We recently connected with Jean Marie Clarke and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Jean Marie, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.
Pax Philomena was born out of my desire to honour two mothers – my own mother Philomena, and Mother Teresa of Calcutta. I wanted to find a way to give back to the poorest of the poor using my passion for textiles and fashion as the instrument to do so. As I was born in Calcutta, India I had grown up hearing about Mother Teresa from my parents and my aunt who was also a Loreto nun in Calcutta and had known Mother Teresa. India is a very colourful place, people dress in bright colours and I noticed that in America we lack colour in our clothing. During college I studied art history in Rome, so I was well trained in the concept of art for art’s sake, Textiles are a form of art, that, when turned into clothing, become art in motion. My first job was in Como, Italy where I worked at a very famous printing mill and was mentored by the founder. There I learned that beautiful fabrics spread happiness.
My Mother Philomena also mentored me in design, colour, and business so I decided I wanted to create a company that would make people smile through clothing, and also from our proceeds we could help the poorest of the poor, which is what we do.
Jean Marie, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I started my career in textiles at the age of nine, doing batiks at the kitchen table with my mother Philomena. We soon were receiving requests to buy our batiks and we soon became a successful mother/daughter team. We were represented in galleries throughout the Southwest. My family had emigrated to America from India when I was just three years old, my parents were British with a bit of Indian blood mixed in but their families had lived in India for generations. Hence my connection to India has always been strong as I was raised on Indian food and heard tales of India my whole life growing up.
My parents fell on hard times when I was growing up and so my mother taught me and my sisters how to sew our own clothing. That is how I learned tailoring first hand and my passion for fashion was fostered by Mom who was big on embellishments in clothing.
How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?
If it is one thing that I have learned in business, it is that when you need money no one wants to give it to you. Rather than try and ask someone for money, I decided to self finance. So I took a second mortgage on my home, maxed out all of my credit card advances possible, and went for it! It was a risk but if you believe in your cause you have to stand behind it. Risks exist to be taken, and you cannot win the game if you don’t play.
Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?
When COVID hit I realized that I had to do something to keep my business going. Despite my lack of technology knowledge I decided I had to learn Facebook advertising. So I literally glued myself to my computer watching you tube videos, listening to audibles on marketing, and just trying to figure it all out. With a stroke of luck and some divine intervention, I placed my first Facebook ad, really by mistake.
The ad was so successful that FB actually contacted me to find out what I was doing to get such great results! Incredible!
Contact Info:
- Website: paxphilomena.com
- Instagram: @paxphilomena
- Facebook: pax philomena