nina and kaya egli
OF
toujours toi family affairs
Before Nina Egli was born, her mother Kaya was a designer—and a member of the sixties creative set. (At one point, she lived with Michelle Phillips of The Mamas & the Papas.) But while growing up in Switzerland, Nina never considered following in her footsteps. “I studied filmmaking. When I was in acting school in New York, I was trying to make money, and no one would hire me because of visas. So I started making these charm bracelets, and stores picked them up right away,” Nina explains. “It was a very naive start.”
Her early success and her natural knack for the field won Nina over, and, after deciding to shift her focus to fashion, Nina roped her mom into her plans, adding a flowy, whimsical clothing collection to her already-burgeoning jewelry line, Toujours Toi. “My mom is a technician and also a designer. Now when you study design, you don’t necessarily learn the pattern making,” Nina says. “I will never be able to do construction like she can, but it’s been really great for me to understand it. I know what stitch can happen with what fabric.”
What’s the toughest part about creating a collection with your mother, across two continents? “We always fight over skirt lengths.”
