Edith Martel

NATION LOS ANGELES

WORN IN HER WORLD

JOURNAL ESSAY: EDITH MARTEL

 

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Worn in Her World: Edith Martel 

 

Nation Los Angeles sits at the intersection of conscious dressing and everyday life. Worn in Her World explores how the women who inspire us build a sustainable wardrobe that moves through the full range of a real day—without compromise.

For Montreal-based ceramicist Edith Martel, making starts with the material.

Working with clay means surrendering to something larger than yourself. That lesson came quickly for her, and it never really left. What began as a spontaneous pottery class in 2017 became a lifelong relationship with a medium that resists control, rewards patience, and has a way of humbling even the most practiced hands. "Every time I am too confident in my ability to work the medium, I'm always humbled by how much more I have to learn," she says. "I will forever be an expert beginner."

That spirit of curious humility shapes everything Martel makes. Her work—pots, planters, sculptural forms—sits at the intersection of beauty and utility, though she's grown intentional about where exactly that line falls. Over time, she's moved away from highly functional dishware, drawn instead to objects where function exists on different terms. "I don't find that it limits my creativity," she says. If anything, the constraint opens things up.

The Material Principle

Central to Martel's practice is a deep reverence for clay itself. The medium comes from eroded stone and has a life entirely its own before she ever touches it. That origin matters to her. "I never like to take the work too far, to bring it too far out of its natural state." Her role, as she sees it, is more collaboration than creation: working with what the material wants to be rather than forcing it into a predetermined shape. "Sometimes you need to let a piece be what it wants to be, and not what you need it to be," she says. "Every piece finds its home eventually."

It's a philosophy that demands presence, as dips in attention can cause irreparable mistakes in her pieces. Building by hand is the part of the process she finds most grounding—but every stage, from shaping to drying to firing, requires the same focused attentiveness. The process doesn't allow for shortcuts, and Martel has come to find freedom in that fact.

Patience as Practice

Working with a live material has reshaped the way she relates to time. There are steps in the ceramic process that simply cannot be rushed, and learning to accept that has been its own quiet education. "I've come to terms with the fact that I can't control everything," she says. "I do what I can, and the natural order of things will progress at its own pace." She still feels the occasional anxiety of waiting—but she's learned to keep perspective. There has never been a real emergency because a pot wasn't finished on time.

That same attentiveness carries into how she moves through her days. Her rituals are small and deliberate: a glass of water first thing in the morning, a candlelit shower before bed. Less about routine for its own sake, more about carving out moments that belong entirely to her before the day takes over.

Intention Over Accumulation

Martel's home reflects the same sensibility as her studio practice. She surrounds herself mostly with handmade or vintage objects—things that tell a story and carry some trace of the hands that made them. "It's part of what makes a life very rich, to be surrounded by special things," she says. But she holds it all loosely. The only thing truly irreplaceable, she admits, is a collection of childhood photo albums—analog photographs taken by her parents. Everything else, she believes, could find its way to someone else if it needed to.

Her approach to building a space mirrors how she thinks about building a practice: slowly, with discernment, letting the right things find you over time. "It's much more chic to have no items than the wrong ones."

Simplicity as a Statement

The same clarity of vision translates directly into the way Martel gets dressed. Classic cuts, quality fibers, ease of movement—these are her non-negotiables, especially in the studio, where clothes need to move with her without getting in the way. The strongest parallel between her work and her wardrobe, she says, is a shared belief that a strong impact doesn't require a loud statement. "Less has always been more."

What makes a simple piece feel elevated, in her view, comes down to tailoring, fit, and material. She's drawn to pieces that recede—that highlight a point of focus rather than demanding attention for themselves. It's the same quality she chases in her ceramics: a quiet intentionality that makes itself known.

The Wider View

Martel's current inspiration reaches across history and geography. She's been immersed in traditional vessel shapes from Egypt, Italy, and France—drawn to the way a single, common object carries entirely different meaning depending on where and how it was used. Ritual, decoration, cooking, carrying: these vessels contain multitudes. Closer to home, she's doing a deep dive into Montreal's brutalist and modernist architecture from the 1950s and '60s, in awe of the work that period produced.

As for what she'd love to see more of in design and fashion, her answer is equal parts generous and practical: more international platforms for smaller makers. The consolidation of fashion weeks around major houses, she feels, leaves too much talent unseen. Initiatives that shine a light on craftspeople—rather than absorbing them—are the ones that excite her most.

For Martel, that's where making becomes something more than production. It's about a creative practice that inspires, objects that earn their place, and a life built slowly and with real intention.

Discover more stories from Worn in Her World and explore the elevated essentials designed to move with you, wherever your day unfolds.