Jose Stemkens is a Dutch-South African fashion consultant who built two businesses across three continents. While many recognize her name from her marriage to actor Titus Welliver, her real story centers on twenty years of retail and consulting work. She runs Sunrise Fashion Consulting and co-founded Eywasouls Malibu, helping European brands enter American markets.
Her path started on retail floors in the Netherlands and grew into boardrooms in Hong Kong and Los Angeles. Born in South Africa and raised in Europe, she turned cross-cultural fluency into a business advantage. She is known for her ability to translate fashion across borders, focusing on the business work that happens behind the scenes rather than public visibility.
Jose Stemkens – Quick Bio Summary
| Category | Details |
| Full Name | Josepha Theodora Stemkens |
| Raised In | The Netherlands |
| Nationality | Dutch–South African |
| Profession | Fashion Consultant, Entrepreneur, Co-Founder of Eywasouls Malibu |
| Known For | Sunrise Fashion Consulting & cross-border fashion market expertise |
| Career Highlights | Esprit (10 years), The Great China Wall, House of Quirky, Dept & JC Rags |
| Businesses | Sunrise Fashion Consulting (Founder), Eywasouls Malibu (Co-Founder) |
| Marital Status | Married Titus Welliver (2014–2021) |
| Children | Adoptive mother to Cora; stepmother to Eamonn and Quinn |
| Height | Approx. 5 ft 6 in (167 cm) |
| Net Worth (2025) | Estimated around $1 million |
| Current Work | Runs Sunrise Fashion Consulting & Eywasouls Malibu in Los Angeles |
Early Life and Cultural Background
Jose Stemkens (full name: Josepha Theodora Stemkens) was born in Tembisa, South Africa, and later raised in the Netherlands. Her father, Jet Strijbos, raised her with at least two siblings, including sister May Nijssen. The family relocated to the Netherlands during her childhood, creating a dual-culture foundation.
She attended Bouwens van der Boijecollege in the Netherlands for her education. Growing up between African roots and European systems taught her how trends shift between markets. This wasn’t classroom learning—it came from living in two vastly different retail and social environments.
That bicultural upbringing became her consulting edge decades later. Understanding both relaxed South African culture and structured European retail gave her perspective purely domestic consultants miss. By age 21, she was working wholesale fashion in Düsseldorf, Germany, applying global thinking to local sales.
Starting from Retail Floors
Jose’s career began at Mata Hari, a Netherlands multi-chain store, where she worked as assistant manager. She climbed to store manager while still completing her education. Those years taught her inventory management, customer behavior, and how fashion actually sells—not just how it looks on runways.
Most consultants study retail through books. She learned by handling returns, managing stock during sale seasons, and watching which styles locals ignored versus what they bought repeatedly. That ground-level experience later informed her consulting advice to brands spending millions on U.S. market entry.
Working retail in Holland during the 1990s meant understanding European consumer preferences firsthand. She saw which American brands succeeded in Dutch stores and which failed despite big marketing budgets. Those observations became mental case studies she’d reference when advising brands two decades later.
Jose Stemkens Building a Global Fashion Resume
According to her LinkedIn Profile, In 1995 Jose joined Esprit as a senior project manager, starting a decade-long tenure. She worked across Esprit offices in Hong Kong, Düsseldorf, Los Angeles, and New York. This wasn’t typical corporate transfer rotation—she was managing cross-continental operations for a major brand during fashion globalization.
Her Hong Kong years proved particularly formative for understanding Asian manufacturing and Western retail. She watched how designs created in California got produced in China, then shipped back to American and European stores. Her work across multiple regions gave her first-hand understanding of how the supply chain connects design, production, and retail.
After Esprit, she became International Account Manager for The Great China Wall, a high-end streetwear label. The role meant managing relationships between designers, manufacturers, and retailers across countries and time zones. She wasn’t just translating languages—she translated business expectations between cultures with different negotiation styles and contract norms.
Stepping Into Leadership Roles
Around 2009, Jose became President of Dept & JC Rags, Dutch clothing companies expanding internationally. Her job involved bringing European brands to U.S. stores, navigating different sizing systems, marketing preferences, and retail distribution. American consumers shop differently than Europeans—understanding those gaps separated successful launches from expensive failures.
She later served as Vice President at House of Quirky, helping open U.S. retail locations. She led their American expansion strategy and store operations. Opening physical retail during the rise of e-commerce required understanding both traditional retail and emerging digital channels.
These leadership roles gave her direct responsibility for major business decisions, adding practical experience that supports her consulting work today. She wasn’t advising from the sidelines. She made calls on inventory buys, lease negotiations, and hiring that directly impacted profitability.
