50th Anniversary Celebration
25
Eliza Kesuma
YOU NEED TO WEAR MANY DIFFERENT HATS WHEN YOU HAVE YOUR OWN BUSINESS – DESIGN, SALES, MANAGEMENT, HR, PRODUCTION.
By the time Eliza Kesuma entered her final year of BA (Hons) Design for Textiles - Fashion, Interiors, Art at Heriot-Watt in 2006 she knew that she wanted to open her own business. Inspired by her work placements throughout her university career, she was already on course to starting her company Moody Monday.
It wasn’t a course that ran smoothly, however. Following her degree show and taking part in the New Designers show in London, Eliza began expanding her network and researching her next steps.
She discovered the Starter for Six initiative – a government-supported business development programme for the creative industries. “I applied with my plan and ideas for Moody Monday. I got into the programme, got the training, but never got the funding in the end. So I had to change my plans.” Eliza decided to fund the start-up herself and started working for Ikea as a visual merchandiser in order to do so.
And when she hit another setback, being made redundant by the company when the recession hit, she found that it propelled her to where she wanted to be... “When I was made redundant, it led me to start my design studio sooner than planned. I had started designing prints again and got my first wallpaper design commission for a jewellery shop on the Grassmarket called Blackbox Boutique.”
And so in 2014, in a studio at St Margaret’s House in Edinburgh’s Meadowbank, Moody Monday was born.
Since then Eliza has produced collections as well as bespoke products for clients. Her work has garnered her rave reviews but she has her own favourites: “My print Nebulae Velvet stands out for me for the intricacy of the design and colour – just like the night sky with its clusters of stars, which inspired it.
“I love colour and I love to experience movement and dynamism in designs, as I find that print designs, because of their two-dimensional nature, can seem a little flat and dead. This is one of the reasons I prefer to stick to hand screen-printing methods, as I think it breathes some life and character into the designs.”
As her work goes from strength to strength, Eliza has had the opportunity to showcase her work globally, including recently exhibiting at ICFF in New York. She also has some dream projects in mind: “I would love to be involved in a project with a repurposed building, like an old factory – an industrial building turned into a contemporary design project.”
For design graduates dreaming of following in her footsteps, Eliza has some perhaps surprisingly practical advice: “Make sure you are fully aware of what you’re getting into. You need to wear many different hats when you have your own business – design, sales, management, HR, production... Sometimes the reason you follow this path, the part of the role you enjoy most, like designing, can be the activity you spend the least time doing.”
To see more of Eliza’s work visit her website at
moodymonday.co.uk
Eliza Kesuma: Interior dialogue
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