Modern Fashion: Tessa Jennifer of Auralie On The 5 Things You Need To Lead a Successful Fashion Brand Today
An Interview With Candice Georgiadice
Understand that business problems are privileged problems. It’s not a life-threatening, real world problem, like losing our home or not having food on the table on a daily basis. When we approach everything in business with that mindset, it’s so much easier to thrive and do our best with a clear mind.
Many in the fashion industry have been making huge pivots in their business models. Many have turned away from the fast fashion trend. Many have been focusing on fashion that also makes a social impact. Many have turned to sustainable and ethical sourcing. Many have turned to hi-tech manufacturing. Many have turned to subscription models. What are the other trends that we will see in the fashion industry? What does it take to lead a successful fashion brand today?
In our series called, “5 Things You Need To Lead a Successful Fashion Brand Today” we are talking to successful leaders of fashion brands who can talk about the Future of Fashion and the 5 things it takes to lead a successful fashion brand in our “new normal.”
As a part of this series, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Tessa Jennifer.
Tessa Jennifer is the founder of Auralie, a thoughtful, slow fashion brand that sells independent designer clothing, accessories, and home decor to promote a journey of self-expression.
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 childhood “backstory”?
My relationship with fashion has always been more than just stuff. To me, fashion has never been about frivolity or branded items. It plays a bigger role in my life; it is a way for me to communicate who I am to the world, without over-explaining myself, especially when I first moved to the U.S. and could not speak English properly. I also have more sensitivity than others to what looks good on people, so styling and curating products for other people always came naturally to me.
Can you tell us the story about what led you to this particular career path?
My father was an entrepreneur, so starting my own business has always been in the back of my mind. I just didn’t know what or when. In 2019, I took a leave of absence, due to my work permit expiring, and the new one didn’t come out on time. During that time, I began journaling some ideas and attended many workshops for small businesses. My scribbles began to flow together, and I started this as a learning project. During the pandemic, it started to take off and we had been growing close to 300% YoY. That’s how I know I wanted to pursue it full-time.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
I began Auralie at the same time I had my first child. I do not recommend that! Everything was so new to me in my personal and professional life, and juggling being a new mom and starting a new business simultaneously was very challenging, because I felt like I didn’t know what I was doing. On top of that, entrepreneurship is a roller coaster; there are a lot of unexpected situations thrown at us at once. So when I first started, it felt like I “had to” put out fires on a daily basis…which is not true, by the way.
Looking back now, it becomes clear to me that feeling was an illusion. There will always be emotional highs and lows juggling entrepreneurship and personal life, but that’s always a part of life. One of the ways we can handle our emotional highs and lows is to witness the mind. When we become mindful, we can actually see very clearly what happened. Most of the time, our ego creates or exaggerates the issues in our head, and that’s what causes the emotional highs and lows in the first place.
You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
- Persistent
I’m the type of person who likes challenges, which is why I love my job so much. There are always new, unexpected things to learn every day in entrepreneurship, and I realized that without an eagerness to learn, I wouldn’t be where I am today. When we’re persistent and eager to learn, we all can do anything we set our mind to.
- Curiosity
I hardly take things as they are when faced with a situation. I’m always curious about why it happens, how it happens, and if there is any way to improve the current process. It’s not that there is something wrong with the current system, but being curious has taken me to a place I’ve never thought possible.
- I give 110% to everything I do.
I think it’s very important to commit and give our best to everything we do. When we do our best, we use our potential to the fullest, and it shows how much we care about whatever we are doing. My pet peeve is seeing someone half-assing the task they take on. It’s a waste of time and potential.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
My business was born out of my own personal realization that clothing plays a large role in how it makes us feel. During pregnancy and postpartum, my body changed a lot and most of my pre-pregnancy clothes didn’t fit me anymore. I didn’t feel like myself, and it was affecting my confidence. One day, I bought this dress and put it on, and I immediately felt like “me” again; felt really confident in it. Then I realized that when we feel like the most authentic version of ourselves, that’s when we naturally feel the most confident. My mission with Auralie is to assist women in finding their confidence.
Do you have a favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share a story of how that was relevant to you in your life?
“Trust the process.”
By nature, I’m an easy-to-worry type of person, so when I first started, I worried about literally everything, especially when things didn’t go as planned.
