Episode #103 Empowering Women Through Fashion with Sara Griot
On today’s episode, Sharri Harmel speaks with Sara Griot. Sara is a style strategist and she stepped into that role after founding two different clothing design and manufacturing businesses, plus she has raised a family. Sara’s mission now is to take all of that knowledge that she has accumulated about clothing design and turn around and help women to learn what works for their unique body type, discover their best aspects, and get clear on their style preferences. How we feel about ourselves is one of the foundations to having that life you love, and it often starts with the clothes you wear.
Sara Griot’s website, www.sarajgriot.com
Sara Griot’s Instagram, www.instagram.com/sarajgriotstyle/
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Episode #103 Empowering Women Through Fashion with Sara Griot
Sharri Harmel: Hello everyone and welcome back to the extraordinary women podcast. I’m Sharri Harmel, I’m founder and editor of the Extraordinary Women magazine and podcast and this is the place where we’re all about sharing inspiration tips, and even some advice to support women who want to create a fabulous business let’s say, or maybe just an amazing next chapter. In a nutshell, Extraordinary Women is a tool for women to make their dreams happen. Why while life is short, let’s get started making this your year, your best ever. Well today, I had the total joy to sit down with Sara Griot. Sara’s a style strategist, and she stepped into that role of being a style strategist after founding two different clothing design and manufacturing businesses plus she has raised a family. Sara’s mission now though, is to take all that knowledge that she has accumulated about clothing design and to turn around and help women to learn what works for their unique body type, you know, discover their best aspects, if we wanna call it that and get clear on their style preferences, because both of those lead to feeling good, right? I think we can all agree that our clothing choices will immediately either make us feel confident, I can do anything kind of mentality or cause us to want to hide in the back of every room, literally and figuratively. How we feel about ourselves is one of the foundations to you having that life you love, and it often starts with the clothes you wear. So I am super excited to introduce you to Sara Griot.
Sharri Harmel: Hi, Sara. It’s so good to have you join me today. And like I said, don’t stress out. We’re having like a cup of tea.
Sara Griot: It’s so good to be here.
Sharri Harmel: Yeah. Lovely to have you. So Sarah, you have the most interesting background, and I say that because you have gifts and areas that I have liked zero. I was in the back of the line for them. I could no more design clothing or even outfits than I could fly an airplane. But that’s part of it is how, how did you really home in on your gifts? And it sounds like you figured it out at a pretty young age, which is really interesting.
Sara Griot: Yeah, I think, well, I think my first memory of ever loving and being excited about clothing and fashion was when I was nine. And I grew up with three sisters and I did have a brother, but he wasn’t included in this whole part of my life because my mom loved to sew. And so I would frequently go with her to fabric stores and pick out fabrics and patterns.
And we would come home, and I would always change the patterns, like whatever she was sewing, I would try to recreate it and it’s kind of never went away. Then, you know, growing up with four girls, the house was filled with clothing talk. And, um, and then on top of that, my parents were both impeccable dressers and I mean, they just not dressing well was not an option.
And so even my dad into his nineties got dressed up every day. My dad was from Ohio. My mom was from New Hampshire. They got dressed up to go to the post office. But when he turned 90, we got him some around that time, we got him some Lulu lemon sweats and he did agree to that, but it just was kind of always around me. So it just never went away. And then fast forward into my early twenties that I just knew that that’s, what I wanted to do was be in the fashion industry, which is rare because so many kids at that age, my own kids struggle with what do they wanna do with their life. And I knew very young and it just, it really truly kept. You know, a straight line until I started my first company.
Sharri Harmel: Yeah. And when was that?
Sara Griot: I was 25.
Sharri Harmel: Unbelievable.
Sara Griot: And it was this, it’s probably kinda ignorant. I mean, it was just like, I was so convinced that I was going to, whatever I was gonna do was gonna be super successful and it ended up being successful maybe because I was this Irish Catholic girl in an industry that was surrounded by others that wasn’t. And also because I was so convinced that I had something that would be really special and I have to say, I have to give my dad credit for kind of making me do market research before I started my first company, which was a dress company and being on the west coast. It was all about separates and sportswear. And that’s what I wanted to do. After I got over wanting to be a costume designer,
Sharri Harmel: Really? Oh, that’s hysterical. Costumes in the movies or?
Sara Griot: Edith Head was my idol. And I think she was at Universal Studios actually I went on one of those tours and saw her dressing room or her area where she was. But I did that for a year when I was in design school, really focusing on being a costume designer realized that I don’t think I’m gonna do that. It was fun. But anyway, when I did the market research, dresses are where the mark was really there. There wasn’t anything.
