Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Christine Castellani. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Christine, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

Bette is a coastal lifestyle brand with Southern California roots founded by us – two Encinitas local moms, Chris Castellani & Hillary Boyd. We make colorful, easy-to-wear beach cover ups, caftans and accessories. Every style is designed to make you feel care-free, confident and glamorous. Our love of the beach and the casual coastal lifestyle brought us together back in 2016 when we met in a kindergarten classroom as our first-borns were starting school. Living in Encinitas, we spent many beach days watching our kids play in the surf and enjoying countless San Diego sunsets – we ❤️ a good sunset! We were both feeling a lack of creativity and inspiration in our current careers and often discussed the idea of starting our own business together. We went through so many different ideas (over so many spicy margaritas) and then in 2018, while we were schlepping our kids to and from the beach, we started dreaming up a cute lifestyle brand that embodied the beauty of living on the coast. Colorful patterns, easy to wear styles and lightweight fabrics that bring a little glamor and elegance, without being too serious. But what would we call it? We wanted to come up with a name that had meaning. Bette was Hillary’s grandmother’s name. She believed in living the good life. She loved vacations, relaxing, connecting and just having fun with her family and friends. Bette believed in balance. She saw the humor in things and allowed herself to have fun!! This resonated with us so much – we are all Bette (or can be). So hit pause and breathe deep. Look around to see the beautiful colors and feel the breeze. Just like you do on vacation, take a moment to soak it all in every day. And so Bette began…
Although we both have over 20 years of experience in sales and marketing, this was our first shot at building our own brand. We met with anyone who offered to give us advice and tried to soak in as much information as possible. We didn’t quite know where to start, so our first photoshoot was at our local beach and we hired our babysitters to model for us – they were such good sports (and beautiful too!) We’ve been lucky enough to have amazingly supportive and talented friends to help us out along the way to build the brand we envisioned.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

We are obsessed with color and our designs are inspired by the beautiful coastlines that we adore. Whether it’s the turquoise Caribbean water or a gorgeous cotton candy San Diego sunset, we are constantly gathering inspiration all around us. We have a saying – “I’m nicer when I like my outfit” – it’s on all of our hang tags- because it’s true! Wearing that perfect shade of pink to give you a healthy glow, or a blue that makes your eyes pop, just makes us feel more confident and brings a big smile to our face. It makes you feel good and when you feel good about yourself you are a happier person.

We work with artists all over the world to fabricate our designs. Our current Santa Barbara Collection is made in India using remnant fabrics which not only makes our bags bright and colorful, but eco-chic too. We hope to continue to bring more eco-conscious designs to our line.

Bette isn’t just a lifestyle brand, it’s a way of life. We love the sand in our toes – the breeze in our hair – big belly laughs – time with people we love – life in San Diego and never taking ourselves too seriously. We try to embody this feeling in everything we do at Bette.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Well COVID certainly brought the largest challenge to our business and the day the world shut down definitely had us second guessing ourselves. Who was going to want to wear resort wear when they were locked down in their homes?! At that time, we were only about 18 months into our business and had just started to gain momentum selling to boutiques across the country. Suddenly orders were canceled, manufacturing had been halted, and we really weren’t sure we could weather the storm. We were very fortunate that one of our founders, Christine had 20 years of e-commerce experience, and our website was already built to reach customers all over the world. So we pivoted and focused on reaching customers directly online. We used social media as our main source of communication and kept in touch with customers as everyone was isolating through COVID. We had an amazing group of loyal customers who really supported us through those tough times. Eventually businesses slowly opened back up and we began building back to where we had left off. Lucky for us, everyone was excited to go on vacation again and we were able to get back on track.

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

Instagram has been the most important tool for us to communicate with our customers as well as find potential new customers. We partner with like-minded brands and influencers who have been able to introduce Bette to their audiences. Something as simple as a story post can have a big impact on sales when you find the right partner to work with. The most successful collaborations that we have had are with authentic influencers who have a real connection to their audience. They have worked hard to gain trust from their followers so when they recommend a product their audience really responds.
Overall we have found that social media is powerful when you are fully submersed in the platform. Not just pushing content out, but engaging with people and brands and having real conversations. It can be a full time job all on its own, but the effort can be worth the time invested.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://shopbette.com/
• Instagram: @shopbette
• Facebook: @shopbette
• Linkedin: @shopbette
• Other: TikTok @shopbette

Image Credits
Equinox Photo Flavio Scorsato