We recently connected with Camilyn Leavitt and have shared our conversation below.
Camilyn, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?
Our mission at Camilyn Beth is to create well made garments for women to feel confident and beautiful at their most special events. I truly believe that when you feel beautiful in what you are wearing the confidence is with you the entire event. There are so many emotions that go on (especially at a wedding) that when you know what you’re wearing is something you can throw on and feel good in, it goes a long way. When customers are shopping in person we like to lift them up and want them to leave feeling loved. As women, we can be so hard on our appearance but at the end of the day we all have our own body struggles. We always want women to feel like themselves just a little more dressed up!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My name is Camilyn Beth Leavitt, most know me by ‘Cami’. I started Camilyn Beth LLC in 2012 when my husband and I were invited to 16 weddings in a little over a year. We had so many weddings to attend and for fun I started designing and sewing dresses to wear to the weddings.
2006-2008 I went to school for fashion design at The Art Institute of Ft Lauderdale. After school I moved to Stockholm, Sweden and worked as a nanny and also for a couture fashion designer. Many projects that I assisted the designer in were gowns for the Noble Prize Gala. I learned so many wonderful things about construction, couture sewing technique and Scandinavian minimal approach to design. After moving back to Florida after Sweden I worked as creative director for a brand in Sarasota. I was assisting in visual merchandising, marketing, graphic design, managing and assisted in buying merchandise for the boutique. I admired the brands I would see at trade shows and thought how amazing it would be to be creating garments for buyers.
Once I started designing & making dresses to wear for all the weddings we had to attend I would post photos on these new apps- Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect. I started getting people commenting “I love this dress, how much is it? I want it!” This is when I got the feeling that I have something special here. I would continue to post just for fun and eventually got my first wholesale inquire through Twitter. Its was a cute little boutique in New Orleans and the buyer asked to see my line sheets. At the time, I didn’t have line sheets (basically a catalog of the upcoming collection with details, pricing and ship dates of the collection). From my past experience I knew I could throw together a line sheet so I assured the buyer that she is the only boutique in New Orleans the carry Camilyn Beth. I didn’t tell her, she is the only boutique ever to carry Camilyn Beth! I didn’t want her to be nervous- so did the whole “fake it until you make it”. After receiving my first 32 unit dress order I got to work figuring out how I was actually going to get this order manufactured. I decided I was going to sew them myself. My husband and I moved in with his grandparents to keep our expenses low as he was finishing his masters degree. He would work at a restaurant at night and I guess that is how we paid our bills! haha I went around to local tailor shops to hire out pattern help. It took me a couple months to sew but was able to ship the order out and decided if I was going to move forward I would need to figure out a new way to manufacture! I started manufacturing the collections at a small factory in New Orleans that gave a lot of people jobs that were out of work from Hurricane Katrina hitting the New Orleans area. The next couple years I continued to get more boutiques selling Camilyn Beth through social media and word of mouth. I also notices a new trend of ‘bloggers’ posting outfits on social media. I would reach out and gift them a dress. I would send them out and they would post and we started getting online orders. This also meant getting online returns. I would take each return so personal… why would this person not want this beautiful dress?! There was so much to learn! I would stay up late working and tell everyone that would listen about Camilyn Beth! I am so grateful to my husband who has always been so supportive. After moving out of his grandparents house, we turned 1 of the 2 bedrooms in our apartment into ‘the studio’. We would spend summers on the road traveling around to trunk shows all over the USA. So much ‘sweat equity’ thrown into Camilyn Beth. I absolutely loved it (and still do).
In 2014 I attended my first wholesale trade show at the Atlanta Market. At this point I was manufacturing the collection in a new factory in Los Angeles. This manufacturer was full of promises. At this wholesale market it felt like Camilyn Beth was this hot new brand. We left that market with orders from over 50 new boutiques! I would check in (not nearly enough looking back) on the progress of the manufacturing in LA and they would assure me that everything was great and not to worry. I should have worried because the dresses were extremely late and not sewn well. I remember specifically one dress was sewn like a pillowcase- the hem was sewn closed! I was trying my best to reassure the buyers of stores that their purchase orders would be shipping ASAP and to please be patient. When you are selling to boutiques timing is very important. There are short windows for seasons. Once goods arrive past occasions like Easter, Mother’s Day, Derby, Spring Socials they do not want the dresses and have the right to refuse the products. We weathered the storm of bad manufacturing and did our best to keep relationships with the buyers. We moved our manufacturing to New York and put all our focus on quality and fit. I am so proud for the last 9 years we have had consistent good quality and fits. Currently we stock sizes 0-22 and truly believe in each and every piece. We continued to grow our wholesale business as well as our online business.
