While most of us are bunkering down for the winter, covering up from the cold with layers of woolen scarves and heavy coats, it can be torture previewing the spring summer collections of scantily clad models living it up somewhere tropical and sun drenched.
But new jewellery and accessories label, `From St Xavier’ is something you can wear now, despite the summery imagery of its latest lookbook, and it’s an injection of cheery amidst a dreary winter. When we first discovered the brand at Premiere boutique trade event, Sydney it rocked our world (literally) with its range of crystal studded cuffs, neck plates and rings. We also couldn’t wait to get our clutches on their beaded bags. So when the lookbook arrived in our inbox recently we couldn’t wait to share.
We took five with Head Designer, Sara Caverley to get the scoop behind the brand; getting tribal with semi-precious stones and tri-metal combos; how they pull the collection together; and what’s in store for the future.
Tell us about the history of FSX? When it was first started? Why? and how?
FSX the label is launching for Summer 2012. Our company owns a few labels and jewellery seemed the natural progression. We scoured many different countries and manufacturers who could create the product we were after. We felt there were a lot of boutique jewellery labels out there but not many in the price range we wanted. We wanted everyone to be able to buy our product from young fashion girls paying rent each week to more mature women who would say buy a few pieces at once.
Where do you source your inspiration? And how do they drive you and influence your design?
We look at a tonne of different sources for inspiration – girls on the streets, bloggers to high fashion labels. We’re about finding what is going on at the moment and would try to envision a whole story behind the From St Xavier girl and what she would wear. We then combined everything together and created the product. We love the California bohemian vibe so this collection was inspired by the tribal trend; infusing real semi-precious stones with Tri metal ( Copper, Brass and German silver).
How do you transfer these inspirations into design? Talk us through your design process from drawing board to in-store/online?
First the look and feel for the collection is established through trend research and sketches. We all sit together and pick out colours and styles that we prefer. The next step is to then source the finest materials to bring the collection to life. We have a close connection to a fashion boutique called Carousel in Bondi which is a great testing ground for us to see what products are working and what aren’t.
Can you tell us the story behind the name?
We used to run a cult Bondi fashion boutique named From St Xavier. We then expanded the business and were running two stores under the name. We have since closed the stores but wanted to encapsulate our From St Xavier customer and so decided to use the name for our new jewellery label.
What’s in store for the future – where do you see the brand heading?
It’s difficult to predict the future but we hope to see the brand expand rapidly similarly to our shoe label, Sole Society. The brand will continue to evolve as our design team scales the globe in search of the latest big thing…Watch this space!
could i purchase your jewellery wholesale, I love your designs and would like to sell it in my store .