FAY ALICE – IN WONDERLAND?
FAY ALICE IS A LABEL THAT HAS BEEN GRACING THE ‘ONE TO WATCH’ PAGES OF INDIE FASHION MAGAZINES FOR SOME TIME NOW THOUGH A SUCCESSFUL CULT LABEL, YOU CAN TELL IT IS DESTINED FOR BIGGER AND INDEED MUCH BETTER THINGS. THE DRIVING FORCE BEHIND THE BRAND IS FAYE SMITH, THE BERLIN NATIVE WHO FOUNDED THE LABEL. HERE SHE TALKS TO AGENT2 ABOUT HER A/W 09 ‘LOBSTER BALLET’ COLLECTION, HER THOUGHTS ON THE FASHION INDUSTRY AND ALICE IN WONDERLAND…
Fay Alice is the kind of label that people wear, but don’t want to talk about. When some aspiring style thief sidles up and asks, “Where did you get that?”, the wearer will always give an evasive response. Not because they are embarrassed, but because Fay Alice is their little secret. When clothes are as fabulous as this, you don’t want to be tipping off the enemy. You want to keep the excitement of discovering an amazing new label all to yourself. It’s human nature; you don’t want anyone else to look as good as you do. And label owner and designer Faye Smith makes it her business- literally- to make women look fantastic in her designs.
Faye’s flair for fashion started early. “I always knew exactly what I wanted to wear, and it was almost always different from what I could have. So very early I started trying to make my own clothes. It looked pretty awful in the beginning,” she admits. “I even tried to glue things together, because I didn’t know how to sew yet. My grandmother, who used to be a seamstress, eventually taught me how to sew.”
But she confesses that fashion didn’t always appeal. “For a long time, I wasn’t very interested in fashion at all. I thought I would maybe study art. For me, it was about making and creating new things, not about trends or big designer names.”
Faye began her fashion career after completing an apprenticeship as a dressmaker and moving on to study Fashion Design at the University of Applied Sciences in Berlin and the University of Westminster in London. Following her graduation, she worked for designers such as Robert Cary Williams and La Petite Salope. “It’s interesting to see how other designers work. Everyone has their very own way of doing things. I guess the most important thing I learned is that there’s no right way to design a collection. It’s just about whatever works for you personally.”
In 2007 she struck out on her own and set up the label Fay Alice, focussing on small collections and one-off pieces sold at exclusive London boutique Koh Samui. On explaining the etymology behind the name, she says, “My first name is Faye. I decided to use Fay instead of Faye, because this is the original name which derives from old English and means fairy. I added the Alice part to the label name because I think that it adds a bit of a magical component to the sound of it.”
But there is also a deeper meaning to the label name, one which has a lot to do with Faye’s own love of fairytales. “I’m a big fan of Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’, and I like the idea of looking at everything in this world without limiting what is possible by thinking you already know what things are like.
“I actually think that our world is a wonderland, where we can find new and beautiful things hidden everywhere if we are only curious and open enough to look. I also love how Alice changes her perspective on things by changing her size. I mean, the world around her does not change, but for her everything looks very different, because she changes.”
Is that not quite a deep analogy? “I guess the whole thing could sound extremely romantic, but my approach to the whole wonderland theme is a very modern one, where I look at the city as a wonderland.”
Faye’s designs are in a similar vein. Romantic, feminine and ethereal, yet modern with a quirky twist. She makes clothes for real women, but they are strongly shaped by her own personal visions and influences. Does she design for herself, in that sense? “Probably. I really love beautiful things, but just plain elegance seems a bit too boring to me. It needs to be personal, and yes, a bit edgy I guess.”
The label was originally founded in London, but Faye chose to move it back to her hometown the following year. All the garments are produced in Berlin. “I loved living in London. It is just an amazing city and it has a great style. The problem for me was that while I lived there, I never found enough time to work on my own projects, I was just always too busy to earn enough money to pay my rent and so on. Berlin is also much quieter and less hectic. Here I find the space and time to really focus on my work.”
