Meet the Designer: Jana O'Callaghen
Kinney is heavily influenced by the desire to create streamlined, easy-to-wear styles that are essential to a well cultivated everyday wardrobe, with focus towards effortless style and casual-luxury. We interviewed Jana O’Callaghen; the talented designer behind the label.
Where do you call home? After living and working around Australia and the USA, Adelaide Hills in South Australia is now home for me. We have a small property with a couple of acres in the Adelaide Hills, and I love the sense of space and closeness to nature that I have here.
How did your career as a fashion designer begin? I initially studied patternmaking and garment construction in Adelaide for a year and then moved to Melbourne where I studied Fashion Design at RMIT University.
In the final year of my degree I assisted Designer Yeojin Bae in her studio, this was my first introduction to seeing into the world of an independent Designer and I also did a stint at County Road/Trenery.
I landed my first ‘real’ designer job at Free People in Philadelphia (USA) not long after finishing my degree. This was a very inspiring place to work and was highly creative for such a huge company. It was a dream drawing design inspiration from vintage pieces and being driven to create such unique styles during my time here. I Learnt so much!
What motivated you to start Kinney? After working in the industry for many years as a Designer for other businesses, I had a desire to return back to my home town and to take the plunge to start my own label. I had a strong direction in mind for how I envisioned Kinney to be: timeless, ageless, simplified styling with a subtle twist with a strong focus towards casual-luxury.
Fabrication and subtle details are important to me and this is something I wanted to focus on and explore within my own brand. I am strongly drawn to experimenting and perfecting washing/dying techniques that have a distressed and aged look with a beautiful hand feel. Deconstruction details such as hand fraying and exposed seams have also become a trademark of Kinney.
How would you describe your personal style? My personal style is quite minimalist and effortless. My day to day uniform tends to be either a slip dress or a jumpsuit, usually paired back with statement shoes, hair down and minimal makeup. I love and live in jumpsuits and coveralls and always include these options in my collections.
Run us through a normal day for you. Gosh, every day is different! I start every day going through emails and following up with my retailers and suppliers.
I am usually working on two-three seasons at any one time, so I am always juggling multiple things throughout my day like fitting samples, sourcing fabrics, testing new techniques, planning photoshoots and approving production specs.
Most weeks I will receive new samples from my suppliers which tends to be my favourite part of the day as I start to see my designs come to life and build the range for my new season.
I try to break away from the everyday general running aspects of my business during the design period so I can focus purely on designing and range planning. Having a clear head and being able to think creatively, without distractions is critical during this time.
What was your biggest challenge when starting Kinney and how did you overcome it? I have learnt that I can’t do everything myself! There are so many components of running a label and many that I have never had to be responsible for in past jobs. Kinney’s first season sold exceptionally well and I was fortunate that 100+ boutiques across Australia placed on my collection! Whilst this was very exciting it also elevated the amount of admin fast!!
When starting Kinney I was juggling everything on my own from designing, production, processing orders, logistics, planning photoshoots, packing orders and financial planning and the list goes on! After months of working on zero sleep I learnt very quickly that the key to a successful business is knowing when tasks need to be delegated and the importance of building a strong small team so I can focus on the important aspects of the business and areas that are my strongest!
Which element of your work do you thrive off the most? Absolutely designing! I put a great deal of time and thought into each and every piece in my collections.
I love the process of researching, sourcing inspiration and the planning that goes into every collection. I am very passionate about incorporating Australian Made pieces into my collections and love the challenge of creating streamlined styles that hold subtle interest and are suitable for Australian manufacturing, my focus when designing locally made styles is on unique silhouettes that are simple yet have very considered and unique silhouette using top quality fabrications from Europe and Japan.
Where can we find you on a Sunday? Sundays are a day of rest for me! You will usually find my at my favourite local Café- Harvest in Mylor for brunch with my husband and two dogs.
I love spending Sundays going for drives and discovering new local wineries (we have so many hidden gems in the Adelaide Hills).
This year Sundays will be dedicated to renovations on my stone house that was built in the late 1800s and trying to learn to like gardening as mine is currently very overgrown and needs some love.
If you could give your younger self any advice based on everything you know now, what would it be? My advice to my younger self would be to not worry so much, trust your ‘gut’ and to embrace the unknown.
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