> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.theartnewsletter.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Youth Pastor to Fashion Designer, Interview with House of Jacob - URL: https://www.theartnewsletter.com/from-youth-pastor-to-fashion-designer-interview-with-jacob-bottle-and-his-brand-house-of-jacob/ - Published: 2026-10-15T17:16:56.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-15T20:56:43.000Z - Description: Rooted in the rugged landscapes of Idaho, outdoor utility, and streetwear, Jacob Bottles is carving out a distinct perspective on fashion through his brand, House of Jacob - Author: Annabelle - Tags: Interviews, Fashion The label is deeply personal—a reflection of Bottles' upbringing, his relationship with the outdoors, and, above all, his Christian faith. Rather than relying on overt messaging, Bottles approaches faith through craft: the cut of a garment, the world surrounding a collection, and the stories told through film, photography, and physical spaces. His hope is to create work that points beyond itself—bringing the ruggedness of the American West into fashion while creating with a level of beauty and excellence that draws people toward Christ. I spoke with Bottles ahead of the House of Jacob launch about moving his family to California to pursue the brand, finding fashion from rural Idaho, trusting God's timing, and what it means to create as a Christian artist. --- **Jacob:** My name is Jacob Keith Bottles. I'm 33 years old, and I grew up in Idaho, born and raised my whole life. I grew up in a really solid Christian family. My grandparents on my dad's side were pastors in Chicago, and so I grew up with a super strong faith, always incredibly strong. I was interested in art, just exploring all different mediums and whatnot, and then over the years I stumbled into fashion and clothes. I actually went to private school, so I had to wear a uniform all through school. They also had rules on the length of your hair for boys, so my hair could never pass my ears. When I graduated, I was like, "I'm growing my hair out, and I'm never gonna cut it again." So there was this juxtaposition of being really inspired by the outdoors and loving that lifestyle. And then also, when I was in high school and in college, how I came into fashion was through Tumblr, just looking at things, learning about Margiela, learning about different designers. Yeezy was a big thing that got me into fashion too, and the streetwear stuff. But I didn't grow up—I didn't know anyone who was into clothes. So for me, it started out as more surf and skate kind of vibes, and then outdoor stuff, and then started learning about Margiela, learning about Balenciaga, the designer, and all the designers. **Annabelle:** Yeah, wow. That's such a cool transition—from private school in Idaho to fashion. **Jacob:** Yeah. **Annabelle:** I'm actually from Texas, so I relate a little bit to the environment and the culture. **Jacob:** Super cool. **Annabelle:** So what are you excited for with this first collection? Because it's coming out pretty soon. **Jacob:** Yeah, next Friday. Coming into the fashion space, I had a lot of experience in the outdoor industry and manufacturing products. I worked at a sunglasses company for many years. I've developed backpacks and bags, and then obviously sunglasses and other stuff like that. Coming into the fashion industry, I'm a complete outsider. A lot of these clothes I started working on three years ago—working on patterns and then finding a manufacturer. For me, this is such a huge moment because we just moved. I have three little kids with my wife. We have an almost four-year-old, a two-year-old—both of them are girls—and then our son is six months old. We're moving everyone down here to go at this and pursue this whole thing. All my manufacturing is in L.A. I've established some great connections down here, but I want to be down here to really grow the business. > This isn't just a me thing. This is a family thing. We're doing this as a family. The kids, already at a young age, are invested in it, and my wife is too. It's super exciting. It's super fulfilling already to just have these pieces. I wear them every day. I'm only designing things that I want to wear, and I know that there are people out there who are going to resonate with those exact same things. I'm looking for things that are missing that I want to wear, and I think that will connect. The story of the ruggedness of the Wild West and the outdoors—I really think that will connect with a fashion audience. I want to bring that kind of ruggedness to the fashion world. **Annabelle:** For sure. I'm super excited. I love the clothes I've seen so far, and the campaign and everything. It's really great. And your wife too—what is her name? I'd love to get her name. **Jacob:** She's Brittany. **Annabelle:** Wonderful. That's so exciting that it's a family business. I'm so happy to hear that. How does your faith—you talked about it a little bit—but how does it connect back to the brand and everything you're doing? Because I noticed in your bio, "Let us walk in the house of the Lord." Tell me a little bit more about that. