An Interview with Jenny Arrington
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Jennifer Arrington (Unpublished)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2016/05/20
Let’s talk a little bit about your background – familial, personal, educational. Tell us a little bit about yourself.
I like to scare myself everyday. I didn’t realize that about myself, until very recently. When I look back as a child, it’s always been there. When I was 8 years old, I was at a lake and decided to jump off the boat, and swim back to the shore. I am someone who went scuba diving when I was 13. I gave birth on television.
Me as a person, I am constantly wanting to live as much of life as possible. I want as much of every experience as I can possibly get. I say yes to everything. If someone asks me to do something, I see it as an opportunity. I think that’s the best way to describe me.
In terms of the boring stuff, how did I grow up? I have two parents and a brother. They divorced when I was 13, 14, or 15. I lived in a suburb of Chicago. I am a third generation here. Northwestern University is the prominent university here.
I am a water person. I grew up by a lake. I live by a lake. For education, I was a mediocre student in high school because I got too side-tracked by the importance of the bombardment of images and media sexualizing women. I got sucked into caring too much about my image, and got into all sorts of negativity and depression. My grades went by the wayside. I had really good friends.
When I got to college, that was my time to blossom. I fixed myself up, and boycotted all of those magazines. I learned a lot about myself and became a very good student in college. I went to the University Iowa. It wasn’t until then that I knew that I was smart. I never knew. My dad never told me. He said, “You’re pretty. You’re pretty.” I never knew until college because I worked really hard.
I can write. I can do this. It has been a slow progression. I blossomed. I continue to learn more about myself. I am going through the most challenging part of my life. I am going through a divorce. I have two small children. I am starting a company.
I have to sell the house, move out. Everything is happening. It is another transformation. Another form of growth. I am the happiest I have ever been, even though I have had moments of suffering deeper than I have ever had in life. I am a work in progress – as we all are, but because I am a yoga teacher – thank God! Thank God I am a yoga teacher, I am beginning to notice and see what is happening as I am going through this rather than stuffing away and drinking away, shopping away. (Laughs)
I hope I gave you a deeper answer than “I went to school here.” (Laughs)
How did this transition into starting the company? As you noted, you are starting the company in the midst of a difficult time in life. And why this particular kind of company?
I know, it’s hard! It’s really, really hard! (Laughs) Oh my God! It was a total accident. I am in yoga. I had this idea. This flash of an idea. I had this idea for a yoga mat roller that would make the whole idea faster and easier. It was a clip thing and a rolling situation. It was a mechanical thing that would make it faster and easier.
I worked with an award winning mechanical engineer. We could not make it cheaply enough. It was clunkier. This wasn’t making things easier. I don’t want to make crap that makes people’s lives harder. I am trying to make it easier. In the meantime, I got into this MIT program. I had taken their online free course. I applied for their boot camp, which is at Cambridge.
I thought, “Screw it, I’ll try!” Because there was still that part of me that was thinking, “You’re not that smart.” I was their diversity. I was the yoga mom. There was a tech phenomenon from India who was 18. These crazy smart people who are already starting companies. I was the glue in the group. They were smart people that can’t talk. (Laughs) I was that glue.
I showed up to the program with the prototype. The idea wasn’t working in the program (“Fuck!”). I cut a couple holes, got a piece of cloth, and some local fabric from the fabric store. I tied up the yoga mat. I don’t know if it made it any easier, but it worked. I wondered if I could put it on in practice too. I wondered if I could do a Shavasana. It went on like this. It was a total brainstorm.
I wondered if I put it this way, or do it this way. I kept coming up with all of these outlets. I was like, “It is going to be a yoga mat that you could wear to practice.” I brought that to MIT. It was a week-long camp. I did a pitch. We pitched it at the end of the week. That was in August.
Ever since then, there has been momentum. People were in the street saying, “I love your dress. I love your dress.” I figured out from the user interviews that no one cared about the yoga mat. It wasn’t necessarily easier. The yoga mat and the dress, I pivoted and was thinking, “It’s a garment.” I am not a fashionista at all. I am not a shopper. I wear the same outfit four days in a row and clothes that are 25 years old.
I hate the whole magazine thing. It was strange to me at first. That this was thrown onto my lap. That this was what it ended up being because I never would have chosen fashion, but because I had to do it. I felt like people are asking me to do this. I felt like the universe is asking me to do this. I have to go with the moment here.
I started learning more about clothes because I live in a mindful way. I am vegan. Of course, it would be sustainable. Of course, everything it would touch would help someone in some way. Why both? I am not here to become a millionaire. I am here to get people to think in a new way.
I realized that this was given to me because I can do it differently. I will be able to take my boys. It will be a vehicle for my boys to say, “Do we need a lot of stuff? Do we need so much stuff? How about we take one thing and do a lot with it?” Maybe, it would inspire us to think that way about a lot of this. I had this jelly jar. I got so excited about my jelly jar.
I took all of my jelly jars. Now, I have this glass collection. Also, I am excited about how I can use my models. My first two models that I’ve used that are on my website. One is my best friend. One is a new acquaintance. Both are amazing women. They have done cool things in the world already, and powerful. They are beautiful in a real way, in an imperfect way. The photographer that I have does not use Photoshop at all. I was able to tell their story as well.
I thought this back when I was a teenager as I boycotted the magazines. I don’t know if it is the same in Canada, but those magazines in the checkout store. Your little girl is forced to look at that shit. I thought, “God, wouldn’t it be great if a little girl looks at a model on the cover of a magazine and thinks about her story?” You share those stories so that there could be a shift in the way that we portray women. We should celebrate women. What reasons are we celebrating for too?
This cloth has given me a vehicle to hopefully make an impact in several different ways, not just in if it is made sustainably. Labor and cloth that is sustainable, but these are our messages as well.
Any thoughts or feelings in conclusion?
I mean, coming from a voice from someone who is being honest, we are in the infancy of a start-up. It is the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. It’s the most exciting thing at the same time. I in some of the most hopeful places I’ve been in my life, but also the most doubtful. My friend says that it is imposter syndrome.
This will be the new spanks. A staple item in every woman’s closet. It will free them of a lot of other crap. I want to share that as an experience. I always feel grateful when people who have other start-ups are talking about their experience and admit to all of the highs and lows that come with that. I wanted to share that.
I am supremely hopeful for not only the business and how we can make change through the simplest of products, but the space for sustainable energy in general and sustainable fashion.
Thank you for your time, Jenny.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
In-Sight Publishing 