Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ellie Platt. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Ellie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.
As a little girl, I grew up making headpieces with my mom, for every Mardi Gras luncheon she would attend with her friends. That’s where my love of headpieces began! It turned into me wearing headbands / headpieces every night I would go out in college. After college, I had my first “locally viral” headpiece, which was a New Orleans super dome headpiece, and that became the light bulb moment, of “I think I can actually do this.” Crowned By Ellie was born!
Ellie, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
My name is Ellie Platt, born and raised in New Orleans Louisiana + graduated from Louisiana State University where I majored in graphic design. My love of hair accessories / growing up making headpieces with my mother for her Mardi Gras luncheons is how Crowned by Ellie came to life! We aim to help you stand out from the crowd, by making making custom headpieces and another extra accessories and ship all over the world! You truly never need a real reason to wear a headpiece, but some common reasons to wear a headpiece are holidays, birthdays, Mardi Gras Krewes, baby Showers, Gender reveals, weddings, game days, school events, sporting events, the Kentucky Derby, bachelorette parties, and so much more! In addition, we’ve made had pieces for a number of celebrities, and have even worked with some major brands such as absolute vodka, corona, Google, Chick-fil-A, Go Daddy, Four seasons, just to name a few! We’ve also been featured on both local and national television, like the manning hour on ESPN!
But what I think makes us unique from other Headpiece companies out there is that we show the creative process from its fruition, all the way through the end result, even including all of the mistakes that happened along the way. A huge goal of mine is to teach others how to be more creative in their every day life and with that comes with making mistakes. I want to empower people by showing them that imperfection is ironically perfectly normal, it’s even encouraged, and it’s how you pick yourself up, problem solve and persist! You can see a lot of behind-the-scenes through our TikTok where we have garnered over 52,000 followers!
What I most proud of is taking others through that creative journey, showing fellow queens how to step out of your comfort zone, and getting to the end result of an extremely crazy headpiece theme I could’ve never dreamed up on my own!
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
In college, I was told I was “average” by one of my graphic design professors. It haunted me for years. The thing about art is that it’s completely subjective. It’s the blessing, and the curse of being an artist. That there is truly no right or wrong answer. I am the type of person that tries her hardest no matter what, and it killed me to know that I was putting 100% effort into my work yet my teacher just kept repeating that I was “average, not going to go far.” After years of self reflection, I decided to make that my very origin story moment, and never look back!!
How did you build your audience on social media?
During the 2020 lockdown, I just like every other millennial out there, downloaded TikTok and started making videos. At first I did not know what I was doing. I started by wearing my headpieces and trying to do the trendy dances. But the only sport I was ever good at with swimming, lol, was not meant to be a dancer! I was so scared to start making videos of the creative process because it felt like everything needed to be perfectly curated and polished, and that no one could see your faults. It kind of goes to my “professor’s insight” I felt like I would be judged for any mistake I would make. I honestly even got frustrated and took a few months break off of TikTok to regroup and figure out what my next step is going to be. Once I finally started being myself, and shared the behind-the-scenes of the creative process + showing peoples reactions to the headpiece that I made for them was when I started creating this unique community of queens! Looking back, I wish I would’ve just started being myself from the very beginning. My biggest advice is to just get the content out! It does not need to be this polished production as long as you are your authentic self, you will do great things in this world!
Contact Info:
- Website: Crownedbyellie.com
- Instagram: @crownedbyellie
- Facebook: Facebook.com/crownedbyellie
- Other: Tik Tok: @crowned_by_ellie
Image Credits
CrownedByEllie_1,jpg & CrownedByEllie_2,jpg – Andrew Simoneaux CrownedByEllie_3.jpg, CrownedByEllie_4.jpg, & CrownedByEllie_9.jpg – Titus Childers Photography CrownedByEllie_5.jpg – Visual Society Inc. CrownedByEllie_6.jpg – Katie Coffee Photography CrownedByEllie_10.jpg – Kristen Soileau Rest of photos are self taken!