CORNWALL, P.E.I. — A Cornwall woman who was frustrated at the lack of accessibility to maternity clothing on the Island decided to take matters into her own hands.
When she was pregnant with her daughter, Rose, in 2017, Alicia Jameson said she struggled to find maternity clothes and said it was hard to find anything decent for work or for events like weddings or her own baby shower.
“I had to make several trips off-Island to do some shopping for maternity clothes,” she said, adding once the cost of the Confederation Bridge toll and gas was included, it made such trips quite expensive.
She also had a hard time finding nursing clothes.
“I didn’t want to buy nursing clothing until I knew if I was going to be able to breastfeed or not, you just never know as a first-time mom.”
A month postpartum and Jameson had to order nursing bras online, which she said isn’t always ideal as it’s hard to know how they would fit.
“I would have absolutely loved a place where I could go here and actually look for something and try it on, where you could feel comfortable,” she said. “I was a little frustrated by that and wondered, ‘why the heck isn’t anyone providing this service?’”
After sitting on the idea for a while and knowing she and her husband eventually want more children, she recently got to work to make her passion become a reality.
Rosie James & Co. will offer new and consigned maternity and nursing clothing and apparel on the Island.
It will also provide dress rentals for photo shoots, baby showers, weddings and more, said Jameson.
“My hope is that it could help a lot of women on the Island.”
At a glance
For more information about Jameson’s business, check out the Rosie James & Co. Facebook page or on Instagram under the handle @rosiejamesco.
The business, which Jameson hopes to launch at the end of the month, won’t be a brick and mortar store. It will operate as a full e-commerce store where clients can shop and order online and she will ship directly to them.
She also plans to do home-based appointments out of her own home, where she has inventory set up in her basement, which is complete with a bathroom where women can try on the clothing.
Some of her inventory was purchased from a boutique in New Brunswick that was closing. She is also in the process of accruing new and like-new consigned items.
For those in rural areas who can’t get to her Cornwall residence, Jameson hopes to do pop-up shops, by finding other local companies to partner with her where she can place some of her items in their stores.
Jessica Horne of Bloomfield said there is definitely a need for this new business on the Island.
Horne, who is the mother of a nine-month old boy, is still nursing and said not only was she unable to find maternity clothes when she was pregnant, she’s now struggling to find nursing clothing.
“When I started nursing, I realized I had to do most of my shopping online or travel off-Island,” she said. “I ended up ordering nursing shirts online only to send most of them back because they didn’t fit or were not what I wanted.”
She said she’s particularly pleased that Jameson will offer a variety of options for purchasing.
“Although I’m not pregnant at the time being, I still find myself saying to my husband, ‘I’ve been nursing for nine months and still don’t have a nursing bra that fits me properly!’,” she said. “I was very excited to hear of Alicia’s new business.”