As a kid, Jacobs took an early interest in making things from scratch, crafting miniature paper houses, clothes, and accessories for her dolls. “I found both making things and then using them endlessly entertaining and inspiring. One idea would give way to another, and now, in life-size versions, it’s still that way for me.”
Jacobs’s experimental style was encouraged from an early age by an exceptional teacher, Lisa Mayock, the designer of Monogram and Vena Cava. Before Jacobs studied at Parsons, she took a pre-college fashion class with Mayock, and the two ended up staying in touch. “Over the years she’s become a great friend and mentor. She’s shown me through example how to embody one’s personal style ‘language,’ to think about style from many angles.”
Mayock has also encouraged Jacobs to embrace the more eccentric parts of her personality. These include her perennially purple lip color: “I’ve come to mix three different lipsticks to arrive at the particular shade of wine that I like.” And then there’s her penchant for shapes that are just the slightest bit wonky (one of her recent releases, the Full Circle Plate Set, at first appears to be perfectly round, but due to the fact that each piece is handmade and no two plates are exactly alike, one can sometimes notice the slightest asymmetrical bent).
It’s precisely Jacobs’s ability to experiment with shapes, colors, and textures that make both her Instagram feed and her products so captivating, despite their apparent simplicity. “There is so much boldness in simplicity—in literal and figurative senses—so much strength in the delicate,” she says.
