“I wanted to push myself,” he explains. “What originally attracted me to Japan was the rigid social structure,” pointing to the difficulty of “breaking into any sort of community; making friends” as the biggest hurdle he had to overcome. “You just have to have the right attitude,” he goes on to say. “Now, it’s like a second home.”
      Another hurdle he removed was the language barrier, teaching himself how to speak the language by spending hours, daily, memorizing characters out of random books. Speaking fluent Japanese affords Jona privileges often denied to Westerner designers who don’t. One such privilege is being able to develop his own fabrics with small Japanese textile mills. “These places are out in the middle of nowhere,” he says. If you can’t speak the language, they usually won’t give you the time of day.” After a year spent designing in-house for a cult Japanese clothing label, the question of “what next?” was answered, ironically, with a simple heart-to-heart talk with a respected mentor in the industry. It found Jona back in New York, nearly full-circle from where he’d started 8 years earlier.
      Infusing the voice of what inspires him most (often, themes in nature both violent and serene ) –– along with personally working a garment from start through finish (a rarity in the industry nowadays) –– ensures the poetry in his work will remain. Asked how he feels about his “accidental” new demographic, Jona doesn’t hold back: “Happy,” he enthuses. “Because I very much like when women wear men’s clothes.” Now in its 4th season and sold in some of the world’s top stores, the decision to launch his own label –– and the journey he took to achieve it –– is proof that nothing about InAisce, despite its tongue-in-cheek name, was ever truly meant “in vain”.