A place where creativity, fashion, education and community meet!
Here, you will also get an inside look into our lives as fashion obsessed identical twin sisters who co-founded their own business together.
We may be 80’s babies, but the 90’s made us! We grew up in the era of Spice Girls - Girl Power! - Tamagotchi's and boy bands. We were fortunateto grow up in a home where creativity and imagination were not just nurtured, but encouraged. There were many homemade coloring books, every type of marker you can imagine and lots of glitter. So. Much. Glitter. We considered going into archeology, marine biology, being veterinarians, actresses and even a Blue Angel (for one of us) but ultimately we knew doing something creative was our true calling.
We attended Catholic school throughout grade school and high school, where uniforms and dress codes were strictly enforced. School uniforms have the power to unite the school and “level the playing field” so to speak, but the downside is that it completely smothers your ability to express yourself. When everyone looks the same, how can anyone stand out or set themselves apart? Cue the dramatics when our Dad found out we weren’t wearing belts with our pants, sneakily putting eyeshadow on in the bathroom at school and caking on thick layers of sparkly blue eyeshadow before we left the house on picture day.We were notorious for bending the rules of the dress code, just enough to express ourselves. Uniforms took away our freedom of self expression and gently nudged us into fashion, and once we experienced that freedom there was no stopping us.
We attended Lansing Community College where we received our Fashion Apparel Merchandising and Design degrees, then decided to put the finishing touches on our education at Siena Heights University and received our Bachelors of Applied Science with a focus on Business.
While in college, we pursued our passion recklessly and with abandon, we joined a Fashion Club, put on runway shows and have made everything from circle skirts, to our coveted hand-stitched envelope purses. Our passion took on different forms throughout the years as well, we formed our own hospitality service business, called Dinner Belles, where we helped orchestrate everything from graduation parties to weddings! But when we took on the role of Professor in 2016, teaching Fashion Design classes at Lansing Community College, that’s when the real magic happened. We are bossy by nature and have always loved helping others learn new skills, so teaching at the collegiate level was a perfect fit. We loved our time there, although it was brief, we were able to meet so many wonderful, bright and extremely talented students. We were and are very lucky.
Like everyone, our twenties were spent “finding ourselves” - and that meant finding ourselves working as servers/bartenders at a local restaurant while getting our degrees, spending all of the money we earned at Forever 21 and whatever was left at the local watering hole where all of the servers hung out after their shifts. Inevitably, we grew up, learned the difference between “fast fashion” and “investment pieces”, stopped layering on eyeshadow and discovered our own authentic selves.
Nowadays, we have a firm grasp on our personal style, but love discovering new styles, techniques and designers that we are drawn to. For instance, Andrea, a minimalist, who embraces a more neutral/pastel color palette is now loving leopard prints and Samantha, a maximalist, lover of saturated color and prints, is now embracing neutral colors.
Finding your own personal style is a journey, full of its own ups and downs, and often when you are finding out what you like and don't like in the world of fashion, you inevitably end up finding out even more about yourself, parts you never knew existed and parts you can't wait to embrace!
We are so excited for this journey and we are so excited that you are here!
