The High Street Meets Montana Avenue: An Interview with Jigsaw’s Ama Asamoah

Forgive me Father, for I have sinned: I’m a walker and I don’t own a car. This can be met with horror, suspicion or pity. I live in Los Angeles. I spent way too many years as a New Yorker to give up my habit of public transportation and LYFT. When I’m exploring a new place, I don’t want to whizz by and miss anything. I relish the freedom of wandering and exploring what catches my eye. And so it was on Montana Avenue in Santa Monica that I came upon Jigsaw London and their engaging Store Director, Ama Asamoah. High Street Fashion near the beach? I was gobsmacked, in a good way!

We bonded as single black women who see fashion as a form of expression and personality, as recent transplants from the East Coast, she from Washington, D.C., who both studied in London. Noirejolie is happy to share her story.

I was surprised to find that Ama studied science and was on track to become a pharmacist. She is a first generation African-American with her parents emigrating from Ghana.

“Fashion has always been my first choice, but I spent the first half of my life pursuing a degree just to satisfy other people. But I decided that I was going to do what I wanted to do for my Masters. When you have immigrant parents, African immigrant parents, if you’re not a doctor, lawyer or engineer, you don’t exist. But I’m blessed to have parents that have gone on the journey with me and they understand.”

Ama earned an advanced degree in Retail Management from the London College of Fashion. She doesn’t credit her family or her circle as an influence but her first job working in a store that fueled her passion.

“There was something about it that was engaging, I just didn’t like being bossed about, I didn’t like being the bottom of the barrel. People always assume when you talk fashion, you want to be an editor, you want to be a buyer or a designer even. From the head office down to the retail stores, there’s a whole chain of command that happens, the business side of fashion.”

We’ve all heard about the death knell of bricks and mortar retail so I was curious why this up and coming millennial chose this traditional route versus E-commerce.

“I like people. I’ve done head office and even there I interacted with customers, you don’t get that with E-commerce. Online has this really big presence but people still need the store. The store’s playing a different type of role in today’s fashion. The customer needs you to be experienced and highly knowledgeable. You have to know the product, the fit, where it’s manufactured, that’s really important to people right now. Is it made in China or Portugal, they want these facts.”

She had her choice of brands to work for but a talk by former Jigsaw CEO, Peter Ruis sealed the deal.

“Before moving to the UK I had no clue what Jigsaw was. Jigsaw is a true British heritage brand but there was something about it that excited him and he spoke with such passion. I did more research on them and found that they were marching to the beat of their own drum. Even though they were a heritage brand, they weren’t falling into the same traps as other retailers. Sustainability is at their core. From actually knowing the names of the people we source our fabrics from. Knowing the name of the farmer, his wife, his kids. Knowing where we get our wool and our cotton from, that was so important. For a brand to have so deep a connection to who they source their product from, that was important to me. A lot of times in the retail model the fabric sourcers are the ones who get cheated. That’s how people are allowed to offer such deep discounts. They’ve bought the fabric at such a low price, people can’t even feed their families. We don’t do that, we believe in pricing fair to the customer and a livable wage for our sourcers.”

Asked about her ultimate ambition, I was not surprised. “To be appointed as CEO to a fashion brand.” I think she’s well on her way.