Before NÅD existed, before Colombo became home, there was a woman who had spent nearly twenty-five years moving through the many rooms of the global fashion industry. Joanne Stoker has spent nearly twenty-five years moving through the world of fashion. London, New York, Italy, China - each city added a layer, a skill, a perspective. Her work has never been limited to one corner of the industry. From styling and sustainability to teaching and designing footwear, she’s explored fashion from multiple angles. Across studios and fashion weeks in Paris and Milan, she developed more than a career; she built a way of living where fashion isn’t just what she does, it’s part of who she is. It’s a world that shaped her long before Sri Lanka entered the picture - and one she carries into every collection she creates.
Finding Home in Sri Lanka
Joanne arrived in Sri Lanka to teach fashion design at AOD, stepping in as head of the fashion department. She was still designing footwear at the time, creating sculptural, avant-garde pieces and coordinating production overseas. Making that kind of footwear locally proved challenging, and over time, her focus began to shift. Life in Sri Lanka quickly became intertwined with her creativity. Marriage and the birth of her first child added new layers, and during the COVID lockdown, she began experimenting with dead stock fabric manufactured by luxury brands in Sri Lanka. A local seamstress, out of work at the time, helped bring those early ideas to life. Thirty dresses later and coordination via WhatsApp, what had started as a project from home quietly became the first steps of NÅD. Slowly, the island became more than a base. It became a home for her ideas, a place where local materials, makers, and her own vision could meet. What began as a practical solution for the moment evolved into a brand that carries both her craft and her care, rooted firmly in Sri Lanka.
Inside Her Design Brain
For Joanne, design has never been split into footwear or ready-to-wear -both come from the same instinct: a love for structure. Whether shaping a heel or a jacket, she’s drawn to form: pleats, ruffles, sculptural lines, and fabrics with body. Handloom became a natural fit for NÅD, its firmness allowing her to bring that architectural sensibility into clothing. That influence traces back to her early work with a mechanical engineering company in London, where building models trained her eye to think in lines and construction. Sri Lanka shifted her pace.
London pushed trends; Colombo rewards longevity. Here, she found room to develop signatures -like her jasmine-inspired ruffle dress -that stay relevant season after season. The island also tuned her into colour. People here embrace it, and that joy naturally enters her collections. Each season starts with a colour mood; this year’s MBFWSL palette was shaped by the landscape: milk tea, sea blue, soil brown, ambarella green. From there, the process flows through mood boards, sketches, and the realities of available fabric, much of it upcycled or handloomed. She sketches faster than she can produce. For Joanne, design is about finding the line between play and wearability -pieces that feel expressive yet grounded in the lives of the women who wear them.
Palm & Pine - A Tropical Christmas Fantasy
Palm & Pine unfolds as a Christmas story rewritten for the tropics - where festive nostalgia is softened by island light, and familiar holiday cues take on a warm, sun-drenched ease. This season is brighter and more nostalgic in a tropical, almost vintage way. Think banana leaf prints, colour-blocked silhouettes, bold reds, pine green, candy cane stripes and punchy pinks. The collection blends playful colour with wearable silhouettes - breezy linens, airy cottons and relaxed sets that carry from daytime celebrations to beachside soirées. If Palm & Pine were a Christmas movie set in Sri Lanka, it would open at the Galle Face Hotel: a cocktail party on the checkerboard floor, dancing away in looks that mix heritage, heat, and a little holiday sparkle. Palm & Pine captures exactly that mood - festive, tropical, and unmistakably island Christmas.
The East–West Dialogue
NÅD balances Scandinavian minimalism with Sri Lanka’s tropical vibrance, and for Joanne, that balance comes from something simple: bringing her personal style into an Eastern context. Her influences tie back to where she trained and lived -Victorian ruffles, 1960s shifts and colour blocks, and the playful shapes of the 1970s. England’s nostalgic fashion history shaped her instincts, each decade leaving an imprint on her approach. In Sri Lanka, those ideas adapt to local fabrics, colours, and the way people dress. It’s about making her European-inspired aesthetic work in a tropical context, creating pieces that feel familiar yet firmly rooted in Sri Lankan craft. For collaboration, one name comes to her instantly: Sanjeewa Kumara. She imagines his colourful, playful motifs becoming embroidery -a blend of his joyful visual language with her structured, wearable designs, and another bridge between the two worlds that shape her work.
What It Truly Means
Joanne Stoker’s approach to fashion has always been shaped by more than creativity. Early mentorship under Jimmy Choo taught her that being a designer is as much about business as artistry. From financial caution to thoughtful collaborations, she carries that advice into every decision, shaping both her collections and the way she works. Her design philosophy is simple: considered, ethical, slow. Each piece is built for longevity -practical details, durable fabrics, easy care. Ethical production anchors the brand, supporting home-based machinists and small ateliers. And slow fashion guides NÅD’s rhythm, reflecting local habits and her belief that good design takes time. Looking back, the journey from London to Colombo - from shoes to clothes - has reminded her that fashion is simply part of who she is. Even when she explored other paths, she always returned to clothing, a craft rooted in childhood and shaped alongside her mother’s work. Today, NÅD represents more than garments. For Joanne, it’s about grounding the brand in mindful practices and creating pieces people genuinely live in - clothes that are loved, reworn, and kept. A quiet reminder that thoughtful design, shaped with care for both maker and wearer, can last.
