Designer JJ Martin On Her Life-Long Love Affair With Maximalism
Former journalist turned La DoubleJ founder JJ MARTIN shares the life experiences that have inspired her vibrant, joy-filled fashion and interiors label
Color has an enormous impact on me. I feel deeply uncomfortable with white walls – which doesn't mean that I don’t appreciate a clean space or wear black pants on occasion – but, to me, a plain white wall feels like it is asking for love. What I’ve learnt through establishing my fashion and homeware brand La DoubleJ and developing my spiritual practice is that my affinity for all this color is no mere accident. Color emits an incredible energetic frequency. That’s what I tap into. I really feel it, and it brings me a lot of joy.
Even when I lived in New York and worked at Calvin Klein in the 1990s, I never gravitated towards monochrome or minimalism. For me, fashion isn’t armor or something to hide behind; it has always been a thing of joy. As I have grown older and more confident, I’ve noticed that any time I’m wearing bold prints and crazy combinations, I invariably end up interacting with strangers on the street. They’ll notice me and their jaw will drop, or they’ll smile – I really like to connect with people and, in a way, I feel like my aesthetic desire for maximalism and print is an extension of that. I would personally define maximalism as piled-on joy.
Now, though, I steer the merry maximalist ship otherwise known as La DoubleJ, which I co-founded in Milan in 2015. I grew up in a very sporty, anti-fashion family in Los Angeles and, as a kid, I was always interested in what all the other moms were wearing. I even threw a dress-like-your-mom party when I was six, and all my friends came in their moms’ best dresses, makeup, jewels and hats. I had an eye for beauty and fashion from a young age, but none of it was formed or refined.
“Working as a journalist for 15 years – getting to peek into the homes of furniture, interior and fashion designers, tastemakers and architects – was a true education for me
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A key chapter in my style evolution was moving to New York in the late ’90s. I would go to the Chelsea flea market every weekend and just dive into the racks and stacks and boxes. What attracted me most were the prints, the colors and the embroideries. My hand would graze over the black and go right for the zaniest, wackiest, brightest prints from the ’60s and ’70s. I think what I was also tapping into, even at that early time, was the energy of joy – it would literally emanate off those bold pieces.
I arrived in Italy in 2001 with just three suitcases: one full of vintage, one full of bad high-street knockoffs (which was all I could afford), and one full of mismatched stuff that didn’t go with anything. While I was really excited about fashion, it was only after living in Milan for a while, observing and absorbing the Italian élan, that I began to develop true style. Working as a journalist for 15 years – getting to peek into the homes of furniture, interior and fashion designers, tastemakers and architects – was a true education for me. I was quickly influenced by the beautiful ways in which Italians put themselves together.
My preoccupation with fashion quickly blossomed into an obsession with interiors. When I first moved here, I knew nothing about decorating, cooking or entertaining. Beyond its world-famous culinary culture, Milan’s unique aesthetic and architectural character informs the exuberance of its interiors. It is not a baroque town like Venice, Rome or Florence. It has a rich and important history of mid-century design, which is super-clean. During my eight years as an editor at Wallpaper*, my eye became trained to appreciate those clean lines and eventually understand that I could then embellish them with my beloved prints. Eventually, I applied this approach with my work at La DoubleJ. The majority of our clothes have quite a simple silhouette, which gives us a lot of latitude to pile on the pattern.
“For me, dressing is about letting yourself run wild with layer upon layer of different colors, different patterns, different textures, different styles – but also finding a harmony within them… I decorate my home or my table in a similar fashion
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This whole game is about balance: I really love layering things, mixing eras and styles within each outfit. For me, dressing is about letting yourself run wild with layer upon layer of different colors, different patterns, different textures, different styles – but also finding a harmony within them. It’s like inviting lots of interesting people over for dinner and finding a common conversation; I decorate my home or my table in a similar fashion. Usually there is either a color story, a single tone that is being played out, or a different breadth of volumes: one print might be condensed and packed in, while the other might be larger scale – it works well when you are mixing florals with geometrics or stripes. Maximalism or any other true style has nothing to do with logic or a rule book. When I create a look that I love, I get a very strong feeling – a visual and visceral sense of relief.
This tapping into feeling rather than logic has helped me build my business. It’s about homing in on something that I genuinely love; I think that joy is what transmits to people at the end of the day. That heartbeat is at the core of what I do – that genuine, irrepressible love for it. True style must have soul, and it must be your soul.
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