From the moment Jaime Glas put on her first fire-resistant coveralls—required safety wear for a petroleum engineer interning with Chevron in Bakersfield, California—she saw an opportunity to cater to the needs of female engineers in a male-dominated industry.
“They handed me a huge monkey suit and called it unisex,” Glas recalls. “I thought, ‘Why aren’t there women’s brands and men’s brands for this clothing that you have to wear all the time?’”
As Business Report details in its latest entrepreneur feature, Glas resolved to one day save up enough money to launch her own line of fire-resistant clothing that would be safe, comfortable, stylish and flattering for women.
When she took her first job after graduating from LSU in 2014, she again had to wear fire-resistant clothing, so she started working on HauteWork, a line of work wear for women. It took a year just to research the safety requirements and another three for designing, making samples and selecting a manufacturer.
“When you think of work wear, it is all rugged and manly looking, but after doing research on the clothing, there is no reason it can’t look like normal fashion trends.”
Finally, in January, Glas opened for business selling her safety clothing line. Each month since launching her specialty clothing line, Glas has watched her sales double.
Her lifelong interest in fashion and knowledge of the industry—combined with strategic support from the Louisiana Business and Technology Center and a former Chevron executive who has become a strong female mentor—makes Glas feel that she is uniquely positioned to transform women’s work wear in the years to come.
