Hi! I am Cassandra.
I am a Dutch national, raised in Singapore, Austria and Japan via the expat international school system. By the time I was ten, I had visited most of South East Asia. I finally settled in Bali.
I graduated from Central St Martin’s School of Art in London with a fashion and printed textiles degree. I then spent 20 years both as an employee and as an entrepreneur. Working with well known European and US fashion brands at both value end and high end in Hong Kong, provided me with first hand experience in China production and sourcing. While as an entrepreneur I created several fashion brands in womenswear, handbags and jewellery. My main passion has always been using waste materials in a value-added way.
It’s this combination of East/West mix, and experience at various ends of the fashion industry, plus a keen interest in sustainability that culminated in the expertise that I can offer to fashion brands today.
Print design
Anything can be a print. But a good print has to be very specific to a brand. I worked on print trends and print stories with high street brands such as Warehouse, Next and Lane Bryant and also sold prints directly to fashion houses in Paris, New York and London. Additionally I exhibited my own printed fashion label at London Fashion Week as a New Generation designer.
Fashion design
Most recently I worked with iconic fashion brand Totem, created by a Brazilian surf legend. Our team spent a lot of time honing each new garment to match with the brand’s bold prints, work with the unique fabric properties of viscose, and fit its specific customer demographic. Talk to me about your womenswear design needs.
Accessories design
I created a handbags brand as well as a jewellery brand based around a recycled concept. The “handbags with the recycled trim” used a generations old fabric scrap folding and stitching technique which were applied as trimming to leather and vegan leather bags. These were sold in ASOS, Anthropologie and a selection of boutiques in the US and Australia. After this brand folded I created Emi & Eve: jewellery collections made from bullet and other war remnants waste by artisans in Cambodia and Bali. The brand is distributed by an Italian agent alongside Trollbeads to over 50 luxury jewellery boutiques across Italy.
Brand design
A brand logo is more than a graphic representational of the product. It needs to represent the brand culture and story as well. It’s only after workshopping the brand identity and desired audience character that we can come to a unique creative solutions for the brand expression. Get in touch if you need to get clear on your brand.
The extra sauce I bring to the table:
As an entrepreneur I have to continuously figure things out and learn. For example:
- How and where to manufacture
- How to use waste materials with commercially acceptable and scalable results
- Dealing with the logistics of international borders between production and sales
- How to develop on-brand finishing
- Handling cultural differences and work ethics with producer groups
…to name but a few. Read more in my blog here.
Drop me a line at cpostema@gmail.com. I’m happy to chat without obligation.