We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Emily Westenberegr. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Emily below.

Emily, 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?

My mission is to build a fashion brand that empowers people, not only the clients but also individuals working within the business. My promise is to be transparent in my process of making and selling goods and always be personable to my clientele to make sure they know they are heard and getting the help they need to feel their best selves. Fashion is a tool and should also be fun. As a leader, I promise to lead with compassion and honesty. I want to give those that I am leading the opportunity to be creative, learn, and grow.

Since I was a little girl growing up in a small town in Pennsylvania, I knew I loved to create. Everyday was filled with creating through various crafts – knitting, embroidering, jewelry-making, sewing, painting, drawing, you name it.

In high school I would take old t-shirts, cut them up, and make something new. I had a knack for creating something stylish, and I would share that knack with many of my friends who wanted me to style them or make them new clothes out of their old t-shirts. I knew I loved to design but growing up in a small rural town In Pennsylvania, I had no idea that fashion design could be an actual job.

In 2013, I studied the business side of fashion in college. I loved learning about the business side, but there was a hole in my life that needed to be filled by creating. The most important lesson I learned in my four years of college was when we watched a documentary called “The True Cost”. The filmmaker went around the world to see who was making our clothes. The film showed underpaid workers in dangerous factories. I remember watching the documentary and thinking, I want to help those people.

When I graduated, I had a burning desire to move to Los Angeles. I am not sure where this desire originated. I had never been there before, but despite no job or family in the city, I had to go. So I went. It was a few days after graduation in May of 2017.

I struggled when I moved there. I didn’t know what to do with my degree exactly. I just wanted to be in the fashion industry. For three months I worked at a Bloomingdale’s as a “style advisor”, aka a salesperson. I struggled emotionally and financially being in Los Angeles by myself, but through it all I always had hope.

In August of 2017, I got a job being a personal assistant to a fashion boutique owner through Craig’s list. Things were looking up! I also helped the buyer of the store. I started communicating with the designers that we featured in the boutique. This communication planted a seed in my head.

In August of 2018, I woke up one day and thought, “I need to go to school for fashion design.” I met with an advisor at FIDM in downtown Los Angeles and signed up not too long after that meeting. I had to pay tuition on my own, but I had tunnel vision. I knew I needed to go back to school.

I worked while in school. After a few more months working at the fashion boutique, I got a job in bridal where I worked a few months, mostly just helping out around the sales floor. I wasn’t very good at selling. The dresses were either not to my taste or cheaply made. I never understood the prices, from the standpoint of what I was learning. I was beginning to understand the amount of work that went into designing something as elaborate and advanced as a wedding gown. “The True Cost” documentary loomed over me.

Throughout school and work, I got an internship at a bespoke bridal shop. I learned the process of making a bridal gown from start to finish. Eventually the owner offered me a small job there, and I worked there until I graduated from the fashion design program in December 2019.

In March 2020, the Covid pandemic began. I decided during the lockdown to start something new. I wanted to start a brand- my OWN brand. This was the only way that I could truly be creative and make clothing that I wanted to make.

Throughout all of this, I never forgot about the documentary we watched in college, showing the price that people pay for our cheaply priced clothes. My vision has always and will always be to conduct my business so that no one is suffering in the way I saw in that documentary.

My brand is built around the idea of empowerment. Fashion should be a joy and be fun, not just for those purchasing it, but those creating each garment. My brand will uplift people, not destroy their lives through unlivable wages and working in slums.

My vision is to keep my business small but impactful to others in a positive way, doing what I love to do and what I was born to do: create garments that bring joy to people’s lives, not only after purchasing but also while creating.

Emily, 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?

I create made-to-order womenswear clothing with a focus on craftsmanship and timeless designs to create pieces that will last in your wardrobe for many years to come, all with a personal touch. I offer customized sizing at no extra charge. I believe our bodies are unique, so our clothing should be too.

I care about quality and clothing that lasts because I care about my clients and making them feel beautiful. I am passionate about creating designs that last, aesthetically and functionally. Customers AND the workers behind the scenes deserve to feel empowered. Fashion is a tool, an art, a business, a creative outlet, a way to bond and reminisce- it’s many things to many different people, but we should strive to ensure that fashion is empowering people, not tearing them down.

I also strive to create timeless, elegant collections with superior craftsmanship and fit that are priced fairly for people that value classic fashion and small brands with a personal touch.

