On Lace, her Grandmother’s Influence and the Energy between People and Nature: In Conversation with MARIA BERNAD

My grandma used to paint. Actually the first collection was with the crochet of my grandma. When it actually was not a trend. 

Now everyone is doing patchwork crochet, but this was like four years ago. My grandma, she used to do crochet all her life and knit and she decided it was not modern anymore. Then she saw I was doing upcycling when I started the brand and she asked me if I wanted crochet. I was working with knitwear but I didn’t work with crochet yet. And then she just gave me a big box of beautiful crochet made by her, beautiful motifs, and then I made my first dress and people went crazy. I started working more with crochet and I started sourcing and then I moved to lace because crochet is very specific and not everyone likes it. Even personally, I think, after working with it for four years, I cannot see much.

Lace is another kind of work. I mean, crochet is not easy to make either, but with lace, the amount of hours that goes into it is extraordinary.

The 18th- and 19th-century lace that I use was made by hand. Of course, with industrialization, lace increasingly began to be produced by machine. But these earlier handmade pieces tell stories.

When I look at them, I think about the women who made them and the lives they lived. At a time when women’s lives could be much more restricted, needlework was also a space where they could express incredible skill and creativity. You see it in the lace the details, the patterns, the amount of imagination and time that went into making it. 

It’s just insane. They were so creative.

To find? Yes, it takes a while. There are personal sellers but it’s very difficult to find lace from a certain age and most of the time they are broken and you need to restore them. You need to have certain skills to be able to restore them. 

That is what I studied, restoration and conservation gave me sort of knowledge and then after fashion design and my focus on sustainability I’ve developed the skills.

I started studying art history first. I did one year in art and restoration of art. It’s like, you know the people who fix walls at Versailles? That was my dream job.

I was painting and I did art and I was very into the idea of restoring things and giving them a new life. When I was younger I was a very bad student. I was just horrible and very good in what I’ve loved.

So I was horrible in most of the things besides History and Art.

Naturally, yes. I would write everything about a piece I had only heard about once. So yes, it’s been happening to me since I was very young.

I think a big part of it is spiritual. And then there’s another part of me that just loves when things carry history. You know, I cannot really explain it. I cannot explain why I see one piece and immediately go there, why I feel so drawn to it. Sometimes I cannot even explain why I like it. I just do.

I’m very spiritual. I don’t believe ‘a God’, but I believe in energies. I believe in the energy that the planet gives us, and that two people can be connected through energy. We’re also connected to nature in that way, even though we’re constantly trying to disconnect ourselves from it. I think society is always going in the opposite direction.

And then there is craft. I really believe in craft because, to me, it represents the opposite of what is happening in society right now, everything related to AI, everything becoming so fast. It’s horrible for me to see how fast everything has become.

Craft is the opposite. It takes time. And I feel it’s coming back. I think we need to come back to understanding and appreciating what we have been making with our hands for centuries.

For me, It’s always been that concept that humans are related to nature generally, and we’re always stepping away from that – building cities or concrete and sometimes you don’t even have direct contact with nature. 

Women photographers started working with me because they liked the whole concept of the brand at the beginning, which was nature related to the woman’s body.

I was so traumatized by women in the past by bullying. I would be very toxic in my relationships with girls. But then little by little I started separating myself from this monster.

Women started approaching me, loving my work, helping me. I remember one of my close friends and a very talented stylist, she would be happy to work with me and help me because she loved the brand. She would also stay with me at the atelier so I would not be alone.

Suddenly I started liking a lot of female stylists and working with female photographers and of course, all my atelier of girls.

I used to believe in the love that my parents have, the most beautiful relationship ever. And I used to believe men cannot be bad because my dad is lovely. My dad is the most amazing man in the world and he treats my mom like a princess. So I couldn’t believe that men could be actually awful or they could hurt you.

Yes, I was more naive and I didn’t believe in the reality of that they can be awful to you sometimes, even on purpose.

I think it’s also very difficult for women to work right now, especially as young women. It’s so difficult right now being successful in a world of men. They have huge difficulty to understand that part sometimes and they can be with you and at the same time be jealous of you. 

I sometimes wonder why there aren’t more women designing for women, especially at the biggest fashion houses.

There are so many different bodies, proportions and ways of living in clothes. Sometimes you see these incredible silhouettes, and they can look amazing on a 190cm-tall woman, but I’m 163cm, so of course the same proportions are going to feel completely different on me.

I’m a skinny woman and I’m happy there are clothes that work for my body, but we’re not all the same. That’s really the point. I think there’s something valuable about designing from the experience of actually wearing these clothes; understanding how you move in them, how they feel on the body, how you live in them.

For me, I would simply love to see more women designers bringing that perspective into fashion.

Yeah, I think having a brand is about creating your own world. I’m telling you maybe it’s just time for us to make our own system and that’s what I’m trying to do with my brand. 

When I started with my brand, it would be like: Fashion Week, two shows a year, you do the show, you prepare for production, you sell, hold, save, next show… 

And you don’t need to follow that. It took me a while to understand. So I’ve stopped. Also because the base of the brand was about sustainability and I remember talking with the teams and saying that I don’t want to do seasons. And follow made to order and custom pieces and small collections was the right way for me. 

Why should I be joining the clan? Because people expect me to? Like why should we do shows all the time? Because people just expect me to do them. I love them because I love the whole performance but also if I want to do a show I’m going to be waiting for the right moment to do it. 

So if I’m ever doing something again, I want it to mean something. It’s just that you don’t need to follow what they tell you. But I think that you learn with it. I think everything came when I turned 30. I feel in my 20s, I was doing what everyone was expecting me to do. But it is nice to learn from your mistakes. 

And if we didn’t have mistakes, we would not learn anything either, so I don’t regret anything. Having a brand, to be honest, you really need to make so many mistakes. 

And also learn about who your target group is.

Yeah I think designing for bridal, people think it’s not creative. 

I mean they come to me because my designs are not normal obviously. But it’s extremely creative. They come with an idea and I need to do the drawings for them. They give freedom and they trust me and my crazy ideas and I love it.

Oh my god, yeah. Sometimes they come with their grandma’s lace or their grandma’s crochet… 

The most recent dress I made was connected to the story of the girl. The girl was really interesting because at the beginning she was going to wear a two-piece, top and pants. She didn’t want to wear a dress, because she didn’t feel like a bride. And then she saw my design and she was just, like “oh my god!”. I told her to try it on. She said “that’s the dress” and I remember as a very cute moment. 

It happened by mistake. I’m telling you, I never planned it.