Jodhi Meares is at a really good time in her life.
Not only is she poised to say I do to her rock and roller fiancé Jon Stevens – in the past three months, the one-time bikini model, who went on to become the first Mrs James Packer, has unleashed unto the world her latest business venture, the yoga-inspired activewear company, The Upside.
It’s the industrious Ms Mears’ second foray into the world of fashion retail. Her first business, the swimwear company Tigerlily, was sold to surfwear multinational Billabong back in 2007 for an undisclosed sum, thought to be between $3 million and $5 million.
At the time and despite the high-profile role Jodhi played in the business from its creation to its sale, there were those who wrote off Tigerlily as the vanity project of a newly minter former billionairess divorcee (she split from James in 2002, almost three years after they had wed, two years after Tigerlily was set up and five years before the sale of the company to Billabong).
Jodhi’s business advisor, Mark Calvetti, was one of those who knew all along the fashion entrepeneur’s success was no fluke.
“If you were to talk to the man on the street, they would think Jodhi was bankrolled into the fashion business by James and continues to be bankrolled by James. And that is so far from the truth,” he tells The Weekly.
Now, having put all her own money into The Upside – “I have a lot of skin in this game,” Jodhi says – she’s again out there having a go, building business and putting her fortune on the line, when she could easily not have done so.
“How many women can leave a high-profile marriage like she did, build a business, sell it and then build a second one?” asks Mark Calvetti.
“She didn’t have to launch The Upside. She could have spent half a year in Hawaii and half a year here. But she did it again – built another business.”
Read more of this story in the January issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly.
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