What is your favorite piece of jewelry and what is your connection to it?
My favorite piece of jewelry is a gold necklace from my mom with a small “s” pendant on it, which she got from her mom when she was 18. Wonderfully enough both our names start with an “s” – which makes me very proud and happy to wear it too.
Do you store your jewelry in a special place?
I do have a jewelry box, in which chaos rules. But honestly I wear my most beloved pieces most of the time anyway.
Why did you choose your Respect the Beautiful necklace? What is it the lettering or the gold tone?
I think both of them go so well together: Respect Fairytales and white gold. I love to mix and match different kinds of precious metals – which makes the necklace the perfect companion with my moms' necklace. And I also wish for a fairytale sometimes, with a happy ending and all the pomp and circumstance.
What do you love about being a woman?
Everything! I really love everything and there is no reason to doubt that for one second. I love the female strength and the empathetic approach. I love that we as women often times approach tasks a lot smarter, that often times in society we have to claim more because of our gender but we can fight for things along side other women. I love fashion - no matter if feminine or rather masculine looking - and I love to play with it. I just love that we as women have a lot more room to play with our appearance.
A woman that you especially admire…
My colleague Nike. Because even after spending 24 hours and 7 days a week with her, it never gets old. Because I can trust her blindly and because she motivates me like no one else, because she has so much power and is always there for me. Because she self-determines her life and she never shies away from risks or inconvenient endings.
You can definitely be considered a role model for your readers and you give modern feminism and the different roles that women have today a face. Do you make decisions or handle hurdles because of that differently or did this aspect make you more aware of your own perception?
Both: I naturally try to bring this topic up no matter if it is on This is Jane Wayne or in my private life. To advocate for women to be able to live and work equally and to talk about failures, to get up and to start again. I live in an equal relationship, since my boyfriend and I divide the care of our daughter 50/50 and both of us still work nearly fulltime on our own projects. It is a daily struggle, with personal wishes and dreams, including tumbling and getting up. My biggest wish is to inspire women to not fear to do everything they wish for and want to do: No matter if it is in their job or their private life. And my biggest challenge is my newest example: Becoming a mother and still be a woman, being a mom and still work. And it does work - sometimes better and sometimes worse.
Kids do mean change, maybe the biggest change – Did everything change for you or just small things since you became a mother?
Sometimes I claim that nothing has changed at all. Other times I am completely overwhelmed and complain that nothing is like it used to be. Everything did change, but not in a negative way. Wilma is of course the biggest joy for us, but simultaneously a massive undertaking: With a rather huge portion of responsibility and naturally with quite some limitation. I try to accomplish a lot of work – but sometimes you have to be careful not to take on too much and ask yourself: for whom or for what am I doing this right now? And the answer really depends on my emotional state.
What do you think makes you a #vieriwoman?
That´sa good question: I hope to motivate other women to choose their very own path, to loose the elbowism and to work together with other women for our goals. Do what you love, be honest with yourself and find other women to be strong with, especially for the moments where you can't be strong on your own. A message that I love to pass on.
VIERI exclusively works with ethically sourced gold and the respect towards all humans involved in the process of gaining the resource is a main concern. Did in your opinion the interaction with fashion really change in the last years?
Absolutely, although I am just half down the path myself and I am not nearly doing everything right. My job definitely sensitized me and made me think: How much do we really need? Where are the designs produced? And what can I change in the future? We maybe have chosen the worst job to act completely ethically correct, but we try to advocate conscious consumption, present sustainable alternatives and we abandon some brands all together. We manage to achieve all of the above sometimes really well and sometimes we fail. All the nicer are young labels like VIERI that draw your attention to grievances with their products, that I haven't thought of for a while: To look for ethically sourced gold for example. Really obvious but sometimes really far away.
Do you notice a change with your readers? Are they becoming more critical and question certain things more?
We discuss sustainability quite often on This is Jane Wayne and are often confronted with criticism when we lost track. I believe that a large amount of our readers are strongly looking for alternatives and wish to get more - that's the point we can end their search. Especially since the big (fast) fashion houses are looking more into sustainability, the awareness and the critical interaction got stronger.
Did your behavior change?
I don´t need as much as I used to, I am trying to support smaller labels and I rather spend a penny more on a favorite piece than to satisfy my monthly craving for new things. Sometimes I fail to be honest, but I also don't have the space in my wardrobe to just buy buy buy. And if I do run out of space, I donate, sell or gift my “old” favorites, in order for me not to loose control.
You are surrounded by beautiful things all day, to what extend did your feelings towards them change?
I truly see a lot of beautiful things everyday and I love to showcase them: a treasure selector so to speak. Most of the times its enough for me to just see the beautiful things virtually: I consume, without buying. That'sa real good therapy, because I'm pretty sure my drawers would spill over too. I question myself constantly: Do I really need that? And most of the time the answer is no.
If you could fulfill yourself one dream, what would it be?
Most definitely a built-in wardrobe, with which I can hide all my clothes. At the moment I own an open closet with way too little space: It would be wonderful if everything had its place and my favorite pieces had all the space that they needed. Chaos would transform into order in the blink of an eye. That would be pretty awesome. But I could also go on a really long vacation. Not a bad idea after 5 years, to be honest.