Happy bank holiday weekend to those that have one.
Story time.
I spent the better part of two decades inside the fashion industry - Domus Academy in Milan on a full scholarship, then Viktor & Rolf, Matthew Williamson, Zara. Each place taught me something the others couldn't. Not just in design rooms but on factory floors, travelling to work with artisans in China, India, Mauritius, Turkey and across Europe. Learning, at every stop, that the distance between a good garment and a great one is almost always a decision someone chose not to make.
Viktor & Rolf taught me that every detail is a choice. That each element of a garment should be considered, the weight of the interlining, the composition of a button. In a shirt specifically: the way a collar sits at the back of the neck when someone is moving, not standing still for a fitting. Couture thinking is not about preciousness. It is about refusing to accept that something is fine when it could be right.
Zara taught me something different, commerciality and tenacity in equal measure. I worked in Señora.
Mr Ortega was present every day. His drive was infectious in the way that only genuine conviction is. What I took from that environment was this: understanding your customer is not a marketing exercise. It is the foundation of everything. How she actually lives. Packing a carry-on at 6am. Moving from a meeting to a dinner without going home first.
YAITTE is what those two educations made possible together. Small production runs. European artisans. Fabric that has been thought about for longer than the average brand thinks about an entire collection.
When I'm here in Mallorca and I pull on one of our shirts in the morning, it does what it's supposed to do: it disappears. You stop thinking about what you're wearing. That's the whole point. I mix and match Yaitte with my existing wardrobe with ease.
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