Ella Emhoff is bringing luxury fashion to the 2024 Democratic National Convention this week. After appearing in a monochromatic Helmut Lang look on Monday, the stepdaughter of Vice President Kamala Harris suited up in Thom Browne to watch her dad, Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff, speak during the second night of the event held in Chicago.

Ella Emhoff’s suit featured a navy blazer with Thom Browne‘s signature armbands, a checkered pattern throughout and padded shoulders. She completed her look with a white button down shirt and a navy tie.

Emhoff, 25, the stepdaughter of Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, is a fashion designer and occasional model based in Bushwick, Brooklyn, with her own line of knitwear. Her high-fashion choices have become the talk of the convention.

Emhoff's suit on Tuesday was designed by Thom Browne, complete with the designer’s distinctive armbands, Women’s Wear Daily reported. A similar suit is currently on sale at Nordstrom for $2,400. The fashion trade journal also spotted Emhoff wearing Helmut Lang pants the day before.

Thom Browne is a popular choice among Democrat figures. Michelle Obama notably wore a Thom Browne coat and dress ensemble to President Barack Obama’s second inauguration in 2013. Jill Biden wore a Thom Browne blazer during the 2020 presidential campaign and U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg has also been spotted wearing Thom Browne suits during his campaign and official duties.

Emhoff is the daughter of U.S. Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff and film producer Kerstin Emhoff. Her parents divorced in 2008 and her father married Kamala Harris in 2014. She is a graduate of Parsons School of Design and founder of Soft Hands, a company dedicated to fashion, design and creative consulting. Emhoff also created a knit club to teach the art of knitting and often shares knit paintings on her Instagram account.

Emhoff first caught the fashion world’s attention in January 2021 after wearing Miu Miu at Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration. One month later, she signed with IMG Models Worldwide, the same agency that works with Gigi Hadid and Bella Hadid. Since then, the stepdaughter of Kamala Harris has modeled for Balenciaga and Adidas by Stella McCartney, and walked the runway for Miu Miu and Proenza.

She also proved her Gen Z credentials by taking photographs with a single-use film camera of both her brother Cole and her father as they spoke on the main stage.

On Monday, Emhoff was spotted wearing the much in-demand Harris-Walz camo hat—a piece of campaign merch that sold out in 30 minutes, according to Teen Vogue, netting the campaign an estimated $2 million. The camo hat was seemingly inspired by a similar hat sold by Chappell Roan, a Gen Z pop star whose wildly successful Midwest Princess tour likely broke Lolapalooza records earlier this month.

Although Emhoff is from California, the Harris campaign has been highlighting vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz’s Midwestern roots and small-town background and has seen the camo merch as part of his appeal.

It was not just Emhoff taking fashion notes from Walz at the convention this week. Former President Barack Obama also commented on the vice-presidential nominee’s outdoorsy fashion choices during his primetime speech. “You can tell those flannel shirts he wears don’t come from some political consultant,” Obama told the crowd in Chicago. “They come from his closet, and they have been through some stuff.”

On Monday night, Ella Emhoff had worn the in-demand Harris-Walz campaign camo hat, which is designed to lean into Tim Walz’s smalltown, midwestern biography.

Ella Emhoff's Political Stance and Defense of Kamala Harris

Ella Emhoff, a 25-year-old textiles artist and model, was seen Monday at the Democratic National Convention supporting her stepmother, Kamala Harris, in her run for president, after gaining attention in the political world recently for defending Harris against Republican attacks.

Emhoff has been a vocal supporter of her stepmother’s run for president and defended Harris against comments made by Ohio Sen. JD Vance, former President Donald Trump’s running mate. In July, comments Vance made in 2021 resurfaced in which he named Harris, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., as the next generation of leaders in the Democratic Party, noting they don’t have children—despite Harris being a stepmother to two children. After the speech drew criticism, Vance then went on Tucker Carlson’s show and named Harris, Buttigieg and Ocasio-Cortez again, saying the U.S. was effectively run “via the Democrats” by “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable” and want to make others miserable, too. In response, Ella Emhoff said in an Instagram story “I love my 3 parents” and questioned how Vance could call Harris “childless.”

