Empowering Tall Women Through Fashion | A Chat with the Co-Founders of Tall Size, Kayla and Nicole

Good morning everybody. You are currently listening to a tall Girls podcast hosted by a tall girl named India. I hope everyone who is doing it today is doing super fantastic. I am joined by not just one, but two awesome guests, Kayla and Nicole from Tall Size. Never thought this day would come, but Hi, guys, how are you guys doing today? Hey, India, doing well. Excited to chat with you. I'm so excited to have you guys here. I did like a little tiny introduction there, but I'm pretty sure you guys can do a much better job than me. Please go ahead and introduce yourselves to the audience. Kelly want to go. We're gonna have to coordinate the back and forth here, Okay, okay, okay, Well, hey everyone, and thanks for having us India. We're excited to be here. We are the co founders of Tall Size. We are also lifelong best friends. You've been friends since grade seven, Since about thirteen years old, Kyla and I we grew up playing basketball together. She came to my school halfway through the year and I was like, oh my gosh, she's taller than I am. So for anyone listening, I'm it's Nicole talking. So I'm six feet tall, Kayla six foot four, and yeah, so we met in grade seven and we immediately bonded over our height, started playing basketball together, et cetera, and just remained really close friends up until now we're in our early thirties. And yeah, we decided about two and a half years ago, after like a vent session on the phone of how frustrated we were shopping for clothes, to set out and try to be a part of the solution that we think is super important. And so that's kind of where we're at today. Why don't you tell them, you tell them a little bit more about Kayla, because I feel like Kayla also has a lot of cool stuff about her that she never talks about that is also very relevant to a lot of tall girls listening. I'm sure, Okay, So I'll come back to tall size after then for myself. So before I mentioned earlier than six hours ahead and the Nicole and I have like a long distance working relationship slash friendship. And that's because I played professional basketball. So I'm actually here in France playing and competing the ProTeam here. And when I'm not playing in France, I'm competing with my national team with the peating national team, and we actually have our final Olympic qualifier coming up this February, So if we qualify and when in our pool finished top three, we'll be going to the Paris Olympics this summer. So really excited about that. So yeah, so my free time, free times, I'm on the court playing ball or just trying to do things that either uplift or empower young girls and women. I'm so happy that you guys are here today, and I'm also glad to hear that you guys were friends way back in the day especially, and that kind of leads to my next question about hearing about your guys' experience as tall women. I'm pretty sure. I mean, yes, you could go into individually, but I'm pretty sure since you guys met in seventh grade. I think Nicole said, you guys can also talk about the experiences you've had together as tall woman, like I want to hear it all the good, the bad, the ugly, Like what was it like for you guys? Oh man, I can start just personally. I think I remember being tall as challenging as a young girl, but I remember it getting easier and easier with every year. That passed. To be honest, I think in high school I personally started to come into my own a little bit after the game of basketball helped, I think both of us. It almost for me, I can speak for myself, it almost felt like I had a purpose for my height. I remember, not that you need it, but I think for me, and it did help with my confidence. I remember when I was younger, I originally was put into like dance and figure skating, and I remember they told me at a certain point, They're like, you can't really go much further with figure skating because you have to do pairs, and I was so much taller than the boys and they're supposed to like twirl you around and stuff, and it just wasn't working, so so I had to kind of pivot. But yeah, I think for me it's just got It was tough in the younger, younger years, and it got easier. I think that. Honestly, the biggest challenge for me was always dating. I don't know if that's shallow or not, but it was always just hard on the on the dating front end, trying to find men that were taller than me. I've since abandoned that and my partner is a little bit shorter than me, so that's where that ended up. But yeah, that's like my personal experience and then just the only only memory I have of like Kayla and I. She probably deals with this all the time because she's always with her teammates, but I'm not often around other tall women much. But I remember one time meet Caylea and her sister Kisha, who's also quite tall. We're walking down the dan Forth and like people stopped and asked if we were models, stopped if we were asked if we were like basketball players, Y're like athletes or whatever, and just this you get a lot of stairs. I think you get a lot of stairs when you're just by yourself, but I think when you're in your group of tall women, it's like even even more, which is kind of annoying. But yeah, yes, I guess for myself. Growing up, I grew up in a tall family. So my parents are pretty tall. My mom's five ten and a half, my dad six five, and there was me, my sister, my brother, and my brother's actually like six eleven, so he's the tallest in the family. So yeah, I'll used to being around tall people. That was just I