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/34/b5/34b542d7-662a-4b6d-b229-2d284cd24c37/content/images/2026/10/160-DSC_2871.png) Image courtesy of House of Jacob, 2026 **Jacob:** Yeah, obviously my name is Jacob, so the brand comes from that. I've always deeply resonated with the story of Jacob. I love that story. He ran away from his family and his brothers, and then through this process, God refined this wayward son into a person who He then renamed to be the father of a people group and a nation. I love the story of Jacob wrestling with God. It was 10 years ago now that I distinctly remember coming up with that name as I was reading. It was a day after that when my friend's wife had a dream where she was telling me, "Name it Jacob. Name it Jacob." At the time, I was working on some other projects, so I had this name, House of Jacob. I bought the domain name, but it just wasn't time yet. I was doing so many other things, and I was a youth pastor at the time. I was actually giving up creative work so that I could focus on that. I've done a lot of merch stuff before, designing for musicians and doing the Christian merch thing with slogans. I really enjoyed that. With House of Jacob, what I wanted to focus on more is the cut and how I can tell the story of God's story and the faith experience less with words, but more through the clothes themselves, and then weave those stories into the film, the photography, and the styling, where it's a little more subtle. I love when artists don't tell you something, but they show it to you by the way that they create or by their actions. Actions obviously speak louder than words. So many believers shy away from being "Christian artists," right? And I understand that. I used to be that way as well. In this day and age, it's kind of hard to know—a lot of people can say they're Christian, but it's hard to define Christian. > As a follower of Christ, which is how I would describe myself as a Christian and a disciple of Christ, being a follower of Him is first. So everything I do, in my opinion, becomes—I'm a Christian artist. I can't escape that because that identity will come through. That's such a deep part of me, my relationship with Christ, that it will come through in anything, even if it doesn't have a cross on it, even if it doesn't have a Christian slogan or a verse on it. It's going to come through. Ultimately, I just want to do all that with excellence. I don't want to run from my relationship with Christ. I don't really care if that's the label. "Oh, he's a Christian artist," or, "He's not a Christian artist." From my perspective, I'm a Christian artist. People can throw labels on different things. I'm fine with that. I just want to create really great and exceptional art. I want to create things that are beautiful in such a way that, just by looking at them, they draw people closer to God. Some of the greatest art of all time is these cathedrals all over Europe, right? Every artist had it within themselves: "I want to do something so excellent that it makes people look upward." All the architecture, all the painting was for that. I want to take that same thing and design the clothes, do the campaigns—I've worked on some furniture and installation pieces—but just do things in such a way that make myself and others look outside of themselves and look upward toward the divine, toward Christ and toward God. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/34/b5/34b542d7-662a-4b6d-b229-2d284cd24c37/content/images/2026/10/160-DSC_2871_3.png) Image courtesy of House of Jacob **Annabelle:** That's so beautiful. I agree 100%. I feel like that's exactly how I try to live my life and explore my own craft and my own art in that way. Wow, super interesting. **Jacob:** Yeah, it's so important to not run from that relationship with Christ when we're pursuing art, right? Because I wouldn't do that in anything else. When I'm being a dad, I'm not trying to be a dad without Christ. I'm like, "Goodness, I need you. I need you to help shape me and refine me." I want Him to do that in my design and my practice of design and art too, in the fashion space and whatever else I do. I want that to refine me. Maybe sometimes that means letting go of an idea that's, honestly, something that doesn't put Him first. Obviously my own flesh will get in the way, but my desire is that less and less of that would happen. > And that doesn't mean making everything happy or making everything light. A huge genre of literature in the Bible is lament. You look at the Book of Job, you look at so many of the Psalms, you look at Ecclesiastes, where the writer is saying, "Everything's meaningless. There's nothing new under the sun." We need that too. I think that's where people have felt like Christian art is inauthentic—when only the joyful things have been expressed. I really want to see artists do both, like the Psalmist. You're like, "Is this dude bipolar?" He's