10 Questions with Jaimie Harris, the Founder, Creative Director, and CEO of Canadian sleepwear and loungewear brand, This is J.
Jaimie Harris has had over 20 years to sell out. She hasn’t.
As the Founder, Creative Director, and CEO of This Is J, she’s built one of Canada’s most quietly enduring sleepwear and loungewear brands. Not by chasing trends or scaling recklessly, but by staying almost stubbornly close to what she believes in.
The product. The customer. The feeling.
She started the brand in her early twenties with no roadmap and one honest instinct: that everyday comfort deserved to be taken seriously.
Two decades, a full e-commerce pivot, and countless unglamorous in-between moments later, that instinct hasn’t changed. Neither has her commitment to Canadian manufacturing, intentional growth, and making things people actually live in.
Jaimie illustrates the prints herself. She obsesses over fabric and fit. She thinks deeply about how what you wear at home — the thing you reach for at the end of a hard day — can quietly change how you feel in your own skin.
That’s not a marketing angle. That’s the whole philosophy.
She’s had to unlearn the idea that success should be fast or loud. What she’s building instead is something rarer: a brand with staying power, a loyal following that keeps coming back, and a creative vision that’s evolved without losing itself.
Twenty years in, she’s still the first person in the room when it comes to the product.
Some people call that discipline. Jaimie might just call it knowing what matters.
Please enjoy 10 Questions with Jaimie Harris
How do you describe what you do?
I build a brand around comfort and everything that comes with it.
On paper, I design and run a pajama company. In reality, I’m thinking about how people feel at the end of a long day, what they reach for in the morning, and how something as simple as what you wear at home can shift your mood.
My job is part creative, part problem solving, part gut instinct. One minute I’m illustrating designs and reviewing fabric and fit, the next I’m thinking about how to tell our story in a way that actually connects.
I’m still very close to the product, but also to the bigger picture. How we grow, how we stay relevant, and how we keep it all feeling intentional after 20+ years.
At the core of it, I make things people live in and I try to do it in a way that feels good, looks good, and lasts.
What did your path here actually look like?
It definitely didn’t follow a straight line.
I started the brand in my early 20s without a big plan to build a “company.” I just knew I wanted to solve a personal need for everyday comfort and create something of my own that was tangible, creative, and a little different from what was out there.
In the beginning, I was doing everything myself, figuring things out as I went, making mistakes, and learning quickly because I had to.
There were moments of growth that felt exciting, and others that felt like I was completely out of my depth.
The business has evolved a lot over the years, especially through big shifts like moving more fully into e-commerce during COVID, but none of it was linear. It was a constant cycle of trying, adjusting, and starting again with a bit more clarity each time.
What’s stayed consistent is that I’ve always been close to the product and the customer. That’s been my anchor through all the changes.
Looking back, it makes more sense than it felt at the time. However, living it was a lot of instinct, a lot of resilience, and a willingness to keep going even when things weren’t clear.
What part of your work energizes you the most right now?
Right now, it’s the intersection of creativity and connection.
We’re at a point where we’re thinking more intentionally about how we show up and connect. Not just making something look beautiful, but creating ideas that actually resonate, that people see themselves in, or want to be part of.
I’m also really energized by my more hands-on creative role. Designing new prints, refining product, and thinking through how everything comes together visually is the part that always feels the most instinctive to me.
Then there’s the customer response. Seeing how people wear the pieces, how they talk about them, and how they come back again and again because we are their go-to sleepwear.
That never really gets old. It’s a reminder that what we’re building is part of people’s everyday lives, not just something they buy once and forget.
It feels like a moment of refining what we’ve built over the past 20+ years and pushing it forward in a way that still feels true to us.
What part of building this has been harder than you expected?
The quiet, in-between parts.
Not the big moments people see, but the day-to-day decisions that don’t have clear answers. Learning to trust your instincts when there isn’t a roadmap, and being okay with the fact that you won’t always get it right.