guess, yeah, I'll just used to being in a tall family. So growing up, my parents always like raised me to be proud of my height and who I am and how God created me. But I will say that as far as struggles, like Nicole pointed out, like always being the tallest, like being taller than all the boys all through school was always interesting experience. And the one for me that stands out that just like a vivid memory, is just the clothing, like back to school shopping, going out with friends. I remember being so envious with my sister because although she's tall, she's on like the tall but still be able to shop cool stuff in stores. She's about five nine, so she could always go and find like the cute outfits the entrance. She was super still is super stylish, like always dressed in the nines. And I see so envious because when I'd go shopping, I was lucky if I could find like a T shirt, or I'd have to go to like the men's section. It was just not a pleasant experience. So that was something that I struggled with a lot as a kid. But as I got older and then when I played in the USA, I discovered some US brands I catered to the tall woman, which was nice, and then that opened up my eyes to a new world that there are some things out there for us tall women. But yeah, that was definitely a struggle of mine as a kid. And then it's also like you couldn't swap clothes with like your friends either. My shoes were like two times today, the whole experience. But we're past that now, thankfully, we're getting on the way to past that. I remember getting ready for like going out in the university and stuff like getting ready to go to the bars and stuff like that, and all my girlfriends would be like, yeah, swapping all their outfits and like, oh, can I wear that? And I'm just like sitting in the corner like are you guys ready yet? And they would always say things like, oh, Nicole, you're always just so basic because I would always just wear like jeans and a T shirt or like shorts and a tank top or whatever. And I actually don't think I noticed it, like I realized it in the moment. I thought maybe I was just a tomboy. But yeah, it was like a lot of it is just because I wasn't willing to like go through the struggle to like find nicer, trendy or stuff. So I was like, Okay, I guess I have tomboy style or whatever that is. So it's because you knew it was gonna end three ways. Every time I went to a store is either going to be not find something that fit me, having to settle, or having to shop in the men's section. So at that point, I just gave up on shopping. Why did I kind of feel that too, because it was more so when I was younger. There's you know, this store called Claire's. There's not like that many clothes right now, but there's like Claires. There's also Justice. Justice was very popular when I was younger too, and every single girl in my class would always get clothes from there. And they wear the sparklee shirt and these types of pants and YadA YadA. Yeah, they're like, oh my gosh, why don't you have these? Well, I'm sorry, like they kind of fit me like shorts. No, I can't really wear what you're wearing, but it looks cool on you, and that's all that matters. Before we get into the next question, I want to know, like, what was something involving your height? It could be a question. It could be a comment. What was something involving your height that you hated hearing growing up? Can I so? For me, not so much. I hate it just like a it's the wow, you're so tall. I get it. Like people, I guess people aren't used to bring around tall people. But to me, I'm always like, okay, I mean I know this all my whole life is am I supposed to be surprised, like, oh my goodness, I'm tall. That just always was like a okay, like I don't know what you want me to do with this approbation. Thank you. That was the comment for me, and to this day I still get it. Sweet. So then going and also going back to the previous question, I asked because you said that your sister was five nine, your brother was six eleven, so you're like in the middle of that, I'm six four. Oh wait, but are you like the middle child too or the eldest? Oh okay, because I was about to be like middle child middle height. That's so okay. What about you, Nicole? What was something that you hated here? I honestly, I think the same thing. I think just the comment, yeah, just the comments, And it's just I don't know. It just seems like that one kind of exception to the rule of like don't make comments about other people's bodies. You know, yeah, I would say that's the only that's the only thing the words of wisdom there. So I know you guys spoke a little bit about this before, but now is your time to kind of go deeper into that, Like tell us a little bit about your brand, like what is your mission, Like what sparked the idea to create a clothing brand specifically for a tall wimmer that helps tall women. I guess I'll start So going back to nicole story about how we get on the phone and bent I forget out playing in Belgium and she calls me one day and she's out walking her dog and she's like, Kayla, I'm so cold, but my pants don't fit properly. I have my wrist uncover, Like do you deal with this too? And I was like, yes, girl, welcome to the club. So we're trying to we were talking about it. We're like, we need to find a solution to this. Let's let's do something about this. So our first thought was, let's start our own clothing brand. So we did some research and we realized, oh, okay, that's there's a lot of work that goes into that, and then row doing that research like, oh, wait a second, there are actually a