Sojo 2020 finalist and COVID grant winner
Sojo also creates space for discussion around sustainable fashion
“What I needed was a really easy and hassle-free way for me to get my clothes altered and repaired – that’s when Sojo
was born.”
Sojo’s mission is to give clothes a second chance to keep them out of landfill for longer. Sojo made the 2020 Creative Industries final. Designed as a sustainable ‘Deliveroo for fashion’, Sojo works through an innovative app that connects customers to local ‘seamsters’ who can repair and make alterations to clothes.
Founder Josephine Philips’s big idea has inspired others. Today the Sojo community is growing, with plans to expand services across more of London. In October 2021, the company announced its partnership with the Beyond Retro’s London stores, with Sojo becoming an in-store option for customers. The company’s unique offer has garnered media attention from the BBC, Refinery29, Grazia, Marie Claire, Vogue, Pop Sugar and more, showing its appeal to a range
of audiences. As well as saving clothes, Sojo also creates space for discussion around sustainable fashion, sharing eye-opening findings about consumer behaviours, and how this translates into our carbon footprint. The company also uses its platform to promote other female-owned and black-owned businesses while educating consumers.
“Being part of the Mayor’s Entrepreneur competition was such a great part of my Sojo journey – it was the first time I got to really meet fellow young entrepreneurs building incredible start-ups and it was also the first time my idea was really put to the test in front of industry leading judges. The funding we got from being finalists was a pivotal contribution to our first year of bootstrapping – a little goes a really long way at the beginning of building a company and we’ll forever be grateful for that crucial early stage support.”
