Founder fairytales
THE PROJECT
The womenswear brand MAYNARD was seeking a brand voice to match the bold, textural aesthetic of their line. In lieu of traditional biographies, I crafted fairytales to convey the life stories of the founders.
Credits: John Gutierrez—Film Direction, Ivan Abel—Cinematography, Paolo Testa—Photography, Evan Browning—Photography
SCOPE
Tone of voice
Messaging strategy
Press release
JIA
On the 28th day of December, in the City of Eternal Spring, a girl of delicate spirit entered the world. From her very birth, she was called to the beauties of the Earth. The movement of creatures, the brilliance of tapestries, the skin of weatherworn buildings—all these things captivated her wide eyes. Her mother and father, learned in the art of science, found themselves confounded by the visions of such a child. The girl intuitively sought the sensory. She learned to paint, dance, and make air shiver with the sound of instruments.
As she neared her eleventh birthday, her parents carried her from China to the shores of a Western world. The lost little girl, adrift in unfamiliar waters, abandoned the ways of her homeland. She devoured the words of the West and taught her tongue to move anew. This wayward venture was not to last long, for in short time her father beckoned her back to her roots. The girl came to see she was destined to be a nomad, an inhabitant of many worlds.
Against the wishes of her guardians, the gypsy spirit called the girl to another coast. She studied the arts in the grit and gentility of New York. Soon, the girl found herself entranced by the siren song of fashion. So it came to pass that this gypsy girl was to meet the girl of tenacious imagination...
DONNA
On the 20th day of February, as the Eastern tide met the shore, a girl of vibrant spirit entered the world. Borne of a whirlwind romance, with the waters of the bay in her blood, the child was blessed with a wisdom of the flow and flux of the world.
From her mother, she inherited the eye of the artist. Together, they spent hours wandering in the land of dreams—frolicking amongst the trees and concocting elaborate tales. Though she thrived in the world of the ethereal, the girl found roots in the fortress of her father. He saw within her strength, and so the girl learned mastery of the rifle and the dance of quick wit.
In time, the girl crossed her childhood waters to the shores of a great city. She found herself enlivened by the ceaseless current of strange bodies and spaces. Her spirit dreamed in a new light, one that knew neither dawn nor dusk. The girl began to build garments of lace and leather. In her creations, the wind-whipped arbors and antiquated rifles of her childhood found new form. Her spirit spoke with thread and needle. Thus it came to pass, entranced one eve by the clack and clatter of a sewing machine, that the girl saw she was destined to design.
As wise beings know so well, the fates must have their way. For little less than divine intervention united this girl of tenacious imagination with the gypsy girl...
and so it was, blessed by a merciful destiny, that MAYNARD came to be.
PRESS