A Blended Family Leading the Way

Vance has called Vice President Kamala Harris “anti-child” and a “childless cat lady.” But that’s news to her stepdaughter, Ella Emhoff, the daughter of Harris’ husband, Doug. (Doug was married to film producer Kerstin Emhoff before the couple divorced in 2008.) Together with her brother, Cole, the 25-year-old recently defended Harris on social media, posting, “I love my three parents.”

Imagine the stepchildren and stepparents today who can point to a photo of Kamala and Ella embracing each other (a photo I sent to my stepdaughter) and use it as a touchstone, a guiding force and a powerful example of a nonnuclear family. Imagine watching this blended family on stage at the DNC this week, as Americans fight to elect a presidential candidate who is not only a woman of color, but also a stepmom.

Yes. After Vance’s comments saying Harris was childless resurfaced, Doug Emhoff’s ex-wife, Kerstin Emhoff, told NBC News Harris has “been a co-parent” with them and “is loving, nurturing, fiercely protective, and always present.” In a 2019 essay Harris wrote for Elle about being a stepparent, Harris said she and Kerstin “hit it off … and are dear friends” and they “sometimes joke that our modern family is almost a little too functional.” Kerstin responded to the essay saying she was “happy to be co-parenting with” Harris.

It is also obvious that both Ella and her brother respect and admire their stepmom. They don't resent his second wife; they are happy that their dad is happy. And this respect is mirrored by Doug’s first wife, Kerstin. Indeed, when Vance’s attacks on Harris started to get picked up by the press, Kerstin, too, came to the aid of her parenting partner. “For over 10 years, since Cole and Ella were teenagers, Kamala has been a co-parent with Doug and I,” she said in a statement. “She is loving, nurturing, fiercely protective, and always present. I love our blended family and am grateful to have her in it.”

Harris became stepmother to Ella Emhoff, 25, and Cole Emhoff, 29, in 2014 when she married Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, who had his children with his first wife, Kerstin Emhoff.

“It’s a cool dynamic we all have,” Ella told The New York Times in 2021. “And I think it is a good model to show that you can have this and this isn’t weird. Like it’s not weird to be friends or have a good relationship with your ex. It’s actually very healthy.”

Ella Emhoff: An Inspiration for a New Generation

We all know kids need to see themselves represented in the world around them, especially as they come of age. Ella Emhoff is the perfect example of what it means to challenge nuclear family stereotypes. The so-called First Daughter of Bushwick has armpit hair, crochets, supports trans rights and gender-affirming care and clearly has no patience for anyone trying to denigrate her familial relationships. This isn’t “Cinderella.” It’s much, much better.

While Republicans may not want to admit it, blended families like these are not only normal — they are common. “It’s a cool dynamic we all have,” Ella told The New York Times in 2021. “And I think it is a good model to show that you can have this and this isn’t weird. Like it’s not weird to be friends or have a good relationship with your ex. It’s actually very healthy.”

Ella Emhoff: A Rising Star in Fashion

Ella, who lives in Brooklyn, grew up in the Los Angeles area, and was in high school when her father married Harris—she began her senior year at Wildwood School when Harris was elected to the Senate.

She attended college at The New School at the Parsons School of Design in New York City to study fine arts with a focus on textiles and graduated in 2021.

Emhoff was noticed in the fashion world after President Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021, at which she wore a gem-covered Miu Miu coat, and a week later she signed a contract with IMG Models Worldwide.

In addition to modeling, she is an avid knitter and founded Soft Hands, a company to “explore opportunities in fashion, design, creative consulting and hosting events,” and Soft Hands knitting club as a way to make “such a singular activity feel less lonely,” she told HypeBae for a profile on the club.

349,000. That’s about how many followers Emhoff has on Instagram. Emhoff often uses her social media to post images of her artwork and promote her art exhibits throughout New York City.

Though Emhoff is signed to IMG Models Worldwide, she has also modeled for Balenciaga and Adidas by Stella McCartney, USA Today reported.

In 2021, she released a collaboration with Batsheva sold out in minutes, and in 2022, she launched her first knitwear line. In 2023, she debuted “Ella Emoff Likes to Knit,” a pop-up presentation at New York Fashion Week, and this past spring, she exhibited knit “paintings” at Gotham, a gallery in New York City.