I learned that if anything is meant to be for us, it will come to us eventually. We just need to trust the process. If it’s not, then it won’t happen, regardless of how much stress and anxiety we give in. I also learned that things are not always going to go as we hoped for, but we can tweak and adjust along the way. Our mind is much more resilient than we may believe.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. Do you see any fascinating developments emerging over the next few years in the fashion industry that you are excited about? Can you tell us about that?
The challenge with creating more sustainable options in the fashion industry is the higher price range. This totally makes sense, if you think about it, it costs more money to produce sustainable fabrics, pay the people a living wage, etc. These past few years, I’ve been seeing a lot of efforts to create alternatives to fast fashion at a more obtainable price. For example, washable silk. It is a sustainable alternative, but much more affordable than the actual silk. More and more developments these days are gearing towards that, which is really exciting.
Can you share how your brand is helping to bring goodness to the world?
We frequently donate sales proceeds to non-profit organizations that help marginalized women/kids in rural areas to beat hunger or to provide better access to education, etc. I truly believe that when kids are provided with basic needs, such as food, education, and better quality of life, they will be able to take better ownership of their life and the world they live in.
Can you share with our readers about the ethical standards you use when you choose where to source materials?
In general, we try to avoid plastic whenever possible. That includes fabrics, packaging, collaterals, etc. I also make sure the designers we work with pay their people right, and that they trace back the supply chain of the raw materials they use. These days, the word “sustainable” is thrown around a lot, but we don’t know if it’s really sustainable or not. We have to do the work and dig deeper to where the start of the supply chain is.
Fast fashion has an advantage, that it is affordable for most people, but it also has the drawback that it does not last very long and is therefore not very sustainable. What are your thoughts about this? How does your company address this question?
I think this question is much deeper than just the issue with fast fashion itself. We call it “fast fashion” because things are produced at a much quicker rate, and to be able to do so, the fast fashion companies need plenty of factory workers. Additionally, to be able to offer their products at lower prices, they need to outsource production to India/Southeast Asia, where factory workers are not paid well. To me, this is more about voting with our dollars and being thoughtful of what we consume. Are we aware that the workers who create these fast fashion pieces aren’t paid a living wage? Is this a piece that I would be able to keep for a long time or is this something that I would dispose of after one or two wears and add more waste to the landfill?
When we’re thinking about our choices, we naturally are more mindful of those surrounding us.
Thank you for all that. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things You Need To Lead a Successful Fashion Brand”. Please share a story or example for each.
- Understand that business problems are privileged problems. It’s not a life-threatening, real world problem, like losing our home or not having food on the table on a daily basis. When we approach everything in business with that mindset, it’s so much easier to thrive and do our best with a clear mind.
- A realization of the actual “job description” of being a leader. When we are leading a company, we are not going to dedicate most of our time doing the specific thing that we liked doing when we first started (e.g: designing). Being a leader encompasses so many other aspects and the big part of that job is building & leading your team.
- Being nimble and adaptable. 80% of the time, things don’t go as we plan in entrepreneurship. Sometimes our expectation is far from what the reality is, and we just have to know how to work around the actual situation.
- Knowing what and when to let go. As a leader, our time is very limited, and you can’t fight about everything. When you fight about everything, you start to fight about nothing.
- Being okay with not being an expert in everything in the business. Not knowing how to do every single thing in our business doesn’t make us less good of a leader. It’s okay to outsource/hire experts in specific fields, but we have to have some level of knowledge of everything.
Every industry constantly evolves and seeks improvement. How do you think the fashion industry can improve itself? Can you give an example?
The fashion industry can definitely improve on waste control. Currently, 20% of global wastewater and 92 million tons of textile waste is produced annually by the fashion industry. More and more people are keeping their clothes for a much shorter period and disposing of them without much thinking. If each one of us put a little bit more effort into finding a new home for our clothes, that would be a tremendous step forward in terms of managing textile waste.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start 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. 🙂
Mindfulness movement. I cannot stress enough how being mindful of everything in your life can affect the quality of your life. Oftentimes, we are too busy with work and our day-to-day lives that we forget to take time to notice the things around us. But in those times that we move slower and really focus on being in our body and feeling grounded, that’s when we’re most in touch with our true selves/gut feelings.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Website: auraliestudio.com
Instagram @auraliestudio
Thank you for these fantastic insights! We wish you continued success and good health.
Modern Fashion: Tessa Jennifer of Auralie On The 5 Things You Need To Lead a Successful Fashion… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.