"I want to inspire and encourage positive vibes and a healthy attitude through …
January 12, 2016 by admin
Filed under Lingerie Events
Mariesa Mae, 36, is back in town after 10 years in Sydney. Her mission is to make the world a better place through her range of lingerie, she tells Cheslyn Baker
Mariesa is a lingerie designer with a difference. The former burlesque dancer is determined to promote self-worth for women. Ten years ago, when she was a young and romantic 26, Mariesa left her family in Coalville and jetted off to Sydney, Australia, with her professional footballer boyfriend. Now she’s back, 10 years the wiser, with a driving passion to succeed.
“Perhaps I was a bit naive back then,” she says. “I was in love and followed my heart.”
Before she went, Mariesa had already been working on designing her own lingerie collection. She had her first label in London when she was 22, but admits it took something of a back-seat on her list of priorities when she became lovestruck.
Once in Sydney, her Australian A-League footballer beau was often away playing matches. “I was lonely and desperately missed my family; mum, dad and sister, Natalie.”
Not one to give up easily, and needing to be busy doing something, Mariesa joined a musical society in pursuit of her other love – performing.
“At school I had really enjoyed playing the star role in our school production of Little Shop of Horrors at King Edward VII Community College in Coalville,” she says. “I’d also been to see lots of good musicals with my family. However, after a few months of being in the musical society in Sydney I realised I couldn’t bring myself to sing and play parts that I felt were naff.
“Of course that was no good, because obviously you have to play whatever part you are given, so I gave up and went to acting school instead.”
There she did courses in dancing, singing and acting, which she enjoyed. “I have to be totally engaged and focused in what I do, whatever it is, otherwise what’s the point?”
Before Mariesa went to Sydney, when she lived in London, temping in offices Mariesa spotted some pretty G-strings in a top department store.
It was a lightbulb moment: “I thought, I could design and make these!”
Mariesa set about it immediately and instigated her first label. “It was G-strings and knickers. I didn’t develop the range further at that time, although it sold very well and I started to learn the ropes from a business partner who was very experienced.
“He did the buying and marketing side, but I paid attention and was learning about how to run a business all the time.
“I made a living doing that for two years before I met my footballer and fell in love.”
Even though it was seeing the pretty knickers that kick-started her career, becoming a lingerie designer wasn’t just something she did on a whim. “I recently found something I’d written at school when I was about 10. We’d had to write a book about ourselves for a project and in mine I’d put: ‘When I grow up, I want to be a designer. I want to go to polytechnic college and design materials and clothes.
“And when I’ve finished at polytechnic, I will tour the world with my models and do fashion shows.’
Reading it now, Mariesa laughs with amazement. She has actually gone on and done that. Well, most of it. After going to Loughborough college to study arts and textiles, she went to university to study English literature. She then travelled and worked as a model herself, organising shows as well as taking part in them.
In Sydney, she set up an upmarket burlesque stage act called Les Femmes Boheime with another girl. “We were very stylish and tasteful and took part in Sydney’s annual Vivid Light Festival. “I’ve only been doing the Mariesa Mae range for three years, but spent the three years before that doing burlesque in Sydney dreaming it up.”
During these three years in the development stage, Mariesa also did a lot of commercial modelling and size 10 ‘spec modelling’ for fashion design companies.
“This helped me a lot in creating my business, as I learned fitting techniques and applied them to lingerie,” she says.
She needed to source materials and manufacturers for her designs so went to Bali, where she spent a month by herself, found a factory and got some samples made.
“The difficulty with Bali was that it wasn’t specialised enough,” she says. “Back in Sydney I found a pattern-maker to make the patterns for me. Then I had to find someone to sew them, which took ages as not many people in Sydney have the skills.”
Eventually, she found Eileen, an elderly Greek lady who could do it. From there it was a case of trial and error.
“At that time, I got all the samples made for the same size, my size, which I knew was a standard size 10 from my modelling.”
