Today we’d like to introduce you to Sarah Daxton and Taylor Couch.
Sarah and Taylor, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Style for Good was born out of a desire to make personal style more accessible, sustainable, and mental health-focused. Through our own personal journeys with anxiety and depression, personal style became one tool (of many) for feeling better in our minds and bodies. Taylor and I connected over our love of style and pre-loved clothing while hosting clothing swaps in our homes and across the city. We knew the value of “when you feel bad, look your best!” and wanted to spread the message by offering our skills to those who needed it most.
Both of us also worked for a major styling tech company in 2020 and learned a great deal. Our time there proved that we both loved to do this work…and that we wanted to do it in a very different way than how “fast fashion” culture encourages. So, we both decided to leave our jobs there and partner to start Style for Good. We launched in January 2021 and hit the ground running!
Soon we were hosting a completely virtual clothing swap on our website. We collected clothing donations and borrowed a studio space to sort clothing and create special “bundles” with styled outfits or special themes. Prices ranged from $5 to $25 depending on the items or theme. Some bundles were specially curated by local stylists and fashion enthusiasts we connected with during Fashion Revolution Week.
We were certainly ambitious, but it was a great success. The proceeds went to our partner organization, Big Storm Performance Company, to support their mission and thank them for letting us borrow their studio space for weeks on end.
From there, we started working with our styling clients and selling clothes at vendor markets around Pittsburgh. All of our services and clothing are “pay what feels good” – and we mean it! We want clients and customers to think about how they value their clothes, their style, and themselves. We encourage folks to mindfully shop with intention and to enjoy expressing themselves through fashion.
It’s been really exciting seeing such a positive response to our business and our mission. We have big plans for the future, but we’re enjoying our current pace and taking things one day at a time. We work primarily with folks in Pittsburgh but also accept clients from anywhere as long as they can connect with us virtually!
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
It’s been a grand adventure! We’re close to wrapping up our second year now and we’ve learned so much about business, ourselves, and what our community needs from us. Navigating the business side of things, like taxes and managing a website, has certainly been a learning curve.
All of the clothing we sell has been pulled from the closets of our styling clients or donated to us by folks around Pittsburgh. This is a good problem to have – but we have SO MANY clothes now! Due to an outpouring of generosity, we have an excess of inventory that we plan to donate to local thrift shops and community organizations. It can be tough to manage and process such a high volume of clothing with just two people, so we’re brainstorming ways to recruit more volunteers and provide great perks for helping us out.
We’re focused on the future and have so many exciting ideas for the next few years. However, we feel that we still need some guidance on how to create more structure to make those dreams a reality. Thankfully, we’ve been accepted into a small business accelerator that will provide training and resources in the spring of 2023. Looking forward to it!
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Style for Good PGH?
Style for Good’s motto is “feel good, look good, for good” and it’s at the heart of everything we do. Our services include personal shopping, closet editing, building outfits from what you already own, and more. Helping as many people as possible connect with their style, regardless of budget or other barriers, is what drives our sustainability and mental-health focused styling business.
Our specialty is helping people develop sustainable habits of style. We work with clothes that already exist in our community rather than buying new or from corporate brands. If we shop for you, we source items from the many local thrift stores in Pittsburgh that support special causes. Or, we pull from our own stock of inventory of pre-loved clothes from our donors and clients. The most sustainable piece of clothing is the one that already exists!
We especially love working with people and bodies often excluded from the fashion industry, and we value our clients as people first. Who you want to be in the world is our priority. We’re here to help guide you and provide easy tools for achieving your goals, whether that is revamping your style from scratch or developing simple ways to feel better on days you feel too low to change your outfit. Everyone deserves dignity and to feel confident in their body. Wearing clothes that you love and reflect how you want to be seen by yourself and others is important, and we’re here to help!
Are there any important lessons you’ve learned that you can share with us?
An important lesson we’ve learned is that any pressure to push ourselves to grow the business comes from our own expectations. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the hustle of business culture. We don’t owe anyone more social media content. The online store will happen in its own time. Work can wait, life comes first. We can honor the ebb and flow of how our bodies and minds work – and still be successful!
We’ve adapted some of our services to better reflect what works best for us and what we actually enjoy doing. Focusing more on what feels manageable for our own schedules and mental health needs, rather than what we think will be popular has worked out very well.
We’re strong believers in slow, mindful growth and trusting that the right clients, customers, and opportunities will find us at the right time.
Pricing:
- $0-$60/hr
Contact Info:
- Website: www.styleforgoodpgh.com
- Instagram: @styleforgood.pgh
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/styleforgood.pgh
Image Credits
Sarah Daxton
