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

Desiree’, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Being a business owner can be really hard sometimes. It’s rewarding, but most business owners we’ve spoken sometimes think about what it would have been like to have had a regular job instead. Have you ever wondered that yourself? Maybe you can talk to us about a time when you felt this way?

Being a business owner is mentally challenging at times. There are some days when I want coworkers, a boss and a consistent income. The security of a “regular job” makes going down that route all the more tempting. Although I may have to spend some lonely, unstructured, penniless days, I wouldn’t trade what I have now for the world.

One thing that I can guarantee myself by being a business owner is freedom. Working for myself gives me creative freedom, freedom to choose my own schedule and work on things that I believe in. This year especially I’ve had the thought many times to go back to working a “regular job”, making it one of the hardest ones as a business owner thus far. I’ve taken some big risks that I haven’t seen a huge return on yet and I’m still not bringing in enough income to support myself without the help of my father. The pressure to get another job to make more money is high by extended family and society in general, however, I feel as though going back to trading my hours for dollars sounds like the most painful failure. I would rather live a more modest lifestyle being able to do what I love everyday than have to look forward to the weekend each workday, beg for time off to be with family and for the possibility that my opinion may not even be important in my workplace. If I’m going to spend more hours at work than I do with loved ones, I’d like it to be because I’m doing something that brings me joy.

Desiree’, 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 Desiree’ Nixon. I’m a 25 year old entrepreneur who has always had a love for fashion. I attended college at Georgia Southern University with the aspiration to become a stylist. In 2020, I graduated with a degree in Fashion Merchandising and a minor in Marketing. Just before getting my degree, I interned at a media company called Modern Luxury. Shortly after, I ended up working at David’s Bridal while I was trying to get my styling business off the ground. I absolutely loved working there and being a big part of helping my brides make a decision for such an impactful day in their lives. Eventually, however, I wanted more creative freedom, because the work at David’s Bridal was becoming redundant. I enjoyed working with brides, but I needed more variety in my career. I wanted to work on photoshoots, shopping for clients, and prepping looks for travel. Instead, I was looking at the same dresses and working in similar situations every single day, and it became very draining. I began praying and asking God if I should take the risk of leaving this job. I felt pretty guilty because I was at the top of my team in sales most periods and they made it known that they would not entertain any ideas of me leaving. I asked every family member and friend what to do, but I knew that ultimately I’d have to make a decision by myself, for myself. I prayed one night for a sign to give me confirmation that I should leave or that this was the right decision. Before morning came, I saw my phone light up with an Indeed notification that a stylist in Atlanta that I had been cyberstalking and admiring was looking for an intern to assist her. I took this as my sign. At this point I felt as though I wasn’t servicing my brides well anymore because I had been crying in my car before my shifts, then walking in with a half smile trying to ask if they knew what they wanted in a dress for their big day. My managers would ask me to up my energy for the customers and I did a terrible job at faking it, so this sign was all the confirmation I needed. I submitted my two weeks notice a couple of weeks later. During the last few months before leaving, I had applied for and received my LLC and EIN for DNN Style LLC (in August) and I left my job there in October of 2021. In February of the year after I attended an online styling school to give myself more knowledge around all that styling entails.

My first few clients were family and friends that I serviced for a substantially reduced rate, and a few others from hosting giveaways on social media or events. It wasn’t long before I fell deeper in love with what I knew I always would.

Through my styling business, DNN Style, I provide various services that are tailored to each client. My “big two” are my travel and photoshoot styling services. When my clients travel I do everything in my power to make the experience as seamless as possible. I help them choose looks for each activity and event planned during their trip. I also capture and log each look for them to refer back to (shopping for more pieces to complete looks if necessary), I steam and pack everything for them, as well as packing essentials needed to properly execute the looks. For my VIPs I travel with them to their destination. I unpack and organize every outfit for the trip, re-steam if needed, fix any last minute things if needed and I am on call for the duration of their trip for assistance getting ready and tagging along for shoots or events with lots of cameras. I have a similar process for my photoshoot styling service. I help my client choose looks and shop for finishing touches if needed, I log each look for my client to refer back to during the shoot with details to properly execute the looks and I can even be on set for the duration of the shoot if requested.