Sharri Harmel: So give me a timeframe because Diane Von Furstenberg if I’m saying her name, right. You know, she created the, the rap dress, which was kind of, and still is rather iconic. So is this the same time period?
Sara Griot: In the late eighties.
Sharri Harmel: Okay. Okay.
Sara Griot: And I think what happened was they’re just in, especially in the LA area, women just didn’t wear dresses, except for if they’re going to a wedding or there’s some special event attended. So I lived in San Francisco when I first started this company. Eventually moved to Los Angeles. My dad realized I was pretty serious about doing this set up. I had an office and then I found reps in LA and in New York. And then I would go to Dallas and sell because there’s all temporary showrooms there. And so I would go and sell during market weeks. And that was an enormous market for us because women in the Southeast, they wore dresses for everything. To go to the post office, like my mom and dad, they, so I would walk away at that time. People were writing paper orders. So instead of everything being internet and then I would walk away with a stack of orders. New York focused on department stores which is what your goal was to get into department stores, because then you would get volume and you can’t make money unless you have volume.
But I did find the lesson. That they did create the volume, but the stores, the boutiques like this, the Southeast boutiques, they knew their customer way more than a department store knew their customer. Oh, and so they would buy from me and maybe their initial order was a small order at that time, maybe it was $1,500 order because they had a minimum. I think that was my minimum, but they knew who was gonna buy those dresses and then they would reorder, reorder, reorder. So ultimately, they were the bread and butter of my business.
Sharri Harmel: Incredible. Yeah. So you’re 25, 26-year-old woman, I mean, in the, the eighties, you know, running around to the trade shows in an industry that to some extent was kind of, was it male dominated, would you say at that.
Sara Griot: A lot of it was. Of course there were women in it, especially mostly as designers. Well, sales reps. I mean, my sales reps were women and, but I think it’s more. They called me snow white. I don’t know why, but it was I think maybe because I was the age I was, and I was venturing into this, this business the way I did. And it was a huge learning curve, but it was so much fun, and I was single, and I didn’t have any responsibilities. So I worked seven days a week. I got to know the people that Women’s Wear Daily, which is a huge publication for the fashion industry. And every Friday I would take samples or new pieces over. She would publish it every week because there’s a weekly one too in the LA area. And I got a lot of great press. It was, it was like a magical time.
Sharri Harmel: It’s amazing to me though. How focused you were at a really young age, even from the standpoint of, this is what I want to do when you’re 17, 18, 19, 20 years old to launching your business at 25. And like you said, you weren’t married, but you were focused to the point that that was what you were doing seven days a week, you know, because you were trying to build something where most 25-year old’s certainly now, and then weren’t really thinking about building something. It was, I’m doing something, but I’m not building a business. It’s incredible to me truly. So how long did that last?
Sara Griot: I had that business about nine years. And then I got married. My husband came to work for me, and he handled all the production end of the business. And he would sometimes go to New York with me and do shows and he hated the industry. He couldn’t understand why anyone would wanna be in this industry. He would say, I can’t believe someone can shake your hand and look you in the eye and tell you they’re gonna do something or place an order and then not do it. And that would happen. It happens. It’s just, it’s kind of like the music industry or the acting industry. I’m sure it’s kind of, it’s the same. But I got lucky, and I found I had this great New York rep and she got me in the door to a lot of department stores. I mean, our dresses were in the windows in New York. And my goal, I had a gold store, which was Nordstrom and I got into Nordstrom’s. That was my hardest. That was the hardest store to get into. And at the time it was when the buyers were regionally based and they would buy, which I think was such a great and brilliant idea. And they changed it where, a Macy’s buyer will sit in New York and buy for the country. And so someone in New York is not wearing cotton in January. Southern California is. And so the New York, the newer term stores were buying. I don’t know if it’s three to six stores they had, they were responsible for, so everything they bought really sold because they knew the regions that were making purchase buyers, but they also would come in at the last hour with an order. So it was always very stressful. So we sold that business when my first son was one and we decided it needed a huge influx of cash, a partner or doing what we did and somebody, so we just decided it was, and my priorities shifted, which is, so when you think about what my goals were for my whole younger life, it shifted to staying home. And so we moved back to San Diego. And I then spent the next several years raising four kids.
Sharri Harmel: Yeah. Yeah. And four, is it, are they all boys?
Sara Griot: Three boys. And then we moved from San Diego to Seattle, and I had a girl up here.
Sharri Harmel: Okay. Something in the water. That’s pretty wild. So what was it like though, to run a business and then much as we, maybe you can relate, as much as we love children and love being moms, it’s really different. It’s like a whole different part of our brain that well,
Sara Griot: That’s what I was gonna say. I didn’t even realize had kind of gone to sleep, although as I’m sure, you know, there there’s lots of things, creative things to do. I mean, I became interior designer. I mean, in my own mind, I would help people, my friends with their houses because it was all about fabric, color, proportion. It was just the same. You’re just translating from clothing to interiors
Sharri Harmel: That’s really interesting.
