The Founder of True Religion Is Building a Luxury Home Design Business

MILAN — Transformation has been the hallmark of Kym Gold’s career. She went from selling her designs at 18 years old on the Venice Beach boardwalk to building one of the biggest stories in denim history with True Religion . Shortly after the fashion business phenom sold the business for $800 million, her youngest son gifted her a pottery class in an attempt to encourage her to carve some free time for herself. “He said to me, ‘Why can’t you just have a hobby?'” she reminisced on a call with WWD.

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No dice. After immersing her hands in the clay and realizing she had a knack for it, she got the entrepreneurial itch again and started a design brand called Dumae, a heartfelt homage to Point Dume and its majestic bluffs overlooking Malibu, Calif., where Gold grew up and later raised her own family. “Mae,” often translated as “mother,” pays tribute to her beloved great-grandmother, affectionately known as Mae.

The brand’s bread and butter is one-of-a-kind, versatile pieces of tableware, candles and decor pieces designed and made in Los Angeles by skilled ceramic artists that are both refined and effortlessly raw. Gold proudly showed a naturally scalloped white bowl called the Nikki to WWD over Zoom, carrying some fruit including ripened bananas, but with the potential to hold more convivial food like charcuterie or crudite.

Tuesday, the businesswoman and designer is unfurling the Sora collection of hand-sculpted pieces inspired by the rugged landscapes of Malibu. The Japandi-like collection also marked Gold’s first debut into the lighting sector, a feat she said the company accomplished without an outside technical partner.

The sinuous Yvette Pendant lamp is Dumae’s first, envisaged during Gold’s time spent building and staging homes. The range was made to set the tone for an entire space while straying from traditional lighting design.

These days, Gold’s mind is focused on the bigger picture and a long-term strategy.

“Our category introductions begin with lighting, but we’re already exploring and ideating a broad range of expansions across home, hospitality and retail,” she said.

The home category, she pointed out, is a lot like fashion.

“There’s little difference between the way I run my business now and how I did so in fashion. We stick to a calendar of seasonal, highly curated drops and work with an incredible in-house team of ceramicists that help us execute our design vision. The only difference between the two is the medium,” she said.

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Gold, an identical triplet, was raised in Malibu around celebrities like Rob Lowe , Chad Lowe and Charlie Sheen, who grew up around the Point Dume scene when it was still a surfers’ paradise. She cofounded denim brand True Religion with her ex-husband, Jeff Lubell, and left the company in 2007. In 2008 she went on to build and design homes in addition to cofounding relaxed-chic, boho brand Babakul Inc. and Style Union, a loungewear collection. Gold is also the author of “Gold Standard: How to Rock the World and Run an Empire,” which discusses her brief marriage to TV producer Mark Burnett and building and leaving True Religion.

Gold has also mentored young designers and also entrepreneurs through her work with Phoenix Fashion Week. With Dumae, she said she aims to empower local artisans in starting their own LLCs. She’s a creative first, and said she had to massage the opposite side of her brain to develop an acumen for business, which she’s eager to share with small business owners.

“I work on both sides because I have a business degree. I’ve learned you can take your passion and your craft and turn them into a business and that’s something for which you really have to massage whatever brain cells that you don’t use and learn to know how to run your own business,” she said.

“Though the brand is my creative outlet, I’m constantly working in tandem across the business side as well. I’ve learned how to dive into a passion and craft in a strategic and tactical way that appeals to the masses,” she said. Her home, she said, has also grown in importance, for not only her three children, but also for her grandson who often stop by and stays over.

“I’m a nester at heart, and ultimately that was my biggest inspiration behind starting the brand. I love to be in my home and curating each corner of it is a very intentional process — just like the way I dress or the jewelry I wear.”

Gold joins a roster of fashion designers making their foray into the world of home and interiors. Lars Nilsson, the Swedish-born designer whose fashion career included top positions at Bill Blass, Nina Ricci and Gianfranco Ferré, as well as behind-the-scenes roles at Christian Dior and Christian Lacroix, launched a textile collection with Svenskt Tenn in 2018, and a Vandra Rugs collaboration before that. Last month, Dirk Schönberger , best known for his time as creative director at Adidas from 2010 until 2018 and later global creative officer of luxury brand MCM , made a leap into furnishings with next-gen, comfort-centric brand Vetsak. Also in September, Ozwald Boateng , the veteran Savile Row tailor known for his colorful bespoke patterns and intricate designs, presented his first furnishings and interiors collaboration with Poltrona Frau.

With Gold’s eye on branching out into branded hospitality ventures, the firm is also working with restaurants hotels like the Sandbourne Santa Monica, which is part of the Autograph Collection , and the Thompson Hotel in Miami . “Hospitality venues are always looking for creative ways to revamp and refresh, and I think incorporating these pieces are a very subtle yet substantial way to enhance a space.”

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