Rising Style Star: Jamie Hayes
Photo by Gloria Araya
Jamie Hayes is a multitalented Chicago fashion designer who keeps ethical production at the heart of her business. She has been in the fashion industry since 1999 and has championed labor rights since 2009. As the founder of Production Mode, Jamie creates "slow fashion" garments here in Chicago while collaborating with other creatives, which allows her to produce unique small-batch collections.
Jamie spoke with us about what she loves about working in Chicago's fashion community, the inspiration that fuels Production Mode's novel collaboration model, and how we can be more ethical consumers. We hope you'll love learning more about this local label and the interesting creator behind the seams.
When did you know you wanted to be in the fashion industry?
Like pretty much everyone, creativity was a big part of my childhood- I drew, designed, and sewed but as I grew older, focused more on academics than art. My high school didn't have a strong arts program, and in any case, it seemed like a more secure path. It wasn't until I was almost finished with college that I made the decision to prioritize designing and creating again. I started taking sewing classes in the basement of a fabric store in St. Louis and was lucky to learn under a real genius- a woman who ran the alterations room at either Saks or Neiman's. She could make anything by adapting commercial sewing patterns. So from the get-go, she was teaching me industry sewing techniques and pattern drafting.
What was the first piece of clothing you made?
My mother and my grandmother taught me to sew as a child- I was probably 11 years old when I made my first garment (with lots of help!)- a Pepto Bismol pink calico A-line skirt that earned me a Girl Scout badge. I was reading a lot of Little House on the Prairie at the time, so that was probably the inspiration.
How would you describe your design sensibility?
My design sensibility is one of refined maximalism. And yes, I'm aware that phrase is a bit of an oxymoron. I just can't totally color in the lines when it comes to fashion. I do think that in the Midwest, there is a pressure to flex your taste level by avoiding anything outré, tacky, bold, or brash for fear of seeming small time, small town, new money, etc. But personally, I don't think I will ever succeed by pretending to be someone that I am not, and so I embrace bold prints, pattern clashing, and even (very occasionally) campy, shiny, and sparkly items … I love working in the vernacular of slow fashion, but it can be a very serious market niche and at its worst is boring and self-righteous. I hope that we are bringing something a little unexpected and freer to this area.
Photos by Carlos Moore. Model is Rebecca Uy, HMU by Lia Rivette
Where do you find inspiration?
My main inspiration comes through collaboration. I love collaborating with fellow artists and with my team. Hopefully, the collaborations are more than the sum of their parts and take all partners in new and surprising directions. In addition, I find a lot of inspiration in music and music cultures. I have had multiple careers in my life and have worked as a deejay for the last 15 years or so.
Production Mode collections include collaborations with other artists and artisans. How did this come about, and how do you choose your different collaborators?
The idea of collaboration came in part from watching an Orson Welles interview that my dear friend Damon Locks showed to me. In it, Welles talks of the importance of collaboration for furthering friendship and that when you work long hours, it's often the only way to keep up those friendships. I haven't watched the interview in a long time, but the idea I took away from it was that creating art is akin to building community, so why not work with people you admire and respect?
You have two collections available currently; Leather Collection and Move/Repeat. Can you tell us about each of those collections? What's your favorite piece in each one?
The leather collection came out of a collaboration with my friend and brilliant artist, Paula J. Wilson, for the collection of designs I used to launch Production Mode. We were discussing ideas for the collaboration, and Paula mentioned a piece she had made previously on a "hide-colored cloth." A lightbulb went off for both of us, and we were really excited to see how one of her prints would look on an actual hide, and from there I drew on my previous experience as a handbag designer and contacted a source from that job at Horween, the last tannery left in Chicago. Paula put me in contact with Nora Renick-Rinehart, a true force in the textile arts world, who executed the print, and the collection was born from there. My favorite piece is the printed leather top made of Horween's gorgeous and very sustainable vegetable-tanned leather, embellished with Paula's iconic print. I've had it for seven years and still wear it regularly. If you know me at all, you probably know this piece.