Sara Griot: And cooking and gardening and I loved, I just really, I just thrived in that. I loved spending that time the way I did. But when I started thinking, when they were getting older and the writing was on the wall, you know, they’re moving on with their lives and I’m gonna be home. I always knew there’s always this like underlying feeling that I wanted to do something else. And friends always asked me for help when they were getting dressed, you know, what do you think I should wear? Can I wear this to this wedding and so that went through my mind, but I ended up starting a second. I didn’t think I ever want another product business.
Sharri Harmel: Okay. Why?
Sara Griot: Because just the expense of creating and selling and marketing a product. But I also just thrived on that and so because, and I know your daughter showed horses too, but I’m a lifetime equestrian, it’s a huge passion. And my daughter of course I kind of pushed her that direction, but she became one also. And so I was always at the shows, and I said, my sister said you don’t wanna go back to that, the industry, uh, per se, why don’t you do something in like a show collection or something that’s more equestrian based. So I thought, okay, I could do that. And so I created O’Shaughnessey, which is my birth name. Well, it’s a pretty form of my birth name. So I took my kids to Ireland, and we found my family crest and the logo. So my logo for the business became my family, a version of my family crest and was a capsule show collection and at that point, the wool stretch fabrics for what hunters and jumpers wore and it was going into the tech fabrics and then an equestrian lifestyle, Ralph Lauren kind of coats and jackets selling to boutiques. The problem I had with that business is that it was divided. And so I was selling to tax stores and then also trying to sell to boutiques, and it was really hard to market, and I was in the Seattle area. Somewhere along the line in my life, I don’t know how this happened. I always wanted my goods produced domestically. I never wanted to go overseas. So everything, all my dresses were produced in Los Angeles where I could see what was going on. And then there was nothing in Seattle that could do the quality that I wanted. There are no contractors here. They are contractors, but they don’t do what I wanted. I had to go to Vancouver, BC for that. So not too far but then customs and the dollar changed and everything. It was costing more to keep creating these things and then it was worth doing okay. Really fun for me. At some point I just had to say this isn’t gonna work this way well.
Sharri Harmel: And just for those listeners who haven’t been in this, the equestrian world, there’s the rider world, which could include Western and dressage and all of that. And then there’s the hunter jumper, as Sara just said, which is an equitation and whatnot, which is a very formal, British clothing you wear jodhpurs you wear. Whether you’re a woman, a girl, or a boy because they compete equally. It’s one of the only sports where there’s no differentiation, believe it or not between boys and girls, men, and women, they compete equally. So they wear jodhpurs, they wear blazers and there’s a color to some extent limitation except for the jumpers. And then the shirts and the rack hat, collars, and all of that. I mean, it’s very, very structured as to what you perform in when you actually compete. And then there’s this whole world separate, which is, you know, when you’re in training or whatnot. So when Sara just said tax stores, these are the stores that are selling things for your horse, as well as things for the rider, which includes the clothes.
Sara Griot: So specific. The deviation you can have in the styling is, you know, in the collars in the linings of the coats is where I found a little creativity because they really have to be in the hunters. They have to be dark it has to be Navy or black, they can be plaid, but they have to be subtle. And I didn’t find that very creative and there were also much larger companies that could create the show capsules for less money because they were going overseas. So here many years ago, before I even started my business, my dad, his business was always a service business and he always said, you should just have a service business. You know, you have a lot of experience, and I of course ignored him.
Sharri Harmel: Then as every good daughter does when her father gives advice or mother, you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Sara Griot: Eventually I then just pivoted to styling and thought this is for years of doing what I did and also just listening to women because I really think clothing is more than just clothing. I mean, it’s really about style and the way like you could give five women a pair of jeans, a white button down and a plaid blazer. And it would look different on every woman because the way they approach the rest of it, the shoes, the hair, the accessories, it’s really about each person’s individual style and when I sold to stores, oftentimes before, when a shipment was sent to the store, they would ask me to come in, familiarize their customer with the clothing, you know, help them fit, try them on, see how it worked. And I did that in Nordstroms a lot. And what really was a common denominator all the time was how many women came to me and didn’t know. Or were quite certain that nothing would look good on them. They talked about all their flaws, and you know, I don’t have a waste, how could I wear that? But instead they have these amazing legs, or it was just a lot of insecurity about their bodies. It really, it started to become a passion for me to think about. And I feel like it’s my, what do you call this? My unconscious competence to look at somebody and know you could do better or like maybe that length isn’t quite right for your size. Maybe someone’s five feet tall and they’re wearing a cardigan that’s down to their knees and it’s not a criticism. It’s just I can just look at someone and say, I think this would work for you a lot better. And I think it’s just from years of looking at that, of being aware of it. I was in an airport yesterday and I love watching people go by and see what they choose to put on. And so, like I said, I had friends that used to ask me a lot for advice, and I thought I can do this as a business. I know I can help women. And really my goal is to not make it about shopping and buying more clothes. It’s about having less. And it’s about having what’s in your closet work for you every day.
