I STILL BLUSH

At 36 years old (about to turn 37 or almost 40, depending on how you look at it), and as my father would say, with “more face than back” (a consequence of phrases of his, such as “who doesn't cry doesn't suck”, which they mark you for life), I still blush.

Few things make me blush more than when someone asks who the Just-ENE designer is, I imagine it's a feeling similar to when Caprile is called a designer and says she's a Dressmaker with an A.

I never thought of being a designer, nor do I think I am right now, but someone has to give the title, and it's clear that I'll have to put it on myself, basically because we haven't hired anyone else with this position. The evidence exists.

But I've never really thought about being one, really my only intention was to create shoes as people wanted, to their liking, because I was tired of fashion telling us what we had to wear, where, when and why. What if the Little Black Dress for a party, what if the Boyfriend pants that are worn for a day of shopping with friends, what if the crop top to be the most trendy in the place if you have a belly or not, what if the pants with the elastic of the underwear on the outside (look, it's difficult not to say with the "panties on the outside"), I don't know when to put it on, but hey, it was worn. Anyway…

To this day, and after 8 years in charge of Just-ENE, I can say that I still think the same. That fashion is you, or fashion is us (that you have to be inclusive), more and more, we like to differentiate ourselves and rightly so. That it's okay to buy the "yellow Zara jacket" and think that only you wear it until you go out, see reality and keep it in the closet forever. If that's not an expensive purchase, let God come down and see.

Going back to the topic, it is true that, as they say, one thing leads to another, and well, “sometimes I do things”. I love traveling to fairs, bringing different things and doing "things" with them. It excites me when I see something different, I love seeing leathers and fabrics and trying them out, imagining things with them. I think about bringing what I like and think I might like, based on what they ask of us the most or what they ask of us and we don't have and I like it too, and why not, some other madness, although some later never come to light (you can ask in the store for the “vomit” skin that I still love).

I love thinking about bringing something different when I feel like it and feel like it, but not because 4 collections have to be released a year. In fact, I don't make collections, I don't present them anywhere, and when a magazine asks me in the summer for the photos of the winter collection, I put my hands to my head thinking how unprofessional I am. But the reality is that I don't understand why you have to think about winter when you're in summer, or buy coats in August, and go to the beach and not be able to renew your flip-flops because it's August and that's not in style anymore. Let's go there that I stand in Cadiz this year, with a flip-flop destroyed by the dog and a feather coat that if it takes.

That being said, no, we don't have collections every year as such, we continue to do what they ask us for as long as they ask us. Our collection concept is to give ideas, that you see ways to combine materials and help your imagination to work, so that the designer is not me, but you.

That said, the designer is not me, it's you ;).

A hug

Irene