Fashion finds home in oil-industry safety wear

A young production engineer for a Chevron plant in east Texas had gripes about the lack of flame-retardant safety clothing for women in an industry that boasts 22% female workers but lacked female-friendly attire.

In her fifth year of work in the oil and gas industry, Jaime Glas is now moonlighting as a safety-clothing designer, according to a piece in Monday’s New Orleans Advocate that featured a bubbly and bright Ms. Glas wearing a glittery-belted fuchsia and red jumpsuit.

“As a new young engineer, you feel like a child wearing your dad’s clothes,” she told a reporter, who came upon the idea for a women’s line of safety gear after a dinner with a colleague.

“My boss wanted to take me to dinner in town, but he wanted to go straight there. His fire-retardant clothing was jeans and a shirt and looked like normal clothes. I was wearing a clown suit (oversized men’s clothing), and I had to wear it into the restaurant for dinner.

"I decided then and there to change it,” said Ms. Glas, whose company goes by the name of HauteWork, a play on "hot work" — an industry term for welding or any sort of work requiring a flame and a special permit, the newspaper reported.

Aside from being uncomfortable and “clownish-looking,” ill-fitting gear is also a safety hazard as the fabric is cumbersome and dragging, Ms. Glas told The Advocate.