Rising Stars: Meet Emily Ross of Downtown, Colorado Springs

Today we’d like to introduce you to Emily Ross.

Emily, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Clay and Emily Ross are the owners of Yobel, a men’s and women’s ethical and sustainable fashion boutique in downtown Colorado Springs since 2019. Clay and Emily ran Yobel on the side of full-time jobs for a few years but are now both full time with their social impact business.

Yobel partners with artisans and companies worldwide who create products through fair trade and ethical practices which ensure dignified work, fair wages, and safe working conditions for employees. These same artisans and companies are committed to sustainable production practices as well, which is better for the planet. Clay and Emily’s hope is that through awareness and equitable trade, marginalized people of the world may be offered the hope of freedom and abundant life.

Yobel is also home to The Look Up Gallery, a space that highlights large scale, abstract and impressionistic local artists. Shows rotate monthly debuting on the First Friday of each month and highlight over 20 member gallery artists and 7 resident studio artists. In addition to clothing and art, guests may enjoy the bar in Yobel to sip and shop as they enjoy the space.

Clay and Emily believe that every person has value and have always been in the industry of people. From Emily’s customer service background and 16-year human resources career to Clay’s work with vulnerable youth, special needs adults and years as a pastor, they love people. “We are moved and heartbroken about the state of people in our world and one way Clay and I try to make it better is through our ethical fashion boutique.” Emily Ross

Clay and Emily have always loved art and fashion. Clay is an artist, has been since his youth, and has his studio space at Yobel. Emily has designed clothing for over 20 years and both Clay and Emily used to make a lot of their own clothing. Emily wanted a career in fashion and then discovered the industry’s ugly side. Sweatshops full of slave and underpaid laborers is where the majority of clothing comes from and over the years, materials for the fashion industry have become increasingly harder on the planet. Now, through Yobel, they get to provide consumers with high-quality, on trend clothing and accessories that come from artisans and companies around the world who put people and our planet first. Yobel believes that “When people and the planet are priority, we all profit.”

Emily and Clay were raised in Colorado Springs and refer to themselves as “townies”. They have been married over seven years and co-raise Clay’s three kids. They are passionate about their family, the downtown Colorado Springs community and small businesses, and you can often find them on the front porch of their 115-year-old downtown home enjoying their neighborhood.

Yobel and The Look Up Gallery had a challenging past 18 months with a fire in the building of their former location, December 2023. The damage deemed all contents a total loss but after looking for a new location in 2024, the 23rd space they saw was meant to be! After a four-month renovation, they reopened in April 2025 and love being part of the historic Trolly Block, downtown Colorado Springs.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Business has definitely been a challenge along the way. We purchased Yobel from their good friend and co-founder, Sarah Ray, September 2016 only 6 months before the world shut down. That was the first pivot for us because even though retail was only regulated to be closed for one month in Colorado, the building Yobel was in, Ivywild School south of downtown, closed for a year.

The plan after purchasing Yobel was to relocate and expand within 5 years, but the timeline was moved up due to the pandemic and we had to relocate or close the business we’d just purchased. We decided to relocate downtown so ended up being closed four months total with that move and remodeling of the new space.

All was well on Bijou, though those years had their challenges too such as some supply chain issues but overall sales were decent post pandemic until business next door to us in our building, a restaurant, had a kitchen fire and we lost everything. As of December 2023 we closed indefinitely working through the insurance process and with out landlord to see what could be done. In the end we had to relocate again in order to continue our business. All of 2024 we were daily, weekly, monthly looking at commercial spaces to potentially move to. Nothing worked out until the 23rd space! We are now reopened after 16 months of being closed but we just weren’t done with our vision and passion. We have had to pivot many times in the first five years of ever owning a business but we are so excited where we landed and want to do this for the rest of our lives together!

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
We love our city. As mentioned before, we call ourselves “townies”. We’ve always lived downtown and love our neighbors, our neighborhood and small businesses. Besides running our business and Clay painting in his studio we love being champions for our community such as all the small businesses that surround us. Our downtown is somewhat unique in that all businesses are small and local rather than a chain anchoring neighborhood. We love supporting and sharing the local love and playing concierge with tourists eatining and shopping local too.

Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
I’m not sure we completely believe in “luck”. There are circumstances out of our control, like the pandemic and the fire that we went through, but then there are things we can control even when things happen.

We worked hard looking for the silver linings during the stress and unknown and put our own energy into our passion and vision. We did end up in a dream location after all the pivots we’ve made, so the pivots do seem a little like a blessing in disguise, but it takes a lot of work and resilience to keep going.

We might define “luck” as something falling in your lap and that’s just not our story. We’ve always said that owning and running a small business, while our favorite thing to do, is a marathon not a sprint, so in our experience luck hasn’t been part of it.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.shopyobel.com and www.thelookupgallery.com
• Instagram: @shopyobel and @thelookupgallery
• Facebook: Yobel and The Look Up Gallery

Image Credits
Personal photos.