For me, fashion is an intimate process. I love sitting down at my sewing machine and creating. I am in love with the actual process of finding inspirations, sketching, sourcing draping, drafting patterns, making samples, testing fits, cutting the fabric, sewing the final product, and presenting and sharing the final collections. I get a leap of joy with each step of the process and especially when sharing my craft with others!

For this reason, I myself am a part of every step of the business in one way or another. As the brand grows, I want to continue being a part of every step. As I have more help within the business, I want to make sure that I am continuing to empower my employees by allowing them to be creative and giving them opportunities they may not have had otherwise by teaching them new skills and encouraging them to follow their interests within the business.

How did you build your audience on social media?

My social media is a work in progress, but I feel that I’ve learned a lot about selling and building a brand since I’ve started my business.

First off, I have found that paying for ads isn’t the best method to meaningfully grow your business. There are so many brands paying for ads and fighting for the same people’s attention. I’m not saying you will never convert those people seeing your ad, but I will say that my best clients are those that know me because they met me in person or have had online conversation with me.

It’s difficult to build trust with those that don’t know you and only found you via social media. Participating in events, whether it’s a pop up, market, networking event or something of the like, have been most useful in meeting people who will actually purchase from me.

In addition to building in-person relationships, I recently started focusing my attention to 2 ways of communicating with my followers, Instagram and email. My goal now is to sell to the people already following me instead of buying new customers/followers through digital ads.

I build trust by posting consistently. Even when my sales are absent, I’ve learned to keep selling through the silence. You are only solidifying your product more and more in the customers minds that have been thinking about buying from you. If you are worried about posting too much and annoying people, then those people are probably not interested in what you are selling in the first place.

I interact and start conversations with my followers way more than I ever thought was necessary. I post maybe 8-10 times a day (a mix of reels, stories, emails, live shopping, etc), which is WAY more than I ever thought necessary. I also do my best to create a balance between “selling” posts, posts that add value (i.e. how to style a dress from the collection), and a few personal posts that help people get to know me better that maybe don’t directly relate to my business.

It’s fascinating to see the difference between my business when I focused on buying ads and then when I focused on selling and nurturing my current audience. I get messages asking about a particular dress that I have been posting lately. I can respond to those people and provide a “VIP” level service by using a friendly voice note and sending a video of details of the dress they are interested in. Starting a personal conversation with them has helped me convert customers way more than running an ad, which has mostly resulted in getting a few follows or saves, just to have the customer forget about me.

My point is that social media is a great way to spark connections, but to stand out, you have to create personal connections in order to build trust and keep people coming back. Turning my focus to that has made the biggest difference in growth rather than paying for digital ads.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

One important thing I’ve learned in the past few months, is that being busy all the time is not good for creatives. I used to believe that being busy was a good thing and meant you were important. As my schedule has cumulated to every moment being jam packed from waking up to going to bed, I realized that I had very little time to really think and reflect and actually LIVE life.

This should really go for everyone, but I think it’s especially important to highlight that for creatives, we need free time to let ourselves live life. If you aren’t living your life, it’s hard to be original. Our creative work reflects our lives, and if we aren’t living life, it becomes more difficult to create work we are proud of or that really resonates with others.

I’ve been giving myself a few hours every week to just do whatever I feel like doing like going for a walk, getting breakfast by myself, going for a bike ride, flipping through a magazine, reading a book outside, sketching, creating just for the sake of creating.

It’s okay to start creating and not love the end product. I find it’s helpful to focus on quantity over quality when creating because if I focus on making something perfect, I get stuck on it for too long, and it can become a lost cause. If I focus on just doing, eventually I’ll land on something I made that feels perfect. This mindset relies heavily on giving myself time to create.

Giving myself time to work like this has also meant turning down projects or custom orders that aren’t something I am excited to do. I’m learning what people mean when they say they had to learn when to say “no”. It’s been a difficult habit for me to acquire. I can be a people pleaser at times, which isn’t always a good thing, especially for a creative.

I am experiencing a whole new way of life by allowing myself to have free time and saying no to projects I’m not excited to do.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://emilywestenberger.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emilywestenberger/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/emilywestenbergerus/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEnxK5_rGvTROy5SSkok-cw
• Other: Blog Posts: https://emilywestenberger.com/blogs/welcome-to-my-world

Image Credits
Glen Dandridge Jr. & Francois Joseph