If you’ve been to one of our events, chances are you’ve met Jess, or at the very least, seen one of her vibrant, tent-rescued designs floating through the room. Founder of J.O.STUDIO and co-creator of Making Room, Jess is a designer and maker with bold ideas and a big heart for the planet. Her work brings together creativity, circularity, and collaboration, demonstrating that fashion can be both joyful and low-impact.

We caught up with Jess to chat all things tents, micro-factories, and post-graduation hustle. From building a brand out of salvaged materials to creating a space where Manchester’s creative community can thrive, Jess is helping to shape the kind of future we want to see, one where fashion is fairer, slower, and rooted in real values.

Hello! We’d love the non-LinkedIn lowdown on who you are and the scope of your work at J.O.STUDIO?
Hi! I’m Jess, a sustainable designer, and maker based in Manchester. I founded J.O.STUDIO as a way to turn post-consumer waste, specifically abandoned festival tents into functional, wearable clothing and accessories. I’m passionate about circular design practise, bold colour and shapes, and proving that low impact design doesn’t have to be boring. Everything I make is  made from 100% discarded festival tents, every year I take part in the salvage operation after the festival weekend to save as many tents as possible from landfill.

What are you working on at the moment? Any challenges that are particularly hard to chew? Our readers might be able to help…

I’ve been running the brand for around a year now, and having developed a range of recycled tent pieces, I am currently working on refining my offering to ensure every piece is perfect and ready for market! The biggest challenge I am facing is scaling production sustainably while keeping prices accessible and staying true to my circular ethos. I’m also looking to form more formalised partnerships with festivals to collect tents at source, so if anyone has any links with sustainability or operations at UK festivals I’d love to connect! 

I’m also navigating post graduation life and freelancing for the first time (I graduated from Manchester fashion institute this time last year). I’m super passionate about my work being able to help others and provide opportunities for those in a similar position leaving uni and making their first tentative steps into industry. This led me to co-found Making Room.

You’ve also recently set up the Making Room! Tell us about the vision there, and how readers can get involved!
Making Room is a new micro-factory and rentable studio space I co-founded with my mates James Robinson and Conner Thomas-Davidson, based at The Yard, Cheetham Hill . We’re building a space for local, transparent production in Manchester, where designers and makers can work and collaborate in a relaxed and sociable environment. Our goal is to support small labels and creatives with the space, tools, and skills needed to produce ethically in the city and grow their brands sustainably. We’re also running public workshops too to engage Manchester residents and teach basic sewing and mending skills. We want these to be as friendly, accessible and enjoyable as possible, no prior experience is needed so feel free to come along to the next one! 

Instagram- @making_roommcr

Website- https://making-room.uk

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What are some tips you have for people who want to work freelance/in the fashion industry?

1. Find your niche- Be able to describe your creative practise in one sentence. What makes it different to everyone else? Make it memorable and whenever anyone asks what you do, you have an answer ready to go.
2. Network as much as possible- Go to events, meet people, introduce yourself, start conversations with strangers. Connect with them on Linkedin after, you never know, that connection may come in handy one day.
3. Be consistent posting on social media- Whatever your practice is, keep up posting on socials. Vary the content, be that BTS photos, reels of what you’ve done, photoshoots. The more consistent you are, the more the algorithm helps you grow your following.
4. Don’t knock working in hospitality- I found working a bar job was a great way to support myself until my freelancing took off. I would work at the studio in the day and then bar work at night. It was exhausting but it meant that I was able to go fully freelance eventually.
5. Say yes to every opportunity- I say yes to everything I get offered (as long as it won’t burn me out). Its given me loads of great opportunities and allowed me to develop in ways I never thought was possible!
6. Don’t use ChatGPT- It makes you sound like a robot and people can smell it from a mile away.

Ok, magic wand time; if we could grant you three wishes for the fashion industry, what would they be?

• No more single use festival tents- Whilst I appreciate that affordability is a concern for people, tens should be something that you invest in something, look after, and pass down/swap where required.
• An end to any sort of ‘Hauls’- Overconsumption is not cool!
• An increase in opportunities up north- There’s such an incredible slow fashion movement in the north of England, but I want to see more investment in the fashion and the arts so it doesn’t feel like creatives are missing out by not living in London!

Finally - We’d love some recommendations; one climate-related resource, one person to follow online and one consumer brand that’s killing it!

• Resource: I love the website and newsletter Sexy Climate Change (https://www.sexyclimatechange.co.uk)- it’s the perfect combo of funny and also informative and a really good way to keep up to date with climate news without it being too overwhelming!
• Person: I love following Elizabeth Stiles, she has an incredible podcast called ‘The fashion Brand Clinic Podcast with Elizabeth Stiles’. It covers all elements of working in the industry, a must listen for any creative!

Brand: Brand wise I don’t really shop at brands as such, but I love following @wipwrk and their work with tents over in Australia. It’s interesting to see the comparison between my brand and theirs, and how each brand approaches the same problem in completely different ways.