Jume is the collaborative Byron Bay store combining clothing, homewares and art
IMAGE VIA @SHOPJUME/INSTAGRAM
WORDS BY IZZY WIGHT
“It’s a chaotic, colourful, playful shop.”
Jessica Blume’s eponymous Byron Bay store, Jume, was previously inhabited by her friend Bob. “I had told him that if he ever wanted to move I would love to do something with the space,” Jessica (aka Jume) explains. “And he said that if I did then he would move out because he really wanted more interesting creative things to exist in the shire.”
For more fashion news, shoots, articles and features, head to our Fashion section.
Luckily for Jume, Byron Shire was already a bubbling hub of creative talent – it was just about bringing the right people together. Born from the collaboration of local artists, designers and makers, the Jume store is “inclusive, non-gendered” and “playful”, a space that pays homage to long summer days spent with good friends. Below, Jume speaks on her experience bringing the store to life.
Tell us about you. What’s your creative background?
View this post on Instagram
I’m Jume and I currently live in Byron Bay. I had always loved to draw and write and found that while I was at Melbourne [University] studying a philosophy major… I would constantly get distracted from my assignments because all I wanted to do was make pottery and sew my own outfits.
I came up with the idea to switch to RMIT and study textile design and just listen to educational podcasts all day while I made tapestries and see if that balance suited me more… I worked at a weaver with my own practice for a while with a studio in Melbourne… [I] then moved to Byron and started my own small ethical clothing label, which at the time was weirdly hard to find!
View this post on Instagram
How did the store get started? Talk us through the process and the challenges.
The store started when some good friends, Kaazi and Melati, moved to Byron from New York during the COVID lockdowns. They were both really talented designers, artists and musicians, and we would daydream about how much we missed the cool stores we loved in various cities and wanted to do something creative and collaborate together.
We reached out to Lora at Bacteria Books to come on board with her books and Kaazi started Earth Editions, a small and beautifully curated record store for the space… our friend Bob was living in the space that is now the shop and I had told him that if he ever wanted to move, I would love to do something with the space.
View this post on Instagram
… The space needed a lot of work – walls installed, a kitchen, painting, just so much – but my dad was a carpenter and we all just worked away at it for many months… we also built and designed the fit-out ourselves for the joy of creating and to save money. I had been making these tables from surfboard offcuts from my friend Ellis Ericson, which were really fun, so we made a bunch of them for display shelves.
At first, we would reach out to people we wanted to stock and they were like “Sorry, who are you?” We had no shop or website or Insta to show them, so just started by stocking all our friends. We were lucky in that way because many of our friends are so talented. To this day, most things in the space were made by our own friends and community which is really special.
What were you trying to achieve from the project at the time? How has this evolved and what are you trying to communicate now?
View this post on Instagram
We would often talk about how this area had a lot of young creative people, but pretty much no spaces or stores that mirrored their vibe or energy… we wanted to make a space that felt inclusive, non-gendered, playful, less conservative or mainstream and encompassed all of the things we loved.
… Another big part of the building was that we wanted it to be an event space where we would throw parties, BBQs, markets, launch events, readings and art shows. After a while, my best friend Nell Pearson and some other artists built a gallery in the front room called Kunst, and so there are now monthly shows in the space as well.
View this post on Instagram
In the past year, Bacteria Books has gone mainly online, Kaazi and Melati have left the shop to move to Indonesia for big cool creative roles over there… and the girls from Foile have taken over the front room. Now it’s just me running the shop, merging it with Jume for simplicity but Bacteria Books and Kunst are still in the space so we will continue to do events here.
How would you describe your store to someone who’s never seen it before?
It’s a chaotic, colourful, playful shop full of an eclectic collection of things for the home and to wear or read in a converted industrial space near the ocean. It has a gallery in the front nestled under a giant melaleuca tree and I’m working on a garden around the side and some outdoor seating. It’s almost exclusively filled with things made by small independent designers as well as my full collection of Jume garments, and it will continue to morph to suit my and the community’s needs.
What are you most proud of in your work on your store?
View this post on Instagram
I feel most proud of the community we have built around the shop, how comfortable people feel visiting and hanging around for ages and how many people tell Em it’s their favourite place in Byron or that it’s the only space that they feel resonates with their vibe. That’s so nice. There have been many friendships and even some romances formed here, which delights me!
Who do you think is most exciting in Australian and New Zealand fashion right now?
I wonder if being isolated from the world geographically on these islands in the Pacific has led to trends and styles that are niche to this part of the world, and therefore exciting and fresh-feeling.
View this post on Instagram
I have been most excited lately by stylists such as Anna Santangelo and Romy Safiya, [and] makeup artists like Rose Letho and creative directors such as Laura and Deanna Fanning and their amazing work with Kiko Kostadinov. Living rurally and on the coast though, I find that I mainly just wear a lot of casual but fun and unique go-to streetwear labels like Perks and Mini, Verner and Lucy Zaroyko, Emsah and Ka-He.
What about the Australian and New Zealand fashion industry needs to change?
I think we need to focus on the infrastructure for affordable and ethical onshore manufacturing and fabric production. Most of my sales are still within Australia yet even if I produce onshore, the fabric is being imported anyway – creating a high carbon footprint. I would love to see more local wool being used and I would especially love to see the production and harvesting of hemp here.
View this post on Instagram
Even organic cotton has serious adverse effects on the soil quality and has such a high water consumption and yet hemp would be perfect here… hopefully some philanthropic oligarchs are reading this and can get the ball rolling since when I last looked into it, the infrastructure needed to harvest and process hemp is rather costly!
Dream Australian and New Zealand collaborators?
I have been working on making some tees with different artists I know and admire in Australia and there are many more, mainly friends, who I would love to work with… Gab Cole, Sam Heatley, Nell Pearson, Lucas Golding [and] Charlotte Khalila.
View this post on Instagram
I think collaboration in this way is really nice because you and the artist both get the creative freedom to do the part you love… then together you create a new thing for the world that neither of you would maybe have done otherwise. Verner, a Melbourne label I love and stocked at Jume, worked with different artists for the recent few collections such as the collab with Gian Manik. It was so good, they are an awesome example of this kind of interdisciplinary collab.
What’s next for you?
I am saving up to do a knit collection with this legend in the UK and slowly planning to move to Europe next year when I get a European passport… [I’m] thinking about making a little store/studio in Portugal while I finish my university studies and slowly transition into a new career as a therapist and eventually start a healing centre!
You can follow Jume here, and if you’re in Byron Bay pay a visit to the store at 1/4 Ti-Tree Place, Byron Bay.
Liked this? You’ll love these...