decent amount of tall brands out here like cater to tall women. So then we're like, wait a second, what if we were able to create a way we could shop all these brands in one spot. And that's how we came up with tall size and creating a marketplace. So now we partner with different brands that cater to tall women or even brands that may not be tall specific but have tall items. We'll host our items on our platform and then women can shop. They can get some pants from Elevated Closet, shoes from Cinderella Shoes, and a top and Prissy Duck buy a one location, one shopping cart. And our customers love that because we make it convenient for them. It allows them an easier way to discover brands that they didn't know before, and it's just an easy shopping experience. And then from there, from listening to our customers, we realized that, okay, this is great to finally have access to all these different brands of one spot and discover them. But we still want to be able to try to close on We don't have that option to go into a store and try and touch and fuel things before we buy. It's always online. So then we had the idea pop up shops. Why not create different shops all over in different cities where women can come try on the clothes that they love, order them, and then be able to shop and have a regular shopping experience. So we launched our first two pop ups last year in April and July in la and in Chicago, and it was amazing and that's actually what fueled us to go on a pop up tour this year and that Nicole can speak more to but also also want to add to that, we also laid it on a third piece for our business, which is our Tall Size pre Loved, which allows tall women if they have tall items that they no longer are no longer their favorites don't fit, or they just don't wear them very often, you can now have a platform we can sell it directly to tall women. So I love what we created because we essentially solved the problem that both of us face and that many tall mean faces the globe. And yeah, I just think it's also created such a beautiful community as well. I love that, Nicole. Do you want to add anything to that? I don't think so. I think she. I think she covered it all. I'll maybe speak a little bit more to like the mission of it is really like what we noticed to Kala's point, where there was already so many amazing brands out there like creating the clothing for tall women, right, And they were already yeah, a lot of brands that we didn't even a lot of them we had never heard of. So we assumed there was many more people like us who hadn't heard of them either. So they're already doing that. And so what we're really trying to do is just simplify the shopping experience for tall women and just try to like give them a few hours back in their day of like what they would have spent like scrolling or searching all over the dark corners of the internet just to find a pair of pants that fit. We just want to make that shopping experience so much easier for them. And I think something that Kill and I've talked a lot about since day one is like in the fashion industry as a whole, like as a consumer, you're marketed at all the time, right, Like I get emails from all these different brands, or I see ads on social media or whatever, and everything looks so cute, and it's kind of disappointing on the other side of it. It's like defeating almost because you're like, oh, she looks so cute. Like I'm not even gonna click on this though, because I know they're not going to have it in my size or and so you kind of just feel a little bit like overlooked by the fashion industry. And so something Kill and I really focus a lot on is like, how can we give tall women all the same experiences and like from a fashion and a community standpoint shopping experiences that the average heighte woman gets and make them feel seen. And so all of our emails, all of our social everything that we put out into the world, we want them to see themselves in all of that. So that's another thing that's really important to us. And I think the last piece is just around confidence. Like I think shopping is obviously like a big component in helping tall women feel more confident and make it easier for them to find stuff that fits them. But something we're learning throughout this journey ourselves is like there's a lot of other components. So confidence could come from finding the clothes, it could come from being in a room of other tall women at our pop ups and just seeing more people like you, forming connections, forming friendships at those pop ups. Education so something we learned as well at our Los Angeles pop up, our very first one, so a lot of women walked in and they were kind of stunned. They were like, Uh, what do I do with all of these options? Like they just kind of didn't really know what to do. And we heard a lot of comments of like, oh my god, I love these wide leg trousers, but like don't know if I can pull them off, or I don't know how to style them. It's like there's these trendy items that we've never had the luxury of wearing, and so there's a bit of a block there for us. We're unable to see ourselves in these items. And so something else that you'll start to see a lot more of from us is just that education component. So we're starting to partner with different stylists. We brought one to our second pop up, so on the Friday night, we had a stylist come out and like teach all the ladies. It was like a thirty minute styling session. She pulled a bunch of items from the floor, talked about different ways to pair items. She gave tips on like, if you're trying to accentuate