Here comes the sun — Joined Feeling set to release a new summer collection
Published:Friday | August 5, 2022 | 12:07 AMKerese Oakley-Williams/Gleaner Intern
Sunshine, radiance, and joy. This is the mission of the recently established fashion brand, Joined Feeling, founded in the summer of 2020 by Emma Miles.
“I wanted to create something that would bring colour and life,” the young artist stated in a telephone interview with Living.
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Miles took a bold leap of faith and decided to create a brand that would be out of the ordinary, starting with the name of the brand. “Grapheme-Colour Synesthesia led to the inspiration behind the brand name. I did not want the name to be obvious; I wanted it to be a phrase or a sentence,” said Miles. ‘Synesthesia’ translates to ‘joined feeling’, and thus the brand was christened.
The pieces are “100 per cent cotton, made in Jamaica and hand dyed by me,” Miles shared. Each tie-dyed shirt is created to highlight the vibrant culture of Jamaica, happiness and joy. “That was mainly my mission, also just to make each customer feel confident and to brighten their day. I wanted to create a feeling that would invoke colour vibrance and happiness.” she continued.
With summer in full swing, the brand is preparing to release a new collection of tie-dyed items. On August 10, the Feels Like Summer collection will be available for purchase. “I wanted to create something that would exude the true feeling of summer,” the Campion College and McGill University graduate stated. “With this line, I knew that I wanted to put a collection out for the summertime. I wanted to create something that would exude fun, colour and the true feeling of summer, how everyone would want to feel around this time of the year.”
The preparation of the collection was a process of trial and error. A friend had suggested that Miles play music when she worked. With that, she began to listen to ‘60s and ‘90s music, which helped her to figure out the creative direction for her pieces. For many days, Miles spent her time experimenting with colours and techniques. “It was a lot of trial and error, especially with choosing what colours to use. Essentially there were a lot of days where I was just experimenting and the suggestion to play the music I was listening to at that time really helped. In the end, I decided on using only three colours for the collection. So, throughout the entire collection, there are only three colours,” she said.
Using the colours lilac, hot pink and yellow only, Miles made the collection. She used a total of six techniques, one of which includes the ice-dye technique. “Even when a piece looks like it has maybe six or seven colours, that was created only using three colours,” she said.
Miles hopes the collection will inspire the celebration of the summer season, no matter the temperature. “I think we have all just had a really hot summer, and I know sometimes people can see that as a burden or a bad thing, but I just wanted to bring back some positive feeling to do with this time of the year. A [feeling] of excitement and celebration,” she said.
Joined Feeling has many fun and exciting projects on the horizon. “We just released a bucket hat and a spaghetti tank [and] we actually have a pop-up coming up next Friday... This is our first collection that is going to feature our bucket hats and cropped spaghetti tanks as part of the collection, so that is exciting as well.” This event will take place on Friday, August 12, at the My Ja Store.