- April 19, 2024
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Mara Huard started working with fashion and design when she was 13.
"I don’t repeat prints, everything is very specific," Huard says. "You know if you’re wearing it that no one else is going to be wearing it."
Huard keeps an inspiration board in her design area, where she pins new designs she's working on for future projects.
"I like vibrancy, I like expressiveness," Huard says. "I like how my clients can express themselves physically and be able to wear a jumpsuit to yoga class and then to dinner."
Huard's favorite design to create is jumpsuits. She carries a variety of jumpsuit designs in her shop.
“I always try to riff on something that is in my brand already," Huard says about drafting new designs.
Each step of the process is done in her retail store on Superior Avenue, from production to business to retail.
To Huard, jumpsuits are her favorite because they are "one piece dressing and you can still move in it and kick your leg up over your head if you wanted to.”
The clothes are made with knitwear and some up-cycled vintage scarves.
Best sellers keep getting remade, but new designs come from a design that is a shape Huard likes to wear herself.
Huard teaches yoga in the mornings before she goes to Aerial Clothing SRQ for the rest of the day.
Creating new designs comes from two places for Huard; necessity and a desire to expand while staying true to the brand.
Mara's store is bright and inviting and filled with racks of colorful clothes.
Huard oversees the production process of Aerial Clothing SRQ from start to finish, and everyday is a little bit different for her.
Huard says she never creates two designs the exact same.
With each fabric she buys, it becomes a different design to keep the uniqueness of her pieces.
Each piece is one size and compliments each body type.
From start to finish, Mara Huard’s designs are her own.
She creates the designs for her fashions, draws the pattern drafts, sources her own fabrics, then cuts and sews to create a one-of-a-kind piece. She then turns around and sells it in her retail store, Aerial Clothing SRQ, located at 6591 Superior Ave.
“I put my hands on everything,” Huard says.
From a young age, Huard knew she wanted to be a fashion designer. She started drawing on little pieces of paper at the age of 4, and moved onto sewing and designing clothes at 13.
In 2010, Aerial Clothing was born in Atlanta. However, it wasn’t the brand it is today. Huard soon fell in love and moved to Sarasota, opening the door for Aerial Clothing SRQ.
After moving to Sarasota in 2013, the community shaped the clothing line into the vibrant, free-flowing brand it is now. Huard says she gets her inspiration from the beauty, sunshine and colors of Sarasota.
“I don’t pay attention to trends. I don’t read fashion magazines,” Huard says. “Because to me, style is something that is either there or it’s not, and nobody can tell you what that is. So I pay attention to my surroundings.”
The forms for her designs come from her lifestyle. In addition to Aerial Clothing, Huard is a yoga instructor and dancer. She teaches yoga at multiple venues, including Circusoul Yoga, prAna, local gyms and private lessons. The need for movement in yoga creates the function and form of her clothing.
“I like vibrancy, I like expressiveness,” Huard says. “I like how my clients can express themselves physically and be able to wear a jumpsuit to yoga class and then to dinner.”
Huard says her clothes have a certain appeal, and they aren’t made for everybody.
“This is definitely an aesthetic where you will like it or you don’t,” Huard says. “People who
don’t like print aren’t going to like my clothes, generally.”
Her love for color is evident in her shop. A rainbow of colors and patterns are alive and well in her designs, giving the shop a lively atmosphere. Huard says those who wear her clothes have to have a certain confidence.
Although Huard herself may love color and pattern, she knows not everyone does, and says she “lets her (clothes) speak for themselves.”
“They aren’t meant to appeal to every single person,” Huard says. “They are meant to be for people who feel really confident and who like that sense of a little bit of flamboyance and self expression in how they dress.”
In the future, Huard hopes to expand into wholesale and see her designs exclusively in boutiques. Currently, she has clothes in Treat Boutique. To stay true to her brand, vision and one-of-a-kind uniqueness, she has no desire to sell in department stores.
