Juli Santini's Summer 2015 Collection + An Interview with the Fashion Designer
Source: Juli Santini
From the moment we laid eyes on Juli Santini's latest Summer 2015 collection, we knew we had found something pretty special. Juli first introduced her French fashion label to us only weeks ago, but already we have become some of her biggest fans (and we're sure after viewing the fun and feminine images above that you may now be too!)
With over 42,000 fans on Facebook alone and counting, it seems as though we're not the only ones who have fallen head-over-heels in love with this impeccably stylish label - after all, you just don't comes across this kind of magic everyday.
Whim was lucky enough to recently interview the talented, warm and inspiring Juli Santini and we asked her all about her incredible clothing, her stunning new collection and her dreams for the future. We hope you enjoy the Q&A below!
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Q: When did your love of fashion design first bloom?A: My love for design started when I was a little girl. When I was little, in my family there was already a custom to make clothes instead of simply buying them. This is because my two grandmothers, my mom and one of my aunts all know how to sew. Given that our economy wasn’t very good, they used to help me materialize my ideas by using pieces of cloth, giving me cheap fabrics to play with or, sometimes, recycling old clothes. I pretty much grew up playing to make my own clothes. Then, as a teenager, I started to play on my own by sewing my own designs, all the rest came by itself and it felt like something natural to me.
Q: How would you describe your brand in just three words?A: Naif (innocent), Playful, Romantic.
Q: When it comes to your fashion designs, what inspires your creativity the most?A: Well, that is something that varied with my age. I used to be inspired by music mainly. I play the piano so it always was a source of inspiration and a way to drift away with my thoughts to me. Then, I felt motivated by photography from various artists. Today I find inspiration in movies, from directors like Godard, Truffaut, Resnais (all from the nouvelle vague) Rohmer etc. Movies, so far, is the one major art that manages to gather all my passions together in one place: Design, Photography and Music.
Q: What does an average day in the life of Juli Santini involve?A: My days are usually complete madness, but they depend on many factors. On regular basis, I wake up early and have breakfast (I enjoy making myself cute breakfasts), but there are days when I use mornings for doing photoshoot sessions and other times, I just wake up and start sewing while listening to my music (at the moment I’m into Françoise Hardy). Then I spend some time with my cat or resting, taking some fresh air in my balcony at home. At noon I typically go out shopping for fabrics or tools for my work, I visit the studios I work with and do some errands. I try to do as much as possible at noon, as my Show Room opens at 2pm for appointments to make custom dresses and at 4pm for the rest of my customers. Around 8 or 9pm I go home, always, ALWAYS listing to my music. I have dinner, respond to some emails, many, many emails and Facebook messages. This is something I do every day, as it is the only time of the day when I can really pay attention to the social networks. Then I plan my agenda for the next day, watch a movie or a show with the company of my cat and finally, I go to bed, which usually happens around 2 or 3 am (I don´t sleep many hours).
Q: Please tell us a little about the experience you had whilst working on this series of images for your latest collection?A: This last collection is entirely inspired by a dream I had, where I lived in an utopic world, all the people was dressed with my designs, from all my collections, the same morphology and the same classic pastel palette I use. I woke up and wrote down every detail I could remember from that dream. I checked all my old designs from past collections, rescued some forgotten molds and UTOPIE was born, the collection that came from my dreams, literally!We worked very hard on many of the designs, as most of them are handmade; it required a lot of effort. Given that the labor for this line of work is very expensive, I tried to keep the designs simple and classic, but with nice terminations and gentle fabrics. By doing this I was able to keep the budget at bay and everything turned out great!For the photoshoot, I wanted a place that looked just like from a child’s story book, so we had to travel around a lot to find old houses and with the pastel palette I wanted, but we eventually found it! I tried to make it look just like my dream, and luckily it ended up very similar to what I had in my mind!
Q: Lastly, what do you hope to achieve with your gorgeous fashion label in the not-too-distant future; Do you have any exciting upcoming plans that you would like to share with us?A: I have a lot of plans, some more interesting than others, but I learnt that it is best to keep a little of mystery in everything I do, that way it is more fun!! So stay close to my pages in social networks and I’ll keep you posted! :D
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The images from this collection speak a thousand words about this wonderful brand, so in order to see more colelctions from Juli Santini or to keep updated with the fashion label, we recommend that you visit the label's website, Facebook page or Instagram.