Two weeks before Kolla, I decided Ade was going to be there. Which, looking back, was slightly mad.
I did not have a finished collection waiting to be packed up. I had bags, samples, things I was still changing and ideas that had not properly come together yet. Suddenly I had two weeks to make enough, decide what was actually ready and work out what Ade was supposed to look like outside of my studio.
The first problem was obvious. I did not have enough bags. The space was much bigger than the amount of finished work I had, so for those two weeks I was constantly making. Pleating fabric, sewing bags, attaching hardware, finishing one thing and immediately moving onto the next.
Before this, I could spend so much time on one sample. I would make it, look at it, change something, look at it again, question the whole thing and sometimes change my mind completely. There was no time for that anymore. I needed actual pieces.
Strangely, making more helped. Seeing several bags together made things clearer than staring at one bag ever had. I could see the things I kept coming back to: the pleats, the softness, the folds and the way everything was being pulled and compressed. The more I made, the more I could see that these things were starting to belong together.
For the first time, the newer version of Ade was becoming something I could actually see in front of me. Not just an idea of what I wanted the brand to be, but actual things.
The glasses cases came even later. They were a completely last-minute decision because I felt like the pop-up needed something else. I wanted a smaller object that could sit beside the bags and still feel connected to them. I did not want to make something random just to have another product on the table, so I started making glasses cases using the same pleated fabric and some of the same softness as the bags. I had not planned some big expansion into accessories. I just thought they made sense there.
By the time Kolla arrived, I had spent so much time worrying about whether I would have enough to fill the space. Then I got there and realised that was not even the hardest part.
The table was full, but it did not feel right.
At first, everything was spread across the table and I kept looking at it thinking something was missing. It felt too flat. Too much like I had made a lot of things and simply put them down.
I wanted the pop-up to feel more special than that. I wanted it to feel interesting. I wanted someone walking past to stop because something about it made them want to look closer.
So I kept changing it, constantly. I changed the fabric covering the table, started building more height, grouped the bags differently, moved the mirror, moved the signs and moved the glasses cases. Then I moved everything again.
Every time I stepped away and looked back at the space, I saw something else I wanted to change. This was all while the pop-up was already happening.
I think that was the biggest thing I learnt from it. I had spent two weeks thinking the main problem was making enough to fill the space, but it was not. The harder part was making the space actually feel like Ade.
I do not think I fully worked that out on the day. Honestly, I know I did not. It was the first time Ade had existed like that in front of other people, and for the first time I could see that the way the work was shown mattered almost as much as the work itself.
I arrived at Kolla worried about whether I had made enough. I left thinking much more seriously about the world around what I make.