I also didn’t fully anticipate how much you evolve alongside the business. Over 20+ years, it’s not just the company that changes, but you do too.
Your life shifts, your family grows, your priorities change, and you’re constantly learning how to show up as the kind of leader the business needs at each stage, while also juggling everything outside of it.
Then there’s the weight of responsibility. When you’re building something that supports other people, that sits with you in a different way. It’s not something you always talk about, but it’s always there in the background.
None of it is loud, but it’s constant, and learning how to carry that well has been the real work.
What belief about success have you had to unlearn?
That success has to look a certain way.
For a long time, I measured it by growth and pace. How quickly things were expanding, how much we were doing.
I’ve had to unlearn the idea that faster always means better, or that you need to scale quickly to be successful.
What I’ve come to value more is longevity. Building something that lasts, evolves over time, and that people keep coming back to. It’s slower, and sometimes less visible, but it’s also more sustainable and ultimately more meaningful.
Especially after 20+ years, success looks more like consistency, staying power, and making decisions you can stand behind long-term.
How do you make decisions when there’s no clear roadmap?
A mix of instinct, experience, and knowing when to pause.
When there’s no clear roadmap (which is most of the time), you learn to rely on pattern recognition. After 20+ years, you start to see what tends to work, what doesn’t, and where to push versus where to hold back.
I still trust my gut, especially when it comes to anything creative or brand-related. But I’ve also learned to balance that with data, input from my team, and giving myself space to think things through instead of reacting too quickly.
Not every decision needs to be rushed. Sometimes the best thing you can do is sit with it, ask the right questions, and let the answer become clearer.
Then there’s knowing you won’t always get it right. Part of it is making the best decision you can with the information you have, and being willing to adjust if needed.
You don’t always need a perfect roadmap, you just need enough clarity to take the next step.
What does a “good workday” look like for you?
A good workday is one where things move forward, even in small ways. A few clear decisions made, a problem solved, a conversation that leads somewhere useful.
It usually includes a mix of creative time and practical work. Time spent designing, reviewing product, or thinking through ideas, balanced with the less visible parts of running a business like emails, logistics, and making sure everything is actually moving.
I’ve also learned that a good day has some space in it. Time to think, not just react. That’s when the better ideas tend to come.
How do you protect your time, energy, or focus?
I’ve learned that protecting your time isn’t about having perfect boundaries, it’s about being intentional with your energy.
I try to be thoughtful about what actually needs my attention and what doesn’t. Not everything requires an immediate response, and not everything needs to be done by me.
I’ve also become more protective of creative time. That’s when I do my best thinking, so I try not to fill every part of the day with meetings or reactive work.
Then there are the smaller things like creating space between decisions, not overloading my schedule, and being okay with saying no when something doesn’t feel aligned or necessary.
It’s not always perfect, but over time you get better at recognizing what drains you versus what moves things forward and adjusting accordingly.
What advice do people always ask you for?
Usually, it’s about starting and how to keep going once you’ve started.
People ask how to turn an idea into something real, how to know if it’s worth pursuing, and how to navigate all the unknowns that come with building something from scratch.
I find myself saying the same thing a lot: you don’t need to have everything figured out to begin. You just need to start, pay attention to what’s working, and be willing to adjust as you go.
There are also a lot of questions around growth like when to scale, how much to invest, how to know if you’re doing enough.
My perspective is usually that it’s okay to grow more slowly than you think you should. There’s value in building something steady and sustainable.
The advice I come back to most is to stay close to what you’re building. The product, the customer, the feeling behind it. That’s where the clarity tends to come from.
What are you building toward—personally or professionally?
Less about something entirely new, and more about refining what we’ve already built.
Professionally, I’m focused on evolving the brand in a way that feels intentional. Pushing the creative, strengthening how we connect with our audience, and continuing to refine the product without losing what people already love about it.
I’m less focused on chasing a specific end point, and more on building something that continues to feel right as it evolves.
