About Jean Marie Clarke
Jean Marie Clarke, founder of PAX PHILOMENA, is on a mission to share her life-long love and passion for beautiful textiles through this transnational clothing line. A quintessential citizen of the world, Jean Marie was born in Calcutta, India to Anglo-Indian parents, whose families had been living in India for five generations. She emigrated with her family to America at a young age as a British citizen and was raised in Phoenix, Arizona.
As the daughter of immigrants, she could not afford to buy clothes deemed “fashionable,” so she tailored and sewed her own clothing from original fabrics. Earning a scholarship to Princeton University, Jean Marie felt a calling to study art history, focusing on Italian Renaissance studies. She studied abroad in Rome, learned Italian, and fell in love with the sense of aesthetics that permeates the Italian culture.
After graduation, she met Antonio Ratti the owner of Ratti SPA Textile Mill in Como, Italy. Impressed with her passion for textiles, Ratti hired her to work from his Como office designing and selling printed fabrics for the American luxury home furnishings market. For the last two decades, Jean Marie has travelled the world representing European textile mills. However, always feeling a calling to India, she has finally stepped foot back on Indian soil and has created PAX PHILOMENA to combine her love of India and Italy with her passion for beauty, color, design, and comfort in clothing.
As part of Jean Marie's mission, a portion of all PAX PHILOMENA proceeds go to Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity who continue to serve others and spread peace in America, India, and throughout the world.