your long legs, here's some tips. If you're trying to kind of like balance them with the rest of your proportions, here are some things that you can do. So I think that's just another piece to the kind of like confidence equation, if you will, of like how we can kind of step up and help women tall women just feel like as good in their bodies as we possibly can be on just kind of the clothing. I really, I honestly liked that so much, especially when you were speaking about the education component, with like bringing in the stylist to talk like specific to tell them, and I just feel like it just really shows that you guys care that because yes, we can like look on the internet or just listen to silots who are just speaking in general terms, but you know, everybody's bodies are different. Everybody requires different or unique information, unique tips, unique strategies that can work for them ultimately, So I really, I really do appreciate that and then I also, because you guys are coming to New York in October, I did register for that pop up, so nice. Nice, you guys will be seeing me there. I may or may not be bringing a couple of my other friends too, so that's exciting. And then Kayla, you did speak about a little bit about getting other Tall brands, like smaller tall brands on board. Can you talk about like what that process has been like kind of collaborating with them and getting them on board, Like has it been difficult? It's easy reaching out to them, Like how what was that process like? So it's a shared process. Nicole reaches out, I reach out. I know in the earlier days it was more of a struggle because I don't think people realized what we were trying to build and that we were like a real like our business was real. So we were like just dming and Instagram like in the dms, sending emails. But once we were able to get them either like this face to face on a zoom call or explain our mission and what we were our purpose when we're trying to do via email, they're all on board. They all love the idea, They loved that we were just trying to help the talk community to have access to their items, more access to close that fit, and it helped get their brands out there as well too, So it's been a it's been a fun collaboration for sure. And I think what I love about is the most like majority of our brands are a woman owned and the small businesses, so we're not just helping ourselves, We're not just helping our customers. Were helping these businesses as well too, So it's a lot of women empowerment, which I think is amazing. Yeah, yeah, I'll and like the only thing, Yeah, I think the other thing I'll add there too is like I just feel like we still have so much further to go, Like I still like we talked about this all the time. We have a long list of brands we still haven't been able to either get in touch with or convince. So marketplaces, I think, in general, are like a newer concept just from like the technology side and how everything integrates and like the data sharing and logistics and all of that stuff. It's still fairly a new concept and so Cayl and I are in it for the long haul though, So we're like, all right, we don't get you this year, we'll get you next year. And I think it's just it's one of those things where we're both very like, we don't give up easily. I'll just say that we don't give up easily for us exactly. So it's one of those things that we'll just if we don't get them now, it's just like, Okay, let's keep building, let's keep growing, and we'll get them one day. Like we're confident that we will our goals to have like the largest assortment of tall brands and tall items in one place globally, So we'll do it just a little bit, a little bit like Brick by Brick is our like model. Yeah, well, my dad always says that perseverance always overcomes. So I have just as much and probably even some more phase that you guys will be able to do it. And I also want to speak a little bit about like this shift in tall fashion in a way because it sounds so bad. I do not mean this in a bad way, but you guys have been here longer than I have, so you've been able to see more. No, Nicole, No, I like it. I love it. I don't mean it that way at all. No, I'm just saying that you guys are like more experienced and you guys have seen more than I have in that way. So that's why I said that, because I just wanted to ask, like, more so, have you seen like a difference a major different or a major shift? And what brands are providing for tall women like back then versus now? Like what is like? What is the difference to you guys? Like what has that? What shift have you guys seen. I'll like, Cayla take this one. I think because of her height, she's been she's been dealing with this longer and more severely than I have my whole life. So take it away. I know. For me, for instance, when I was growing up, the only place that I eventually discovered with my mom in high school was long Tall Saley. They don't have a brick and Martar anymore. It's strictly online, but back in the day they had a store they could go to. So I would go twice a year and save up all my money all the tall sis to get some close and but I noticed, although I was thankful I had options to close up with me, they weren't very trendy or young facing. So although my pants are no longer floodpants. They were basics in the sense they were very trendy and fashionable to going to college, and even now we start discovering these smaller plants, and I realized that these women are essentially creating the pieces that they want that they didn't have access to. So now we're seeing more trendyar