Sharri Harmel: Yeah. So talk about that a little bit, but I wanna go back to something and you talked about how women tend to equate clothing, almost what we put on the outside as in some way, supposed to cover up what’s wrong with us, right. Versus what we have that is good you know, whether it’s thin legs, long legs, thin wrist, you know, a beautiful bust line, a gorgeous waist or whatever. We, we don’t think we’re all about hiding the inadequacies. Do men do this?
Sara Griot: I don’t work with men, but I have three sons and I’ll tell you. No. Are you kidding? I’ll tell you this really funny story. So I have my oldest grandson is three and I was over there recently. And he was looking in the mirror. So my he’s my oldest son’s, who’s very confident guy. He was looking in the mirror and he’s got bright white hair, his name’s Oliver. And he looked and he goes, oh my gosh, I have the prettiest hair and I thought why don’t women do that? I said to his mom, I hope you bottle that and make sure that that always stays the same. And she goes, well, you know who his father is, right. He is my son. And you know, raising boys was very different because I had a brother, but my sister’s you know, there was more of us, and we tend to look in the mirror and see everything that’s wrong. My boys would look in the mirror, flex their muscles. And say God, even when they’re not even like right. When my one son was saying he had a dad bod, because he wasn’t paying attention to wasn’t working out, doing all of that. He still was confident where women will look in there and see a flaw, see a flaw. So I’ll tell you a client, a particular client I have, she is dear friend also. I’ve known her for many years, and she was a teacher that was approached to become an executive in a nonprofit. She had no idea how to dress and before that I would help her with things. And all she focused on is that she was heavy. She was short she’s probably, maybe, I don’t know, she’s probably five, two, but her weight was very proportional. So she had an hourglass figure, but she was heavier than she wanted to be. But she’s the one I always think about at her legs. I said, so what are you. You’ve got great legs. Why don’t you just wear something that shows off your legs and she finally, and she’d only buy herself inexpensive clothing because she was always thinking I’m gonna lose weight. 20 pounds. And I’m not gonna spend any money on myself because I don’t deserve it because I’m overweight and her shoes were not in great shape and that’s all because she just felt like she didn’t deserve to have anything that was really nice. But I think I’ve changed that for her.
Sharri Harmel: Yes. So, but keep going. There’re so many parts of what you just said in that. How do you embrace, how does a woman, if she, you know, just thinks about it, how do you know what your good things are? What your good parts are? I mean, I think that’s kind of hard to identify. I mean, so when you work with a client is the first thing. Let me help you to understand what you got going here. That’s actually really good.
Sara Griot: Yeah, I think the first thing I do with a client is I give them some homework and they fill out like it’s about four pages of homework. And it talks about on one of the pages is moving away from moving towards and maybe so first of all, let just say that the women that I serve or most of my clients are 45 years of age and older. So a lot of them are in some kind of midlife. So they’re either menopause, they’ve gained weight, their body has changed. They’re going from being a stay-at-home mom, maybe to being a professional. Again, they’ve maybe just someone that’s looking for a promotion needs to up their game or they’re still dressing like they did in the nineties. I think that mostly what women clients have a problem with is dressing the body they have right now, instead of punishing kind of feeling like they don’t deserve to dress well because they need to lose this weight or they need to really embrace who they are and maybe they won’t ever lose that weight, but they still can look amazing. And so when I start to work with them, they do the homework, we do a style assessment, which talks about, kind of gives them idea of what their style words might be. Like for example, I am a pretty much textbook classic minimalist with a dash of drama. Like I like statement clothes. I like big statement earrings. And I think most people have that kind of down, but they just don’t have never said those words. I do actual measurements. So I tell them it’s what their body type is. And I think a lot of women know that, but some don’t, and even if they know their body type, they don’t know how to embrace it and make it look really great. So then we go through all these different steps. And I clarify what they should wear. We go through their closet. It’s part of the whole service. I don’t know if you want me to talk about the whole…
Sharri Harmel: Yeah, yeah. And then also equate it or talk about how you could do this virtually so that, you know, so you’re not in somebody’s closet because I’m assuming you have clients all over and therefore, how could I do this? How could you and I work together? I’m in Boston, you’re in Seattle. And that would be a good measuring tape so to speak for everyone.