In 2014 I asked my sister’s friend Nicole if she could watch our cat and ship out a couple dresses while we went out of town. At the time, Nicole was going to school to be a veterinarian so I thought she would be great for this task! After getting back from the trip she did a great job so we talked more about what her future plans were. She said she was loosing interest in being a vet but was thinking about changing her degree to marketing. She told me that she use to have a really amazing MySpace page and loved the coding part of it. I was excited because after 2 years of doing everything myself I needed help with anything and everything! So Nicole quickly became an asset to Camilyn Beth. Once she started working the brand really took off. She currently is our Director of Operations.
In the beginning of 2019 we got back from Coterie, the New York wholesale market and we were so excited because we just received the most purchase orders ever! We were in the process of manufacturing for the upcoming spring season. We had shipped out our January and February orders and as our March orders were suppose to be finished this strange virus turned our world upsides down! Our New York manufacturer shut down as people were not allowed to work in person. Every single boutique canceled their spring orders and we were left with a lot of merchandise. Who would want a special occasion dress when every wedding and social gathering was canceled. We couldn’t even market our product on social media. Our tagline was always – #itstimetogetdressedup. We definitely couldn’t say that!
At the time our studio was on the second floor of a building downtown Sarasota. The building use to be a hotel in the 1920’s. A beautiful old building that unfortunately had a bad termite problem. Since our team was working from home and not physically in the building very much the termites really made themselves at home. We were actually busy making homemade facemarks from leftover fabric we had. It was a way for us to help people in a small way during a very scary time. During this time I kept praying that God would open and close doors. I was so scared and didn’t know what to do so I just kept praying that prayer. When I got back into the studio to try and figure out what were going to do with all the cancelled orders, the ongoing pandemic scares, what we were to design, who we were going to sell to, how to pay the bills… all of this and the studio is infested with termites all over the place! I went down to my landlords office and truthfully broke down. He didn’t have a lot of words but it felt good to let it all out. I regained my composure and get back into the studio to check my emails. I received an email from my landlord asking if I would like to move downstairs into a retail space that is twice the size for the same price. I couldn’t believe it, God was opening an actual physical door for the next chapter of Camilyn Beth.
We spent the next month renovating the new Camilyn Beth retail space. We had time and not a lot of money. Renovating the space was a fun distraction from all the Covid worries. We YouTubed all the projects and transformed the old space into my dream retail space! Having retail in Florida was such a blessing and we immediately started selling through all the leftover inventory from cancelled orders. There soon was an influx of weddings happening and we were here for it! Now we currently sell 95% direct to consumer through our online e-commerce site and through our retail space downtown Sarasota. When we were selling to other boutiques it always felt like we were trying to fit into their story- trying to look preppy, southern, young, old. Now we can just be Camilyn Beth and tell our own story!
We were able to tap into a unique market of Mother of the Bride/Groom dresses. It has been so rewarding getting to help women look and feel beautiful for their child’s wedding. I think this is a time when they are so busy helping their kids plan the wedding they get to do something for themselves. A lot of times they are not use to dressing up so it’s an overwhelming task at first but once they start trying on they realize that it isn’t that bad! That they can actually look beautiful the way they are. It is such a rewarding feeling :)
I am so grateful for this beautiful Journey and even though we are celebrating 12 years of Camilyn Beth this month, it still feels like it’s just the beginning! I look forward to the future of Camilyn Beth!
What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?
In the past I was always skeptical about paid advertising. We started paying for Pinterest advertising in 2021 and saw significant growth with our online traffic and sales. In 2023 we decided to try out Meta (Facebook/Instagram) ads. We invested in learning a sales funneling approach with a marketing company and have seen tremendous growth. We have found that the more niche the ad, the better it preforms. Sales funneling strategy really helps people discover Camilyn Beth in a more natural and ‘helpful’ approach. We start with people who a specifically searching for special occasion dresses. Once we can capture that person that is searching for the product we sell then we can simply keep showing up in the places they are hanging out online whether that is Pinterest, Instagram or Facebook.
Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?
I love listening to Podcasts! Here are some of my favorites 1. Glossy (to stay up to date on the fashion industry as a whole)
2. Modern Retail (broad scale retail trends)
3. Climbing in Heels (The latest in styling, fashion and business)
4. Who, what, wear (More about trends, fashion industry trends)
5. The Best One Yet (3 trending stories in business a day)
6. How I built this (Interviews with interesting founders)
7. EntreLeadership (business and leadership development)
8. French Made Easy (Cute French words to learn)
9. Mature Me (Faith and Leadership growth)
10. Goal Digger (Marketing trends)
Contact Info:
- Website: camilynbeth.com
- Instagram: camilynbeth
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/camilynbethstudio?mibextid=LQQJ4d&rdid=fkyP0ku1rwyuB6yi
Image Credits
Photos taken by Camilyn Beth LLC