Fashion Designers: Emma Clegg and Molly Rogers
Molly (left) and Emma (right)
Emma Clegg. Emma is incredibly passionate about the inclusion of people with disability which has led her to take on the world as a social entrepreneur, Occupational Therapist and Disability Support Worker. After six years’ experience as a Disability Support Worker, she was inspired to start JAM the label to amplify the message that everyone deserves the opportunity to look and feel good in the clothes they wear. Emma’s role in JAM focuses on the operational side of the business, including liaising with manufacturers, project development, book-keeping and customer service. Emma, alongside Molly, is highly involved in product development and brings her skills as an accessibility expert to be able to utilise universal design principles to adapt clothing items to be functional for a large customer range.
Molly Rogers. Molly is one of the co-founders of JAM the label, an inclusive fashion brand designed with people with disability in mind. Working in the disability sector for the past eight years as a Disability Support Worker and Occupational Therapist, inspired her to start JAM to amplify the message that everyone deserves the opportunity to look and feel good in the clothes they wear. Molly’s role in JAM focuses on the brand marketing/creative aspects of the business, including all marketing and social media. Molly, alongside JAM’s co-founder, Emma, is highly involved in product development and brings her skills as an accessibility expert to be able to utilise universal design principles to adapt clothing items to be functional for a large customer range.
Why did you create JAM The Label?
We created JAM to cater for the 15 - 20% of people globally with disability who have traditionally been excluded from mainstream fashion. We want to shake up the fashion industry and make it more inclusive the 1.2 billion people in the world with a disability. We particularly want to give young people with disability the opportunity to express themselves through fashion, just like we do.
JAM is named after two teenagers that we worked with as disability support workers, Jack and Maddie, who were forced to dress outside their age bracket and style just because the fashion industry didn’t consider them. We wanted to change that.
You saw a gap in the market and created JAM – what was the first moment you decided to go for it feel like?
It was very surreal launching JAM in 2019 as we hadn’t come from a fashion or business background. We were Occupational Therapists! So doing our very first photoshoot and launching our website was super exciting and a huge learning process.
How do you balance your work as occupational therapists with building your label?
For the first year after launching JAM, we were working full time as Occupational Therapists and working on JAM after work and on the weekends. That was a lot, but the fact that we were in it together made it easier. And the fact that we were so passionate about what we were creating - JAM didn’t really feel like work! We then moved to part time OT work, part time JAM and balanced our income by doing disability support work on the weekends.
Earlier this year, we made the move to full time JAM and we have kept up our disability support work.
What made balancing the different roles easier over the last few years was that we saw people every single day that JAM was going to benefit, and that kept our purpose and our passion really strong.
How did you go about working on your first designs and prototypes?
For our very first design, we worked closely with Jack and Maddie’s families to understand thoroughly the difficulty with dressing for them. Collaborating with those with lived experience is incredibly important to JAM and we have continued to collaborate with the disability community for the creation of all of our products.
From the fashion side of things, in the beginning, we worked closely with a Melbourne based company that was assisting fashion start-ups - A fitting connection. Katrina helped connect us to the services that we needed within the fashion industry which was a huge help for two fashion industry newbies!
You are stocked on one of Australia’s largest online shopping portals, The Iconic, how did that come about?
We approached the ICONIC ready for a hard sell about why we should be stocked on their platform, but they were super keen on the idea of adaptive fashion and inclusion for people with disability. We, along with two other brands (one of which was Tommy Hilfiger’s adaptive line) , launched on the site in 2021 as part of their “Adaptive Edit”, a first of its kind for a mainstream Australian retailer.
What sort of skills and education do you need to start a label like JAM?
JAM is unique in that we didn’t have the typical fashion industry skills when starting out. We have a very in-depth understanding of the functionality of clothing, task analysis and problem solving - all skills that we learnt as Occupational Therapists that have been integral when building JAM.
What do you know now that you wish you’d known then?
Something that we wish we’d known is that we didn’t have to be experts in everything. We are accessibility experts and have such an in-depth understanding of the functionality of the clothing and that’s what we bring. We didn’t need to be finance or marketing gurus! You can learn that stuff or bring experts in to assist. We are now much more open and honest about what we do and don’t know. And very happy to ask for help! It’s not a bad thing.
What do you wish you could tell your teenage selves?
Not to pigeonhole yourself. I think neither of us ever thought we’d be business owners or even had any interest in business at all before coming up with the idea of JAM. Yet here we are!
Don’t be afraid to try something just because you haven’t studied the exact thing or don’t feel like you have all the skills required.
What’s next for JAM The Label?
We are currently working with a junior designer with disability to create our first capsule collection. This will be more funky and fashion forward than our current essentials and hopefully give young people with disability even more opportunity to express themselves through their fashion choices.
We are also currently seeking our first round of investment so that we can continue to grow JAM to be the leader of inclusive fashion in Australia.
Franc’s Fast Five
Most on-trend colour for 2023? We are loving warm oranges
Staying in or going out? Going out
Favourite office snack? Mission corn chips
Best way to celebrate a win? Always with a high five! Then going out for lunch.
Green Juice or Coffee? Coffee