The Telegraph UK
Filed: 11/01/2001
By Julia Robson

Julia Robson previews well-connected Maya Fiennes's eclectic first collection

Right: Maya wears wool fine knit top

WHEN you are an unknown designer about to launch your first collection at London Fashion Week - which this season boasts a whopping 70 catwalk shows in six days - you'll do just about anything to get noticed. But for Maya Fiennes - whose label Planet Maya debuts "off-schedule" next Monday - this simply involves calling in a few favours from close friends and relatives.

It's fortunate that the striking, Macedonian-born six-footer with rainbow-streaked hair also knows a thing or two about pulling in crowds - and standing out from them.

Maya, 33, a concert pianist, began wowing audiences in her hometown of Skopje in Macedonia at the age of five. Since graduating from the Royal School of Music in 1994 - the same year that she recorded her first CD and met and married the All Saints record producer Magnus Fiennes - she has moved in the grooviest art, thespian and music circles in London.

Which is why, next week, it won't just be the culture-clashing collection that draws in the fashion pack, but also the people wearing it on the catwalk. Her brothers-in-law Ralph and Joseph Fiennes, actor Kyle MacLachlan, television presenter Donna Air, models Marie Helvin, Lisa Butcher and Lisa B and socialite Petrina Khashoggi, as well as a Sri Lankan dance troupe and Maya's yoga teacher, have all agreed to model the results of Maya's first foray into fashion.

Maya wears silk jersey top with net sleeves embroidered with peacock feathers. Edwardian diamond tiara (as worn by Madonna on her wedding day) lent by Elizabeth Powell of Rare Jewellery Collections, tel: 020 7499 5414

Fashion purists may not savour the fact that, although Maya has no official training, her collection is being billed as the "must-see" of the week (Swarovski and Moet & Chandon are sponsors). They will be further infuriated to learn that she has no intention of surrendering her musical past to fashion.

"I'm an artist, a performer," says Maya, who speaks three languages, composes and paints, has modelled and acted, most notably as a Russian spy in Mission: Impossible. "I'll try anything. More often than not, I'm good at it."

It was while doing up her house that she met Matthew Abbott, the other half of Planet Maya, who has worked as a designer at Marks & Spencer, Next and Bhs. "Matthew was working in a fabric shop in between jobs. I was buying silks for my house and we got chatting. I kept on phoning him for advice on cushions. He eventually came round and we ended up designing a simple, printed T-shirt collection."

The T-shirts were sold to a few jet-set friends, including Ralph Fiennes and

Sadie Frost, last November, and became cult items. This soon led to orders from egButterfly in Chelsea, Lady Victoria Hervey's soon to be reopened boutique, Akademi, and Anna's of Primrose Hill.

The new range features elaborate chiffons and Indian Madras silks, men's shirts made from Schmach, the distinctive Palestinian woven fabrics, and embroidered with Hebrew letters from the Torah, sheer tops decorated with peacock feathers, and kaftans inspired by Tibetan robes.

"Fashion is an extension of my creativity," she says. "Everything in fashion has been done. The only way to get something new is to mix everything together from all cultures and societies."

Pictures by Tim Griffiths
Hair and make-up by Carl Stanley at Michaeljohn Management
All clothes from Planet Maya's spring/summer 2002 Brave collection. Prices start at £50. Inquiries, tel: 020 7427 2452