I’m one distracted writer, sitting down to talk to Jessica Matthews of Aida Maeby about her first collection. She’s dressed in one of her own designs, the merricat shift in navy silk, and I want one.
It’s possible too that I may have missed something while she shows me through her workroom because I’m still mentally cataloguing my entire wardrobe, mixing, matching, layering, tucking and locking that shift into my new season budget, while wondering how inappropriate it might be to start trying pieces on (probably very), just how professional I’m feeling (ummm) and how much self-control I have (not a lot).
What I don’t miss though is the cleared section of workroom shelving, labelled and ready for the finished pieces hanging on racks by the entrance to be allocated among them for distribution to stockists, a sure sign of imminent availability in store.
A new label is always an exciting thing over here at Thread and in an instance of extremely fortunate timing, I first made contact with Jess to talk about her collection in time to spend the day with her for the lookbook photoshoot. Then I was able to follow the process right through to the launch online at Aida Maeby and see the pieces in their final stage before heading out from the workroom.
Photographer Tim Watson, one half of professional duo McKenzie Watson, generously didn’t hesitate to allow me to shadow him during the shoot, also taking the time amidst a huge day of work, to explain how he works and his focus and goals for the shoot, including accurately showing in each shot, drape, shape, fabric weight, possibilities, and ensuring the designer’s vision for the collection is seen through.
As someone who has worked with other designers (graduating from the Wanganui School of Fashion Design with a Bachelor in Fashion Design, Jess went on to work for one of New Zealand’s most recognisable fashion names for four years), Jess never saw herself being at the front of a label, but at some point that changed.
Just over 18 months ago she and husband Owen relocated to Wellington from Auckland, with son Isac (4) and second son Arlo (now 18 months) on the way, their family was complete, and she found herself at the proverbial crossroads of what next. Starting again in a new city, she found herself at a point where she had to decide who she was going to be, so with turn of the New Year to 2014, she just began and applied to register the company name of her label. There’s the old adage, you don’t know if you don’t try, and she wanted to know.
It has helped the process, Jess says, that a lot of suppliers are the same as when she was last in the thick of things, and that combined with some knowledge of the machine behind the New Zealand fashion industry meant she wasn’t starting completely fresh.
As it is, she says, sometimes the amount of work to do and things to learn is paralysing, so to already have that background was a great foundation. There are a lot of big considerations in making the commitment to jump off the starting blocks and launch a label, responsibility to family not the least of them. I love that she describes the feeling of having “little marmite covered handbrakes behind you” going through the process of making those decisions as best she can for her family while following the path she’s designing, moving forward. Plus, every other big and scary step aside (of which there are plenty), it takes a lot of grit and it isn’t even a little bit easy, to prioritise the children between 5am to 7pm and then, when anyone’s preference would be to collapse on the spot, move down to the workroom once they are settled for the night and start the Aida Maeby part of her working day.
The collection ‘We Have Always Lived in the Castle’ is inspired by the 1962 Shirley Jackson novel of the same name. Jess says S15 is a season about undertones and contrast, and thinks this will be a recurring theme in her collections. Hard vs soft, good vs bad. Classic with a quirk. Something always hidden to discover later.
The inspiration from the novel resonates in all Jess’ pieces, entwining itself with her own personality, and the little details thank you for noticing when you do. Those details are a pleasure. A teardrop keyhole echoes the means by which you often feel you are viewing the Blackwood sisters, or they you, secluded and isolated on their family estate, watching and being watched through a keyhole, and hinting at the things as yet unseen. As your eye lights on the pocket of the jonas skirt, the pink-stitched triangle geometric detail looks innocent enough, until the model slides her hand into the pocket and somehow innocent detail seems to extend from where her hand would be, transforming to look talon-like, a dark undertone that gave me immense pleasure when I saw it. Something hidden, indeed.
During our chat, I asked Jess who inspires her. She tells me it’s anyone whose sense of humour you can see and I think of the moment I made possibly my favourite discovery so far about this collection. In the story, the younger Blackwood sister, Merricat wears a pair of their mother’s brown shoes. Reading the book late one night, with the photo shoot and collection in mind, I realised that Jess had styled the shoot using a pair of nude patent pumps. It’s a detail that pays homage to Merricat’s brown shoes and gives insight into Jess’ own sense of humour, but a detail she leaves you to work out for yourself. I can’t decide whether it felt like I’d just been winked at, or I’d discovered that cheeky 20 in my pocket that I stashed there ages ago and forgot about. Both, I think. I mention the shoes in the interview, and Jess’ smiles at me. Definitely a wink, then.
Does she design what she loves herself? Yes. “I think it always should be or you won’t understand what you’re doing.” She draws what she feels, and when it looks right to her, she knows she has her design. It’s walking a knife-edge, riding that line between being too simple and being too contrived, and it’s important to her to get it right.
There’s still a process of working out what she is trying to say with her designs and that will evolve over coming seasons. So far, I think she’s nailed it, and as far as contrasts go, in Jess’ own words, you can’t get much further away from fashion than some of the characters in that book. Asked finally where the name Aida Maeby came from, she simply says “If I’d had a daughter, that’s what I would have called her.”. And in that, I can see that she’s created this label, intending to raise, mature and grow it with every fibre of her being woven into it, and show us all what she’s capable of.
4 June 2014
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