California born, Milan based JJ Martin is in the business of joy. With her brand, La DoubleJ she is driven by the brand motto “raise your vibration.” JJ is inspired in equal part by vintage finds, her Italian surroundings and a close connection to her own spirituality – in addition to Creative Director, she also serves as La DoubleJ’s CSO: Chief Spirituality Officer.

To find out more, Leith took a trip to the brand’s new HQ in Milan, a space featuring a Gong Temple as prominently as its fashion and home design floors, to find out more about how her friend JJ crafted her eclectic, electric community driven brand.

So first things first, take us back to the beginning: when did you start the brand?

This year is our 10th year, but I’ve only been making collections for eight years because the first two years I was selling vintage rather than my own creations. Exactly ten years ago I started DoubleJ as a website selling my collection of vintage jewellery and clothing.

At the time, I was showing the pieces on all of these creative, wonderful women in Milan, insanely chic women like Angela Mazzoni or Rosalinda or Nini Shah. We were taking shots of them in their home and talking about how they lived these impossibly chic lives as an Italian.

Eventually I created one new dress in 2016. And by 2017, I had a mini collection. It was very slow to start with. I kept my job as an editor for the first two years of the brand, as I had no idea if this thing was going to work or not.

Everything at La DoubleJ has been a process of instinct and intuition. There hasn't been a lot of business planning and investors: it was never done that way and a lot of it had to do with building relationships.

The motto of our company is Raise Your Vibration, so that's what we're trying to do. How can we give you a mood boost? For many people, that's through colour, that's through pattern, but for other people it’s a new meditation technique or introducing them to a healer, or a different kind of yoga: there's so many different ways to do it.

Feeling and emotion feels very prevalent in La DoubleJ. Was that your incentive?

One element of our Raise Your Vibration motto is asking how fashion can be a way to empower women, rather than being something that they are attracted to out of fear of not being enough, not having enough or not looking enough.

I love the idea that fashion is an avenue or a portal for women, giving them permission to be fully themselves as a form of expression. And that's why we focus so much on the silhouettes, for example, are they flattering? Can a woman love wearing this.

It's very exciting to be one of the first to see your new La DoubleJ headquarters. What an incredible space, so full of light. Why Italy? When did you first move to Milan?

I moved here in 2010, and I launched La DoubleJ in 2015. So, 15 years. I was obsessed with vintage, I was obsessed with Italy and I was obsessed with the Italian women. How they cooked, how they decorated, how they entertained. How they dress themselves. Everything.

I call Italy the motherland. Because it has such a feminine energy to it, whereas America has a real masculine energy: go, go, go, do, do, do. Are you being ambitious enough? Have you been successful?

Here, they'll ask you. What did you eat last night? Where did you go on vacation? They really don't care what your job is. These were all the lessons that I learned that helped make a company that was more like a matriarchy.

Can you tell us about your spiritual journey and how you integrate that in to La DoubleJ?

During Covid I started sharing some of the tools, some of the techniques, some of the teachers, in my own practice. And we had this overwhelmingly positive response from the women in our community: it felt like people realised that we were all alone together

The mission of La DoubleJ has always been to create an energy elevating experience. At the very beginning I was transmitting that through joy in the colours, the prints. In my vintage collection, I don't think I had a single black dress. Everything was printed, everything was sparkling and illuminated, alive with life force.

Today, we have a community called the Sisterhood. It’s a community of women who are really interested in the consciousness and the spirituality, we do a lot of events and workshops either in LA or online. We've hosted over 100 spiritual events from channels to crystal healings, meditations, yoga, all sorts of things.

You said you see your clothes as a service to women; I love that sentiment. What does that mean to you?

I think that is a really important consideration, how can we as designers be of service to people? I'm imagining a 22-year-old and a 98-year-old and making sure there are things in the collections for both. How do those differ?

There used to be this taboo about an older customer and now the world is changing. Have you seen Heidi Klum or Elizabeth Hurley recently? They're in their 60s and they look fantastic! People are going to be really excited about fashion, I think, until they're much older.

You’ve been in Liberty for a long time now, what’s that relationship like for you?

Liberty was one of the very first retailers to give us a shop space. Many, many years ago in 2018, maybe 2017. I feel like Liberty, with their heritage, with the prints and my obsession with prints: we have a common language, a common love for pattern, for that energy that is coming off of swirling, swishing, pulsating print.

It always feels so elevated to be at Liberty. The building itself feels like an enchanted fairy house.

Liberty 150 by Leith Clark.