How this daughter of Lebanese immigrants has created a fashion powerhouse and Aussie legacy
The daughter of Lebanese immigrants, Pamela Jabbour has built a company which has clothed some of corporate Australia’s finest. Yet behind the triumph is a tale of family love and heartache.
Business
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Pamela Jabbour describes her upbringing in Sydney suburbia in the second half of the 1980s as “beautiful”.
The daughter of Lebanese immigrants who were childhood sweethearts and married young, she says her parents, George and Sonia, “never made us feel like we wanted or needed for anything”.
Her father was a serial entrepreneur in the fashion manufacturing world.
Despite being forced to sell the family home after one of his early businesses struck financial trouble, he always rented “beautiful” homes to house Sonia, Pamela and her younger brother, Bryan.
But that picture-perfect life ended in dramatic fashion straight after Jabbour left school, when her mother was diagnosed with aggressive stage-four lung cancer.
What followed was a harrowing three-year rollercoaster ride.
Sonia Jabbour fought like a warrior, enduring months of intensive radiotherapy treatments at Randwick Hospital.
Hope returned when she enjoyed a three-month window after scans showed no sign of cancer.
But the reprieve was short-lived when the doctors discovered it had spread to her brain.
During her mother’s treatment, Jabbour juggled studying for a bachelor degree of business in marketing, constant visits to the hospital and – in her toughest moments – trips to her local church to pray.
Yet through her pain, Sonia Jabbour spoke passionately and philosophically with her daughter about the deepest topics in life, like marriage, parenthood and friendship.
“She was very open with us about how she went through a bit of a depression because she felt like she had no purpose once we didn’t need her as much. She really shared openly with me that experience, wanting me to not make that mistake,” her daughter says.
Eventually the cancer impaired Sonia’s ability to speak so she scrawled messages for Pamela on small bits of paper and they are now mementos of their precious, final weeks together.
At just 19, Jabbour wrote and delivered the eulogy at her mother’s funeral and then committed to finishing the university studies that her father had paid for upfront.
After they were done, while still grieving, she took a leap of faith and launched her own business.
Her father, George, had spent more than 40 years in the fashion trade, producing business shirts and suits for top-tier Australian retailers. That exposure gave his only daughter an intuitive grasp of textiles, manufacturing and brand presentation.
With his backing she founded Image Designer Workwear, a corporate uniform design and manufacturing company that came to redefine an industry.
Today it is known as Total Image Group and in it 2025 celebrates 20 years in business, having supplied thoughtfully designed, brand-aligned uniforms to companies such as Woolworths, Dan Murphy’s, Pandora and Ford.
The brand was even the official uniform supplier for the Australian 2018 Winter Olympics team.
TIG has just become a B Corp Certified uniform company, setting a new benchmark for sustainability and ethical business practices.
Rather than chasing low-cost contracts, Jabbour says TIG has always prioritised quality, ethical manufacturing, and sustainability,
But, most importantly, it remains family owned and run.
Now in his mid-60s, George Jabbour is the acting chief financial officer, while Pamela’s husband, Tony is – as she puts it – a “jack of all trades” in the business.
Pamela and Tony were also childhood sweethearts who met in year seven at a Lebanese school in Punchbowl and were married in 2010.
Pamela is so passionate about her family business that she has joined the board of the Family Business Association, which is her only external directorship.
She believes that despite the emotional trauma it caused, watching her mother’s struggles taught her a steely determination which she has carried into her business life.
“I feel like having immigrant parents, watching their challenges coming to a new country and trying to establish themselves, then having the community leaning in on them, then having multiple businesses and some bad partnerships along the way, and then mum getting sick, it built a resilience in me,” she says.
“I see it now, but at the time, you don’t realise it. So for me, it was like you just did what you had to do … I’ve never had to touch fire to know it burns and I feel really lucky for that.”
From humble beginnings
Jabbour made 100 cold calls a day for a year before securing her first business client.
But every call helped her build a database, gave insights about what the competition was doing, what the market was paying and where the gaps were.
Her father kept reminding her of what he called the snowball effect: It just takes one and then the rest will come. He turned out to be correct.
But the loss of her mother hit Jabbour hard.
She suffered two seizures at home in her bedroom during TIG’s first seven years in business, both brought on by stress.
“I felt responsible for my dad, for my brother and for my mum’s family. I just felt like I needed to be mum and then also run the business. I was just burning the candle on both ends, working massive hours,” she says.
“I wasn’t doing anything to look after my health or treat the anxiety and emotional pain of having lost my mum and what that looked like.”
While the first seizure was a warning sign, the second was the ultimate wake-up call.
At the time she had Tony had been trying unsuccessfully to start a family, so IVF became their only path. The process forced her to get serious about her health.
“My two worst fears in life as a kid were losing a parent and not being able to have kids,” she says. After the tragedy of experiencing the first, she was determined that both would not become her reality.