The latest work is ‘Lobster Ballet’, the first ready-to-wear collection from Fay Alice. It was named, rather unusually, after a box collage constructed by the artist Joseph Cornell between 1945 and 1949. It features a cut out figure of the ballerina Zizi Jeanmarie and red plastic lobsters clad in tutus. “I think it is a beautiful piece, yet it has a lot of humour,” Faye explains. “Much attention has been paid to all the little details, like in all of Cornell’s work. This is what I wanted my collection to be like. It should be very beautiful with many little delicate details, but it should also fun and easy to wear.”
It’s clear that Cornell’s work is something that has a profound impact of the designer. “Joseph Cornell’s work and life was a big influence for this collection. I also looked at his time – the work of the Surrealists here in Europe, New York, where he lived. He loved the ballet; he was absolutely obsessed with certain women of his time, like ballerinas, divas and movie stars. Trying to find a counterpart for Cornell’s female ideal seems bit too voyeuristic and naïve. I decided to research modern dance in Europe- dancers like Valeska Gert, who was a controversial artist and who liked to use the grotesque to express herself,” she explains.
“I love his appreciation for the inconspicuous little things. He creates artworks of beauty with objects found in everyday life. His work reflects his love for all these little objects, and the magical world that they belong to. By looking at his art, we’re allowed to share this world for a little while,” she says. “My work for me is about trying to reflect the beauty which I find in the world around me- not unlike Cornell. I love the small things which are beautiful, because they’re not perfect; things that have a story to tell, like a piece of vintage lace with little holes in it, or the façade of an old building.”
Given all the creativity that goes into the design process, does she ever find it hard to come up with ideas? “The fashion business does not always make it easy for you to really find time to be creative, I must admit. I find working within the seasonal frame very challenging, because as a designer you don’t need to just come up with new ideas, but you have to take care of all the business and logistics as well. It is a bit of a split between being sensitive to, and open for, inspiration and being a hard working label founder who has to fulfil tight deadlines.”
But on the plus side, she insists, “I am never short of new ideas though, and I enjoy my work immensely, especially if it’s about trying out new ideas. I always keep a sketchbook and I make a lot of time to research new material for each collection. Later, whenever I feel a bit unsure about what a certain detail should look like, I only need to go back to my research to find the answer. There are so many inspiring and fun things to be experienced and explored in our lives. The process of designing to me is like trying to give a little bit of all I’m given back to the world.”
I ask Faye about her memories of growing up in Berlin-Kreuzberg on the west side of the Berlin wall in the 80s. It was a time not generally renowned for its fashion-forward style, and particularly not in East Germany. Aged 12 when the wall came down, she remembers, “I had a pink bat sleeved jacket and turquoise pointed boots, which I loved, when I was around 10. In general, I think people just mixed and matched everything and anything. Boys who didn’t want to do their one year service with the military came to Berlin from other parts of the country, because there you didn’t have to do it. Many students lived in Berlin. It was a very raw place, there was a lot of empty space, many un-renovated buildings, cheap rents… it used to, and still is, leaving people a lot of space to experiment. Now Berlin is becoming more and more of a metropolis, with many different people from cities all over the world coming to stay for a year or two. Berlin is developing and changing extremely fast. We’re more connected to trends around the world now.”
Maybe this has something to do with the fact she has chosen to primarily focus on three main markets for her designs; Germany, the UK and Denmark, where her designs are all retailing. “I chose the markets that I already have a connection to. Germany, because I am German and because the label is based in Germany. London, because I lived and studied there and I think that the style of Fay Alice makes sense for the British market. Denmark, because the concept for Fay Alice is somewhat shaped after a Scandinavian model and I think it fits in the Danish market.”
The beauty of Faye’s designs is that they are so immensely wearable and versatile that each piece could become a wardrobe staple, taking the wearer from season to season with ease. If Fay Alice is a name whispered in hushed tones amongst the in-the-know fash pack right now, by this time next year it should, quite deservedly, be the worst-kept secret in fashion.
Words Kay Weston
THE FASHIONISTAHASSPOKEN.BLOGSPOT.COM