I also offer three smaller services, closet cleanses, look creation and shopping. The closet cleanse is pretty much exactly as it sounds. I come and help my clients to purge anything in their closet that is no longer serving them and stressing them out when getting dressed each morning. I then help my client to reorganize their closet based on their preferences and I give them direction to donating or selling their clothes, leaving them with a few new styled looks. The look creation service is always fun because I get to show people how to style things that they already have in their closet in a new and refreshing way they may not have thought of before. We will try things on and I will basically use their closet as the boutique to create new looks for them. At the end I will take photos and return back to them a complete look book filled with outfits to choose from when they are getting ready with notes on how to properly execute each look. The shopping appointments are also really fun because I will go and pre-pull clothes for my client so there is no need to sort through racks and we can maximize our time together. I choose outfits and/or pieces to complete looks for the client based on their style wants and needs and the client gets to decide which things to take home with them. The final service that I offer is a complete bundle of all three prior, a closet cleanse followed by looks curated from their newly organized closet, and completed with a shopping trip to grab a few new pieces to vamp up their wardrobe and fill holes in their closet to build more looks with things they already have. They will also get a look book to refer back to with plenty of looks to choose from. These clients also have free access to book an undergarment appointment where I help them find great seamless fitting undergarments to ensure the best fit of their clothes, as well as access to my trusted tailor connections. I will set up the appointment with the tailor and sit in on the first appointment to make sure their wants and needs are fully received by the tailor.

I notice that a lot of the clients I work with take care of everyone around them, but then, forget to take care of themselves. I love to work with people and hear about their stories, it’s the best part of what I do. I also just love that I can be a part of helping lift people’s spirits and making them feel more confident. It may seem like a superficial thing, but it’s really a mental thing. When you put on lounge clothes or pajamas, your mind is in a lounging or sleeping mode. When you get dressed up for a party or event your mind is in celebratory mode. What you wear has such a huge impact on us mentally and people don’t always realize that until they stop to make a few changes that improves their perspective completely.

My services are great for busy people or just people who want the luxury experience of a stylist that takes the work off of them. Honestly, I think that influencers can benefit a ton from my travel and photoshoot services because of all that their career entails.

I recently have discovered a newfound appreciation for influencing and content creation because I have taken the plunge into it myself this year. I have had conversations with brands, been gifted things from them in return for making content on a deadline and had to make said content in weather conditions that may have been too hot or too cold. It’s been a lot but I’m working and learning through it. I have spent a good amount of time broadening my social media presence this year mostly with my Instagram and Youtube channel although I’m on Pinterest, Tik Tok and Facebook as well. My goal is to reach 1,000 subscribers before the year is out. Time is ticking now, but I don’t think that it’s impossible. Regardless of the numbers, I feel called to share my love for life’s experiences in whatever way that I can. I also share fun fashion content on my social platforms. Looking back I think that I’ve always had a love for creating content and all that it entails, from brainstorming a concept to choosing a look. My boyfriend is a photographer and we have been creating content together for about five years now. I started by just doing it for fun and wanting to experiment with clothes and he started by trying to practice with his camera for class. Boy have we come a long way! One of our first shoots together in college was a photo of me laying on top of a pink coat on the floor in my college housing and one of our most recent shoots was one with a mysterious vibe in the streets of Atlanta. We love what we do and we love the feedback we get about how others admire our work. Officially starting my journey as a content creator this year has made content creators and influencers some of my dream styling clients. I really hope to work with more influencers going forward because these are some of the most influential people in our world right now, especially when directed at the next few generations. I want to be a part of making their lives easier and making them feel great about themselves so that they can make a better impact on those that are in their sphere of influence.