A Modern Family in the Spotlight

Ella is a multidisciplinary artist who is passionate about knitwear.

Her parents, Doug and Kerstin Emhoff, named Ella after famous jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald. Though her father is Jewish, Ella has said, via a spokesperson, that she does not identify as Jewish because Judaism is “not something she grew up with.”

At age six, Ella learned how to knit. “My mom taught me how to knit at a Disneyland hotel when I was six years old with some kit from Target,” she shared. “Young Ella was a very crafty kid who just couldn’t sit still.”

Kamala first met Ella when she started dating Doug in 2013, and they all went out for dinner at the Reel Inn, a favorite restaurant of the Emhoffs off the Pacific Coast Highway. In the acknowledgements in her memoir, The Truths We Hold, Kamala writes, “Cole and Ella, you are an endless source of love and pure joy for me. As I watch you enter the world, choosing your own unique paths, it makes me so proud, every day, to be your Momala.” In a birthday message to Ella, Kamala also wrote, “my heart is whole and my life is full with you in it.”

Now, Doug, Kerstin, and Kamala co-parent Ella and Cole. “The level of parenting between the three of them is very different now that we’re both in our 20s and are kind of able to make decisions,” Ella said in 2021. “So with hair and tattoos and things like that, I think they’re all in the realm of like, ‘I don’t understand it, but I want you to be who you want to be.’ They have good communication between the three of them. They are really a unit, like a three-person parenting squad. It’s really cool.”

Ella Emhoff and the Future of Family

In his 2020 Atlantic article “The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake,” David Brooks writes that today, nuclear families with two-biological-parent households are in the minority. But, he adds, that’s not cause for panic. “The good news is that human beings adapt, even if politics are slow to do so. When one family form stops working, people cast about for something new—sometimes finding it in something very old,” he noted. And one of those “old” ideas is the concept of kinship. “We think of kin as those biologically related to us,” Brooks writes. “But throughout most of human history, kinship was something you could create.”

My closest circle of friends are all in unique and thriving family structures: My best friends are a family of three: an adoptive dad and stepdad and their 13-year-old daughter. They co-parent with the other adoptive dad from the previous marriage. Another friend lives in a polyamorous polycule with their partner of 10 years, their partner’s partner and their partner’s partner’s two kids. They argue this structure only makes their family stronger. One of my close friends in her 40s lives unmarried with her boyfriend and his 6-year-old son, who goes back and forth between homes. 

Are these families not “real”? If you live with the child, are you a “real” parent? What about if you drive your stepchild to school for years? What if they sleep next to you when they have nightmares? How can you pass an impossible test? 

Stepmom alienation and discrimination is a specific kind of disenfranchised grief. Indeed, it takes a strong person to be a stepparent — this journey is not for the faint of the heart. I’ve even been called a “childless stepmom” over the years; truly the most absurd oxymoron you could come up with. 

Believe me: When you hold your stepdaughter’s hair while she throws up, drive her to and from school, fly with her to Europe for the first time, take her to urgent care, argue with her about cleaning her room, help pay for her private school, leave Post-its all over the apartment that say, “Brush your teeth,” help her pick out a dress for her first dance, teach her how to wash her face — and wear deodorant and hula hoop and pump gas — you aren’t “childless,” you’re child-plus. 

This is something the first daughter of Bushwick, and potentially the first female president of the United States, both understand. Kamala Harris isn’t some lesser, “other” mom. She’s just Momala. 

Conclusion: Ella Emhoff, a Role Model for a Changing World

Whether Ella Emhoff makes any kind of speaking appearance at the DNC this week. Her father is set to speak before former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama on Tuesday night between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. EDT.

Ella Emhoff’s presence at the 2024 Democratic National Convention, however, signifies more than just her stylish choices. It represents the evolution of the American family and the acceptance of blended families as a normalized reality.

As Ella continues to make her mark in the fashion world and as a political activist, she undoubtedly serves as a role model for a generation that embraces individuality, challenges traditional norms, and celebrates diverse family structures.