We were lucky to catch up with Leonela Hernandez recently and have shared our conversation below.

Leonela, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

My mission is to always create an environment for everyone to feel safe no matter your size, ethnicity, color or sex orientation. Everyone deserves to take space on this Earth and I’m here to help people tap into the authority we have as humans.

Leonela, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Leonela Hernandez, I was born in Texas, raised in Mexico and at the age of 11 moved back to Austin, TX.. When my family decided to move to Texas, I didn’t speak English. My first language became Spanish, and I knew I needed to find a way to learn English fast, and that’s when I joined the musical theatre world. I started dancing, singing and acting at the age of 12, it became my passion, and I went off to college and graduated from Belhaven University in 2020. There was no other option for me but to be a performer. However, I had many obstacles that would be very hard to overcome in the industry. I was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (POS) and hyperinsulinemia. Which made me be insulin resistant and I was very overweight. I thought, I didn’t have a strong will power to lose weight, I considered myself lazy (even though, I spent hours in the studio) and I never understood why being over weight was such a discriminated topic in the musical theatre/dance world and specially in the APPAREL world!! I could never find clothing that made me feel beautiful and confident, and that was the start of the journey. Rutte Dance Apparel was a dream and it became a reality in 2022. After working years on designing, finding the right manufacture and many financial obstacles. I can say that im so proud to be the owner of a brand that is building to make if for everyone! Hoping to make everyone feel worthy and enough in their skin.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I can say, if it wasn’t for awesome partners and influencers on social media. I’m not sure where my brand would be. I was very lucky to have found some AMAZING influencers that were willing to partner with me. Some for free and some with little to no pay! They are a huge reason my brand has more followers and the reason I was able to make profit on month 5 of my brand launching. I believe being present on social media and posting every single day, makes a huge difference. I can definitely tell my store traffic is lower if I don’t post on social media. Positing everyday is a MUST!

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I believe what has helped me, is the fact that there are not many dance wear lines that carry sizes up to 4XL. I’m Working on releasing a line that will be XS-4XL and I’m so proud of that. I also believe that me being the image of my own brand, being an active dancer, who continues to teach, choreograph and perform, who is also a plus size person. I think is makes my brand more relatable.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.ruttedance.com
• Instagram: Ruttedance
• Facebook: Rutte Dance Apparel
• Youtube: Rutte Dance Apparel

Image Credits
ABM Photography, Arthur Bryan Marroquin