When Pamela Jabbour founded Total Image Group (TIG) two decades ago, her vision was simple: to bring fashion thinking to corporate uniforms. Today, the company she built supplies major brands across sectors from healthcare to hospitality, proving that what employees wear still matters.
“The most misunderstood thing would have to be that they’re not important,” she tells host David Jepson on CEO: Behind the Scenes. “They’re just something you throw a logo on and, therefore, you can pay nothing for them.
“They are super important, and they send pretty powerful messages.”
Dressing for confidence
Jabbour’s belief stems from a childhood steeped in style and entrepreneurship.
“If you’re dressing the part, you also act the part,” she says. “It’s just this personal reinforcement, to armor yourself in what you’re wearing.”
Starting straight out of university, Jabbour wrote a full business plan before opening the doors.
“I had no confidence to be honest,” she admits. “I sat down, I wrote the plan. I did a whole lot of market research.
“Nothing great happens quick unless you’re really lucky. For me, it’s persistence, it’s discipline, it’s slow and steady.”
Lessons in resilience
That discipline was tested when TIG lost a 14-year client worth 40 percent of its revenue at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It was this moment around, what do I do?” Jabbour recalls. “Being the leader and showing confidence in our next move, making the right decision, putting on that persona for the team to not lose faith in what we were about was a critical moment.”
“If you’re dressing the part, you also act the part.”
But she has learned her lesson from the experience.
“Now, no client will ever represent more than five percent of our revenue,” she explains.
Even as economic pressures drive a race to the bottom on price, Jabbour refuses to compromise.
“It’s resulting in really cheap product. It’s resulting in brands that are OK with cheap product, not realizing that actually it costs them more in the long run,” she says.
“The devil is in the detail – the contrast button, the button-down collar, the subtle flash of branding across the side – a quality product looks good all the time.”
Uniforms as brand storytelling
Uniforms, Jabbour insists, influence both brand and behavior.
“Every single day, someone gets up and gets dressed in their company uniform. It tells them who they work for and what that represents,” she says.
“Nothing bad comes of being kind and you feel good at the end of the day.”
Her leadership philosophy centers on composure and kindness.
“The power of the pause, the power of counting to 10 and not feeling obligated to communicate anything until I’m a hundred percent sure,” she says.
“Nothing bad comes of being kind and you feel good at the end of the day and you can kind of walk away thinking, well, we did the right thing, we did the best. And I find that things come back differently when you have that energy.”
Now expanding into New Zealand, Jabbour is clear on the company’s future.
“We’re on this big growth journey, but sustainable growth – slow and steady growth. Growth with the right partners,” she says.
“We’ve designed an ocean that we’re swimming in.”
Listen to the latest episode of our CEO: Behind the Scenes podcast with Pamela Jabbour on Amazon, Apple or Spotify.
