Try to visualize what it's like to work at a large automobile company. Maybe you think of an engineer or a salesman in a showroom. Maybe it's something else. But we'd be willing to bet you didn't think of a textile designer. 

Mara Kapsis is here to prove that working in the auto industry (in her case for Chevrolet) can look dramatically different for everyone. After scoring a dream job at GM while still in school, Mara faltered. Some self-reflection led her to decide to quit—she wanted to start her own business. Working for yourself. The dream, right? But after time away, Mara realized she missed the experience of working on a team—and at GM. Now at Chevy, she's the woman behind cars you see on the road every day. Not a bad gig for a creative. Here's Mara:  

"As a kid, I wanted to be a lawyer, but I think that was just because I really loved the TV show Ally McBeal, that’s really what it was about. (Laughs.) But more in line with what I do now, my grandmothers and my mom were always doing different crafts particularly related to textiles.

Both my grandmas sewed and did a bunch of embroidery and natural dying and all sorts of things like that. And my mom sewed a lot of our clothes. My mother’s mom lived in a town a little way away so we’d see her maybe twice a year and each holiday she would sit with us and teach us different skills—one of them was cross stitch, particularly. And then my mom taught me how to knit and crochet. So it was something that we were around all the time as children.  I think subconsciously I was always absorbing that, and it was a very natural transition into doing that as a career.

On Turning Craft into Career—And Then a Business

I got a Bachelor of Arts in textile design in Melbourne, Australia. During my studies, I was actually accepted into a twelve-month internship with GM in Australia and then was lucky enough to be kept on as a designer while I finished my degree. I was there for four years in total.

After four years, though, I needed to work out exactly what I wanted to do. Having gone straight from school into work, I didn’t have the time to stop and pause, and that was something I felt like I needed. 

So I left [GM] and started a small business doing screen-printed homewares. My mom actually helped me with that business. I would do the printing, and she would help me sew up the cushions and table linens, so that was a lovely flashback to my childhood. 

At that time as well, a girl I’d met at GM had left to start her own floral design business. I helped her during that period doing floral design too, and then the third element was doing freelance graphic design. So it was kind of all connected—we'd do florals for weddings and then I'd do wedding invitations and so forth.

On Working for Yourself, Then Giving It Up 

The thing is, I really missed being part of a bigger team. Having a small business where it was just me, it could be very isolating. I mean, there were lots of events and design markets and I was trying to be involved, but it was just harder to crack into a community. So I missed being around a team and learning from them. I think there’s something to be said for being around people who are at the top of their game, and that’s something I'm really lucky to be a part of at GM.

I think I needed to leave to reset my focus and my goals. I think if you understand your goals, then you’ll know what comes next. That's maybe the biggest takeaway I got [from that period]—that you can always go back (or something like that). Even if you take that leap, nothing is permanent. You can always change your mind. And if it doesn’t work out, it’s OK. You still needed to do that.

I think often when people leave [to work for themselves] and it doesn’t work, they feel like they failed. That’s something I went through personally. When it wasn’t quite what I wanted to get out of it, I had a small sense of failure. I think that’s dangerous. What I had to look back and reflect on the fact that I needed to do that to learn and to be the designer that I am today. It turned into what it needed to. I don’t regret it for a minute. Not at all.

On Being a Creative in a Not-Quite Creative Industry (Hint: It's More Creative Than You Think) 

There’s a technical side for sure [to my work], but there’s definitely a hands-on element as well where we interact with the materials.

So in a day, we move between working on a computer developing patterns or decoration or fabrics and then we work with the interior and exterior designers trying to translate their vision for vehicles and applying different materials to those. But then we get really hands-on with the textiles and all sorts of textures and finishes that go into vehicles. So we may be mocking up samples or exploring and researching new materials—it’s really quite diverse and it does range from working on the technical side (where we’re understanding the capability of certain materials) but then also understanding the aesthetic side of it.

On Thinking Big (And Small) 

In automotive, we are working far out—it’s over three years before the products we’re working on will be on the road—so we do a lot of trend forecasting, go to different events, and look at a lot of online publications. These days information is so easily accessible. We even do a lot of research on platforms like Instagram. And we look at our customers and how they’re using their vehicles and what their lifestyles are like—that’s definitely a big source of inspiration.

Chevy recently launched the all new Equinox and that’s a beautiful vehicle. We’re really proud of the way we were able to stay true to the strategy we developed all that time ago and to really get all of those things into the vehicle for our customers. I think one of the major triumphs for me is to be able to deliver products to our customers that really fit into their lifestyles and enhance them. That's when you've gotten it right."  

Photos provided by Chevy.