Sara Griot: Well, we do it right now. I’ve just created this whole new, like signature package where the, so the first step would be virtual and it’s, you’ve gotten the homework. If we’re virtual, then you’re doing the measuring, but I walk you through it. That’s our first call. So we go through your words, we figure out your words. Are you, are you a romantic dresser? Are you a minimalist? Are you a, it’s funny and whatever it is, we determine that and that sounds kind of frivolous, but what those words are, you’d be surprised when you’re shopping and you pick something up and you think, does that fit in my, like what I am? Is this gonna fit in with the rest of my closet? So that’s part of that. And then in that I also ask every client to create a Pinterest board of aspirational looks or dressing how they either think they look or how they want to look. That happens in a first call. The second call would be the edit and if it’s virtual, what I ask everyone to do is they have to have a clothing rack and they put the clothing on a rack and we go through the closet and we figure out we determine the, yes, the no’s, the maybes, and the maybes also could be something that needs alterations. Or does this look good? Is this color good for me? Oh, we also figure out your color palette too, on the first call. So that’s important. And then, so the second is the closet. We edit it, get rid of things that don’t work for you now that you know, your body type, you can try things on for me and get my opinion. And then the work for you is that you take pictures of each piece. You upload it into a digital closet that you get as my client, and your closet is laid out by category. So it’s all your shirts, all your pants, all your dresses, everything I categorize for you once you upload them.
Sharri Harmel: Okay. And then do you help with what goes with what?
Sara Griot: Yes. So the next, and also while I’m editing, I create a wishlist for you. So sometimes it’s never happened, but I’m sure there could be a time when someone needs nothing, but usually, you know, someone needs a, maybe it’s a flat metallic sandal, or a statement earring or a black turtleneck, even a blazer, something that would, just make the outfit rotation even better. And then within those, what you have left, I create and from what you’ve uploaded, I create outfits and I put the outfits in categories of whatever your needs are. If you have board meetings, if you have, you know, date night, if you have weekend where whatever you tell me you want outfits for, I create them. And there’s also a section in your digital closet that’s for finds. Finds are for online shopping. So from your wishlist, I find, and it could be from places that you say are your favorite stores to shop in. And often I’ll put them into the outfit, making and say, this is how this would look, you’re responsible for no matter what, if it’s digital or in person, you click through and buy the item and then I’m skipping forward. But we do go back. I do go back once everything’s received and we create new outfits from that. But then for the shopping part piece of this, then it’s either online or in person and online is kind of the go to shopping. Now I still once in a while go in person, but if it’s in person, then I go ahead and I pull everything. So all you have to do is walk in and try things on cause after we’ve determined your colors, your body type, all of that, you also get something called a style file. And that is so before the style file, we meet again, we go through everything, we make sure all the new pieces are gonna work and incorporate them into your closet. And then the style file is just something that’s in your closet, your digital closet that has your color palette. It has your go to uniform, which is the, what you or I go to when we are looking for our comfort, the outfit that we pick, you know, 20% of the time that fits us. And so that’s your, like, mine is a blazer, a t-shirt or a blouse and jeans. Depending on the season, what the shoes are, that’s either booties or every person has their go-to outfit. And I think we determine that by, I’m sure you’ve heard that we wear 20% of our clothing, 80% of the time.
Sharri Harmel: Isn’t that crazy? To me that’s just crazy. When I look at the closet and I know, you know, it’s full of all this stuff and most of it I don’t ever even look at and think about that.
Sara Griot: I mean, think about why I had to do this recently. Cuz, I have this well I have a dress I bought. It’s a blue linen dress and I wanna wear it every single day. And I started when I was walking along the street one day, I thought, why do I wanna put this dress on all the time? And it’s because it feels really good. I feel like I looked good in it. It’s very simple. And so when you think about the go to pieces that you have, you really can create by looking at that kind of what your style is.
Sharri Harmel: Oh sure. Oh, that’s interesting. Yeah. So almost like mentally I could have that dress and eight different colors or those in plaid or whatever. And you staying in that family, if you wanna call it that, versus you know, getting dressed in all kinds of ruffles versus a straight, you know, simpler captain or, you know, shift or whatever. Yeah, but that makes shopping simpler because one of the things that happens to me and I’m sure it happens to most of you out there is that, you know, somebody comes on and says, here’s the capsule wardrobe you should buy. And you know whether it’s, I’m trying to think of that woman’s name that says this, you know, some week she comes out once a week and sometimes it’s like all white blouse and then it’s jeans or whatever, but yet there’s no connection to me, right? I have no idea if any of that, even the neck line of all her white blouse actually looks good on me and do white blouse does a white blouse even look good on me with my skin tone. You know, there’s not yeah, it’s like paper dolls you know, we just take the person, and we slap some clothes on them and off they go, well, we know that that doesn’t necessarily always make us feel good.
