INTERIOR designer Jason Livingstone has just launched his own brand – Livingstone Design – making a dream come true for the Fermanagh native who, throughout his time at school in Fermanagh, never believed he could make a career out of his creative talents.

“All through school I always chose the arts. I always ran as far as I could from English and Science and things like that,” said Jason, who is originally from Enniskillen, but is currently based in London.

However, growing up in Northern Ireland, he never felt like the arts were encouraged as a career path, instead feeling encouraged that he should be looking for a job with “a good pension”.

“That kind of old-fashioned mentality – I just don’t think the creative arts were encouraged like they are now. So I just never really considered it as a career,” he added.

With this in mind, Jason started down the career path of teaching before a friend inspired him to follow his true passion.

‘Teaching’

“I decided I’d do teaching because I had been in the Enniskillen Model Primary School part-time working as a Special Needs classroom assistant,” he said, adding: “I was there three years, and I was getting kind of further into doing my degree.

“I’d been accepted into Liverpool, and [my friend] kind of said to me, ‘All the creative things you do now, that you love as a classroom assistant, I don’t really get to do those things; [teaching is] much more academic. I just think your talents would be wasted’.

“It was really her that opened my eyes to something really different.”

From that point, Jason started to look into a different career path which better reflected his creative talents.

“It was really over the space of one Summer, with term ending and us having that conversation just casually at lunch one day, to at the end of the Summer, when I’d signed up to go to Southampton Solent for my BA Honours in Interior Design and Decoration.

“So I really owe it to my friend Rachel,” he told this newspaper.

“I just don’t think [a career in the creative arts] was ever encouraged, or I never thought that I could make a career out of it until I went to study.

“I always struggled with education; I’ve struggled with dyslexia, and just never really got the academic side of things.

“I think it’s only when you find something that you love, you’ll always do well at it,” he added.

A day after his graduation back in 2017, Jason was offered a job as a store designer for luxury clothing company, Ted Baker, in London.

“I was so so lucky because I was always told in a creative industry you have to really slog your guts out before you get anything permanent, so I was really lucky,” said Jason, who has been working for the brand for three years, designing everything from concessions all over the world to outlet stores.

Launch

Now he has decided to follow his dream further with the recent online launch of his own interior design and homeware brand, Livingstone Design.

“Right through my whole time at Ted Baker, I’d had people ask me, ‘Can you put a design together?’, and I’d always just done it for friends,” said Jason, explaining the inspiration behind the brand.

He continued: “My boyfriend, Jordan Shields, and I – just as a cost-saving thing – if we want something for the flat, and we see something really nice, we think, ‘Well, we’re not paying that for it, we could make that ourselves’, cushions and things like that.

“We literally just happened to buy some bulk fabric for cushions for the flat, or to give them as gifts, and then we just had a discussion one day [about launching his own brand].”

Working as a team with his boyfriend, Jordan, who has a background in fashion design and uses his sewing skills to hand-make the products, Jason has high hopes for the brand, which has been gaining great support online.

“Even when I put up the first post, saying: ‘I’m thinking of doing this’, people were so phenomenal, people really do love to support their own,” he said.

“What started out as quite small, we’re now in talks with factories. We’re just at the minute talking about quality and what our unique selling point is.

“What really started as a side-line, I hope, as a 10-year-plan it takes me closer to having a shop of my own, which is what I’ve always really wanted,” Jason told The Impartial Reporter.