At present I find myself working on two very different collections simultaneously. One is my latest spring summer made-to-order collection, launching online in a matter of days. The other is my first collection going into a new physical retail space. This collection will be manufactured externally — a first for my brand. Each has its own timeline, its own constraints, and its own way of thinking. And managing both at once is, to be honest, a lot.
But it's also the perfect moment to talk about process — because juggling two collections with different needs has made me more conscious than ever of how I actually think when I build a range, and how differently I think now compared to when I started.
Where I started: creating from the inside out
I didn't start Maya Prass because I wanted to build a business. I started it because I loved making things with fabric — and it felt like a natural progression to take that love and turn it into a career.
That trajectory shaped everything about how I worked in the early years. I would find a theme that excited me and disappear into research — books, libraries, costume history, jewelry references, textile archives — and pull from all of it the shapes, ideas and prints I wanted to make. The primary objective was self-expression. I wanted to build a reputation, get noticed, and show the industry what I could do.
I thought about the woman who would wear my clothes considerably less than I thought about what I wanted to say as a designer.
The shift: from ambition to a real question
When I was a fledgling designer I made things because I thought they were beautiful and hoped someone would want to buy them. But as my business grew and I became responsible to a team, to a brand, and to the day-to-day reality of running a company, I realised I had to start being far more strategic about what I was making.
The real turning point came when I started opening my studio for customers to come and shop directly. For the first time I was face to face with the women buying my clothing — hearing their feedback, watching them try things on, seeing my product on real bodies. That changed something fundamental in how I looked at what I was making. I started thinking less about my own ambitions as a designer and more about those women — what they wanted, what they needed, what would actually work for them.
Later, a good friend said something to me that connected immediately to what had already started shifting instinctively. She said I should ask myself: why does this exist, and why would someone choose to buy it from you?
That scrutiny has become one of the filters I run everything through before it makes it to the cutting table. I'm not just making things I love anymore. I'm making things I believe should exist — things that have a purpose, that answer something real for the woman buying them.
That said, I still put out pieces I'm in love with and want to introduce my customer to, even if I'm not sure she's ready for it yet . Often these pieces take time to pick up momentum. The Lourdes T-shirt was one of those, it moved slowly at first but today it's one of my best-selling pieces, available in sixteen colours. Sometimes conviction just needs time to be proven right.
How it actually starts: feeling before seeing
When I begin thinking about a new collection, the process starts with emotion rather than logic. I feel things before I can see them.
For summer, I don't start by thinking about hemlines or colour trends. I start by asking how I want the collection to feel. Do I want it to feel like sun-warmed skin after a day at the beach — that particular sensation of heat that has made its way into the core of your body? Or do I want it to feel like walking through a field of wild grass, running your hands along the tops of the leaves? Each of those feelings leads to a completely different mood, colour palette, silhouette and fabric direction.
Getting that feeling clear before I pick up a pencil or pull a fabric is how I avoid collections that look like a group of nice things rather than a considered whole. Once the emotional direction is locked in, the practical considerations follow — how will my customer wear this, what does she need to feel comfortable and confident, what lengths and coverage and silhouettes will both evoke the feeling I want and resonate with the woman I'm making it for. These things are so embedded in me after years of thinking about them that they run alongside the creative instinct rather than coming after it. But the feeling always comes first.
The made-to-order difference — and where it's changing
The fashion industry at scale works on a timeline most people would find surprising. Trend forecasters analyse social and economic shifts years in advance. Colour palettes are developed eighteen to twenty-four months before they reach a shop floor. By the time a collection is hanging on a rail, it has been planned, produced and shipped across a supply chain that began moving long before the season it was designed for.
As a small Cape Town womenswear brand focused on made-to-order for the last two and a half years, I have worked very differently. Because I produce in real time, I can plan collections much closer to launch. I can add a new item, make a sample, photograph it and have it live within a week. I can watch how customers respond and make decisions based on what I actually see rather than what I forecast. That responsiveness is one of the genuine advantages of working this way.
Now I am moving into a more hybrid model. The collection I'm about to produce externally requires me to plan further ahead — fabric lead times, sample development and fit testing all need to happen before a single item is produced. I am learning in real time to think in a different way for a different kind of timeline. It is challenging, but also genuinely exciting — because it opens up the possibility of customers having real-time access to product in a way the made-to-order model alone doesn't allow.
Finding the balance
When I build a collection today I am trying to achieve a balance between expressing myself as a creative and producing something of value as an entrepreneur. Getting that balance right is not a formula — it's a judgment call made differently every season. But the question my friend taught me to ask — why should this exist, and why would someone buy it from you — has become one of the filters I run everything through before it makes it to the cutting table. If I can answer that question honestly, the piece earns its place. If I can't, I have to work harder — either on the design itself or on the motivation behind it.
After more than twenty years working as a South African clothing designer, I can say definitively that I am a feminine designer who loves colour, texture and print. That has been true since I was a fashion student and will most likely guide my creative work throughout my career. But the difference between now and twenty years ago is that the colour and the femininity are no longer just for me. They are for the woman who buys my product — and hopefully she feels in every piece the love, the care, the consideration that went into making it, and the emotion that sparked it all in the first place.