Sara Griot: Yeah. And I think also you have to remember that that her job is to sell what she’s producing. And I think that’s the difference between what I do. What someone like me does and what someone like in a Nordstrom stylist will come and work with you and people sometimes think, well, they’re free. So why wouldn’t I use them? But that person doesn’t know their goal is to sell. They’re gonna tell you it looks great. I don’t know how many times I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone say that looks really bad on you. Because they wanna sell it. So that is their goal. My goal is not that I want to, you know, I’ve planned curated design collections for clothing and really that’s what I do for my clients is curate these wardrobes and I love this. I educate what my goal is for them to be educated when they go shopping. So they’re not looking at you know, we all have impulse buys or want impulse buys, walk into my favorite trendy place is Zara and I can walk into Zara, but I have to say I’m really shocked at how many Zara pieces I have I’ve had for years. But I don’t consider them investment pieces. They aren’t investment pieces, but they still are things that work for me. But it’s so we don’t have a whole bunch. I mean, even when you think about, I mean, your footprint, I guess, and sustainability and not having clothing, I try to edit my closet all the time.
If I buy something new, I take two things and get rid of them. But you know, it’s hard to have that perfect all the time. We all buy things impulsively. But I think one thing I also tell my one of many things I tell clients is everything you buy should be able to be styled three ways.
Sharri Harmel: Huh? Explain that.
Sara Griot: So if you buy a skirt, a black and white skirt, you should be able to find three different tops. Maybe you wanna transition it into winter and you put it with a blazer and a lightweight sweater in the summer. It could be with a t-shirt and then maybe you could have it with a dressier blouse for evening and high heels. They’re just, it shouldn’t, unless it’s a block tie, obviously a block tie dress. That’s kind of, but you could wear it multiple times to a black tire then it’s just, I think pieces does this work with what I have, color palette that I know I look good in. I mean we can all step out and have fun once in a while.
Sharri Harmel: And feel good because, you know, part of it is that 80% that we don’t wear. That’s in our closets or it’s least it’s in my closet. Lot of that was impulse shopping and it was trying to buy something so that I looked like somebody that I, you know, whether it was a mannequin or it was somebody online or whatever. And I bought it thinking, oh gosh, you know, if I have that, then I’ll look like that. And then it comes, and I look in the mirror and well, it doesn’t look like that at all, but then maybe I’ll lose weight and then I’ll look like that. So I’m gonna put it in my closet and save it for that occasion yeah, or that event, but talk about, because there can be the perception that clothing you know, is kind of, you know, unnecessary, it’s like an unimportant. Yeah. It’s not a significant profession even to be in, but yet clothing. And talk about that a little bit. How important is clothing to us?
Sara Griot: Well, I think when you think about the power of the first impression, I mean, when you meet someone, it takes them seven seconds to make a first impression. And so if you’re wearing something that doesn’t fit you or isn’t suitable for whatever you’re doing you’re gonna be assessed whether you like it or not. I just love the power of clothes, I guess, because I had this argument with my dad because my dad always thought I was gonna go into international business. And I think he thought the same, even though, like I said, he was impeccable dresser, it feels like it feels frivolous, not important, but yet we do it every single day. So why not have it be something that makes you feel empowered, which is an overused word, but I use it all the time because that’s what I want, my clients to feel is empowered. And I also don’t want them to think about what they’re wearing, about who they dress. You know, I want them to know anything they pull out, it’s gonna make them feel super confident. They can go into a boardroom; they can go to whatever it is they’re doing and feel good. A question I ask my clients is who do you want people to see when you walk in the room? I mean, if you don’t care, then I guess clothes don’t matter, but I don’t think there’s anyone that doesn’t really care.
Sharri Harmel: Well, and even if you don’t care about what other people are thinking about you, you care how you feel about yourself, and certain pieces of clothing change the way I look at myself. So the seven second rule or whatever sometimes happens when I just look in the mirror. It’s seven seconds and I’ll think, oh God, you know why? You know? And of course it’s something. Yeah, well, and it’s usually related its self-judgment versus the clothing. So it’s like, oh my God, why did I eat that last night? And I’ll look at that, you know? So you end up turning on yourself rather than on the clothing. And so I find it so interesting that it, even if you don’t care what anyone else thinks, because you have your own style and your own, you know, way of carrying clothing, it really does matter in how we look at ourselves, how we feel and therefore how we show up out there.
