Taeste Buddies: Mecca James-Williams
On bikini shopping, finding meaning through work, and leaving everything behind for Jamaica.
Welcome to another edition of Taeste Buddies. It’s a bi-weekly interview series that explores the idea of taste: How it’s shaped by our identities and spurred by our creativity. Each edition I chat with someone whose taste I admire, whether as a friend or from afar.
This week, meet Mecca James-Williams, a stylist, global culture editor and the founder of Sweet Like Jam. I had the joy of working alongside Mecca at The Zoe Report, and was taken at the time by what an imaginative and joyful person she is. We move through the world in such different ways, but every time I talk to her I find myself so inspired by the empowered and confident way she approaches her work and life. Her energy is infectious! Mecca chatted to me from the sunny living room of her home in Jamaica, and talked to me about everything from her career to her current mastery of sawfish fritters. Enjoy!
What does taste (or good taste) mean to you?
Good taste is something that feeds your soul. So of course, it's subjective to each person, but I think taste can also be prescribed. As someone who helps curate taste, it can be a slippery slope finding what taste looks like from other perspectives. Good taste is when you know how to find your own, outside of all the noise.
My sense of taste is intrinsic, it's gut led, but it's also through the lens of discovery. The more I discover the more I feel a sense of what’s sexy, or beautiful, smells good or tastes good. My vehicle for discovering my taste is through the lens of finding new things. It could be through a conversation, it could be through a travel experience, it could be through a fucking epiphany.
Can you share an outfit that represents your style?
Anything with a bathing suit right now, also my Christopher John Rogers dress.
What was the last great thing that you purchased?
I recently bought a cool mini film camera: Fujifilm FinePix XP 10. I bought an Alexander Wang bag. Mostly, I’ve felt inspired by curating a buy for JAM, because it came from my pocket, and it's still coming from my pocket. Being able to gamble on myself and better myself by creating something from scratch and pouring into brands for this experience was a good buy.
For JAM I wanted to highlight niche brands that had their own points of view. A lot of it I thought was going to be for our pop up last year, but we ended up switching the dates to 2025. Any of the brands that had already been put in production I had to eat the cost of, and any of the brands that could move gears to the next year did.
It so happens to be brands that are in different places of the world, like Emily Watson, an Australian brand with luxe swimwear pieces. They are pieces you can swim in, but you can also just sit on the beach in and look like you have a freaking runway look on. Another brand that I have is Francesca Lake. She's a Kingston based brand, and her pieces are very couture, Erica Badu bought her entire collection from last season.
What do you wear most?
Work-out clothes, I've been working to make my Jamaica mind, body, and soul goals. Shedding old weight and skin, stabilizing my spiritual and mental health, and creating more holistic goals for myself.
What was the last great thing that you made?
I'm starting to make new connections. When I moved to another country, I was so focused on maintaining my connections with people in New York and back home that I didn’t take the opportunity to meet new people or see new perspectives here in Jamaica. This morning, I went on a walk with someone who lives two doors down from me, and I met her at an herbalism retreat. 2025 is all about new connections.
How do you discover?
Right now, I feel like I've gone back to the basics of opening up an old book. It's so different than when I was living full time in New York, because there was so much happening. Now, my discovery wheel is so much slower, I make time for me to sit with the things that I enjoy.
When I was in New York, I was buying magazines each month they came out. I was buying art books when I just felt called to it. Of course, I looked at them and received them. But because I'm sitting in Jamaica, a place that doesn't have that so much, I'm savoring each page. I’m actually digesting the work that I bought and the things that I see in a way that's slower and with more attention to detail.
What’s most precious to you?
My connection to the people I love, myself and the world around me. I feel everything deeply, and finally honor the beauty in that.
Where does your sense of taste come from?
As a child I remember, my aunt went to a thrift store and she got bags and bags of clothes. It was one of these summers where we were just playing outside. She called us inside and asked what we should do with all the clothes. I started rummaging through and I found this leather skirt and I tried it on. I was like, ‘Ooh, we could pair it with this top.’ My aunt looked at me, and she goes, ‘You love fashion.’ I said, ‘I do.’ And that was kind of it.
