Logan Brown, a third year Harvard law student and Kansas native, said that she had no intention of starting a company during a pandemic, but her frustration with finding a good-fitting pantsuit for her first round of legal internship interviews inspired her to create the perfect pantsuit and start Spencer Jane.

“The overall mission of the company is to support women to succeed and chase their dreams, whatever they may be,” Brown said. “I think that when women are wearing a pantsuit, they are doing something, they are chasing their dreams, they are going after something they want to do, and I really want Spencer Jane to be a part of that experience.

“I think that we want to embody our mission, which is seeing what cool things women do in their pantsuits and doing whatever we can to help them achieve their goals.”

Brown partnered up with WSU and created the promo code “WichitaStateTrailblazer” to use on the Spencer Jane website.  If an individual orders from the store and uses the promo code, $50 will be donated to the Women for Women’s Innovation Fund.

“50 dollars will be donated back to the Women for Women’s Innovation Fund to support entrepreneurial endeavors by women on this campus, which ties back to my overall goal of supporting women to succeed,” she said. “Any way that Spencer Jane can be a part of the community, especially in Kansas, my home state, is really important to me.

“I really wanted to participate and be a part of the exciting innovative things happening in Wichita.”

Brown said that after shopping for pantsuits, she decided to write a blog post and learn more about the time women spend looking for fashionable clothing.  She also created a survey and got over 1000 responses about what women wanted out of shopping for a pantsuit, and took that data to create Spencer Jane.

Brown never planned on starting a company while she was in law school, but she listened to podcasts about starting a business and how to design clothing.  She also has cross-enrolled in the business program at Harvard.

Brown said she had all of her patterns ready in March 2020 when her manufacturer shut down, and she had to put things on hold.  Making professional workwear in the middle of the pandemic heightened problems, but she said that she was grateful to be a small company because she was able to pivot to meet the needs of customers.

“I put everything on hold and I ultimately launched with what I called the pandemic collection, or the pandemic pack and it featured a mask, a sweatpant, and our ultimate work-from-home blazer … I made a few changes to make it comfortable for the couch but also adaptable for the world when it returns to a more normal place like we are seeing,” Brown said.

Brown said that she is getting ready to release a dress, an undershirt, and pants on the Spencer Jane website in the future.