on the mountaintop, right? But he's writing from different experiences, whether that's David or the other writers. That's what life is. I want to create things that deeply resonate with the human experience and are in the dirt with people, and then also create things that are so out there that they make people look up. **Annabelle:** I love that. Wow, super inspiring. **Jacob:** Because Jesus is both of them. **Annabelle:** That's amazing **Jacob:** Jesus did both things at the same time. He sat in the dirt with someone and made someone feel so seen in their darkest moment, and also made them look way beyond themselves and look upward. That's our Great Commission—to bring heaven to earth, right? To create and to work toward building that kingdom here. The first time the Spirit fell on an artist, it was Bezalel to build the temple—to create these artifacts that make people stop thinking about themselves and look toward the divine and look toward God, which is so cool. What if we could do that with clothes? We're doing that with painting and telling that story through that. That's what I want to do. It's a high aspiration. I'm not even close to it yet, but that's my goal. **Annabelle:** Well, you're doing a wonderful job. I'm super excited to see how your brand evolves. It's really exciting and honestly inspiring for young designers and young Christian artists—anyone who's trying to move into that field. That was another question I had for you. Do you have anything to say to a young designer or an aspiring artist—someone who's looking to express their faith in a way that maybe isn't the typical fashion thing and is different? **Jacob:** Yeah, how to balance that too. I think the biggest thing, looking back—I mean, in my opinion, I'm still young. I'm only 33\. But I know there are kids who are 16, 18, in their early 20s, who are just getting started in it too. For us, God's timing. I'm so glad I didn't start this 10 years ago. For a long time, this dream died. So, trust God's timing and just be dedicated to your craft. Looking back, there are many things that I did well, and there are things where I wish I would have been more consistent with my practice of creating. Creating art, creating things—be consistent and trust God's timing. For me, yes, it's clothes. The clothes are what's for sale, but this is so much more to me than just that. This is a dream that I had that now we're doing as a family. > I'm learning to hold all the things and the end result more loosely. I have a vision, and I want to work to accomplish that. As an artist and as a designer, you obsess over something, and maybe you have the idea for years and years and years. Then there's the feeling of when you make it and it actually turns out the way you envisioned it, or finally you have the skills to create it. There are things still in my head that I've tried to make, and it's like, "All right, I gotta keep working on my craft to be able to execute that." But that feeling is so incredible. What I'm trying to do, and what I'm encouraging other people to do, is just fall in love with the process of creating. I look back at times that I felt most accomplished, and some of them were for really simple things. I remember building this fence. It was super hot, and it wasn't anything incredibly beautiful or glorious, but at the end of the day, looking down the line and seeing this fence that I'd worked on for so long, I felt super accomplished. The time we feel the most accomplished is when we put a lot of effort into it. So I tell people to keep going. It really doesn't matter what season of life you're in. I thought I might never leave Idaho, and I was fine with that. But it was God that opened up that door. Trusting that process is so important. I say that now, and I'm sure that I'll stress about things in the future, and I did in the past. But if I'm looking back at my 20s, I'd be like, "Just create consistently and trust God with the process." **Annabelle:** Yeah, that's so good. I love that. And then I guess, where do you see your next collection going, or where do you see the brand expanding? Any future ideas or plans that you want to share? **Jacob:** I want to double down on the outdoors and the ruggedness of the West. Even though I'm here, California is filled with these landscapes. I want to tell more of that story through the video, through the photography, and even through the clothes. For me, my life is filled with a lot of practical things, so my clothes have to be able to get dirty. I want to create even more clothes that I can actually go hunting in, that I can hang out with my kids all day in, that I can work in. They just develop character. That's why people are so obsessed with vintage. That's what I love about vintage too—the clothes have a story. But I want to create pieces that I can have a story in and that get better with age. