From Family Medicine to Fashion Design: How a Mother’s Lesson Inspired the Founder of Valmasi
A Mother’s Lesson That Sparked a Founder Journey
This Mother’s Day, we wanted to share the story of a founder whose business journey started with a lesson passed down from her mother.
Dr. Vanessa Gavin-Headen, MD, MPH spent more than 25 years working long shifts as a family medicine physician and kept running into the same problem: medical scrubs were not designed for women with curves.
Women who needed more room in the bust, hips, and thighs. Women who needed comfort, movement, and professionalism while juggling demanding healthcare shifts.
But the story behind her company, Valmasi, started long before medicine.
When Dr. Vanessa was just 8 years old, her mother taught her how to sew. Throughout high school, Dr. Vanessa continued nurturing her creative side by designing and making her own clothes while experimenting with different colors, fabrics, and patterns.
But when it came time for college, she chose a different path. She went on to complete medical school and built a 25-year career in family medicine.
Years later, after retiring from medicine, she returned to that childhood dream of becoming a clothing designer and combined those sewing skills with decades of firsthand healthcare experience to build the solution herself.
Today, Dr. Vanessa is the founder of Valmasi, a professional scrub apparel brand for curvy women based in Los Angeles, California and a proud member of the FounderFuego community. 🔥
Learn more about her journey in this feature below.
FounderFuego Firestarter Intensive™ Graduate Builds a Scalable Apparel Business
As a FounderFuego® Firestarter Intensive™ graduate, Dr. Vanessa worked with our team on manufacturing strategy, website optimization, brand positioning, paid advertising, operational systems, and growth infrastructure to help prepare the company for long-term scale.
Stories like this are exactly why we love supporting founders.
Because sometimes the smallest lessons passed down early in life become the foundation for something much bigger years later.
Learn more about Dr. Vanessa and the vision behind Valmasi here:
Know someone in healthcare looking for professional scrubs designed for curvy women or the perfect gift (or gift card) for a medical school graduate? We’d love for you to share Valmasi with them and support a Black woman-owned business built with intention.
This Mother’s Day, we’re celebrating the mothers, mother figures, mentors, and family members who helped shape the people we're becoming and the businesses we’re building today. ❤️
Tune in to the newsletter to hear more inspiring founder stories.
