MEET ‘AE in Rainbow and SEASHELLS
We are super excited to bring these two prints to you. They are our first creations since pivoting back toward making bags and other accessories again, so it has been a breath of fresh air to make a collection of something other than masks (though we love our masks!).
If you are familiar with the JANA LAM brand you may know that typically when we release a new collection, we do it in a specific color way or set of colors. For ‘Ae, our first piece in the Native Collection, the obvious choice for those colors were white on our army green fabric. Finally though, we have flipped it, and for the first installment of color ways, we have done it in none other than rainbow. We had to. It’s just so good. See below for a little bit of info behind this special design.
xx,
‘Ae in Rainbow
This uncommon endemic Hawaiian fern is beautiful but tough. It thrives even in the most desolate of habitats, like a lava field. Its beauty contrasted with its adaptability is part of the charm elicited from the freckles dancing through its irregular fronds. It’s the first installation of the Native Collection and was inspired by a visit to Hui Kū Maoli Ola, a cultural and ecological native plant nursery on O’ahu. I was so excited by everything I saw on my visit there, that I had a hard time picking what to make first. ‘Ae, though, was really interesting and a little challenging because I wanted to capture it as realistically as possible instead of stylizing it like I usually do. It captured my attention and was definitely one of my favorites.
Seashells
Back in 2015 I created a collection inspired by walks along the beach outside our home with my young, toddler son. The central print of that collection was called Shellini. We used to pick up tons of tiny little shells and put them in a jar. I loved that print a lot, especially what it represented to me, but my designer eye told me that it was time for an update. So I remade Shellini; in fact, gave it a complete makeover, and now we have Seashells. For this first installment we chose a soothing ombré of blues and beige. The ocean has been a source of tranquility for many of us on the islands (even though we are mostly to keep away from it at this moment in time on O’ahu.). So I wanted to use those colors in an attempt to bring a sense of comfort and calm to everyone in this crazy Corona time.
Seashells is the newest print in the Jana Lam catalog as of 8/10/2020. Every so often certain designs will start to make me antsy. Shellini is one such design. For years I wanted to change it up and put an editing hand to it. Finally I set my mind to it, but instead of editing it as I intended, I completely redid it and so the resulting print is a fully reimagined version of Shellini. Interestingly enough, Seashells is probably the most true to life of all the Jana Lam prints except for ‘Ae (see above) which was drawn purposefully to look just like the actual fern. For this design, I drew a few shells from actual photos, and for others I combined parts and pieces from different shells and put them together. Sometimes I made them up altogether. I will always be fond of this print because when I was tracing all the shells from my pencil drawing of them (and there were more, it’s actually been edited down, with shells taken out), I was totally in the zone and only goofed up and used white out once or twice. I’m proud of the precise and detailed nature of this new print, and I hope you love it!
Jana Lam is a Honolulu, Hawaii based design company that focuses on products and accessories for an endless summer. Lam's beach front home once served as the production house of her handmade in Hawaii line of one-of-a-kind, hand-printed and sewn apparel and home accessories. In Fall 2017, printing and production moved out of the home studio, and the Jana Lam Studio + Shop was opened in Kaka'ako.
Written by Jana Lam
