MEET OUR FOUNDER: JACLYN JONES!
What inspired you to start a career in the fashion industry?
As a young girl, I was always creative and dreamt of a career in fashion. When I was 13, I asked for a sewing machine for my birthday and taught myself to create elaborate outfits and costumes for Halloween (some turned out better than others). After graduating college with bachelor’s degrees in Business, Marketing & Visual Arts, I still couldn’t shake my internal craving for creativity and the fashion industry. In the years following college, I decided to go back to school for fashion at FIDM where I obtained a degree in Apparel Industry Management.
Tell us about Jaclyn Jones USA. Why did you decide to create the brand?
Throughout my experiences as a young woman shopping for luxury shoes, I consistently struggled to find beautiful, quality shoes that were also comfortable. When I really started to dig into the current landscape of brands occupying the luxury footwear space, it dawned on me that the industry is vastly dominated by a few power-house fashion corporations headed by male designers or owners. It all clicked into place – these shoes were so uncomfortable because they were designed by someone who never had to wear them! I quickly realized I was going to be battling a very widely accepted notion that comfort requires a sacrifice in style, as the currently luxury market has been completely driven solely by aesthetics. But as a woman, I know how important it is that my favorite, stylish heels are beyond just fashionable. I needed and wanted shoes that were actually wearable in my busy, yet fashionable, lifestyle.
What is your overall goal for Clover & Cobbler?
Our aim is to breathe the life of a new generation into a centuries-old craft. At the center of Clover & Cobbler is sustainability, creativity and an openness to brands large and small. We offer emerging designers and existing private label footwear brands a refreshed, organized approach to manufacturing in the U.S.A. Our goal is to redefine the perception of a long-standing industry and bring it into the modern day with an emphasis on mindful manufacturing.
What can we expect from Clover & Cobbler and its in-house brands this year?
What’s exciting about being such a dynamic company is that success for our brands equals success for the factory, and vice versa. With our factory, we’ve seen great success by leveraging our online presence (website, social media, etc.) to bring in consistent new business. We have a constant stream of prospective clients reaching out to us either to start a new brand or wanting to move production of their existing brand to the U.S. With our brands, we’ve been gaining a lot of traction landing new wholesale accounts and we expect the trend to continue in 2020. This past year, we’ve been focused on tackling the many challenges that have come with opening the factory such as improving efficiency, working out logistical kinks, expanding our talented workforce, updating our machinery, and more. Now that we have built a strong foundation, this next year is all about growth! We will be pushing our brands forward in both the digital and wholesale spaces while also continuing to gain industry recognition for the factory and bringing in new business. We also intend to dedicate resources towards maximizing our sustainability efforts. This will include sourcing more vegan leather options, purchasing more eco-friendly supplies, exploring solar power as a solution for our entire facility, and LOTS more.
Which footwear designers offer you the greatest inspiration?
Sophia Webster and Tory Burch are two of my favorite designers. Both are incredibly strong, confident women who have created a legacy and namesake for themselves. Sophia’s whimsical, feminine spirit with a dose of Tory’s class and timelessness sums up my vision for JJUSA and has continued through all our brands, and the factory. These two women have paved the way for ambitious young designers like myself to break into a male-dominated industry.
How did you decide to focus on shoes?
My education and experience eventually landed me a job as a jack-of-all-trades at a men’s footwear brand house which designs, manufactures, and manages over 20 men’s footwear brands. There, I gained hands on experience in managing the ins and outs of brand development, factory communication, and sales, to name a few. I began to fall in love with the footwear industry as a whole! Always thinking big picture, I eventually felt confident enough to quit my job and branch off on my own to create my luxury women’s footwear brand, Jaclyn Jones USA, which launched in 2017.
How did you transition from Jaclyn Jones USA to Clover & Cobbler?
When I was initially designing my first JJUSA collection, I searched high and low to find a U.S. based factory that upheld the highest standards in ethics and quality. When I finally connected with Salpy & Kevork Kalaidjian at their shoe factory in Los Angeles, it felt like I had broken into an underground industry. It seemed that with more and more factories migrating overseas, domestic footwear manufacturing options were more limited than ever, and those that remained hadn’t adapted to the standards of technology, quality and cleanliness seemingly expected from every other manufacturing industry. After producing my first couple of collections at their factory and building a strong relationship with the artisans there, Salpy & Kevork approached me and let me know that they were looking to retire and that they wanted ME to purchase the factory. At the time, it was beyond my wildest dreams to one day own a footwear factory. After a lot of thought, I went for it! In October 2018, I made the leap from shoe designer to factory owner and CEO of our new Los Angeles-based footwear factory, Clover & Cobbler. We moved into a brand new 20,000 square foot facility in the Van Nuys neighborhood – transforming it into the footwear factory I always wished existed as a designer.
How did your other two in-house brands come to be?
The Salpy brand was originally started by husband-and-wife team Salpy & Kevork who were the previous factory owners. Kevork is a true artist – he’s a shoe craftsman with an immense talent for creating last shapes and handcrafting footwear. At the previous factory, Kevork became well-known for manufacturing lasts in-house and being one of the few suppliers within the U.S. With the acquisition of the factory, Salpy & Kevork are still involved – Salpy maintaining relationships with the brand’s wholesale clients and Kevork still creating lasts and crafting shoes in the new factory space.
About 6 months into our venture with Clover & Cobbler, I was approached by shoe industry veteran and experienced footwear manufacturer, Bill Clark, who spent 25 years manufacturing shoes in Southern California at the Sbicca factory. Bill introduced a new construction technique that expanded the capabilities of our factory. In this new model of production, we are able to creatively use some outside components and materials to produce a new style of shoe at a lower price point. Using this technique, we collaborated on the creation of Californians, which officially debuted at FN Platform in Las Vegas in August 2019.
If you could collaborate with anyone on a shoe line, who would it be?
Oprah! Who better to give us insight into the needs and wants of women from all different lifestyles and backgrounds? Beyond this, Oprah has always been my role model. Getting a glimpse into Oprah’s mind and heart would be forever memorable. We all know that she would somehow have some incredible design ideas up her sleeve, even without ever learning the trade! Plus, when we get into a pickle, our first question is always “What would Oprah do!?”
