I have always had an entrepreneurial spirit.  When I was 10 years old, my best friend and I started a neighborhood candy store.  This idea came about when we went to Costco with his Mom and we realized the price of Costco candy was 50% lower than the cost at the market we walked a mile to once a week.  We were able to charge our friends lower prices at our store than the neighborhood convenience store and still make a profit.  The profit bought us new bikes and while that was nice, it was the community, all of our friends coming together to hang out that I loved the most.

When I left my long-time leadership role at the multi-million dollar arts organization, I took time to pause, to really reflect on where I had been and where I wanted to go.  Sometimes we work really hard but don’t have a North star, a true vision of where we want to land.  This is what I had been doing, although the experiences along the way were invaluable to running my own company.  I decided I was going to create a life that entered around my values by combining the things that are important to me – building community, supporting women in vulnerable communities and creating clothes that make people feel confident and powerful.

I used to shop quite a bit at fast fashion stores. Forever 21 was a few blocks from my office in Seattle and i frequented it often. But the last time I went there, protestors held signs like “stop child labor” “Did you know your clothes were made in a sweatshop?”

Of course we have all heard these things and wondered if it is true, but to see people standing in front of me, it suddenly felt real. I started to talk to the protestors and their stories were heart breaking. I later researched these issues more and began unpeeling the onion of the fast fashion industry. I changed my buying habits. I bought less. I began buying more vintage items and I saved up to buy higher-quality pieces.