Overshare Podcast: Jacquelyn De Jesu on Reinventing the Shower Cap
WORKING NOT WORKING
Overshare is a podcast and event series hosted by Working Not Working co-founder Justin Gignac. In a world of carefully curated portfolio sites and Instagram feeds, Justin sits down with his favorite creatives to get past the highlights and discuss the tough stuff we don't talk about in public often enough.
For the 11th episode, Justin sits down in the studio with Jacquelyn De Jesu, founder and CEO of Shhhowercap. Jacquelyn shares her journey from being an art director in advertising to the moment she was compelled to make a modern shower cap. "It wasn't that nothing turned up when I typed in 'cool shower cap' and 'fashionable shower cap.' It was what consistently did. The fact that I was typing in 'best-designed shower cap' and getting plastic frogs and rosettes and sequins and everything had this Miss Muffet shape. It wasn't what anyone would want to wear."
Her bootstrapped journey has led to features in Forbes, Fast Company and Vogue, and her shower caps are now carried in stores from Neiman Marcus and Sephora to the MoMA Design Store. During the conversation, Jacquelyn acknowledges the benefit of her freelancing career during the transition from art director to entrepreneur. "I credit being in New York and the ability to freelance as one of the things that enabled me to launch by staying self-funded... I always looked at the ability to freelance as my safety net."
Jacquelyn also reveals some of the advertising skills she brought with her into the world of business where such skills are often in short supply. "Giving feedback is a skill. As creative professionals and art directors especially, that's a skill that we learn, from retouchers to editors to clients. Translating something that's not right and getting it to a place that can be is a skill and it's foreign to a lot of people. To be able to do it efficiently, to be able to do it with nuance, and to be able to understand how to do it without hurting someone's feelings so they want to continue to work. It's a skill."
For those of you who couldn't make the live event, we have good news: you can listen to the entire conversation below on our podcast. Subscribe to Overshare on iTunes, Soundcloud, or with any other podcasting app via our RSS feed.
