Lifelong spiritual seeker JJ Martin brought her La DoubleJ fall collection to life at San Paolo Converso, a church that once belonged to a convent and since being deconsecrated in the early 19th century has functioned as a recording studio and an art exhibition space.
Called “Awakening the Divine,” the collection took inspiration from Martin’s summertime spiritual journey down the Nile in Egypt, and the influence could be seen in the house prints, which are getting more engineered, with elaborate cat, scarab, falcon, ankh and papyrus motifs this season.
The designer worked with more body-inclusive silhouettes, including a high-waist dress with full skirt, expanded ready-to-wear to capes, trench coats, velvet pants suits, and more jersey pieces, and introduced denim with hand-placed prints on jackets, skirts, and high-waist jeans, to wear with her signature “Raise the Vibration” tees.
She is clearly working at widening her brand, interpreting the spirit of intricate patterns and embroideries on more accessible pieces, solids and graphic knits.
Martin’s most recent trip (pun intended) involved doing plant medicine with an Indigenous tribe in Brazil, which could show up as a collection soon. “It’s interesting to have these different experiences in Egypt or Sedona, Arizona, and it’s fun to show all this in a church, which at one point was a holy place,” she said. “All of these things are sacred symbols, they cross, and I love playing with that and mixing it all up.”
