As told to Kindra Hall
Founder of EVEREVE, a nationwide fashion and styling company for women
Three months after my daughter was born, I went shopping. I was in a new-mom funk and really wanted to feel good about myself again; to feel more like a woman and less like a mom. So I went to the mall and ended up having a really bad experience in a clothing store that left me crying in a dressing room, looking at myself wondering if I mattered anymore. I remember leaving the mall that day and, on the drive home, thinking there had to be a way to create a better experience for women like me. A place where we could walk in and feel comfortable, welcomed, valued and understood.
About that same time and for a similar reason, I got a part-time job at Crate & Barrel. For two years I worked there, helping customers and finding purpose beyond my home and children. While my friends thought it was silly I worked there, every day I looked forward to walking through the big, glass front doors of that building. I had no idea what those doors would someday mean to me.
Between that first experience in the dressing room and the drives to and from Crate & Barrel, the concept for EVEREVE was born. A brand that reimagined the retail experience for women like me. A brand that now has 95 stores nationwide. A brand that we’re so grateful continues to thrive despite all the challenges and doomsday retail projections.
Then, ten years into creating EVEREVE, my co-founder husband and I decided it was time to sell part of the company. As fate would have it and just by coincidence, one of the investors was the co-founder and co-CEO of Crate & Barrel, Gordon Segal.
One day after a meeting with Gordon he decided he wanted to visit one of the Crate & Barrel stores on our way back to the airport.
I’ll never forget that moment, walking through the big glass doors of Crate & Barrel, a decade after it became my place to start living again, side by side with the CEO and my new investor. It was an out-of-body experience that was worth all of the effort and struggle to get there. A beautiful affirmation a lifetime in the making.
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This article originally appeared in the September/October 2020 issue of SUCCESS magazine.
Photo courtesy of Megan Tamte
