Pushing Fashion Forward: Adam Jones

There wasn’t really “fashion” as such growing up, but clothes felt exciting to me, dressing myself, when I was at an age where I was getting pocket money and birthday money, saving up to buy clothes. I vividly remember non-school uniform day where you could express yourself on that one day a year. My grandmother was my only fashion education or inspiration, she would teach me about the history of dress through old films and her old clothes she had hoarded for years, items that were passed down to her from decades ago. She had dressing up boxes in her conservatory and I used to get excited to visit her after school. I felt free at her house to dress up and put looks together from all sorts of old things, and then draw them with her.

At School there was no fashion as such for me, it was art, then at college I decided I had to study fashion at the age of sixteen where I was the favourite, I took it very seriously, I was a big fish in a small pond. Then moving to university age eighteen/nineteen I was a small fish in a big pond, I was surrounded by all these new people with a wild dress sense and confidence which was so exciting if a bit intimidating, especially coming from the countryside to a big city. But I have always had a confidence in my work if not myself, but here the tutors didn’t really understand or appreciate my work. But I believed in it so I persevered, doing what I wanted to do, I had no interest in grades.

I found it very difficult at first, I had always gone to university with the aim of having my own brand, but all of a sudden you are left with nothing to do every day and looking for work was what you were expected to do. I felt the pressure, I was a graduate now, how was I going to be self-sufficient?

I am very old school in my working style, I am pretty much computer illiterate it’s not something I enjoyed, working with computers, I am more hands on, so getting a job within the industry was impossible for me. I had been taught to pattern cut and sew and that’s what I wanted to do, make things come to life, not sit behind a computer. I spent perhaps a year submitting applications, going for job interviews, and getting nowhere, so I decided if I wanted to be a part of the fashion industry, I have to do my own thing as I should have done from the start, as it’s what I wanted really. I moved home to Wales, got a job in a local sewing factory making fancy dress costumes and gained a tiny studio near my home. I went there every night after work to begin a new collection, my first since graduation, I finished the collection a year later and moved to London to show my work off schedule during London Fashion Week.

Accidentally really, I have always spent a lot of time in the pub, it’s just something you do in Wales especially. Unlike the kids around me and most young people I didn’t drink until I was 18, there was no Lambrini on park benches for me, so as soon as I legally could I was in the pub and fell in love with the place. I have always enjoyed going for a pint alone, having that time to think, so my surroundings were bound to inspire me, then the pub across from my studio was having a refurb and I found some old towels in a skip outside, then I came across more in a local car boot sale, and they were just an obvious material to use.

Sourcing fabrics is 90% of my job, its research, my designs and the collection as a whole depends on what I can get hold of. I obviously have an aesthetic and know what I like when it comes to patterns and colours, I just have to spend a lot of time looking. The materials I find will dictate the aesthetic of the collection. It usually happens that I find something at a junk yard or charity shop and then I will hunt down more of what I have found on ebay, Etsy, Gumtree, Facebook marketplace etc. I wait until I have numerous of the same towel for example until I put it into the collection, as I want to be able to provide stores and my customers with what I show. I find it very stimulating to work this way, I don’t know how many of each style I’m going to be able to reproduce and when. It gives the brand an air of luxury and desirability, these pieces are limited quantity, you have to buy when you see it in stock otherwise it might not be back for a few weeks or even months. It can be frustrating obviously as I could make much bigger profits reproducing these original finds, but that is not interesting to me, as I may as well go and digitally print any image from google myself, the materials available tell me what and when I can make what I do.

My views or aspirations have changed a lot over the last few years, last year in particular. The industry is changing now, people say slowly, but I think over the past five years things have really changed. People are now willing to buy from smaller designers, to buy up-cycled clothes, to buy direct from designer using Instagram. There’s a trust there now, and a value placed on these special pieces. I definitely want a lot less than I used to, or what I consider “success” has changed as the industry has changed. I already consider myself successful, I make clothes and people buy them, shows and shoots are just fun. One thing I really want to do is have an open studio where my studio almost becomes a shop, an experience, where you can book a slot to pop in for a beer and shop, try pieces on, have a piece custom made or customised. In the future I hope that the industry also re-thinks what success is and does more to support smaller brands, to update their ideals for what a successful brand looks like to them and give us the support we need and deserve.

I don’t necessarily work with Mia, she just bought a piece from me and posted it on Instagram and tagged my page, I really appreciate that genuine desire for my product she had in order to part with her cash, it wasn’t product placement. As for young photographers and stylists I am always willing to work with unknown young creatives with zero following, because there is incredible undiscovered talent out there, and the shoots I get back from them are often way better than some of the shots I get back from top magazines. I know how hard it is to be seen, it’s important for me to take a risk on someone, to give someone else a tiny leg up, and you can get the most exciting results.

I want to continue working as I am, slowly but surely, producing one collection a year designed and made entirely by myself. For production I may start outsourcing specific elements of the collection to others as sales are becoming a little overwhelming albeit exciting, as I do want to expand the product range i.e knitwear. I would love to dabble in homewares. I want to make more jewellery, and to work on an art installation would be fun.

It is important to me now, or is becoming more important as my business grows, it’s something I am learning about, as it wasn’t talked about when I was studying. I always say sustainability was never the driving force, or I wouldn’t have started a fashion label. Let’s be honest, there’s enough clothes in the world, we don’t need another designer, sustainability is not my passion. My brand just so happens to be predominantly sustainable through my choice of materials, and the method I apply to sourcing materials, my method of designing by chance almost, using what I can find, the fabrications I am interested in are second hand unwanted materials which make my brand sustainable by default.

I want people to buy my clothes because they like them first and foremost, as a designer that’s the goal, to create a desirable product, which in itself is sustainable. If it’s something people are going to treasure and hold onto for years to come, to fix when it breaks, it does not matter what the piece is made from. Shopping with these small independent designers is exciting, you get something special, that very few people will have, and most of them myself included are closer to our customers. There’s more access to the designer, to find out more about the brand what the pieces are made from, you can develop a relationship with the person who is making your clothes.