It has been quite some time since I last saw Megan Stewart. But watching her design journey from afar has been nothing less than exhilarating. In four short years, she has gone from showcasing her graduate collection at iD Dunedin and New Zealand Fashion Week to undertaking coveted design roles at the New York-based studios of Proenza Schouler, EDUN, Trademark, and Tory Burch.
As humble as ever, the 28-year-old designer is quick to shrug off these experiences as no big deal. “I’ve been everywhere,” Stewart says. “Everywhere. I have had so many different jobs, it’s shocking.” But being everywhere—and doing everything—set Aotearoa-born Stewart up for her unanticipated homecoming, her “silver lining” of sorts, she says wistfully.
Like many talented young ex-pats, it was mid-2020 when Stewart went from living the New York dream, working full time as Proenza Schouler’s associate footwear designer, to having to pack up her entire life as she knew it. A company-wide round of layoffs due to the growing Coronavirus pandemic meant that Stewart—a New Zealander on a working visa—had to return home.
A fortnight later and Stewart was back in her hometown of Tāmaki Makaurau. “I had to pack up my entire life. My whole adult life, everything I built from the ground up, from no money. I was living with my best friend in this little apartment that I loved. It was a one-bedroom that we shared, and I lived in the lounge, but I loved it.”
Packing up in two weeks was quite an unsettling experience for Stewart. A self-confessed hunter-gatherer when it comes to textiles and haberdashery, Stewart had to come to the heartbreaking terms that she would have to leave much of her treasured finds behind in New York. “I put up a post on Instagram selling things for 10 bucks. And that was it,” she recalls. “I had to get rid of rolls of fabric that I was meant to make shirts with—to do projects with—but I never did.”
Armed with the bare essentials—including a handful of her carefully sourced treasures—and homebound for New Zealand, Stewart soon found respite in all her despair. “I had that burning desire to create things that I never had the time for before,” she recalls. “When you’re overseas, you get in this cycle, and it’s just that constant work hard, play hard [mentality], and you never stop.” But “stopping” for the first time in four years didn’t hold Stewart back. A new, serendipitous project was on the horizon: Megan Stewart Shirts.
And it has taught Stewart patience. “I have to embrace the concept of waiting until I find just the right cloth that is special enough to turn into one of my shirts,” she says. “It’s not as easy as simply sourcing one roll of production fabric. Each shirt is unique. Every bit of cloth and button is sourced for each shirt. The occasional shirt uses four textiles for the one garment. It’s not easy, but I love how organic this process can be when it is just me.”
Since returning home and launching Megan Stewart Shirts, Stewart has also landed yet another dream job—as the associate footwear designer at Overland Footwear, designing shoes for the Mi Piaci and Merchant 1948 lines. And her new-found design work isn’t the only silver lining in such an abrupt change of lifestyle. More importantly, she’s reconnected with friends and family, ticking off tasks that were left behind four years ago—like getting her driver licence. “I feel like a grown-up, and that’s nice,” Stewart laughs. “I feel like I’ve grown another 12 inches!”
When asked where Megan Stewart Shirts is headed next, she’s quick to admit she doesn’t know—and that’s okay. “What I learnt from Covid is you have no idea what tomorrow’s going to bring, so I’m just doing me for now… I think eventually I’d love it to develop, but it will be 100 per cent on my terms and what I’m liking, and it’ll just be a slow process. It’ll all be at the right time, with the right purpose.”
Discover @meganstewartshirts on Instagram here.
This article was originally published in Fashion Quarterly Spring 2021.
