We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Hannah James. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Hannah below.

Hannah, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Are you happier as a creative? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job? Can you talk to us about how you think through these emotions?

Being a professional artist is a very twisted thing. You make all this work in order to feel a connection with yourself, if it’s any good you try to capitalize off of it, and then all of your self-worth gets tied up in this thing that doesn’t make you enough money, and you end up resenting what you used to love most about yourself. What started as your biggest release is now your greatest source of stress. Throw that in with being both the boss of your company and its only employee, and things get very emotionally complex and scary. I am constantly in the weeds, adding things to a to-do list that has never once been finished, working long hours at a restaurant that is very mentally and physically demanding to keep the lights on, and struggling to find balance. I’ve actually tried quitting more times than I can count, but that’s when some of my best ideas end up coming to me and I draw myself right back in. I just really love doing this, and I’m always going to do it no matter what. Sometimes I daydream of having a more regular life, but it never takes me long to decide that it would be worse. I’d rather be poor and stressed out for the rest of my life than doing something I don’t care about.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I learned to sew from my grandmother when I was eight or nine years old, and I’ve been doing it ever since. I later received my BFA in textile design, and started this brand soon after realizing no one wanted to hire someone with a BFA in textile design. I started making things just for fun, people started asking if they could buy them, and I decided to start this teeny little business. Hannah James Studio is a space I created for myself where I get to do whatever I want—could be woodworking, or leather crafting, or glass blowing, whatever—but for now it’s clothing. I design, sew and dye clothing by hand in my small home studio. I do this slowly, in very small batches, using high-quality natural fibers. Everything is made with a commitment to sustainability, accessibility and inclusivity, and with the idea that fashion should never take itself too seriously. I have no dreams of making it big or transforming the fashion industry—I like being small and I want to stay small. My hope is that I have an impact on the community, that I make a few people here and there feel better in their skin, that I encourage a couple folks to break their fast-fashion habits and be more conscious of where their money is going. I want to honor the process of making a garment, to produce something worth keeping and adoring and passing down. I want to make work that provokes real connection. I want to inspire confidence and playfulness in women who all look different from each other. I take the job seriously, but at the end of the day I do this for fun, and I want people to have fun when they wear my clothes. Whenever I see that coming to life is when I feel most proud.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

When I first started out I was selling at a very high volume store in Atlanta. I was making a pretty decent amount of money, and I hastily quit my job to focus on my design work. Soon the demand got out of control, and I wasn’t able to produce quickly enough to keep up with it. The store owners pushed me to re-work the fundamentals of what I do to make more money and save time—use cheaper synthetic materials, buy pre-printed fabrics, stop dyeing my garments, etc. I reluctantly made a small run of pieces like this, and they sold, and I made money, and I wish I could track them down where they are today and rip my labels out. I didn’t do anything like this again, and eventually the owners dropped me as a vendor. I was absolutely crushed. I felt like a complete failure, I wasn’t making any money, I couldn’t afford rent or anything else. I had to start working in restaurants again, an industry I had just triumphantly left a small few months earlier. My first successful endeavor as a designer ended quickly, and I was defeated and ashamed. I just kept making things, reminding myself that slow fashion is supposed to happen slowly, and that the reason I started my own business was so I could do everything exactly how I wanted to. Five years later, I am still in the service industry (something I am now very grateful for), growing my business slowly and carefully, and making work that I feel genuinely proud of. I still have to practice resilience and wrestle with failures on a constant basis, but after doing this for long enough you realize that’s all just part of it. You just keep going.

(I would like to note that I don’t mean any offense to this store or its owners—they are very kind and excellent at what they do, and helped me out a lot. It just wasn’t the right fit.)

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The most rewarding part of doing this work is when I see myself improving. Teaching myself new skills, learning how to do things I thought were impossible and getting good at them. I don’t have any formal education in clothing design—everything I know is something either my grandmother taught me or I taught myself, and a lot of the time I feel like I actually have no idea what I’m doing. I’m always trying to prove to myself that I’m capable of doing/making anything despite my own perceived inadequacy, and it feels very gratifying when that’s true. It’s this precious little corner of my life where I feel very powerful.

Contact Info:

• Website: hannahjamesstudio.com
• Instagram: @hannahjames_studio