Sara Griot: And I think even some making sure something fits. I mean, how often do you see people doing this, adjusting here, or pulling their skirts down and never bothering to go take the hour to get things altered. And also that saves money. Once they get something altered, it’s not this new piece that’s incorporated. I think the biggest takeaway that most of my clients feel is how many outfits they have already in their closet without buying one thing that they never thought, or, you know, giving something hemmed. And now this pair of, you know, winter white pants can go with five different things that they have.
And I mean, I’m not about going and shopping and consuming. I think we all have a lot more than we know, and we have a lot of waste, but I read this really great quote. I don’t know if you wanna hear this right now. It’s from Emma Thompson and it said, I think one of the greatest tragedies in women’s lives is the time, the effort, the energy, the passion that we’ve wasted on not being able to accept our own bodies.
Sharri Harmel: Wow.
Sara Griot: Yeah. I guess that resonates with me because it makes me sad that women can’t.
Sharri Harmel: That we’ve wasted that time energy, you know,
Sara Griot: I’m thinking look at all that you have and have to offer. And one other comment about the closets with the clothes, all the clothes hanging in it is, I know because someone in my family experiences this all the time, is half most of your closet is stuff that’s gonna fit when you’ve lost 10 or 20 pounds. And so every time you open that closet, the noise from all of that is, and the kind of guilt and the feeling bad about yourself just comes right at you. And I think clearing all of that out so no matter what you spent on you can sell it. You can consign it. You can do all kinds of different things. Just not, it doesn’t help your self-esteem. It doesn’t help your confidence. And that’s very important.
Sharri Harmel: Yeah. Huge, in everything. So go to, we’re gonna switch gears a little bit. So switch over to running your own business. Now you’ve got a service business and there’ll be down in the show notes for everyone. There are all the ways to connect with Sara. And Sara writes in the magazine. Sarah has a blog, obviously a website and all kinds of opportunities for you to hire to help you with your style issues, your closet, so to speak, to get rid of the 80, and then to embrace the 20, you’re running your own business. Now you’ve run businesses with lots of people, different stages. You know, you’ve got the design, the production, the selling, all of that, where you’re balancing different roles and stepping into different roles. How is this different?
Sara Griot: Oh, it’s been very different for me. And I think we’ve had this discussion before but because I’m the product and being that right now, you know, these days, it’s all about social media and having a presence there that was really hard for me to, when I’m putting a jacket on and you know, promoting the jacket. It’s very different having photo shoots and somebody else is wearing them. And then all of a sudden, I’m me having to be the, I’m the product. And so it was a struggle. It still a struggle for me. And I need to, I’m going to get better at it. Um, But I think I, you know, I only have a VA, which is kind of nice even when I had my other business. I only had an assistant. She wasn’t a VA, but I did all 1099 contractors because I didn’t wanna have employees. So, it’s been a learning curve. I mean, I’ve and especially, you know, because you know, tech is not my go to thing. But I’m shocked at what I’ve learned. I mean, I mastered Canva. I’m writing a digital course right now and I’ve all these things together. And I realize my daughter’s always saying, mom, just look on YouTube. It’ll tell you how to do everything. But it just takes its time. And so a VA comes in and kind of just, you know, minimizes the amount of time that it takes to do anything. But I like to be there. I like to be the person of course, with my clients. That’s just me that interacts interfaces with them. And I just think it’s easier that way. I mean, as far as people that I have to have involved in, at least at what I’m doing because I do a lot of one-on-one in most of me. But now I did a free course in February and then did a survey of the women that did the course and all of them, 95% of the responses were that they didn’t know how to dress for their body type. So that’s the course that I’m writing. That will be out probably August, beginning of August.
Sharri Harmel: I love that. I need to take it.
Sara Griot: So I never thought I would do that. It’s just something I never realized how much I used to love to write when I was younger. But now I’ve gone back to really, I’m an introvert. So it’s really easy to write and kind of be, do it that way. But I, I feel like I’ve got a lot to share, and I’ve got a lot of, and really it surprises me because when I started out in. With my first design company, it was about, you know, kind of, it was about the creativity. I had this great passion. I thought about it 24 7. I was sketching all the time and it’s transformed over the years. And maybe just with life experience into really wanting to help. I really truly wanna make women feel good. It’s amazing. Some of the clients I have that are just high powered at this particular one attorney. She’s terrified to be invited to a black-tie event or she’s six feet tall and everything is hard to fit for her. But that becomes her. She shrinks or she plays small, like we talked about. Because she doesn’t feel comfortable and that’s shame. I don’t want anyone to feel like that.
