About Us
Jessica and Eliana met at Sephora in Williamsburg in August of 2023. Jessica was searching for a new lipstick to replace her favorite one. Eliana was a manager at the time and approached her, excited to help find what she was looking for. When Jessica held up the lipstick to give her a better look at the color, Eliana immediately noticed a ring on her finger with so many embedded stones that it was hard to look away. Eliana admired the ring and Jessica responded with, "I made it!" They chatted in the middle of the busy store about Jessica's career as an artist, Eliana's passion for the arts, and bonded over a vision where art and fashion could coexist within the same practice. After exchanging information, they met for coffee about a month later. Ideas were revised, mood boards were made, and in October of 2024 they launched J. Hargreaves Industry.
Jessica Hargreaves, Founder
Jessica Hargreaves was born and raised in South London, and earned a Bachelor’s Degree with Honors in Fashion and Textile design at Central Saint Martins (University of the Arts London). After working, miserably, in fashion and illustration in NYC she went back to college and received a Master of Fine Arts Degree from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago.
Jessica's art practice has always contained a narrative element that allegorizes whatever she is processing emotionally, be that political or personal. Her love of fashion and adornment has persisted. This love is expressed in her installations as a desire to make environments that, at first glance, are decorative and visually appealing, but eventually reveal elements that can be humorous and satirical or dark and disturbing.
As part of her installation practice, Jessica started painting and sculpting figures onto found objects including screens, mirrors and chairs. Inspired by the vintage animal jewelry of Cartier and David Webb she took a wax carving class in 2014. The jewelry that came out of this was more raw and brutal than much of the jewelry Jessica admired. Although her practice has become more refined over the years, it is important to her that there is a direct through line from her painting, drawing and sculpture to her jewelry and furnishings.
Eliana Shoffner, Co-Founder
Eliana Shoffner moved from Texas to New York City in 2019 to pursue, what she believed, would be a career in fashion. After exploring Global and Visual Studies during her undergraduate years, she received a Master's Degree in Fashion Studies from Parsons School of Design in May of 2023. Much of her research surrounded the art of adornment, both visual and sociological. She often studied artists who worked with textiles or found objects as their medium.
Her studies, coupled with her illuminating experience interning at NYFW and years of working in fashion and beauty retail, made it clear that the worlds of high fashion, art institutions, and cooperations were not where she sought to invest her creative energy and labor. With this insight and motivation, Eliana started collaborating with non-profits like Brooklyn Fashion Week and the Brooklyn Style Foundation. She fostered her own community organization, NYC Community Wardrobe, that gave communities a space to donate and obtain secondhand clothing for free. She worked her way through college as a Sales & Service Leader at Sephora, using her network and resources to cast a wider net of mutual aid in Brooklyn.
About six months of business planning went by and she made the decision to leave Sephora, working full-time on the launch of JHi. Difficult as it may be to sustain a life in New York City as a young creative, she believes in the values and fresh vision that JHi stood for.