JESS EATON ROADKILL TO READY-TO-WEAR
JESS EATON PORTRAIT: MELISSA BUCHANAN
ALL OTHER IMAGES COURTESY OF JESS EATON
Jess Eaton is a commanding but gentle maverick of a
designer and a woman aflame in her forties with a firmly planted stance and
creative vision across all disciplines of the art and fashion world.
For decades this go-to stylist, with a long career and careers in fashion, make-up and the
European music industry, has aligned her talents, direction and creations with
the great names of Lady gaga, Kate Moss and yes, even the enduringly resilient
and curiously cultish American star David ‘The Hoff’ Hasselhoff.
As Jess Eaton is poised to combine all her productive
powers on the next stage of ‘Jess Eaton Brand Building’ with her first
ready-to-wear range and more sumptuous couture gowns, I talk the talk with the strident designer about her upcoming plans.
We meet Jess at her EatonNott interior design shop, home to her renowned Roadkill Couture bespoke design label.
EatonNott is co-owned and run with her life partner, artist Jon Nott. Jess also discusses her exercise to attract
an equally formidable financial partner to work with her to take the Jess Eaton
label global.
Roadkill Couture
PJ: Jess, tell us about
you and Lady gaga.
JESS EATON: I had a very urgent email from a stylist
in New York the other morning requesting garments. It seems that gaga was gaga
about my range…my Roadkill Couture…all of it. I had items couriered over to New
York straight away. I think they wanted just about everything in the shop. I
don’t know what items were used and how though. They said she wanted the range
for a film they were making of her latest tour or something, to be worn on the
stage or shown in the background. You know, I don’t really know but the fact
that gaga even knows who I am and what I create is enough for me.
They came to me. Usually designers submit their pieces
to these stars’ PA’s and PR’s and their stuff just ends up on the PA’s backs…or
their bins. It’s just wonderful that they even know who I am. Until they want you you’re not interesting at
all and then someone like Lady gaga comes along…
Whatever their brief was, my pieces fit and as I say,
I’m just delighted that they even know I exist…little ‘ole me, in my little
‘ole studio, here down in little ‘ole Brighton in the little ‘ole UK.
PJ: Give us some
background on your little ‘ole shop.
JESS EATON: My workshop itself is in EatonNott, the
shop business I have with my partner Jon Nott. That’s just one business I have
but I also work as a freelancer as well. I’m Jess Eaton the designer and Jess
Eaton the artist as well.
Eaton Nott is in Preston Circus, Preston Road, Brighton.
Here you can select from a range of hand crafted objets d’art by Jon or myself
and order bespoke items from my fashion range. Essentially we are conceptual
artists and EatonNott is a boutique and studio offering the ‘unusual, desirable
and bizarre’ as our homepage states. We attract all sorts of shoot stylists,
fashion stylists and interior designers looking for that something that cannot
be sourced easily or at all.
Kate Moss
LOVE Magazine
PJ: Now you reign over
EatonNott but tell us about your long history of work both here and abroad.
JESS EATON: I started out as a cabaret artist in
Brighton as it happens and that took me abroad on tour and that’s when I fell
for a German man and moved to Frankfurt. I moved there for love. I was
headhunted as a model but I wasn’t interested in modelling so I lied and said I
was a make-up artist and was immediately booked!
That was my first job. It opened the doors to the
varied jobs in fashion and I quickly found my niche but that was fashion within
the music industry. There you could be really creative and think outside of the
box finding new ideas and creating identities for performers branding their
stage and personal images.
I worked in commercials too. I remember doing
something for Persil or something like that. It was a photo shoot and they were
having this heavy discussion as to whether the housewife’s hair should flick
inwards or outwards…and I just didn’t care. I actually couldn’t give a F***. I
knew I was wrong in this area. I actually didn’t even know what a housewife
looked like!
I’m too rock and roll. So I basically stayed in the
music industry with a lot of high-end, high-profile people and famous acts that
booked me around the world as their personal MUA (make-up artist).
PJ: Any name bombs you
wanna drop?
JESS EATON: Well, you know? Not really. Not my style.
A lot of 90’s Euro stars who were mainly well known to European and some Asian
audiences. They wouldn’t have been particularly well known in the UK and
certainly, for the most part not today although I did do people like the Hoff.
I’m not what you would call easily star struck? I just get on with my brief.
But you know, the only person I was really, really nervous of doing was Nina
Hagen THE Grandmother of Punk Rock. I
remember that. As I say, I’m not one to be awestruck, star struck…whatever. I’m comfortable around big names and that’s
why I think I booked so much work, more than most and I had good working
relationships with my clients and friendships developed from there.
Ha! I remember I was at a shoot one day and one of my
clients said…with a sort of frustration in her voice… “Where do you get all
your stuff from? You always look so cool.”
Well back then I had time. I didn’t have a child or
anything so I used to make my own clothes. So my client said, “You’ve got to
make me something!” and I did. I made her something for her next video and
that’s how I then got into actual clothes fashion. I came up with my Redesign brand of fashion.
