoot wasn’t about aesthetics alone, it was about energy. About honoring women who show up fully as themselves. About celebrating presence over performance.

This shoot, like this article, is intimate by design. One shirt. One woman. Clean light. No excess. It reflects what we’ve learned this year: that the most powerful stories don’t need embellishment. They need honesty.

Roe was never meant to be just a magazine. It was always meant to be a platform for women supporting women, founders, creatives, models, entrepreneurs; who are carving their own paths with intention. This story carries that red thread clearly: Jessica building Paloma with patience and precision; Taisia embodying the quiet confidence of modern femininity; and Roe holding the space for those stories to be seen, felt, and remembered.

Ending the year this way feels symbolic. A reminder that success doesn’t have to be loud. That growth can be slow and still be meaningful. And that when women choose to support each other; truly, thoughtfully, something lasting is created.

This is our pause. Our breath before the next chapter.

And we couldn’t imagine a more fitting way to close the year. 🤍