Founding Sunrise Fashion Consulting
In 2014, Jose founded Sunrise Fashion Consulting in Los Angeles, partnering with Jane Munro-Altinok. The firm helps international fashion brands enter the U.S. market, offering services from trend forecasting to legal structuring. Her clients include European brands like Freddy, Lui Jo, Superfine, and Cocurata.
Most fashion consultants focus on creative direction or marketing. Jose’s firm handles the unsexy backend—import regulations, U.S. sizing conversions, distribution partnerships, and retail buyer relationships. Brands pay her to avoid expensive mistakes she watched other companies make during her corporate years.
Her consulting draws directly from two decades of seeing what works and what doesn’t. She knows which U.S. retailers demand exclusive arrangements, which cities test well for European aesthetics, and how American return policies differ from European norms. That institutional knowledge comes from experience, not market research reports.
Jose Stemkens Co-Creating Eywasouls Malibu
In 2017, Jose co-founded Eywasouls Malibu with Jane Munro-Altinok, creating a luxury bohemian fashion brand. The brand was inspired by “blue ocean waves, golden sands, and the Malibu lifestyle.” The company specializes in flowing maxi dresses made from high-quality fabrics, targeting the beach-luxury market.
Eywasouls fills a specific niche—elevated casual wear for women who want resort-style clothing that doesn’t look cheap. The brand isn’t fast fashion or high fashion, but occupies the space between: well-made pieces justifying premium prices without couture markups. That positioning requires understanding both production costs and what consumers will actually pay.
Co-founding a brand while running a consulting firm shows her dual approach to fashion. She advises other brands while testing her own theories through Eywasouls. If her consulting advice works, it should work for her own company—putting her credibility on the line with every business decision.
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Jose Stemkens Marriage and Family Life
According to the People Magazine, Titus Welliver married Jose Stemkenson on April 12, 2014, in Calabasas. Welliver described their wedding day as “blessed” and “magical” in social media posts, as reported by US Weekly. The marriage brought together Hollywood entertainment and fashion entrepreneurship worlds.
She became stepmother to Welliver’s three children: Cora McBride Walling Welliver, Eamonn Lorcan Charles Welliver, and Quinn Welliver. She legally adopted Cora, whose biological mother Elizabeth W. Alexander passed away in 2012. Taking on an adoptive parent role while running two businesses required balancing family responsibilities with professional demands.
The couple separated in April 2019, with Welliver filing for legal separation in May 2019. Their divorce finalized in January 2021. She refocused on her fashion businesses following the separation.
Jose Stemkens Life After Divorce
According to TMZ, The divorce settlement included monthly spousal support of approximately $27,000. She also retained six horses (named Kimba, Kid, Chief, Aslan, Jackson, and Little Martha Grace) and a 2017 Range Rover. These details, public through court filings, show the financial arrangements typical in California divorces involving business owners.
After the split, Jose maintained her Los Angeles base and continued operating both companies. Her social media presence remained modest, with her Instagram account set to private. Keeping a low profile allowed her to focus on business rather than public celebrity.
The post-divorce period marked a return to her pre-marriage professional identity. She’d built her reputation before the marriage and maintained her businesses throughout it. Her career didn’t pause or restart after divorce—it simply continued on the trajectory she’d established years earlier.
Business Philosophy and Approach
Jose’s consulting success stems from understanding fashion as both creative product and commercial business. She knows fabric costs, margin requirements, retail buyer expectations, and seasonal buying cycles. Most designers understand aesthetics; she understands why beautiful clothes fail commercially without proper business structure.
Her cross-continental background gives her an edge many U.S.-only consultants lack. She’s negotiated in Dutch boardrooms, managed Hong Kong manufacturing relationships, and pitched Los Angeles retail buyers. Each market has different communication styles, contract expectations, and business timelines that require cultural fluency beyond language translation.
Through Sunrise and Eywasouls, she’s running a laboratory testing her own advice. Consultants who only advise never face consequences of bad recommendations. She lives with her strategic decisions, making her counsel more grounded in real-world risk.
Jose Stemkens Physical Profile and Public Image
Jose Stemkens stands approximately 5 feet 6 inches tall (167 cm), though some sources report 5 feet 4 inches. Various celebrity biography sites mention hazel eyes and a fashion-forward personal style. These details matter less than her professional reputation in fashion circles where appearance connects to brand credibility.
She maintains a deliberately low public profile compared to typical celebrity-adjacent figures. Her business presence emphasizes professional credentials over personal life. This choice reflects someone who built a career on expertise, not publicity.
