About Jane
Hi, my name is Jane and I'm the founder of Chocolate Martini.
I wasn't always in fashion, in fact despite growing up sewing and making clothes with my wedding cake designer mother and artist grandmother, I trained and worked as a barrister in London . Clearly a square peg in a round hole, I jumped ship the moment a more exciting opportunity came along. It was the late 90s and the height of the dot com boom. Keen to be one of the new young funky entrepreneurs in London. I left the law to join a start up lifestyle management company. High on adrenaline and VRB (vodka red bull) we set out to redefine the service industry in the UK. Life was good and London was our playground. As the company grew and grew the young, fun and dynamic company lost its allure for me. I was no longer an adventurer on the edge, building an exciting business……. but an administrator in a large organization. Always the would be entrepreneur and creative free spirit, this was not for me.
So, in 2001 I revisited my creative side, renovating and designing residential property in London . I'd always had an eye for style, colour and form, so for the first time I was really able to play with this, but it was only when I moved to Hong Kong in 2003 that I finally got back to my real passion for fashion.
Hong Kong was/is the gateway to China , with its factories and vast fabric markets. Initially I went into partnership with my friend, George Maroulis (of George Ermis), acting first as a consultant and then launching Chocolate Martini with him in 2006/7. After our first season, George and I parted as friends so he could concentrate on his core labels. Chocolate Martini continued to grew organically from there, first selling to customers in Queensland and Victoria and then throughout Australia and on.
Design is my passion and when I make clothes, I try and transfer that love and passion into all my designs. I only send out clothes I love, and clothes that will love my Chocolate Martini girls and make them feel special, beautiful and loved.
I think that my friends will tell you that I am a shoe fanatic, an advanced shopper and traveller, a die-hard Londoner and European, and a chocoholic amongst other things. Why Chocolate Martini? Well you know I love chocolate......
