NEWED X ZOBA MARTIN - THE ROBE

The Story:

It was the first week in June 2020. I was sitting there amidst a pandemic, the BLM movement, protests, and just so many insane shifts amongst this mad world. All 20 of my weddings for the summer had been mostly postponed, boudoir wasn’t allowed to happen, my entire life was at a pretty hard stop. I was already in the slight pivot of separating my wedding business from my boudoir business. I had boudoir content, the name ‘NEWED’ and just the general idea that I wanted to create a versatile robe of some sort, suitable for boudoirs + my brides to make this brand come to life. With so many social injustice shifts happening at the time as well as a blank slate of a new, epic project 100% in my control. It became my mission to find a local, female artist like myself to create with. I was on the hunt for a strong, bad bitch, women empowered partnership.

I am thanking the Instagram Lords for allowing me to come across the beautiful, talented, kind, spunky Zoba Martin. This 20 somethin’ year old queen is from Nigeria, but has been livin' the Toronto life for yearssss. She runs her own business, creating custom bridal/special occasion pieces. I sent her a DM with a general idea of what I was looking for. We set up a FaceTime call to chat further details + ideas where we found a beautiful vibe amongst the 2 of us. We sent inspo back and forth for a couple months as we searched for the perfect fabric + shape. We wanted to create a robe that wasn’t just for brides and boudoir, but also could be worn on top of a bathing suit, with jeans + a tank or naked as could be around the house.

3.5 months later, mid September 2020, when the world was slightly calmer, Zoba and I met at my NEWED studio for the very first time with the first sample of the robe we created. Zoba modelled our new very versatile, boho robe, while I captured her in it. We have come together on every single aspect of this, right down to the delivery presentation. It’s been an absolute pleasure partnering with another ambitious, inspiring, local, female entrepreneur. I am feeling so f*cking blessed for the launch of this robe with Zoba but also for the adventure attached to it.