Her online footprint remains minimal, with private Instagram and modest Twitter presence. For someone in fashion, this restraint is notable—many consultants and brand founders use social media heavily for visibility. She maintains a low public profile and focuses on her professional work rather than personal visibility.
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Financial Standing and Net Worth
Multiple sources estimate Jose’s net worth around $1 million as of 2025, primarily from Sunrise Fashion Consulting and Eywasouls Malibu. Her consulting firm generates income from helping international brands navigate U.S. market entry, though exact figures aren’t publicly disclosed. Her income combines consulting fees, brand revenue, and spousal support from the divorce settlement.
Fashion consulting for international brands commands premium rates because mistakes cost millions. A brand that enters the U.S. market wrong—wrong retailers, wrong positioning, wrong timing—can burn through capital before establishing footholds. She charges for helping brands avoid those costly errors.
Her wealth isn’t celebrity-level, but it’s solid for a boutique consultant. She’s not building a fashion empire competing with LVMH. She’s running profitable specialized businesses serving a niche many consultants can’t address due to lack of hands-on international experience.
Current Work and Focus
As of 2025, Jose continues operating both Sunrise Fashion Consulting and Eywasouls Malibu from Los Angeles. Her consulting firm still works with European brands seeking U.S. market entry. Eywasouls maintains its luxury bohemian positioning, selling through its website and select retailers.
The fashion industry has shifted dramatically since she started—e-commerce, influencer marketing, and direct-to-consumer brands changed traditional retail models. Her consulting likely evolved to address these changes while maintaining core expertise in cross-border business. Brands still need someone who understands international supply chains, U.S. retail relationships, and cultural positioning.
She’s maintained relevance by solving problems that don’t disappear with trend changes. Import regulations, sizing standardization, retail distribution, and cultural marketing differences remain constant challenges. Her value proposition—helping brands avoid expensive mistakes through experience-based guidance—doesn’t become obsolete when hem lengths change.
Legacy in Fashion Consulting
Jose Stemkens represents a specific type of fashion professional—the behind-the-scenes business operator who makes glamorous brands function commercially. She’s not a designer whose name goes on labels. She’s the person designers call when their beautiful clothes need to become profitable businesses in foreign markets.
Her career arc from retail floors to consulting founder shows a methodical approach to expertise-building. Each role added skills and perspectives that informed the next position. By the time she launched her own firm, she’d already lived the problems her clients would pay her to solve.
In an industry often focused on who you know and what you wear, she built credibility on what she knows and what she’s done. That’s a different path than most fashion entrepreneurs take. It requires patience to build resume credentials before launching ventures, but it creates sustainable businesses based on expertise rather than trends.
Final Thoughts
Jose Stemkens built her career slowly and practically—starting on retail floors, learning how customers think, and then carrying that knowledge into global companies. Her biggest strength is understanding how fashion works across cultures. She has worked in Europe, Asia, and the United States, giving her insights that many consultants never get to see firsthand.
Through Sunrise Fashion Consulting and Eywasouls Malibu, she continues to help brands enter new markets, avoid costly mistakes, and shape products in ways that fit American consumers. Her work shows that fashion success is not only about design; it is also about supply chains, cultural expectations, and business strategy.
Although she is known publicly because of her past marriage, her long-term impact comes from her behind-the-scenes leadership. She represents the type of fashion professional who supports brands quietly but meaningfully—turning creative ideas into real businesses.
FAQ’s about Jose Stemkens
What does Jose Stemkens do for a living?
She owns Sunrise Fashion Consulting and co-founded Eywasouls Malibu, a luxury maxi-dress brand.
Where was Jose Stemkens born?
She was born in Tembisa, South Africa, on December 29, 1987, and raised in the Netherlands.
When did Jose Stemkens marry Titus Welliver?
They married on April 12, 2014, in Calabasas, California, and divorced in January 2021.
Does Jose Stemkens have children?
She has no biological children but legally adopted Cora McBride Walling Welliver and was stepmother to two sons.
What is Jose Stemkens’ estimated net worth?
Her net worth is estimated around $1 million as of 2025 from her consulting and fashion businesses.
What brands does Jose Stemkens work with?
Her consulting firm works with European brands like Freddy, Lui Jo, Superfine, and Cocurata.
How tall is Jose Stemkens?
She stands approximately 5 feet 6 inches (167 cm) tall, though some sources vary slightly.
Gael is a content writer who enjoys telling real stories about public figures, entertainment, and moments that shape their lives. He focuses on writing in a clear, simple way so readers can easily understand and enjoy the content. His work is based on careful research from public sources and trusted media. Gael believes good writing should feel natural, honest, and helpful to everyday readers.
