Hello for the 1st time!

My start story.

I left my coffee date realizing I was the one who was going to start a shoe line.

I’ve been a fashion designer for 24 years. I don’t know if most people know that about me. About 2 months before the Pandemic I had coffee with a friend. She told me she wanted to start a shoe line but wasn’t sure what it was going to look like. I thought it was really important to know that, to have it formed in your mind first. I said IF I was going to start a shoe line, I would make what I called a slipper line, a jutti, then a ballet, then a loafer slipper… and it came out clearly, all preformed as if I had been thinking about it for a long time. I knew everything, the color, the skin, the box, the logo. Strangely, it was so clear and this clarity was INSPIRING. It felt so fresh to FEEL something again. I left the coffee, quietly knowing, that I was going to start a shoe brand. And then I laughed that off and went to the house I was restoring and then my job.

I want to explain this idea though, that it felt fresh to feel something again.

When you are a designer, especially for someone else’s brand, you fit into a box. I was lucky enough to fit into a box I helped to create, but still, I was in someone else’s box. And I was in that box for so long, for 12 years. I kind of felt as if I had given up on stretching anymore, if that makes sense. So I just stayed, and the box fit nicely but I was bored in my box. I craved doing new creative things, which is why at the exact same time I was jumping into designing homes with equal gusto. Every season was the same, the same limitations, same stressors, same success, same failures, same box. And when I felt this first stretch, it felt amazing. It felt like life.

AND then something happened. COVID.

Day two of Covid, I was talking to my former boss who said we weren’t going to make it past the end of the month.. we had been in really bad spots before, we knew the routine, how to downshift.. But this was different. By day three, everyone was some version of fired or let go. For me personally, it was not the let go where you don’t have a job, but the kind of let go where you don’t quite know if you have a job. You know you aren’t getting paid. You know you have no control. But that’s it. And just like the rest of the world, It was weird and scary. And it was quiet. I played monopoly in the house while it rained for about a week with my family, and that was kind of amazing, a gift, that time .. but by nature, I am a busybody. I decided I needed some control over my plans and so I started the shoe line. I had no experience making shoes, but 20 years of experience making things. I had no exact idea how, other than one step at a time. It gave me direction and I felt inspired again.

I felt grateful for the time off, I realized I needed it. I was craving it. The pandemic gave me the space and confidence to reassess what I wanted. My former company, the one I didn’t own, got to make all of the decisions about how it all ended, and so they should I guess. However, I realized then that no one was looking out for me, it was every man for themselves, so the only logical thing to do was to be the one to put my needs, desires and inspirations above the needs of others. It isn’t quite good form to start a brand while working for a brand (if I was indeed still working) but under the circumstances, I didn’t quite care anymore what anyone else thought. My duties of doing things the right way were over. I made the decisions to say yes to everything at that point. I said yes to designing homes, remodeling other peoples homes, making shoes, making a sample line and I did it one step at a time, day by day. To put myself first for once in my 20 years of work life was the best thing I ever did.

And here we are, 4 years later almost exactly.

I like to say I am bleeding out of my eyeballs.

Because that’s how it feels. A special combination of brain fog and eye bleeding, urgency and overwhelm. I definitely have bitten off a bit too much, but also, I can’t help it. I am excitable. I have a big vision, one that is me from the bottom to the top.

I have a why not attitude, a figure it out later kind of approach. I love this freedom and the idea of pure potential. Why start a Substack, on top of it all?.. Well, I can feel it. It feels like the new portal for connection, it feels like the future, like a place where I can talk to you directly. Is it a new beginning in the social world vs. maybe Instagram feels like an ending? Or at least it feels different. It feels like we are all here all of a sudden and I am inspired by the community I see here. It feels like WE belong here.

But I am a brand, not a writer or a creator.

Well that’s not true, I AM a creator.. I am that more than anything I do, but I create things… where as a lot of the people posting on substacks are content creators and editors who have the perfect ability to create independant editorial mini worlds. I am a bit different, because I am a brand, but truth be told, I am actually just me, a true things creator. And these past four years, those things have been shoes and homes. And in the next four years, I think they will likely be jeans and pants and sweatshirts and shoes and homes, but likely less homes.

I think my purpose here is to be honest about the pursuit of MAKING and pull the curtain back a little more about being a brand and still being me. I want to maintain a personal voice in my brand that I see brands sometimes lose. My brand is rooted in me, who I am. I have always felt like my customer is me. I am the beginning and end in my world. If I am not happy, it’s not worth doing. I don’t know exactly what that looks like yet here on Substack.. but I am open to finding out together.

If you are into it, then subscribe below. Be here with me. Please don’t send any money:) I am only hear to share what I am doing in the brand, to offer you that extra story, the one behind the shoes, behind the seams, behind the pretty photos we take. If you want to contribute, buy my shoes, then we both win.

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