The Maréa Collection

A Love Letter to the Tide

Maréa began with the customers asking for it. For a while now customers had told me they wanted my prints in swimwear.The name comes from the Italian/Spanish word fortidethe pull that draws the sea out and always, without fail, brings it home again. The prints in this collection were born somewhere near water, and the pieces in it is designed to return there.There's a quieter meaning underneath it too. Marea sits close in sound to Maria, the traditional form of Mary and it happens to be a name I already carry twice. It was my grandmother's name, and it's my own middle name. Naming this collection after the tide, I couldn't separate it from the women it also carries.

Colour

This collection like every other collection I have created celebrates colour. The vivid tones of Caribbean waters, the intricate forms of sun-bleached shells collected on shorelines that shaped who I am.

The Prints

The Shell Print is an archive of shoreline finds shells drawn by hand from collections of shells collected during walks along Caribbean beaches, rendered in my own illustrative style.

The Neon Palm is a vibrant resurrection of a beloved print from my debut Windrush collection, originally crafted using a traditional batik wax and ink technique I learned at a batik house in St. Kitts, the island my heritage is rooted in. Now reborn in electric colour, it carries that same island soul but brighter, freer, ready for a beach club instead of a front room.

The Pink Palm was born as a gift from me to my mother, long before it was ever a print in a collection. A love letter painted in blush and bright orange, drawn from the story of flamingos who surrender their colour to nurture their young, and bloom back into it once the nurturing is done. It felt right that a print about giving everything and returning brighter would find its way into a future collection.

Craft, Considered Down to the Thread

The swimwear and coverups in the Maréa collection are made from recycled plastic bottles, woven into fabric in Italy, sublimation printed in Altrincham avoiding water use, and made by my local Warrington family owned atelier. Nothing about this collection was rushed, and nothing about it was outsourced from the story. It is, like everything I make, British-made from a supply chain I know by name.

Maréa is my first swimwear collection, but it is not a departure it is the same shoreline I have always drawn from, now finally worn into the water itself.