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Born from a spark of interest and fashioned into a success, the Jaci Bailey label is proof that achievements can be bred from the spontaneous and the unexpected.
Some of us spend years of our lives agonising over which career path we might choose. Others simply stumble on to the right path and ride follow the winding stairway to the big time. Melbourne fashion designer Jaci Bailey (with a label of the same name) is of the latter and according to the girl herself it was all quite ‘unplanned’. “I started the label when I was 19. It started off really small, hand making dresses for friends and small boutiques and it blew up and expanded from there”.
The Jaci Bailey label is now regularly seen in amongst the fashion pages of Russh and Oyster magazines, housed in several boutiques across the city and is set to open a flagship store sometime in mid 2011. Bailey, the self-taught designer – “I haven’t studied, I threw myself straight into the deep end” – is the first to admit that she has had a little help along the way, “I have a lot of friends in the industry that have studied and taught me a lot of what I know now”.
Thanks to a little help from the right people, a determination to succeed and a dash of luck, Bailey has now created a label that she describes as ‘beach culture’. Her clothes embody fun and have a healthy dose of that offbeat flavour our wardrobes sometimes need, what Bailey provides is something for those females who are willing to experiment. She sees Melbourne as the premiere city for these budding new styles, “I love it, it’s very chilled and laid back and we seem to be the first city in Australia to take on the international trends”. This relaxed vibe she speaks of clearly plays a strong part in her creations, most of which allow you to pair wardrobe staples with her more chic pieces. Plain denim shorts are given life when teamed with one of her nautical striped shoulder epaulet tees whilst a faded white tee suddenly becomes more feminine when paired with her ¾ length floral printed jeans. Wearing Jaci Bailey allows you to maintain a casual style while starting your own fashion trends, not merely following one.
Bailey’s collections cover everything from the 50’s through to the 70’s, sometimes a little retro and sometimes a little rock n’ roll, but always with a modern twist. As for her latest offering, Bailey acknowledges the formidable Baz Luhrmann and his film Romeo and Juliet. “The ‘sleeves of steel’ tees and dresses came from the fish tank scene where Leonardo is dressed as a knight in shining armour. I think I may have watched that movie a few too many times!”
Yet while it may have taken Baz Luhrmann three years to create his film, Bailey takes roughly three months to piece together her collections. One month is spent researching and the other two months are spent designing the collection itself, a process which is none too easy according to Bailey, “I have a bad habit of changing and re-making a lot of my samples a few days and even the night before the shoot, I seem to work better under pressure”.
So instead of sitting back with a list of potential jobs, pondering what may or may not be, perhaps we should take a leaf out of Baileys book and simply take a stab in the dark, “It was accidental, I had never really thought about a career in fashion until I fell into it and after that there was no looking back.” Born from a spark of interest and fashioned into a success, the Jaci Bailey label is proof that achievements can be bred from the spontaneous and the unexpected.