Sharri Harmel: No, but with your help, she’s going to hopefully be able to go to those events in the future and feel good about herself, you know, and that she doesn’t have to look a six feet tall woman doesn’t have to look like everybody else. No, she’s already special. How cool that’s wonderful. But it’s interesting that you bring that up. That part of being a solopreneur in a service-oriented business really takes you into that place of educating. Sharing your expertise, which means you have to embrace your expertise in order to share it. You know, which is hard, really hard. Okay. Our final question. And I think I sent this to you. If we were going you, I’m not there. You were going to have a dinner party. And you’re having, I’d love to, I’ll be a fly in the wall. I’ll serve. How about that? Okay, but if you were having a dinner party and you wanted to invite, you know, you had the opportunity to invite 2, 3, 4, whatever number of people to that dinner party, who would it.
Sara Griot: I thought about it, and it was all women. It would be Jacqueline Kennedy, Audrey Hepburn, Coco Chanel, and probably Grace Kelly. And I thought they’re all icons, all these. I mean, obviously not they’re all fashion icons, well, I guess we could add Edith head too.
Sharri Harmel: That’s funny. That’s very funny because those other women are hard. They will be hard for me to serve. So I actually need Edith there. that’s funny, but why? I mean, these are why those women?
Sara Griot: Because they were very strong women and I mean, they were all, they all had their, well, they were icons for a reason and I mean, obviously part of it was who they were, some of them were who they were married to, not Coco Chanel. I don’t even know who she was married to or is she was married, but yeah, they’ve all made, and I have her books too, but I think they just all made, there’s not a person you could say their name to and not know who they are. They’re all classic, amazing women who’ve had lots of strife in their life and handled it well in tough times. And also lots of, I just would be, so I would love to hear their advice. I would love to hear; I think they’re not fearful. I mean, I’m sure they are, because we all have this fear within us and we. And try to live outside of it, but I would love to know what the, their fears were and how they overcame them. And because to the rest of us, the rest of the world, it doesn’t look like they’ve, they had much fear of anything, but I guarantee they did.
Sharri Harmel: Right, right. Yeah. The must have, and everyone is iconic, not just for their positions, but also in their clothing choices. Cuz each one was unique, and you know, who, who wore big dark sunglasses when Jackie Kennedy was where Jackie, Jackie O she was called then when Jackie O wore them and the, the little black pants with the flats that Audrey.
Sara Griot: My mom idolized Jackie, and she had white, there were a pair of white sunglasses at Jacqueline Jackie O or, and we always called my mom Jackie O because it was very clear that she was copying everything in the sheath dress and love the Shea dresses. Anyway, I just think they’d be so much fun. And she died when she was 64 years old.
Sharri Harmel: Yeah, none of them were ended up being old women. Although Coco Chanel, I don’t. I don’t know that much about cocoa Chanel. I don’t know when Audrey Hep, how old is Audrey Hepburn? She was not that old. I, she was in her, I think her early seventies. Um, oh, that’s right.
Sara Griot: Yeah. She was married to a, a much younger man.
Sharri Harmel: Yeah. She was married more than once. We’ll have to get up to speed before that dinner. So that they should add a little bit Taylor, right. She’d be really excited to hear about those things. Well, and that she would be the example. I would think of bad clothing choices. yeah. Oh my God. There you go. And we could talk about that, and she would admit it. I’m sure that she was trying to show off what she thought were her good points, so to speak. Well, thank you, Sarah. Thank you for our conversation today. I know you were nervous. It sure didn’t sound like it, you know?
Sara Griot: Oh, it’s fun. Well, seeing you friendly face over there.
Sharri Harmel: I’m happy to see that. Yes. And, and like I said, all the information to contact Sarah is in the show notes and to follow Sarah, she was obviously writes on her own website, but also, she’s in the extraordinary women magazine. So check her out because she’s. She’s amazing. So I’ll have you to dinner my dinner party. oh, I love it. Yes. so fun. Thank you, Sarah. And we all talk soon, soon.
Sharri Harmel: Well, that was an amazing conversation. Sara is an inspiration to me. She’s always followed her passion for clothing and style. She’s run two businesses, raised her kids, and now has transitioned to her style business, which I think every one of us can appreciate. I love receiving Sara’s weekly tips in my inbox and her articles for the Extraordinary Women magazine are filled with ideas and helps to keep me on track style. It doesn’t come naturally to me and if you need some help contacting Sara, her information is below in the show notes. Now, if you enjoyed this episode, I would love if you could take a minute or two and rate our podcast and subscribe. We’ve got lots of super interesting conversations coming up that you will not want to miss. I look forward to our conversation next week and because I’m now in Paris, I will say A bientot.
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