How I Went From Working As A Chef On Superyachts To Launching My Own Fashion Label - The Gloss Magazine

How I Went From Working As A Chef On Superyachts To Launching My Own Fashion Label

Transitioning from food to fashion, Fermanagh-based Melissa Phair has just launched a luxury resortwear brand with a focus on sustainability – but how did she go from working as a Head Chef on private Superyachts to branching into fashion design? She shares her story …

Since launching PHAIR seven weeks ago, the most frequent question I have been asked is: What inspired me – a head chef – to make the move from food to fashion? The answer is simple, but the story is a whirlwind. Here goes…

First and foremost, I love clothes. I love everything about them. Planning outfits, matching key pieces, patterns, colour palettes and – as a woman who has always been generously endowed in the bust region – selecting well fitted pieces to suit my body type. I love it all. Unfortunately, the rise of the fast fashion industry has had a detrimental effect on the environment and also on the quality of the clothes we wear. I wanted to create sustainable and timeless pieces that can be worn again and again. Think of PHAIR as a capsule closet for the frequent traveller.

So that’s the inspiration. Here’s for the whirlwind…

It was 2009. I had just graduated from The University of Liverpool with a degree in Mathematical Science and Spanish. I was offered a job at a banking company in London. The nine to five lifestyle has never really been for me and having spent the previous year living and studying in Spain, I fell in love with the country and knew that travelling had to be a part of my life. So when my best friend and boyfriend convinced me to move to the French Alps I didn’t hesitate. I had never really seen snow, mountains, had no French language skills, no job, no money and nowhere live. What could go wrong?

This turned out to be the beginning of a ten-year adventure.

While working in the Alps I met a billionaire. He had injured himself on the piste so had sat in the bar with me all day while his friends went skiing. I made him several different cocktails and recommended different wines for him and he said: “You’d be an amazing asset on my yacht.” I politely declined and replied: “That sounds a little too posh for me, but thanks.”

Spring rolled around and the snow melted, meaning we were out of jobs. Myself and my friends discussed our options and we decided to go to the south of France to find out about these yachts we’d heard about. We did our STCW course which includes sea survival, fire fighting and first aid. We then took our ENG 1 Medical, which is a specific medical exam for seafarers, registered with the agencies, started dock walking and after all this, we were well on our way.

I managed to secure a job as a crew chef on my first ever superyacht. At this time I had no formal training as a chef but my father was a chef and a baker so I thought – how hard can this be? For the record – extremely hard! However, I quickly fell in love with the position so I returned to Dublin to complete a proper culinary qualification, so that I could progress in the industry. After finishing my course and working for free in several different Michelin star restaurants for experience, I then returned to yachts to put in the hard graft and work my way up.

A typical day in the life for yachting doesn’t really exist. Well it exists to a certain extent, we can call these ‘Boss On Days’, ‘Charter Days’ and then the ‘In Between Seasons’ days. Boss on days and charter days can look quite similar – hella long! Basically it means that either the boss of the yacht has come for a holiday or they have hired the yacht out for a few weeks to someone else.

My typical day during this time would look something like this:

5.30am Wake up
6.00am Start work and start with making breads
7.00am Crew breakfast is served
8.00am Guest breakfast starts (this may only end at 4pm)
9.00am start prepping guest lunch while simultaneously serving guest breakfast
12.00 Crew lunch is served
13.00 – 17.00 Guest lunch can be anywhere in and around this time slot, however I’ve had some Mexican guests eating lunch at midnight!
16.00 Sometimes this is a sweet hour where you might get a break for an hour or two
18.00 Crew dinner is served
19.00 Guest canapés
20.30 Guest dinner service (you hope!) Dinner service can be finished in a few hours or last for five. It all depends on your guests.
22.30 Clean down the galley, type menus for the following day, and last bits of prep for the next day’s menu
23.30 Bedtime
01.00 Guests wake you looking for snacks. I try and prep some sourdough toasties, have burgers, fries and homemade brioche buns at the ready – the more you can prepare during the day, the more sleep you (may) get! This snack service may last an hour, max two and a half. It all depends on if all the guests arrive back to the yacht at the same time, what food they would like to eat, sometimes I’m asked for foie gras canapés and Nutella on toast in the same order.
02.30 Back to bed to hopefully sleep through to 05.30 and then start all over again.

I know this sounds like a lot for people. I guess because it is a lot, especially when this day is repeated for weeks on end. For anyone who’s seen the series Below Deck, you’ll be familiar with an image of the industry as being very ‘work hard, play hard’ and I would agree with that, however all their trips last three or four days before they are then given some time off. In reality, I’ve never worked a trip shorter than a week and the longest being nine weeks straight without a day off. Sometimes you have one day off to prepare for the next trip starting and then it’s another nine weeks, it really all varies so much from yacht to yacht.

So having worked on yachts for over a decade I fancied a change. I love cooking and travelling but as I’ve gotten older I’ve wanted to explore other career paths and maybe spend more time on land.

My friends would always compliment my clothing. I was always in different parts of the world so I curated a wardrobe from amazing little boutiques I would find in the Mediterranean and the Carribean. This meant my wardrobe was full of small independent designers and some well known designers rather than brands in the fast fashion sector.

As a child I loved drawing, my art work has been displayed in the waterfront hall in Belfast and I’ve received different rewards for my work. During Covid I read a book called I Could Do Anything if I Only Knew What It Was and I loved it. It challenged me to ask myself if I’m doing what I love everyday and what did I love doing as a child? What are my hobbies? I feel this is an important conversation everyone needs to have with themselves. So two years ago I started drawing again and this time it was clothing. I started sketching outfits and shoes and this is where the clothing brand evolved from. I was looking for another creative output and this just seemed to fall into my lap.

Making something sustainable was very important to me. I didn’t want to add to the fast fashion sector and for my clothes to have a negative effect on the environment or for the people working in the supply chain to produce and manufacture our pieces. So the first collection consists of 100 per cent linen and recycled satin pieces, all shipped in recycled or compostable packaging. My factories are all SMETA approved with safe working environments and fair pay.

Working on yachts takes a certain type of person. Your days range from the highest of the highs to the lowest of the lows, with often little time spent in between. The hours are long and brutal and there can be several weeks of these 20 hour days without a single day off. It comes across as very glamorous but it’s not for the faint hearted. I’ve missed out on birthdays, weddings, christenings, funerals, most Christmases with family and almost every New Year’s Eve. Are these sacrifices worth it? Well, truth be told I wouldn’t change the last decade of my life for the world. If I could choose again, I’d do it all over again, but you need to know there are big sacrifices that come with it.

I’ve been to around 80 countries, lived in four different continents, rapped with Fatman Scoop, crashed P Diddy’s private champagne party, met countless different celebrities, all while learning, creating, travelling and being paid handsomely to do so.

I am still working part time on superyachts while I launch my new business venture. I do believe it will be hard to fully let go of that fast paced, exciting environment, always being in different places every few weeks, but hopefully my fashion business will take me on some adventures in the next year. We are in talks about stocking in a brand new complex in Dubai and a few boutiques scattered across the Bahamas and the Carribean. Watch this space! Just an Irish girl chasing some dreams.

To see more visit www.melissaphair.com and follow @melissaphair on Instagram and @melissaphairofficial on TikTok.

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