Women At Work: The Hunted Fox and Vintage Textiles

For this Women At Work interview, we met with Moana Dixon from The Hunted Fox. If you haven’t heard of her, she is the mastermind behind this full service design house for film, television, branded spaces, and creative design industries. The Hunted Fox specializes in all aspects of interior design, interior product design, development and manufacturing. What is important to note is that all of the designs are crafted using hand woven, ethnic, and vintage textiles that Moana collects on her travels. 

Let’s learn a little bit more about this purpose project and why she collects large amounts of indigenous textiles that are made in old-world traditions from small villages and hill tribes.

WHY DID YOU SET UP YOUR BUSINESS THIS WAY, CHOOSING TO USE INDIGENOUS TEXTILES IN YOUR DESIGNS? 

I was a senior executive in the wine and spirits industry for 18 years, which allowed me to travel a lot and really learn and understand different cultures and how they inspire the end product. While on these trips, I was always collecting textiles thinking that one day I will make something! That day did not come, not for a while anyway!

Years later, the founder of the company I worked for tragically died in a car accident and the company took a big pause. Dealing with what was happening, I decided to dig up my textiles and get crafty. I started with vintage Peruvian textiles and made my first pillow.  I showed a few friends and my neighbor and they were encouraging me to start selling my pillows on Etsy. I didn’t even know what that was, I just liked sewing pillows because they were easy to make for me. I decided to look into the possibility of selling my products more and started out at the Artisan markets on Abbot Kinney here in Venice Beach.

I was still too afraid to go full-time. I kept my day job but I started meeting all of these women who were in executive positions in their “Past Life” and decided they wanted something else and went off on their own creative ventures. I finally decided that I wanted to have a bigger purpose for my own life, and pulled the plug at my day job. 

WHY INDIGENOUS TEXTILES?

There are a few reasons. I wanted to focus on tribal textiles, meaning old world processes that have a whole different touch and feel. When you physically touch a traditional textile piece, it feels different. What we see in the market here, are watered down textiles, they do not have the same touch, feel or texture.  

Texture is in our ethos, everything that we create needs to feel as good as it looks. We make everything custom, including feather and down blends, custom pillow fills, everything needs to be in the best quality and this is only really achieved by details.

Indigenous textiles are an art form and the artisans creating them are artists who have mastered their craft generation after generation. 

WHAT DOES LUXURY MEAN TO YOU?

The Hunted Fox always blends the old world with the new luxury. The root of this philosophy comes back from mixing something old with something new. Even in fashion, it’s always nice to mix and blend, say a high-fashion couture piece with thrift store vintage. It’s more tasteful to have that blend and avoid going fully in one direction. Luxury to me means balance. Authenticity is the natural transaction of time passing, you will always carry something old with you to the future. 

DO YOU HAVE ANY PACKING TIPS FOR US? HOW DO YOU TRAVEL WITH SO MANY TEXTILES?

I use vacuum bags and I put all of the textiles I buy from the artisans into the bags and travel back with them. The areas and countries where I source textiles from have very complicated shipping systems. It’s not easy to ship and the logistics are just too complicated. I like to go to the root of it, I shop directly from the artisans to make sure they have money coming in so their craft can keep living. 

HOW IMPORTANT IS FENG SHUI IN THE DESIGN SPACE?

What’s important about Feng Shui is that it’s all about balance and intuitive balance. It’s the things we feel when we walk into a room. For example, if we are on the north side of the equator, our feet ideally need to be facing south when sleeping on a bed for the space to fell good. It has a lot to do with gravitational pull. 

Also, intuition recognizes the balance between the earth and our living spaces, we have to keep moving around until we get comfortable in a space. My advice is to understand the intuitive elements of a space first, and then do the logistical elements. We have so much knowledge that we just don’t tap into internally.

LAST THOUGHTS… 

With the internet, we can connect with people and brands that are universes away from us. We have information available to us but we really need to do our research to understand who is truly sustainable and what kind of practices and ethos does their business have? Be aware when you shop and navigate your decisions from your heart. 

We hope you enjoyed reading about our Women At Work: The Hunted Fox and Vintage Textiles blog. For more information about Andeana Hats, you can Shop Andeana Hats or learn more about our Intention Bands by clicking the links. Contact Us if you have any other questions.