Then Mariesa returned to Bali to buy materials for detail, such as leather, studs and rivets.
“Bali was good for that sort of thing, but not for the delicate stuff, which I got in Sydney at a small factory,” she says. “I really struggled to get the quality I wanted and it was very expensive, too, even though it still wasn’t up to the standard I wanted.
“They’d make stupid mistakes in making up the garments, like doing white stitching instead of black and sometimes the bra sizings were all out. I had to oversee everything – I wanted it to be higher end of the market but as the quality wasn’t brilliant and I had to rethink the pricing. Again, I was learning.”
Mariesa held a launch in Sydney in 2012, which turned out to be, she says, the most stressful two weeks of her life.
“I went from doing stalls at Christmas markets to a pop-up shop and a fashion show in Sydney’s fashion quarter, Paddington. First I had to paint the walls of the shop, because they were a horrible acid green. I didn’t have any help but then realised I needed to bring in my model friends for the actual launch.”
Mariesa broke even and, as a result, got her range into the biggest online store for Australia, The Iconic, in their luxury classics section. “I made a living for about two years with my lingerie, but it was hard and I struggled,” she admits. “I paid a lot of costs for help that now I can do myself. It has been a huge learning curve but now I feel like I’ve finally got a handle on it.”
It was around Christmas 2013, when Mariesa started to feel the pull to come home.
Her mum’s health had taken an unexpected downward turn and although Mariesa wanted to be with her, she didn’t feel she really belonged in the UK any more.
“I returned to Sydney, but started to feel that I didn’t belong there either,” she says.
Her relationship with her footballer in Sydney wasn’t working out, so it became easier to make the decision. She is now home for good and busy rebranding for the UK market.
“Now I’m back it’s weird because I actually shifted my stuff over here last Christmas, then faltered and felt I had to go back and give my relationship with my boyfriend one last go.
“When it still didn’t work out, I felt as if I had given it every chance, so I felt better about moving back here and I now feel this is really where I belong.”
And what better place for a re-launch than Leicestershire – a hive of manufacturing skills and links to support the UK fashion scene.
However, there is a lot more than meets the eye to Mariesa Mae’s rebranding. “I’ve done a lot of soul-searching and self-analysis over the past couple of years to discover the source of my drive to create beautiful lingerie. What draws me to it is that it gives a kind of empowerment for women and I need to include that in my branding, because that is a big part of why I design lingerie.
“Mostly, advertising is about trying to make people feel bad about themselves – or that somehow they don’t come up to the mark as a person if they don’t have a certain perfume or look a certain way.”
Mariesa shunned social media such as Facebook for years because she felt it could make people, especially women, be overly competitive and feel negative by comparing themselves and their lives with others.
“There’s way too much focus and pressure on looks and competing with each other,” she says. “Most girls and women I know aren’t confident and I intend to work through my branding and also through social media to alter this.
“I can relate to how all girls feel, but as soon as you accept yourself as who you really are, it’s empowering and you’re not scared any more. I’m determined to promote this message because I know that if I can do it, so can anyone!”
So how does Mariesa’s lingerie range endorse her onion theory, other than, possibly, that we’ve already peeled away the first layer (of clothing) to get to it? “Yes it’s as near as you can get to revealing other unseen layers, and if it pleases you because it looks nice, and fits well, and feels good, the only effect it can have on how you feel about yourself is a positive one.”
Australia is not a nation that emphasises subtleties of fashion, according to Mariesa. “They don’t have Agent Provocateur or anything like that because there isn’t the market. Lingerie is much more of a European thing and I think that’s why I struggled.”
Describing herself as a “showgirl with a gypsy heart”, she is rebranding her label to make it reflect her own values. Her core brand descriptions include words such as bohemian, wanderlust and rock ‘n’ roll.
“I now want to inspire, influence and encourage positive vibes and a healthy attitude through my range of lingerie.”
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