PJ: What was the next fold
in the fabric of the Jess Eaton career?
JESS EATON: So it all came together from there really.
The recording companies brought me further in yet as an overall stylist;
make-up, hair and clothes and my own Redesign visions were combined, not
theirs, to create stars of their acts.
PJ: What was the process
of your star-making machinery?
JESS EATON:Well I’d go out with the person, the act, and have a cup of coffee with them and get to know them
more intimately…I’d imagine being that person, slip into their skin if you’d
like.
And I’d imagine from there what they’d like to convey,
what they’d like to wear and then I’d basically dress me…as them…and it worked!
I think that’s why I have trouble making men’s clothes
because I’m very woman and all my clothing is part of me. They all speak
something of my character.
All women have so many facets, you feel playful,
romantic, fierce…you have all these different things and so that’s how I dress
myself…as to how I’m feeling. That’s how I design clothes as well. Some of my
stuff is very innocent looking and some are really sexy; Über Sexy!
I continued my work in the record industry like that
for quite a few years. I stayed in the music and music video game flying
literally all over the world with clients and all the while I had a large
studio in Frankfurt and made Redesign outfits for the stars but also for big
companies like Nestle, Kimberly Clarke,
Evian, Proctor & Gamble etc., using their actual product packaging to
make amazing outfits used in their events and PR shows. These would be highly
photographical costumes produced for press and product placement and so on.
Each item was very expensive and I looked after them and even arranged the
models for these events providing a complete service for each client. In the
end it got boring but I made loadsa money. In 1998 I staged a Redesign fashion
show which was my first Trashion Show,
using found materials like plastic bags, old umbrellas and other recyclable
items.
Actress& Pop Star Toyah Wilcox Hosts BFW Trashion Show
PJ: What then brought you
from the big meat of Frankfurt to the fish and chips of Brighton once more?
JESS EATON: Eventually I decided to come back to the
UK because my personal life went a bit skewiff. I came home to Brighton and
thought, ‘Right, what can I do to get
noticed?’ to say ‘Britain, I’m back!’
Because I’d had this really successful career to this
point but it was abroad I thought,
‘Right. I’ll do the Trashion Show again!’ It was still a fresh concept even
though it was 10 years later, it was still good. Now though I was in a cramped
flat with a young son frying fish fingers and trying not to burn down the house
setting alight to 60 umbrella dresses hanging from the kitchen ceiling!
That show was a hit with Brighton Fashion Week (then
Brighton Frocks) and I subsequently went on to more shows, like RoadKill, that
resulted in my becoming the only designer to showcase solo to huge audiences.
PJ: Roadkill was as
controversial as it was successful as the gowns and outfits were made with
organic animal materials and parts. You did well right after each show, especially
after the last catwalk extravaganza. Tell us more.
JESS EATON: I created Roadkill Couture under the
EatonNott label. It was that time that Jon and I incorporated our shared
passions in our shop. He suggested we form EatonNott. All showings at BFW were
well received and all of them raised eyebrows. I was working with remains of
actual road kill and dead animals that were found and donated. I had difficulty
sourcing items and animal materials for the first show because I had not formed
my connections yet. I taught myself how to render workable materials from the
remains of things that had met their end as road kill or by other natural
means. Nothing was harmed but it still shocked people. The creations were so
beautiful that that initial shock soon subsided and the craftsmanship of the
pieces could now be understood and admired. I did three shows and the second
was the one I most admired. The third was staged by popular demand. After that
one Roadkill couture was splashed across national newspapers and got mentions
in fashion blogs within 24 hours.
I was really fortunate to have Kate Moss fall in love
with a piece she modelled for LOVE
Magazine and that helped to cement my credentials further…it was a spectacular
achievement for me. And now Lady gaga. This has all been really fantastic but
now Roadkill has reached the top. I think it’s done…unless I get an email from
the Palace saying Queen Elizabeth II wants stuff, I think it’s done. I have a
new direction now. You know, it’s very limiting what you can do with a pair of
wings.
PJ: Is Roadkill
dead?
JESS EATON: I will still do bespoke pieces from the
shop but for me as an artist I’ve moved on.
PJ: So the new stuff?
ESS EATON: Well now it is going to be a sort of lifestyle range
with jewellery, candles, crafted items as well as fashion available online from
my new website. I want to have products you can purchase easily, more
affordable and easy to wear and that I can replicate like my jewellery and
prints. I want to become a designer that makes money using the clout I’ve
developed over the years and optimise the brands I’ve become. I will be going
more into ready-to-wear. The couture is not gone I’ve already begun the next
line.
PJ: And your new couture
vision?
JESS EATON: Fabulous, funky and outrageously
sumptuous! Now let’s build that next big show in London! But make sure you
mention that this time it’s me who is doing the shopping…for that savvy and
suave business partner who wants to make money from fashion too.
Jess
Eaton creations can be viewed on Google as Jezz Eaton too.
www.jesseaton.com EATONNOTT 26 Preston Rd,
Brighton BN1 4QF Phone:01273 911634
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