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/34/b5/34b542d7-662a-4b6d-b229-2d284cd24c37/content/images/2026/10/160-DSC_2871_2.png) As far as other things with the brand, I love doing installations. I love world-building in a physical space. That's the hardest part about doing online retail and being small—how do you do that? Obviously this is a part of that, physically making it a reality, but I want to do more physical, in-person experiences and make more objects, whether that's furniture or just installations. I've made some chandeliers, a couch, and there are a lot of other ideas that I want to build and do more with. We have so many designs ready to go, so many designs ready to start sampling—more than I need right now. So I'm like, "Okay, I've got these. While we work on these samples, how else can I world-build and tell biblical narratives through this lens of the outdoors?" **Annabelle:** Yeah, wow. And do you see it living in California or going back to—I know we're going across the U.S.— **Jacob:** I would love for the brand to have global reach. I do see it being something that resonates with people all over the globe. I want to tell my story and my experience. I think that's what makes the brand what it is. > That's why I named it House of Jacob. I'm not here to create clothes for other people. I'm here to create from my experience and for what I need. Ideally, that resonates with a lot of people, and I guess we'll see how many people that resonates with as I continue. Very long term, if I'm looking into the future, I would love to be back in Idaho, on a ranch again, have my own ranch, and that's the House of Jacob ranch. **Annabelle:** Oh, yes. Your kids would love that. **Jacob:** And then the clothes have that global reach, but I want it to still have this balance of being intimate and personal. I think that's what I'm looking for from other brands and other designers. I don't want to dilute it by just making things for other people. If I continue making things for me and some of them don't resonate, I'm okay with that. **Annabelle:** Well, I love the vision. I love what you have going on. It's going to go so far. The Lord is really blessing you, I can tell. I'm really excited. **Jacob:** I think it's really important to see, since we're all made in God's image, someone who is not a follower of Christ can still reflect part of that image, right? Someone's art can still reflect part of God's image, even though they're not following Him, or even though maybe 90% of it is very dark or against God. So I do love looking at different artists and different things. Often, it's like I see a desire for the divine, a desire for Christ, or a hunger in that, even though they wouldn't—even though maybe they'd be offended that I would say that. I like that perspective of looking at artists. There's something about a work of art that challenges us as believers to ask a question that maybe we're afraid to ask. That's because they're made in the image of God, just like we are. It is beautiful when our work as Christian artists, as followers of Christ, can influence other artists as well to focus their energy on expressing who God is and who Christ is through their work. C.S. Lewis became a believer. He's one of the greatest writers of all time, and he was also a great illustrator too. Tolkien and—I forget the other writer—through conversations and through their own writing led C.S. Lewis to Christ. He's one of the most influential Christian authors ever, not just of apologetics, but of books like *The Chronicles of Narnia*, which is a fantastical story. I've known people who aren't believers who had no idea that it was a biblical narrative. I think that's what J.R.R. Tolkien did with *The Lord of the Rings*. It doesn't say Christ anywhere, but you're like, "Wow, this story deeply connects with the human experience and with our desire to know God." **Annabelle:** I agree, and thank you so much for the interview - I appreciate it. --- For Bottles, House of Jacob is ultimately about more than clothing. It's the result of a creative practice shaped over years—through faith, family, the landscapes of Idaho, and a willingness to trust the timing of a dream that once seemed as though it might never happen. As the brand begins its next chapter, Bottles is using his faith to inform the way he designs, tells stories, and builds the world around House of Jacob. Whether through a garment made to age with its wearer, a photograph, a film, or eventually a physical space, the aspiration remains the same: to make something with enough intention and excellence that it encourages people to look beyond themselves and upward. House of Jacob launches October 16, 2026. Follow House of Jacob on Instagram at [**@houseofjacob\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_**](https://www.instagram.com/houseofjacob%5F%5F%5F%5F%5F%5F%5F%5F%5F/?ref=theartnewsletter.com) and discover the brand at [**houseofjacob.com**.](https://houseofjacob.com/?ref=theartnewsletter.com) > [ View this post on Instagram ](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DeDbZvapWGm/?utm%5Fsource=ig%5Fembed&utm%5Fcampaign=loading) *The following conversation has been edited for clarity and length.*