The first years of my life, my family was like, ‘Mecca loves talking back, and Mecca always has the point of view, she's going to be a lawyer.’ And I was like, ‘I don’t want to be no lawyer’ So when they said you're gonna be in fashion, I was like, ‘You got it right.’ From there it was something that my family naturally supported me on. In high school, I was the arts and entertainment editor of my newspaper. I was just kind of known as the fashion girly. There was only one fashion class, and I took it so seriously. I thought, I'm moving to New York, so whatever information you can give me, I'll take it.
How do your personal style and work as a stylist intersect?
They work in tandem. My personal style has evolved and grown because I'm a stylist. It's made me learn new brands and understand silhouettes that work for different body types. I know who I am, no one could tell me I need to do something if I don't feel like it works for me.
In my 20s, I was always bright, bold, and vibrant and in ways I still am. Color drives me so much, it makes me feel very alive. Now I'm more into the simplicity of a uniform. Because I live on an island now, I can't pull out all of the bells and whistles like I would in New York. I let simplicity guide me, but it still has the pieces of color and texture that I've always gravitated towards.
What really needed to change in your life, and why Jamaica?
I moved to New York to launch a career. In 2020 I looked around and I said, ‘wow, I'm extremely successful in my career, but as a person, I don't know who I am. I know who I am through the lens of what my industry wants me to think, I know who I am through the lens of the community around me, but I don't know who I am if I didn't have that influence.’
Jamaica was the safe space for my ego death. It's like peeling back the layers of myself and really understanding who I am, who I want to be. Of course, that just happens to hit when I turn 30. Jamaica was just a place that I felt the safest to discover who I am innately and not who I want to show up as.
It can be a very daunting process, wanting to be successful, but also finding yourself. In America, there's a prescribed notion of what success is. Especially within our industry. You have to break free because you'll constantly be chasing a path that somebody else forged. It ends up being your own self doubt that the industry prescribed to you, so you keep reiterating it.
There were these milestones I wanted for myself, and I hit them. Yes, there are a few milestones that I have for myself that I haven't reached yet, but does that need to happen now? And does it need to be linear? No, not necessarily. What was important to me in my 20s is like no longer important to me in my 30s. But, creativity, art, and storytelling are still very important in my life.
Now, what do you love about your home?
My coffee table has all my treasures on it. I am an avid collector of books and cultural relics, and always love curating them. My desk I made myself.
Moving away from your main source of work and making that big jump, what was it that scared you, what excited you?
The first two years I was prepared for it, sister saved some coin. I find myself in deeper hurdles than what I was, but I think that's why you just have to keep pushing. That's where JAM came to be. I know I love fashion, I know I love culture, I know I love commerce, I know I love storytelling. How can I create a brand that speaks to that outside of America or New York? It was very important to create a brand that can be part of my legacy and something that I can grow with over time. I've had to really sharpen my faith … faith in my own abilities, faith in the universe to really guide me.
What is something unexpected that you have really good taste in?
I make meals that are really nourishing, things local to Jamaica. Sawfish fritters is one of Jamaica's best known dishes, and it's a salted fish fried, but I put my own stuff in it. I’m also experimenting with sauces now, I’m on an Asian inspired kick. So anything with sesame, anything with coconut aminos, I'm really good at. It's all very fresh and simple.
That salad and salt fish fritter pic came straight from the dome, but here is a similar recipe for the fritters, I like mine with more fish and with baking soda for puff value.
Can you share a few recommendations?
I look for magazines that speak to the past, present and feature with purpose. Citizen is a great magazine ($30).
Always in search of vintage coffee table books. Right now I love this book from Blk Mkt Vintage ($165)
The RealReal: This Prada Angela Davis Coat from TRR would be a dream to own ($5600)
I love this mint balm from Topicals ($26), a great gloss that’s also moisturizing.
I just watched Doechi x Thom Browne fitting: as a stylist, I love watching other creative processes.
38. Taeste Buddies: Brie Welch
This week, meet Brie! She’s a stylist, dancer, and a fellow Brooklyn resident who also happens to be my sometimes tennis partner. She has this natural, easy personal style that always manages to feel inherently cool and uncontrived. Any given look mixes vintage, menswear, casual pieces, and emerging brands and the outfit is always greater than the sum of its parts. When I run into her at events the thought that usually goes through my head is “why haven’t I ever thought of wearing that before?”
What Mecca is building with Sweet Like Jam is definitely one to watch! Still obsessed with the Emily Watson swimsuit I tried on from her pop-up.