She turned to meditation and breathing and when her first son, Lucas, was born, she read to him regularly from the acclaimed picture book titled “My Magic Breath” by New York Times best-selling author Nick Ortner, which helps children discover calm through mindful breathing.
It would eventually help save his life.
Eighteen months ago when he was four-and-a-half years old, Lucas was involved in an accident.
While playing on the veranda of the family’s holiday home, he ran through a sheet of non-safety glass, slicing his face open.
“I had to hold it together. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through,” his mother says.
In the chaos that ensued, she remembered their breathing exercises.
“I said, ‘Magic breath, Lucas’ and he calmed down instantly. We sat and did magic breathing until the ambulance arrived.”
Lucas now has a younger brother and Jabbour says although she and Tony juggle parenting responsibilities while running the business, her husband supports her to focus on work.
But they are not about to let George Jabbour retire any time soon. He still comes into work on as many days a week as he wants.
“It is a place for him to have a purpose, and he’s got so much value to add with everything he’s experienced through his life. We don’t want to lose that,” his daughter says.
“He’s not a studied accountant, but he is acting as CFO. He’s great with profit and loss, budgeting, cashflow forecasting, debtors, creditors, tax planning, and I’ve learned so much from him. I rely heavily on him for that.”
She describes her single biggest learning from him in a single word.
“Discipline,” she says.
“My dad is very disciplined, and always has been.”
The philosophy of clothing
Jabbour doesn’t hesitate when asked about the state of corporate dressing in 2025. For her, it is not just about clothing. It is a mindset and a philosophy.
“I think corporate is coming back and I really do believe in the power of dressing for the role you want to play,” she says.
The emphasis isn’t necessarily on returning to the pinstriped rigidity of the past, but rather a more refined and intentional approach to how professionals present themselves.
“It’s really dependent on that role, right?” she says. “You know, is it a corporate role? Is it a smart casual role? But always putting thought into what you’re wearing. Being well presented. Polished. Tailored.”
In an era of hybrid work and elastic dress codes, her perspective isn’t nostalgic, but rather strategic.
“I used to see perfectionism as a negative. But I think if harnessed right it can be a superpower. Dressing right, putting thought into every little thing you do. It creates an energy and a momentum around you,” she says.
It is message she regularly shares with her team, and one she believes is critical to reclaiming both personal agency and professional presence in a world that has sometimes leaned too far into casual convenience.
TIG forecasts the year ahead to be one of the biggest years in its history.
It is now back to generating annual revenues of $15m – the levels achieved before the Covid-19 pandemic cost is the lucrative 13-year contract with Woolworths that then accounted for 40 per cent of its revenues and had put TIG on the map.
“I had great relationships at the time with the Woolworths CEO, Greg Foran. It was values based and that’s why we had such a great long-term relationship,” she says.
Losing it, she stresses, wasn’t due to service issues but rather commercial pricing and the retailer’s desire to trial designing its uniforms in-house.
Another TIG client which made headlines in 2022 was budget start-up airline Bonza, whose uniforms diverted from traditional airline staff attire by featuring white sneakers, cotton t-shirts, and tailored shorts, in a nod to its many tropical Queensland destinations.
Sadly for TIG the airline collapsed in April 2024 when its American private equity owners pulled their financial support.
“We got burnt and we lost some money,” Jabbour says.
“But I still look back at the freedom they gave us in design, the value alignment, the respect for the partnership and the excitement how they treated suppliers. It was also a dream of mine to be able to design an airline uniform and they gave me full control over that.”
Now, as she looks to the future, Jabbour is doubling down on partnerships with like-minded firms that value integrity and human connection as much as the bottom line.
“I’m really selective about who we work with now,” she says. “There’s so much pressure on cost. In some big businesses, values just aren’t part of the equation anymore. But where there’s value alignment, where it’s not just a race to the bottom, I’m all in.”
She believes uniforms are about more than branding. They are about culture.
“It’s a partnership for your people and your brand,” she says. “I’m on a growth mission, absolutely, but it’s got to be sustainable growth.”
TIG is also being built for legacy. Her goal is to create a successful, multi-generational family business if that is what her children want in the future.
“I also always want the business in a position where we can, as a family, sell it. Because you never know what happens. That is the kind of business I am building, one that doesn’t rely solely on me,” she says.
Jabbour’s own family narrative is deeply woven into her work ethic and worldview.
She quips that her mother granted her one last wish before she died, relating to the strict Lebanese dress code required in the aftermath of losing a loved one.
“There is pressure in our community to wear black for 40 days, or the first year after losing someone. But mum said that she would haunt me if I wore black,” Jabbour says with a poignant smile.
“So beyond the day of the funeral, I never did. It was something she was very passionate about.”
In her home Jabbour still keeps the crumpled notes that her mother’s unsteady hand penned during the final weeks of her life at Canterbury hospital.
They are barely legible, but hold messages rich in love and enduring wisdom.
“Mum told me to look after my brother and my dad, and to always be patient,” she recalls solemnly.
“But most importantly, she wanted me to enjoy life and put happiness first. That was the strongest message.”
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