One project that I’m proud of is one that I did a little over a year ago now, that was intended to bring awareness to domestic violence. I gathered a team of people and we created some reenactments of domestic violence scenes that are often overlooked or hidden in plain sight. Victims of domestic violence abuse don’t always have bruises, and I wanted to shed light on that. I’m most proud of myself though, for not giving up on my dream, despite the odds. The only real way to be happy is to take risks. I hope that the work that I do can touch some people deeply and mean more than just bags, shoes and clothes.

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

Earlier this year I decided to move forward on an idea that I had in my back pocket for the past year or so. I knew that it was a sign from God to move on this so I went all in. I invested a good amount of money into it, I had to contact and organize things with multiple people to get it up and running, basically there was a lot of prep work to pull it off. I started this prep work in December of 2022 and planned to launch this project in August of this year. The first obstacle was that a few of the people involved backed out so I had to find replacements. Later when I got the replacements and set dates to execute everything, a couple of people rescheduled, so I had to push it back again. Then when everyone was actually ready and set with the dates, someone on the team unfortunately got covid, so again, we pushed it back. Eventually everything lined up and we were able to begin. When that time came I almost canceled because I was so fearful and had become less sure about myself after all of the mishaps, luckily I didn’t cancel and followed through. After everything was said and done,I was very excited to prepare for the launch in August, however, this time technology failed us. Now the project is on a corrupted hard drive that we have to get fixed before we can move forward. After we get it fixed, it will still need to be edited. Therefore, the project is still not out to this day, but I haven’t given up and my new mental goal is to launch in spring of 2024. Although this ultimately led to a very low portion of my year and discouraged me, it didn’t break me. I could have decided to cancel this project all together, but instead we are already planning next steps for after it is launched. I believe that this is divine timing and everything happens for a reason. I don’t want to rush this and I want it to be received well, and that takes time. It took major resilience when obstacle after obstacle was crashing into my plans, but it just gave me more time to perfect everything and think of how to improve. There are so many things about the project that I would change. I’m still going to put it out as is and just use my new ideas for the next one moving forward, but if it had come out earlier maybe I would have repeated some of the same patterns rather than noticing them ahead of time. Even if it’s not ready in spring of 2024, I’d prefer it to happen on God’s timing.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

A lesson that I had to prevent myself from learning, as well as unlearn at times when I let this pessimistic perspective consume me, is that being an entrepreneur is and will be hard. I have heard family members, other business owners, celebrities and influencers say things like “You won’t be able to hang out with your friends” “You won’t be able to go on trips” or “You won’t be able to sleep” and “It’s going to be tough.” Although I realize that there will be sacrifices that you will have to make in order for your business to be successful, this is such a negative mindset to step out on. Having a “this is going to be hard” mindset does not make you excited to begin your journey. I think some people give this advice out of fear, if they aren’t business owners or if they do happen to be business owners they may be speaking from what they experienced themselves. Otherwise, I feel as though some business owners secretly want to validate themselves by telling others and themselves that what they do is hard or it was hard to get them where they are so that they can feel better about their position now. It’s almost like hazing, like “I had to sacrifice a lot and crawl through the dirt to get to where I am and so will you.” Another statement saying, “being an entrepreneur isn’t for everyone, or everyone can’t be the boss”. While I wholeheartedly agree with these, I don’t agree with it in a boasting type of way. I think that everyone has their thing, some people just thrive better in a specific area. Similar to the saying “Anyone can cook!” from the movie Ratatouille. If you have a recipe, the ingredients, and cooking tools then you can make the dish, however, the same recipe can taste completely different coming from the person who created the recipe than coming from the person who is following the recipe. We have to remember that not everyone’s journey looks or feels the same.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://dnnstyle.wixsite.com/dnnsyle
• Instagram: @dnnstyle
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/desiree.nixon.1
• Youtube: @dnnstyle
• Other: My email list & Sign up for my monthly fun fashion newsletters; https://gmail.us6.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=0e876d9d96f7f542d6f933295&id=eae824d938 TikTok: @dnnstyle

Image Credits
Cameron Chambers