Our Story
The Story of Maili
Camille, FounderJuly 20268 min read
The story of how anything starts is usually multifaceted, with many different sources and starting points converging until they become one final outcome. It's the reason that when something is finally made, it often has its own voice, almost independent from you. You simply become the vessel through which all your experiences, interests and research collide with your contacts, chance happenings, people met along the way, finances, moments of bravery and moments of fear — until one day you decide to explore and execute an idea.
So, to tell the story of Maili is really to tell many stories.
It's to tell the story of rifling through my French grandmother's incredible wardrobe as a child. She's the namesake of the brand — Mai meeting my own name, Camille. A conversation between us, across generations.
It's to tell the story of making friendship bracelets relentlessly after school and selling them in the playground to raise money for WWF. Of taking a business course alongside my theatre degree, meeting a wonderful couture dress designer and helping her launch a concept centred around transparent clothing production — something that, at the time, was still hugely underrepresented in fashion.
It's to tell the story of travelling around India as a recent graduate and discovering incredible handmade, organic and recycled fabrics, then taking what felt like a giant leap — and a huge financial commitment at that stage in my life — to produce 100 tops and see what people in London thought. Of heaving a suitcase full of clothes across London at 5am, travelling from market to market, standing for hours in the cold until hungover weekenders eventually wandered by.
It's to tell the story of learning, making mistakes, finding little successes, then learning and making mistakes all over again in an eat, sleep, rave, repeat cycle for years — until suddenly, and somewhat surprisingly, you realise you've really begun to understand something. But, like anything you grow to understand deeply, the more you learn, the more you realise you know absolutely nothing.
So yes, like any founder story, it's been a journey. Beautiful, complex, scary and exciting. But I couldn't be prouder, or more motivated, to grow Maili into something truly transformational.
A happy accident called Genki
A core part of that journey was creating Genki Designs. Genki was born out of a passion for feel-good clothing made using recycled and handmade fabrics. Coming from an artistic background, and having unknowingly learned a huge amount about clothing through many hours in the costume department during my theatre degree, I found myself fascinated not only by how clothes looked, but by what they meant.
What artistic practices had gone into creating them? What heritage crafts could be reimagined to feel relevant and wearable today? Who made them? What journey had they taken before they arrived in someone's wardrobe?
I've always wanted to look beyond what meets the eye and understand the story behind the things we buy and wear. So I started Genki. I bootstrapped it through markets, then Depop, then our own website, before wholesaling to independent shops across the UK. Eventually, I opened our flagship store on London's South Bank.
It was a whirlwind of creativity and fun. We transformed what was essentially a garage beside the National Theatre into what one customer brilliantly described as “a candy shop for adults” — bursting with colour, craft, cultural exchange and wonderful people, surrounded by other independent makers in Gabriel's Wharf.
Watching people try things on, hearing conversations about clothing, sustainability and making every single day completely changed the way I thought about fashion. It built my confidence and deepened my curiosity about the impact clothing can have, and the choices we make around what we buy and wear.
A persistent thought
Genki was a happy accident — an experiment that grew into more experiments until it became its own evolving thing. But gradually, I started to have this niggling feeling: what if I knew everything I know now when I first started Genki? What would the company of my dreams look like?
I loved Genki's playful, bohemian aesthetic, and that every piece was completely unique. That made every garment feel precious — but it also placed limits on creativity. The challenge was always to create something beautiful from something found.
Meanwhile, every year I was travelling to India, working with independent artisans and discovering extraordinary new fabrics — organic cottons, bamboo, linen blends and recycled materials that could be repeated, refined and grown into collections. I also found myself thinking differently about sustainability. Of course it starts with the fabrics we choose, but it also comes from usefulness, from adaptability, from how often something is worn.
I resisted the idea for a while. Starting another business felt exhausting, risky and slightly ridiculous. But I couldn't put it away. Eventually, one evening in the kitchen with my partner, it all came blurting out almost like a secret: I wanted to start a new company. Once I'd opened the floodgates, everything came pouring out — designs, concepts, plans — and I realised Maili had already started. I simply had to decide whether I was brave enough to bring it into the world.
Back to India
Shortly afterwards, a shop became available in Greenwich Market, somewhere I'd always loved for its independent, creative spirit. It felt strangely serendipitous, so I pitched for it with a brand that didn't yet exist. As a former Greenwich schoolgirl, the idea of opening there felt incredibly special. After what felt like an endless wait, we got the call. The shop was ours.
That summer, I flew back to India with a completely different purpose than ever before. Slowly, travelling through monsoon season, visiting small factories and artisan workshops, working with families I'd known for years and meeting wonderful new makers, we created the very first Maili collection together.
Opening the doors
Leaving India with crossed fingers and a lot of hope, I returned to London to collect the keys. What followed was weeks of painting, some truly hideous hours of DIY desk-building, endless flat-pack furniture and the kindness of friends who gave up their evenings to help transform an empty shop into Maili's first home. By the middle of November, we were finally ready to open our doors.
Looking back now, Maili doesn't feel like something that appeared overnight. It feels like the natural meeting point of every project, conversation, journey and risk that came before it. And in many ways, I hope that's what the brand continues to be: a place where beautiful design, thoughtful making and genuine human connection meet.
We're still learning, still experimenting and still asking questions. Maili is only just getting started, and I can't wait to see where the story takes us next.
— Camille