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Based in Portland, Oregon, and New York City, Ace & Jig is more than your average womenswear brand. Each of their seasonless pieces is designed down to the very thread. Founders Cary Vaughan and Jenna Wilson create custom yarn-dye woven textiles in collaboration with Fair Trade Certified™ partners in India. Those fabrics are turned into beautiful, breezy collectsions that feel joyful and unique. For their latest line, the duo teamed up with Projecthrive to incorporate hand-crocheted elements by female artisans in underserved communities. We chatted with Cary and Jenna about this partnership, their commitment to sustainability, and their favorite pieces from the new collectsion (how can you choose!), below.
Ace & Jig is unique in that you create your own textiles. How does that influence the overall design process?
Our textiles are the heart of our brand, and what we believe truly sets us apart. Since each textile is designed in-house, and yarn-dyed and woven from scratch, our design process takes much more time. We pass our new fabric concepts to our weaving team, and they create “desklooms,” or small first drafts of each fabric. Once we see these, we tweak the color, pattern, weight, and feel until it gives us that magic feeling. Only then do we begin dreaming up the style designs for each textile. The entire process can take anywhere from six months to over a year.
We love having the creative freedom to make whatever textile we can think of, and love stretching the limits of warp and weft. We’ve created textiles that remind us of our favorite denim, or a classic quilt, or an intricate floral…and so many more!
What does it mean to be 100% GOTS Certified Organic Cotton and Fair Trade Certified?
Since our beginnings, we’ve been committed to creating things sustainably, but having a third party recognize, encourage, and certify that commitment has been empowering and invigorating.
We are now in our fourth year of being Fair Trade Certified, a landmark we are very proud of. Fair Trade USA serves as a third-party support system and certifier that promotes and ensures sustainable livelihoods, employee empowerment and community, safe working conditions, and environmental protections. When you choose to purchase Fair Trade Certified™ products, you’re supporting a global movement putting people and the planet first.
GOTS certification ensures that our organic textiles are made with non-GMO organic cotton. GOTS organic cotton is grown without the use of synthetic pesticides, herbicides, or genetically modified organisms. This production process sustains and encourages the health of ecosystems, soils, and people.
What is Projecthrive and how did you begin collaborating with them?
Over the years, we’ve found many ways to collaborate with different artists and artisans. When we started working with Projecthrive, we knew right away that this partnership would be ongoing!
Projecthrive is an initiative to mobilize fashion supply chains to have far-reaching social and environmental impacts. Through artisan collaborations, we partner with Projecthrive to create unique products that have tangible social and environmental effects. In partnership with Projecthrive, we’ve created home goods, tote bags, masks, and more.
This Spring/Summer, we collaborated with Projecthrive to create a limited run of styles featuring hand-crocheted details. Each style in the collectsion features handmade crochet created by female artisans in purdah. Crochet is a traditional art form in these communities, and each piece is unique.
What inspired you to incorporate hand-crocheted elements into your latest collectsion?
As textile enthusiasts, we've collectsed bits and samples of crochet during our travels for over two decades. To design this collectsion, we compiled these references and developed our own unique crochet design. We loved the interplay of our Spring textiles with the crochet patterns.
We designed our shell-textile collectsion (Beachcomber, Sandcastle, Biscayne, and Islamorada) with beach days and warm evenings in mind. Cary grew up in Virginia Beach and has such nostalgia for long summer beach days. These vibrant textiles remind us of our favorite summer days.
What are a few of your favorite pieces from the current collectsion?
Jenna: My favorites are the Ramona Skirt Biscayne & Colette Top in Islamorada. I love anything NEON!
Cary: My favorite is the Beth Dress in Ganache—it’s so chic, easy, and I’m obsessed with this new shape!