items. For instance, I was finally able to own a pair of skinny jeans that I never owned before, or cargo begging cargo pants, jean pants. We have those on our site. Never own those in my life before until I want to say, a couple of weeks ago. So just amazing to see that. And what I'm thankful for is that tall women or de signing to solve their own problems and creating the pieces that are trendy in style what's now, and creating the items so that full home can also be a part of the trends. So for me, I started seeing more of a change slowly through college, and like once I started playing pro more in my adulthood, I was able to finally get access to these items. But before that it was just very not young facing or in trend adult but it fit. Yeah, and I'd also like to like shot out the brands that are are popping up because it's hard, Like I think sometimes customers can give them a hard time, like, well, why don't you carry it in a full size range and in eight different ensems, And it's like, man, like, I don't think you guys understand how much money goes into launching just even one style in a typical size range, Like it might not be the full extended size range, but like just to launch one style and the minimum like order quantities, they have to hit with the manufacturers and they have to buy all this inventory upfront, and they have to sit on it and hope that it sells. And traditionally, depending on how advanced, like how far along the brands are, they can't even start to invest in their next collection until they sell through this one, right, So it's like it's a lot of work. And so I just like shout out to all the brands who are stepping up and creating pieces, because it's no like it's a massive undertaking. And to Kyla's point, a lot of them are tall women owned businesses who have just created started creating things because they either needed them for themselves or they can't find them in the market, and I think something else that's really interesting. I'm like a huge data nerd, and I'm always like looking at the industry and trying to just understand the why behind why the industry is the way that it is. I'm like, why is there a petite section in most brands or like department stores. Now plus sizes has grown quite a bit. I mean, still all of these have a long way to go, but it's just crazy that, like you can go on many websites and filter by plus, petite, junior, maternity, literally every size except for tall, and I was like why, and so cal and I have been talking to a lot of people in the industry, and like, something we keep learning from some of these bigger brands is that it's so economically challenging to serve the tall market because it's so niche and it's so spread out. And so if you're a brand that's like catering to average size folks or average height folks plus size folks, petite tall is like the bottom of the priority list just because of the size of the market. It's unfortunate, but it's just facts, right. And something else I learned is like it's not as easy as like just adding length to an existing design or an existing pattern. You have to completely reconstruct the pattern. A lot of like factories don't even want to work with brands who make them do patterns that are outside of the norm. So that's also challenging for the tall brands is they've got to go and find manufacturers who are even willing to take them on as a client, which is crazy. And then one other interesting thing I learned a couple of weeks ago is like, you know how fabric is all on those roles, like it all starts on like it's like yardage or whatever on the rolls those roles are measured or the way that they like create those are made for average height humans. And so when you go into these specialty sizes, you don't have this same like you can't optimize the fabric on the rolls in the same way, so you often have to buy double the fabric, or you have to buy extra fabric or they have So there's all these crazy things that goes into it, and it just fascinates me that like many big brands can't they don't prioritize it for economic reasons, and it just like makes me admire all of the tall brands so much more for like taking on the challenge and going for it because they believe in it, when so many of these other well funded massive brands don't even don't even try, you know. So yeah, I don't know. I just wanted to share that because I think it's the more that Cale and I have gotten into this industry. We had no idea how anything in the fashion world worked before we started Tall Size. We're learning so much and it's like every week we learned something that just like blows our mind. No, what is like good that you brought that up, because people people definitely need to know about this, especially as you said before these well funded massive brands, you would think that they would have the budget to at least cater some type of like have some type of options for us, but they didn't even want to try. But I'll say some of them try, Like I will say, like it's gotten better. But again, some research we've done and what we've noticed that if they do, they'll do like a thirty four inch and seem max. But that's like that doesn't a very small percentage and when you click on those sixty eight percent of anything thirty four inches and above sixty eight percent of them are sold out. So they might create them, but they don't invest in enough stock to like keep them well stocked for people. So like even if we're like shopping and we find when we're like, oh my god, nine times out of ten and sold out, so it's crazy, Like I think they're Yeah, they're if