MOVE/REPEAT is our second collection, using textiles developed in collaboration with Mexico City-based artist Nuria Montiel and Chicago's The Weaving Mill. We used a lot of wrapped, cocooning, and blanket-like silhouettes that feel both protective and powerful. I think a lot about the transformative power of clothing— it's one of the best things about fashion— we can use clothing to help to step in and out of various identities. I was thinking a lot about how clothing can be a type of psychological armor as we walk through the world. My favorite piece in the collection is the first one I developed- the maxi crisscross in ZagSwag- a truly fabulous felted merino wool/cotton textile engineered by the geniuses at the Weaving Mill.
Photo by Meagan Shuptar. Model is Tracy Liu. HMU by Tanya Renelt
Part of your design philosophy involves a focus on ethical and sustainable fashion. What does sustainability in fashion mean to you, and how can consumers shop more sustainably?
Ethics and sustainability are really baked into Production Mode's model. That said, as with pretty much every fashion company, we have lots of room for improvement still, and thus are constantly reevaluating our materials and processes. When we launched in 2015, the term "slow fashion" was just starting to circulate. At that point, our practices of designing a very limited number of high-quality, made-to-measure, timeless pieces, using natural fibers and vegetable-tanned leathers, producing locally and paying a living wage to our cutters and stitchers, and being transparent about our sources was much more radical seeming than it is now—although I would argue that a very small percentage of brands that are actually enacting these practices throughout the bulk of their collections—many are just using the idea of sustainability to greenwash and sell more garments.
We are now reckoning with our fabric waste- some pieces are designed with more of a zero-waste mentality, others use the scraps we create as the raw materials for new, patchwork garments, and what we can't use will be downcycled into a fluff filler, thanks to a great new project created by The Weaving Mill. We also recently designed our first pieces out of a fiber made using regenerative agricultural methods, which are actually carbon positive versus carbon negative or even carbon neutral. During the pandemic, we also launched a visible mending service, and we are also developing a take-back program for our garments so that customers can more easily keep our garments out of the waste stream for as long as possible. We recognize that the most sustainable practice is to buy a limited number of high-quality pieces and to care for those pieces well so that they last as long as possible, and we do our best to support those practices.
Regarding what consumers can do to support sustainable initiatives in fashion- of course, supporting independent and truly sustainable brands with your dollars is important, but we cannot shop our way out of the environmental crisis. I realize as well that not everyone has the means to afford slow fashion brands. Beyond buying less overall and buying the highest quality goods you can afford, taking good care of your pieces, buying thrift and vintage, and participating in clothing swaps, consumers also have an important role to play in terms of pressuring brands to become more sustainable and transparent- especially large brands who have the means to create large scale change in the industry.
Additionally, consumers can push their lawmakers to support bills like the FABRIC act- a bill that would help to raise the floor for garment workers in the US so that paying at least a minimum wage to workers would be the norm, not the exception. It's my belief that we shouldn't have to research and wonder if the clothing we buy is made in sweatshops- we could collectively decide as a society that we simply won't allow this type of clothing to be sold anymore.
Photo by John Fromstein. Model is Jackie Yau. Styling / HUM: Laura De Sousa
What does being a part of Chicago's fashion community mean to you?
We love being part of Chicago's fashion community—it's super collaborative and non-competitive—the total opposite of the clichéd catty fashion world. Designers and artists are happy to help each other out and refer customers and service providers to one another. It can be more difficult in some ways to make and sell from Chicago since the infrastructure of fashion isn't particularly robust here, but there are also more opportunities to create that structure in ways that suit independent designers more than the typical fashion system.
Chicago also has a wealth of supportive clients who appreciate high-quality, independent design and love to support and connect more directly to brands and designers than is normally possible in the typical fashion system. Plus, we have relatively affordable rents here—at least compared to more well-known fashion cities like Los Angeles and New York. There's a true openness and freedom in working in Chicago. I think that's why we have so many great independent designers here.
