What brought me to making style for a living?

As the owner of Ottimo Style, I have a pretty unique background in creativity. As a grade schooler in Portland suburbs, we weren’t poor by any means, but my parents didn’t like to spend money on labels. I suffered the 7th grade humiliation of a classmate announcing, “At least I have REAL Keds!” So I glued fake blue labels to the back of my $4 Volume Shoe Source Ked-look-alikes and vowed never to let anyone make fun of my clothing ever again.

So I got creative! I had my mom sew zipper panels down the front of my Kmart knickers to look like the cool ones that Fred Meyer’s sold. I belted my big sister’s E.T. sweatshirt and made it a dress and wore it with tights. I made do with what I had and twisted things uniquely into my own style.

I always had the best prom dresses that everyone borrowed. I would draw inspirations from fashion mags and MTV and crudely connect lines on a piece of paper in the “shape” of a dress. Miraculously my mom figured out how to turn those “drawings” into haute couture.

I never got the fancy bedroom set or accessories, either. So I painted, glued, taped and sewed everything myself (or with the help of my talented mom).

My wardrobe had style. My bedroom was my own style. It was uniquely mine – inspirations from clippings, people I encountered, and TV shows. It was a collection of only my experiences, my resources, and my own talents and dreams. My style. It’s the price you pay for having Scottish parents … but look where it got me!

Growing older, my friends were either borrowing my clothes or asking me to help them shop. One friend had an older sister in retail who taught us how to organize our wardrobes. That was the catalyst. To this day my closet is organized seasonally by apparel type, style, texture, and light to dark for maximum ability to mix and match.

In college I paid my senior year by selling hippy dresses and backless, patchwork shirts only spending money on thread by using recycled shirts and corduroy jeans as patches. My goal was to design the most flattering patterns for my friends’ figures. That was my only job that year and it paid my way across the US for Phish tour!

Professionally, I naturally gravitated to retail store management and put on fashion shows for Ann Taylor. Then I stretched into the Internet world. Producing web sites allowed me to explore my artistic talents in digital graphics. I basically art directed. As I did with my mother, I crudely scratched out a vision of the most stylistic yet functional user experience for the designer, and he or she made it come to life. At Nike I got to style photoshoots. I styled virtual storefronts for NikeStore.com. Always styling.

Styling, directing and organizing are in my blood. I put my best into what I say to the world – what I write, what I wear, how I work. It’s all about style. And that is Ottimo Style.