GO SLOW

WHEN IT COMES to fashion design our thoughts usually go to the high fashion centres of London, Paris, New York, Milan, but there are multi-talented creatives hiding in plain sight right here in the Algarve.

26-year-old Jessica Antonio is one such creative. An advocate of the ‘slow movement’ side of fashion where sustainability, the use of natural materials and historic techniques prevail. Consumerism is rampant in the fashion industry, an industry that leads us to believe we need to be updating our wardrobes with every change of season. Fast fashion hits the headlines, if we haven’t got the latest Gucci T or the new season Hermès sandals then who even are we? But at what cost?

The name behind the label

Founder and creative director of contemporary slow fashion brand, J-ANT, Jessica discovered early on in her fashion career that fast fashion wasn’t for her. A pivotal moment was a collaboration with a well-known Spanish brand during her Erasmus+ Programme.

“I would never want to work for a fast fashion company as a designer, it’s just not in me,” she says, “It’s not creative enough because it always must be scalable, versatile for a wide range of people and produced quickly.” She also soon discovered that bright colour palettes are not her vibe.

“I tried to do a whole collection for my end-of-year degree brand collaboration with Desigual, a company renowned for colour. Two days before the collection was due in, I decided none of it was working. I took it all apart and went to buy denim pieces at secondhand stores, dip dyed and bleached them, used hand embroidery techniques, and produced something I was happy with. My designs were selected to be used as part of their archive, so I was happy I followed my heart. I learnt to always be true to myself and to follow my intuition, I can’t be pushed to do something I’m not comfortable with.”

FYI, don’t commission a customised garment with Jessica and ask for it in red – you know what the answer will be!

Finding a place

As a child growing up in Lagos, Jessica remembers crocheting and knitting from a very young age, “I was around five or six and I would play with my grandma’s sewing machine. She taught me how to crochet and all the basics of knitting and sewing when I was eight. I would make little clothes for my Barbies!” Age nine, Jessica moved to Holland and on graduating high school there suddenly realised a passion for the fashion world; she based her final art project on ‘fast fashion’ with a dress made from coffee cups and shopping bags. “Somehow, this interest in fashion came to me,” she says, “and I became more and more fascinated. When I graduated, I started making skirts and selling them to friends.”

Alongside her new-found love of fashion was a deep interest in business and economics. However, a short stint in Amsterdam studying the business of fashion made Jessica realise it wasn’t really for her. A change of heart led her to art school in Utrecht to study a four-year Bachelor of Design, a challenge, given she had to learn to speak Dutch!

In the Netherlands, Jessica worked with well-known Danish designers Anne Sofie Madsen and RWD Studio. “RWD studio taught me so much because it was a small brand and its Rosa really allowed me to be engaged in everything that encompasses a brand. She was an inspiration to me and still is,” she says. At Anne Sofie Madsen, Jessica fell in love with a technique she now uses regularly in her own collections – smocking. “It was a first love thing that I really enjoyed doing. During my time at Anne Sofie Studio, I was the only one who was allowed to do smocking for her garments. I created my own identity with that.”

Jessica’s final year J-ANT. collection created a buzz in Holland with press, stylists and model agencies. For the collection she collaborated with local, social impact brands like Granny’s Finest to make socks, and a sustainable footwear designer. “It didn’t make sense for me to be designing a collection and then have to buy shoes and accessories at H&M, which would go against my sustainability ethos,” she says.

Back home again

A fresh start in 2019 saw Jessica move back to her hometown of Lagos and the need to develop a whole new mindset to nurture new partnerships and become part of the Portuguese fashion bubble. “It took me a while to understand how to make connections and have a network over here,” she says.

The current J-ANT. collection, Yesterday/ Tomorrow, takes inspiration from memories of the past, old traditions and the tranquillity of the Alentejo, utilising handmade techniques such as embroidery, crochet, smocking and silk printing, all done in-house by Jessica. She adds: “My inspiration always comes from natural features, always connected to nature – either towards the sea or towards land. Shells, fossils, the cliffs in Praia da Luz – that’s my happy place!”

The upcycling, zero-waste ethos of the J-ANT. brand means that Jessica partners with shops like Nandi in Lagos to repurpose fabrics. “All the stuff that they can’t sell, I get to sort through,” she says. “A lot of men’s suits, sheets, duvets, crocheted doilies, and light-coloured denim.” (I personally love Jessica’s duvet jacket designs! Check them out on her Instagram @jantdesign).

She also uses dead stock fabrics purchased from local markets in her Holland days. Currently designing a one-off wedding dress, Jessica needs specific textiles for the project, so she makes sure to buy dead stock from Barcelona-based Recovo and incorporate natural rose petals.

Jessica’s designs have also found fame – with a handmade suit that took 54 hours of dedicated work to make, worn by Carolina Deslandes on The Voice Portugal, and a jacket worn by Edmundo Inácio during his performance with Eunice Muñoz.

Looking forward

A self-confessed ambitious and motivated individual, Jessica’s latest goal is to open a curated gallery space where she can showcase local, sustainable brands alongside her own collection and host unique events. The private launch of the concept store happened on 18 August and was a must-have invitation.

“For the first event we collaborated with @aboutwyld who do brunches in the wild. They have the same aesthetic as me, very natural, very raw, using natural colours – the same concept as J-ANT. but in food. I created aprons out of upcycled denim for the event and we recreated the wild inside the gallery space for a candlelit dinner.” A wonderfully creative meeting of two like-minded, earth conscious brands.

Buy Jessica’s unique pieces online at j-ant. com – prices start at €60 (accessories) and €140 (tops). You can also customise a piece to your own liking by commissioning her to create something special out of a garment you already own. Upcycling at its finest. Why follow the crowd when you can stand apart?

ARO HAS NEVER struck me as an amazing place to explore. It’s never been an exciting trip where I’ve been looking forward to the day with anticipation. The primary reason is that my trips to Faro have always been administrative, and looking forward to a few hours in a frustrating queue is not something I relish.

So I arrived in Faro the other day at dawn with a mission to film it for my YouTube channel. I launched a drone mission as close as I safely could to our Algarve capital. The Ria Formosa glistened through a rising sun and the beauty of the scene filled me with an excitement I had never felt around Faro. I walked the old town streets before the city awoke and history came alive around me as I strolled through the Arabic gate, noting that this was the main entrance to the sea. Ancient sailors had walked through this very portal, excited with the thought of a few days rest and no doubt some lively antics ahead.

I strolled on, the peacefulness descending on me like a soft blanket, dampening all thoughts of modern paperwork. My overriding feeling after a very busy day of filming is that Faro is full of contrasts: beauty and trash, graffiti and clean lines. A sea of cranes in Lejana heralds the arrival of future accommodations, whilst the stonework in the town points to a rich history.

Faro is a town of services, SEF has an office here in the Loja do Cidadão – an amazing concept in itself where all government services are concentrated. Forum Algarve Shopping centre is a nucleus for all things you need to buy in one go with ample parking below. For high street shopping Rua Santo Antônio snakes its way up from the marina, peppered with