With Kids fashion week in full swing here in NY, I thought it would be great to interview one of my new fav websites fresh out of the UK….Jessie and James.
Tell us how and when Jessie and James was born??
We met while both working for Vivienne Westwood. Jessie trained at the University of Art in Berlin under Vivienne Westwood and moved to London to join Vivienne’s creative team and eventually became her Creative Head Pattern cutter. I was spotted at London Graduate Fashion week and became Menswear designer at Vivienne Westwood designing for the mainline Man and the Japanese License collections. After five years of working closely, it was love at first sight…well nearly ; ) and soon our son Billy ‘the Kid’ was born.
We always had the dream to start our own label and we saw an opportunity at this time to do something new and adventurous with our skills and experience. Learning abstract and clever ways to cut clothes and designing garments in a playful humorous way we decided that the kidswear market was the obvious choice! We started designing a few little garments, which evolved into a whole collection and decided to take the plunge and launch Jessie and James.
Where is the company based? And how do you ship to the US market? The companies design studio is based in Dulwich London and we have our own warehouse on the South coast of England. We ship to the US using UPS for big orders and airsure for smaller orders.
Can you tell us what some of your favorite items are on the site? My favorite item is the tip toe shorts with braces in contrast cotton and jersey. I also love the chirpy chaplin trousers, which are fun fashionable and comfortable. Jessica loves the squiggle dress in both colours and the Frilly Lilly dress is a classic for us!
What trends are you seeing for this Spring for the little ones? Jessie and James do not look at trends or follow any. Working with Vivienne we were never encouraged to do this. We spend our time reading and enjoy historical costume and experimenting with patterns and of course looking after our little boy! I could not honestly answer that question as I really do not focus on other brands, I was never taught that way in my fashion experience. Not sure if thats a good thing or a bad thing?:)
What can we except from J&J in the future? I believe you will see mystery, magic and so much fun from the Jessie and James future collections. The silhouettes and shapes will always be unique and the garments will always have an element of humor to them! We design with the child in mind and if we have fun with the clothes when designing them we know everyone will have fun wearing them! Our ranges have increased already to 7 years and we plan to increase this up to 12 years in the near future.
