Designer Shailah Maynard, the mind behind the locally based Working Girls art and design brand, specializes in creating tongue-in-cheek modern products with a feminist lean, from “Femme” muscle tanks and crew socks with film titles like 9 to 5 and Mystic Pizza screen-printed on them to pool floats that look like boobs. You can check out her Hot Bod floats ($66) and pool towels ($60) on the cover of this issue.
CityBeat: Working Girls runs the gamut between apparel, accessories and even publishing. What’s the vision behind the brand?
Shailah Maynard: Our brief description of the brand is that “Working Girls is a concept brand with a feminist and satirical undertone.” We don’t have any specific requirements on what type of products we make, as long as we have fun designing/making them. I’m not that serious of a person and neither is my company. I worked in the fashion industry for nine years and got pretty sick of how serious that industry is. Snoozer. Have some humility, have fun and make me laugh. In the words of RuPaul, Working Girls “Never, ever takes itself too seriously.”
CB: Can you talk a little bit about the importance of producing products focused on women — but with that sense of humor?
SM: When I started Working Girls, I never said, “I am going to start a feminist accessory brand!” It just became that organically because of who I am. I have always considered myself a feminist and I love movies from the ’80s and ’90s, especially sexy thrillers (i.e. Basic Instinct, Fatal Attraction). … In terms of making product that focuses on women, yes we do that, but I also want to be clear that we are not catering toward just women. Our products are and will always be unisex. Wear what you want, OK?
CB: What inspired the Hot Bod pool floats?
SM: Have you ever seen the movie Earth Girls Are Easy? There’s a scene when the spaceship lands in the pool, and Geena Davis gets scared and jumps onto a giant pool float shaped like a hand. I have been searching for one for years and no one seemed to make one, so I decided I was going to have to do it. The pool float line grew from there.
This article appears in Jun 7-14, 2017.
