Interview Pursuit Femmes
Meet Joy
Joy van der Heijden, 23 years old, is a young entrepreneur who recently started her own company ‘Pursuit Femmes’. In June of 2020 she graduated in Applied Economics with a master in Marketing at the university of Ghent. At the moment she is also following a postgraduate in Digital Marketing.
Family
Joy comes from a real entrepreneurial family. As we mentioned, she has recently founded her own company. She is doing this together with her mom Angélique van Gils, co-founder of Café Costume, and with her sister, Jill van der Heijden who has her own business under the name ‘Jill Antwerp’.
The entrepreneurial dream comes from her family at an early age. Her parents were both self-employed, which gave her a taste of the entrepreneurial way of working. After graduating, she was finally able to make her dream come true and set up a one-man business. It was a very exciting choice. She only dared to make this choice because she knew she was going to have two partners beside her, whom she can trust 100% and learn a lot from.
Her mother Angélique has always worked in men’s tailor-made suits at Café Costume, but she felt it was time to take the step for women suits, together with her daughters. Their goal is to inspire women all over the world with a beautiful custom-made suit or blazer.
Why fashion?
The interest in fashion goes back to 1972 when her great-grandfather founded the brand ‘Van Gils’, which focused on menswear. Today, they are the supplier for Pursuit Femmes.
Young Patterns
Joy came in contact with Young Patterns through Facebook. She didn’t know us at that time but she had a very nice conversation with Ann in which Ann explained her what Young Patterns is trying to achieve.
Joy finds it very inspiring that you can have an open conversation about what your dreams are and that Young Patterns will help you find those in a company. Thanks to a duo-internship it is even possible to gain experience at two different companies which can provide a lot of fun and new insights. Don’t hesitate to contact us for a chat! Joy definitely recommends it.
Advice
Of course Joy is still very young and just graduated, so she’s still learning a lot about entrepreneurship. Joy has chosen for courage and is now fully committed. Entrepreneurship is something exciting and there will always be a risk, but you can’t succeed if you don’t try. She considers herself lucky to have her mom for advice. But if you don’t have this option, Joy advices you to send a person you look up to or think you can get advice from a message to ask them for help. People often think it is an honor when they can help someone so don’t be afraid and dare to ask!
