Female Disruptors: Gabriella Scaringe of Cherri On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
“You can’t please everyone.” Oh boy, is this true. While it’s important to absolutely listen to your customers’ feedback, you still can’t please everyone in the process and it’s best to focus on what the majority of your customers are saying. For example, selling so many different styles was more costly for me to produce. I needed to narrow down my product offering to offer more of my best sellers and in the process I had to cut out some styles. Some people were bummed about some styles not being offered anymore, but focusing solely on my best sellers helped me increase my profit margin so I could re-launch those styles later.
As a part of our series about women who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Gabriella Scaringe.
Gabriella Scaringe is a New York based lingerie designer, TikTok influencer and founder of her vulva-positive underwear brand, Cherri. With over 410k followers on her TikTok account @gabygabss, she uses her platform to promote Cherri and pioneer the vulva-positivity movement as a subsection of the body-positivity movement.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
I went to a performing arts high school in California where creativity was always valued. I furthered my creative education and business education when I moved to New York City to attend the Fashion Institute of Technology. I wasn’t satisfied with how people were designing underwear and knew I had to be a changemaker. I always loved fashion and knew I wanted to have a fashion based company, but lamented the fashion industry as a whole. I didn’t identify with the industry and didn’t want to adhere to common bad fashion industry practices. It is important to me to maintain my core beliefs in my business. Growing up, I always had a soft spot for the underdog, and this strong sense of empathy encouraged me to run my business with integrity.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
I did a survey of over 5000 women and I discovered that the average width of a woman’s underwear gusset is about 1.8 inches but the average width of a woman’s downstairs anatomy is about 2 1/2 inches. That’s about a full inch too short to cover the average person’s meow meow. Cherri makes underwear that actually fits your bits. There is a complete white space around Cherri. I am a leader for my industry and a pioneer for the vulva-positivity movement. I am one of the first influencers to discuss this message and bring body positivity to your nether regions. In 2022 it is shameful that a product women wear every day is still not fitting our bodies correctly. Cherri changes that. 97% felt that the underwear gussets were just too small. Women make up 50% of the population and 97% still feel that the underwear on the market doesn’t suit their needs. This market opportunity has stayed hidden because society has forced women to internalize this insecurity. Cherri offers a friendly face-to-face approach to the intersection of women’s wellness and fashion by making the uncomfortable comfortable again.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
Make sure you have all your meetings planned in writing. One of the funniest mistakes I made was making a lot of agreements verbally. I’d say, “Great, let’s meet tomorrow at 2:00 to review the rest of the patterns and grading” and then I’d show up and no one would be there. I’d laugh at myself every time. Google Calendar has now become my best friend — no one can make the excuse that they didn’t know anymore!
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
One of my best mentors is actually my ex-boyfriend. His career is based in helping startups, so he always provided me with lots of assistance early on. Even today he is my go-to person for any Cherri related questions. It is incredibly helpful to have a mentor that you can freely bounce your ideas off of. A lot of being an entrepreneur is not knowing. There is total ambiguity sometimes. Being able to sit in the space of the unknown and not feel judged for not knowing it all gave me a lot of confidence to take risks with my business. One time, I was quite disappointed because I wasn’t meeting my sales goal one month. He encouraged me to push a flash sale, pivot my content strategy slightly, and the next day I met my monthly goal. Easy peasy. And all I needed to do was talk to my mentor about how I was feeling.
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
Disruption can be an incredible opportunity or it can completely kill your business. The first thing that comes to mind is the decline of print as digital publications rose in popularity. To think that Playboy, an iconic brand, doesn’t have Playmates anymore is devastating! Now, the majority of their revenue comes from merchandise. I hope as I disrupt the lingerie industry, customers will stand up for themselves and demand that their clothing fits as it should. I hope this will create a new demand for better quality garments and improvement for how we treat ourselves and talk about uncomfortable subjects in the public space.
Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.
1.) “You can’t please everyone.” Oh boy, is this true. While it’s important to absolutely listen to your customers’ feedback, you still can’t please everyone in the process and it’s best to focus on what the majority of your customers are saying. For example, selling so many different styles was more costly for me to produce. I needed to narrow down my product offering to offer more of my best sellers and in the process I had to cut out some styles. Some people were bummed about some styles not being offered anymore, but focusing solely on my best sellers helped me increase my profit margin so I could re-launch those styles later.
2.) “People relate to authenticity”. I started making TikToks just about my regular life in addition to the ones promoting my brand. My engagement increased when people saw me as a person with a small business and not just someone trying to force a product down their throat.
3.) “You can’t do everything yourself.” Trust me, I tried. But then it got to the point where I was expanding quickly, and couldn’t function as a fulfillment center, social media manager, content creator, accountant, customer service operator, and designer all in one. Getting help from other people, no matter what stage of your business you’re in, isn’t a sign of failure or lack of ability to do those things. When strategically planned, getting outside help really helps your business grow!
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
I plan on launching swimwear this summer ’22 along with a bodysuit to continue to shake things up and set a precedent for how clothing should fit down there.
In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by ‘women disruptors’ that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?
Often, one of the biggest challenges ‘women disruptors’ face is just being heard. For so long, society has put women down for being too emotional or overreacting. How do we convince people that our problems are real problems that need to be heard? And that we actually have valid solutions to solve these problems? This is why the female founder space is so helpful, open, and uplifting for other female entrepreneurs.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
The movement I would like to inspire would be the one I’m currently pioneering — the vulva-positivity movement. After getting some exposure and traction from my viral videos on my TikTok account, @gabygabss, Cherri touched the lives of many. Countless individuals have taken the time to reach out to share that before discovering my product, they thought they were abnormal because they couldn’t fit into anything. Some people were previously considering a medical procedure that cuts off bits of your anatomy called a labiaplasty, but told me they canceled their labiaplasty appointments after discovering Cherri. Cherri is helping people choose self acceptance over body alteration and that feels very powerful to me. No more lip slips, and no more lip snips!
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
My parents used to tell me that someone will always be better than you. It sounds pretty harsh at first glance, but what they really mean is that you shouldn’t strive for perfection. You cannot always be the best. That’s just the reality. What you can be is the best version of yourself! Comparing myself to other people is the worst thing that I can do for personal and professional growth. As I’ve distanced myself from setting other people’s goals for myself, my career has flourished.
How can our readers follow you online?
Follow me on TikTok @gabygabss and Instagram @shopcherri and shop my brand at shopcherri.com!
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Female Disruptors: Gabriella Scaringe of Cherri On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.