they're trying. It's like, Okay, let's serve the five foot eight, five foot nines, but anything over that, we're kind of screwed, which is unfortunate. Yeah, but I definitely do commend all of the small brands who are caving the tall women, especially you guys, because going into any type of venture can be it can be scary, especially when you're first getting starting you don't know what you're doing. So I definitely agree with what you said about how they are very courageous and very brave getting into that. But the tall girl community is strong, so we all we all try to feed each other out here. Yeah, and I'm noticing we're loud too, which is really good. Like we'll like I noticed one of the big retailers in the UK next I guess like discontinued their thirty six and above in seams, and there's like a whole like riot going on online right now, and I'm like, nice like that, but that's like that's what needs to happen, which is which is amazing. So no, I think the tall community is incredible. It's grown quite a bit too, I think over just even since we've started a few years ago, which is really nice to see. Now, I want to get into the last question before we end off today's episode. What is one piece of advice that you guys want to give to the tall girls listening right now who are struggling with their self esteem because of their height. For me, I would say, love the body that you're in. This is our one temple. This is the body that we get. It feeds you, it nourishes you, It gives the ability to explore the world, to experience this life. So I would say, try to learn to love it to the rest of your ability, and to be proud of the body that you're in, because I feel like people always say, like the grass is always been on the other side, like, oh, I wish I was shorter, I wish I was taller, Like it's always gonna be someone who has like I wish, I wish, so I would just say, love the body that you're in, take care of the bar that you're in, and appreciate the bar that you're in, because it'll it'll be good to you if be good to it. I like that mine would just be. And this is just from my own experiences, and maybe this is for the younger girls, but just be patient, Like it gets better. Things are getting better, The industry is getting better. You're going to have more options. I even think societally, like things are changing too in terms of like stereotypes around tall women on the dating front, for example, it's becoming more regular now to see men or women taller than men that they're dating or whatever. So I just think things in general are getting better. But also from my own experience, like it might be tougher when you're younger, but as you get older, you start to learn to just like be more comfortable in your skin, and then like being tall is going to be your favorite thing about yourself, so it's going to demand respect and people are going to just give you certain respect because of how tall you are. But no, I actually love that patience. It's so true. Like when you're a teenager, every little, every little thing that happens to you seem so urgent, like the end of the world. And then as you get older, you just start to you're more confident in your body and who you are and just realize like, hey, I'm good, I got this. So I love that. It's patience. I absolutely love it too. Thank you so much for that advice, and thank you so much guys for taking the time to be here today. Please can you like plug yourselves? Where can we find you on the on the interweb? Where can we find you? Guys? So, for Tall Size, our website is Tall Size T A L L S I Z E dot com. We're also same name on Instagram. You can find us on Facebook. Can find us at TikTok at tall size dot com, Tall Size comm t Tall Size comp always do that wrong? And then is anything else? I'm a super size I don't think so. And then for personal if you guys want to follow us along with our journeys, I'm on Instagram at k J A L E X A N forty. You need to work on the handle. Yeah. And for me personally, you can find me on Instagram at Nico Murph with two h's so and I c O m U r p h h oh. Yes we are both on LinkedIn and okay, I'm very active on LinkedIn caleus stepping from a little bit. You guys are reminding me to get on my LinkedIn game too, But don't worry about like the spelling and all that. Everything is going to be linked in the description along with my stuff. You can find me on Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest at a Tall Girls podcast. As I said before, everything is a knew link below and I'm also going to have a link to leave my reviews so you guys can let me know how tall you are because I'm super super curious as per usual. And thank you guys again so so much for joining me today and just talking about your brand and giving us a little bit of insight on the industry. It was just it was really awesome having you guys, and I enjoyed myself too. It was fun. I also want to invite all your listeners just a little plug here. We'll be in many cities across the US and Canada this year for our pop ups, So if you are in or near Austin, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Chicago, Toronto, New York, Atlanta, or Orlando. Make sure you come out. We'd love to meet you guys. We've got like fifteen different brands set up to sell their stuff, so it'll be it's gonna be incredible and you can find more information about that on telsize dot com. There'll be local stylists with fresh brands. It's a good time celebrating with you fellow tell girls awesome. Like I said, it's gonna be linked below and I will catch you guys in the next one. Good Night and goodbye.