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Shevanne Helmer

Interview Phadria Prendergast

The family run, female led luxury brand Helmer is the story of a mother and her two daughters, whose ethos is to give back. WOTC sat down to speak with the momager of the company, Shevanne Helmer, as she shared what it was like in the beginning, being ethical and her lockdown experience. 

Phadria: How did it all begin for you? How did you even get to this point, you know? Did it look like this for you at the beginning? 

Shevanne: Well, I am the mother of the show. So, I have always been designing. I think that was something that was in my blood lineage. I’ve done it since I was a child. I've always been drawing clothing for some reason (laughs) and making clothes. So actually, I studied communication, arts and journalism because being from a Jamaican family, that was not that was not a choice - to become a designer. When you said ‘designer’, it still meant a glorified seamstress to my mother. I made it my past time and that's when I suddenly found myself married with two kids very early. I thought that I had a lot of time. I was living in the south of France. Lots of time. Lots of time. Lots of time. 

I started designing and making clothes again. I started a brand called Iroko. I discovered Africa. I went to Africa and I discovered all this amazing material. I really fell in love with it and wanted to put that in clothing. I was thinking ‘how can I promote Africa in a way that was never seen before?’ At least, I've never seen it before, right?

“I was thinking ‘how can I promote Africa in a way that was never seen before?’”

So, imagine in the 80s, in the US, you had African material, but it was never mainstream. It was never featured. Is anything chic? It was more like ethnic wear. So, I wanted to make it something that you could wear every day; cute, casual dresses. So, that’s what I did. I made the whole line. I had different stores. And I did that for seven years until I got another son. I closed my business and me, myself, I started working for other designers in Paris. 

I had never made bags but it's a creative process for me. The only reason it’s so funny, like serendipity - we started to do bags, we happened to be in Bali, we met these great artisans that we were introduced to and really fell in love with them. We made a series of bags for ourselves. So, we worked with them to develop a bag that we liked and, really, it was just a personal thing. It started out with us wanting to make this ultimate bag that was just light and easy to fold because we were travelling quite a bit at the time. I thought ‘why are we buying Goyard bags for like seven hundred pounds?Why don't we make something that is just as practical, just as light, you know, made by the artisans? ‘And so, that's how we kind of started. 

I've always been designing and looking around as a young black girl. I never saw any black designers. I mean, I saw black designers, black male designers at the time, but I couldn’t see women, which was confusing because, I'm like, it's clothing, right? So, where are the women designing clothes for women? So that was also for me, was always one of my motivations to always stay in and then I started to see these big brands that were family run; Hermes, Missoni. At the time, I thought, ‘wouldn’t it be cool to have a black mother-daughter, breaking every single mould. A lot of these businesses were started by men.  

Phadria: I absolutely love that, and what advice do you give to young budding designers?

Shevanne: I think with anything in life, you have to have passion for anything you give your attention and your intention - invariably it will be successful. They have to sleep, eat and dream about this.

You have to go to bed thinking about it and wake up thinking about it but, not in a stressful way – a way that gives you pleasure, you know. And I think that that's my advice, because anything you do in life, if you don't have that kind of energy, you don't bring that energy to the table, it's just a waste of your energy. You know, don't waste your energy with something that's not making you smile.

Phadria: During this pandemic, how has it been for the business?

Shevanne: Well, it could have been bad. Of course, it was a pandemic - no one was leaving their house. The last thing you needed was a bag. You didn’t need a bag at all. Maybe if you needed a bag, you needed a shopping bag. We were in the process of making more bags out of natural fibres but everything kind of stopped. We didn’t have any of our natural fibres, we didn’t have anything that people could just bring to the store and put their goods in. At the same time, we said, ok, luckily, we are a small business. We didn't have a lot of employees and our interns had just left - we were between interns, so it was perfect timing. 

“I need to be able to make face masks to give to the vulnerable communities. So, we just committed ourselves to make them as a donation.”

We had to adjust our mentality. We had to say, ok, are not going to go into depression. So, we started making face masks. I said the first thing we need to do is help and it was early. This was like, I would say March, end of March. I said, ‘how can we help?’, because I saw that they were having problems with face masks. And I'm like, I need to be able to make face masks to give to the vulnerable communities. So, we just committed ourselves to make them as a donation. It was the best thing ever. I was able to clean up all this material I was about to throw out. So, we just did alternative things. We weren't in the best business to be locked in. We weren't selling things that anyone needed at the time. The masks made us relevant. It kept people coming to our website. Kept people interested in who we were. So, I think it really opened up a new audience to us. It kept us relevant during the time. It was interesting because this really came out of us just wanting to help. It was just a spontaneous act; it wasn't an act that was premeditated.

Phadria: What does the future of the industry look like to you?

Shevanne: I am very excited because I think it’s what people are looking for. From my personal experience, they're looking for younger, different alternative designs. People no longer want to have the same outfits, the same looks. People are questioning where it’s made, people are having ethical conversations. Products or brands that are wilfully and willingly continuing to pollute the world is no longer something that anyone wants to be a part of.