My 9-5: Jill Henry of Meander Apparel

The founder of Edinburgh-based outdoor clothing company Meander Apparel, Jill Henry, shares her daily life and career path.

Where do you call home? 

Edinburgh. I was born in Portobello and moved to London after graduating. I was in London for 10 years. It’s my second home but I love Edinburgh. Living in London gave me a new appreciation for Edinburgh’s green spaces. We live in Braid Hills so it takes 20 minutes to get to the city but we live in the countryside too. 

My day starts with… 

My alarm goes off at 6.30am but I don’t always jump out of bed right away. My day starts with a dog walk – I have a cockapoo called Dexter. I come home and get ready and I’m at my desk for 8.30am. We have a virtual team meeting at 9am. 

My main responsibilities are… 

It is very varied. At the moment myself and my co-founder/husband Steve work in the business full time. We also have someone who works in design full time and everyone else is part time.  

I mainly work with the factories on the supply chain and the product development side. I manage buying the goods for stores and helping with staff hires at the stores. I also do accounts and marketing. We have three marketing graduates who work on the socials, newsletters and magazine. 

A typical working day usually involves… 

We start the day with a meeting at 9am over Zoom. We work in the garden office – I work on one side and Steve works on the other. We collaborate quite a lot and it works well. Having a team makes life easier. If we are working on a new product then Jen (who works on product development with me) might come to the garden office. When the prototypes come in from the factory, we will try them on and go through detailing and fit. When we are happy with the product it goes into production. 

We specialise in special performance materials so we deal with various people in the supply chain on a daily basis. It can take a long time – it is usually a 12-month period – from prototype to final design. We're about making functional and timeless designs. Scotland is a good testing ground as we make fully waterproof jackets and we can test them out in the rain.  

I got my job… 

Meander was inspired by a London to Paris cycle Steve and I organised with friends. None of us were serious about cycling and we ended up wearing lycra. I come from a fashion background – I have a degree in fashion and I always worked for clothing brands – and I always wanted to create versatile clothing that is fashionable. You can wear it in the city centre but it is also very functional.  

The best part of my job is… 

Owning a brand that we can get excited about. It’s the start of an exciting journey and we have received brilliant feedback on what we’ve done so far. We're a small Scottish brand with potential. With the movement towards working from home, people want clothing that is very comfortable to wear. 

My most memorable career moment is… 

We have a store on George Street. We went from an online business to having a physical shop. It's an exciting moment that we won’t forget. It's a great way for local people to discover us. Having an online brand has been amazing because we can ship to people all over the world but it’s good to build a local community.  

After work I… 

I love the outdoors so I spend weekends climbing Munros but during the week I love walking the dog and cooking pizzas in our outdoor oven. I also like going to restaurants such as Timberyard, Argyle Place in Marchmont for brunch, and Cowan and Sons in Stockbridge. 

If I wasn’t the founder of Meander Apparel, I’d have been… 

I'd be running another business. I worked in the fashion industry for a long time but I set up other businesses on the side. 

What’s the best piece of career advice you’ve been given? 

I've had advice from lots of different business owners but it’s important to understand your own vision and where you want to take your brand and to keep your brand values in line with everything you do. No one can pick your brand values for you – it’s true whether you have a business or career, brand values or personal values. It can be easy to get carried away but you must keep your values at the heart of what you do. 

You can find out more information about Meander Apparel here.

ESPC magazine

This article appeared in the September 2022 issue of the ESPC magazine. Find out more about the ESPC magazine and read the latest issue online.