Coffee with … Anais Mak

As a natural part of business, how do you deal with marketing today?

I work with a sales agent and a PR agent. I realised at a very early stage that I was going to focus more on doing my collections well and stay where I was strong. But I enjoy doing branding－it's about the statements you want to make with your brand, ultimately. We do all the images, art direction and graphic co-branding in-house, but then how to actually push the things to a bigger audience… that's the responsibility of the PR machine.

Jourden was nominated as one of the LVMH Prize 2015 semi-finalists. What was the competition like?

I didn't believe in competition before, because I think there's a disconnect between celebration of creativity and actually making a brand sustainable, as well as having a real appeal in the market and being commercially successful. But the LVMH Prize was more, in the sense that… there were more than 1,000 applications that year, with 26 semifinalists including Vetements, Off-White, Jacquemus, and Chinese brands such as Sankuanz and Simon Li. We brought our collection to the showroom in Paris for three days, where they had a panel of judges, consisting of editors, buyers, models, bloggers and designers. It was really monumental for me.

What's the inspiration for Jourden?

My only inspiration is the "girl of the present". I'm always very reactive to my own surroundings. I like to talk to all kind of girls－all ages or all styles. I think girls and their desires are more complex than we understand. So when I produce a collection, I always bear in mind this complexity. Practically, stores try to categorise brands with price points and a certain aesthetic. So they give us names such as "developing designer" or "advanced contemporary group". But during my creative process, my only inspiration is "girls of the present".