The offbeat Irish leggings and apparel business Mad Jessie has just introduced a new approach when it comes to orders and the options they offer.
For the first time in Ireland, Mad Jessie, a new Waterford based business which creates unique, quality, illustrated leggings, now offers custom orders for groups with a minimum of fifteen people.
Lovers of leggings can now request bespoke hand-drawn designs when purchasing small quantities. This includes a consultation with Mad Jessie’s in-house artist and illustrator to ensure customer needs are met.
This novel way of buying in quantity gives groups, teams and parties choice when it comes to the designs they are looking for, bringing an originality to their sportswear, and giving them the opportunity to own custom items unique to them.
“Wellness is moving centre stage” (Irish Times, Sept 25, 2018) and not just in the workplace. The concept of wellness has become part of our workplaces, our tourist industry, and even our everyday lives. The concept of wellness focuses on six main components: emotional, occupational, physical, social, intellectual, and spiritual, where individuals take time and energy to care for these different areas of their wellbeing. What this means to you is completely specific to your personal wellbeing. For some it may be Massage, Yoga, Pilates or walking the dog, to others it might include improving their mental health, running a half marathon, reading a good book or reexamining eating habits. However, wellness does often seem to embrace spending more time in the outdoors, or at least getting involved in some type of activity. This makes sense as our work and lives seem to revolve more and more around screens, and we do find the need to take some time to step away and appreciate ourselves and our peers separate to the abundant little blue screens, striving to become healthy, happy, safe, comfortable iterations of ourselves.
Women involved in sports and athletic pursuits in Ireland is on the rise. Female athletes are gaining more representation across all media, prompting The Irish Times to describe 2018 as “the year for sportswomen” (Sep 20, 2018). Women and girls have new role models, the fierce and strong women who represent our country on regional, national and international levels in their chosen fields. As women in sport are being taken more seriously, this is being reflected in women and girls participating in different athletic activities all over the country. The “Gender gap in sports participation […] is narrower now than at any point since the ISM [Irish Sports Monitor] was introduced in 2007” (4.5% now as opposed to 15.7% then, ISM 2017 Annual Report). Women are joining Pilates, Yoga and Running groups, participating in Roller Derby, Zumba, Field sports and are spending more time building up a sweat than they ever were before. Through this uptake in athletic participation they are reaping the benefits of being active: building stronger bodies and minds, fostering higher confidence, finding a sense of belonging and dismantling gender stereotypes (independent.ie Sept 24, 2018).
Mad Jesse presents a solution to uncomfortable, see-through, disposable leggings that fade and rip at the seams. Originally from Galway, founder and Creative Director Marie-Jeanne Jacob explains; “Our focus as a business is on creating high-quality, comfortable, strong leggings. By using a strong blend and weight of fabric, our leggings retain their four-way stretch, and the designs are printed using a process which penetrates the fabric so colours don’t fade or run.” This results in leggings that pass the infamous ‘squat test’, that ‘feel as smooth as water’, that are long lasting and an investment in women’s active lifestyles.
For further details, contact Mad Jessie at: mariejjacob@gmail.com or go directly to the Etsy shop at MadJessie.etsy.com. You can also keep up to date with Mad Jessie on Facebook (madjessiemad4fun) and Instagram (m.a.d.jessie).