My builder’s journey

A responsible fashion brand built from scratch — from concept sketching and sourcing to production, sales, and the runway.

50 Dresses launched in 2010 as a one-woman operation, and I wore every hat the business needed — CEO, CFO, and CTO all at once. I built the brand from the ground up: sketching concepts, sourcing materials, managing production, and handling sales and finance myself.

Every piece was produced in the garment district in Los Angeles, California, with a commitment to fair wages and sustainable practices. Collections found their way to Fred Segal in Santa Monica, Modcloth online, and numerous independent boutiques who championed the brand. I also designed custom wedding attire — outfitting brides, flower girls, and bridesmaids, with matching bow ties for the men and even a few pets along the way. For four consecutive years, I designed the custom Sugarplum dresses for Colorado Ballet’s Auxiliary Guild. The brand ran for eight years.

Running a business taught me many lessons: how to make decisions with incomplete information, how to pitch and hear “no” and come back with a better offer, and how to hold vision and logistics in the same hand. I learned that resourcefulness beats resources, and that the journey makes more sense looking backwards than it does in the middle of a step.

That’s the throughline to coaching. The people I work with are usually in the middle of building something too — a career change, a new role, a team that needs to work differently — and the questions are the same: What do you actually want? What’s getting in the way? How do you keep momentum when the outcome isn’t clear yet? I’ve moved through many pivots in my career, and this wide lens shapes how I coach.