From Ideation to Launch: How RACH WILL is Solving Our Tall Girl Fashion Problems ft. Founder Rachel Willingham

[00:00:00] Good morning everybody! You are currently listening to A Tall Girls Podcast, hosted by a tall girl named India. I hope everyone who is tuning in is doing super fantastic. Today we have a very very special guest with us. Her name is Rachel. Hi Rachel! Hi!

[00:00:16] How are you doing today? I'm great. It's so good to be back and chatting with you again. Yes! How long has it been? A year or two years? I just know that time flies.

[00:00:28] Somewhere around there. I think I had just had a baby and I was hiding in a closet talking to you last night so things have changed. It's so great to have you back on for all of the new listeners. Can you please just reintroduce yourself?

[00:00:45] Absolutely! My name is Rachel Willingham. I am a mother of two. I am a multi hyphenate. I have a lot of roles in my life but my primary passion is in the fashion industry. I've had a lot of different roles in fashion.

[00:01:07] I've been a model, I've been a fashion show producer for the past six years and then most recently also a designer. So that's what I spend most of my time doing. And speaking of that, last time we spoke you hadn't launched your brand yet.

[00:01:26] Can you just tell us what inspired you to take the leap and create your own business? Yeah absolutely! So I think when we had last spoken I think I had just gotten a sewing machine

[00:01:38] and I have worked in fashion for so long and I've always digested so much fashion content from historical. I love watching old footage of runways from like the 70s and 80s. I have every textbook and fashion history book under the sun.

[00:01:55] And so I knew I always wanted to but I think it was kind of one of those imposter syndrome things where because I didn't go to fashion school, I think I kind of wrote it off as something I couldn't do.

[00:02:06] But when my brother-in-law got me a sewing machine for Christmas a year and a half ago, three years ago, that was kind of like my green light moment where I'm like why not, why not just try.

[00:02:18] So I taught myself to sew. I took maybe one class at the New York sewing school just to make sure I didn't break my machine and went from there so I started buying fabric. I watched a lot of YouTube videos

[00:02:32] and I pretty quickly started creating pieces for other people. So it's been kind of something that's taken on a life of its own turning it into a full-fledged brand. Honestly, I think that's so nice. Brother or brother-in-law?

[00:02:47] It's my husband's sister's brother so it's simpler to just say brother-in-law. Your brother-in-law is so nice that he bought you a sewing machine and what is the name of your brand again? My brand is Reach Will. To me it has kind of two connotations.

[00:03:06] Obviously it's a play on my full name but it also to me is a power statement. It's sort of like a she-will and that's really, that's been such a kind of guiding light thought in my life

[00:03:20] is why not just do it? So that's how I came up with the name Reach Will. Exactly. Reach Will and Reach did. Yes! Oh I love that. And you know reading up on your brand, I love that Reach Will is especially mindful of tall women

[00:03:40] and I just wanted to ask like what specific problem are you aiming to solve with your new brand specifically for tall women and how did you identify this need and what makes you so passionate about addressing it?

[00:03:57] Yeah I think you know the first thing is that I know that tall women and girls I can't speak for everybody but I know what I experienced was sort of feeling like the world isn't quite made for us right

[00:04:09] and that plays out in a lot of different places and fashion is one of them. Unless you are shopping in a tall specific store or on a you know tall specific website

[00:04:20] you kind of just have to cross your fingers that what you're trying on might work for you in terms of torso length, hem length, what have you you know inseam.

[00:04:30] So when I started sewing for myself obviously you know if I want to make a little cute summer dress I'm going to make it long enough that I can pick up my kids you know I can pick something up off the ground

[00:04:43] and I'm not flashing everybody so I think we all know the pain of trying on a brand that like that is such a cute brand like look at that cute dress like cute skirt

[00:04:51] and it's like this long and it fits like it's a wide belt on us or it fits like it's a shirt on us right so I really wanted to make clothes that are fun and flirty and really for women who don't want to take themselves too seriously

[00:05:06] and don't want to dress homely you know and I think one of the biggest pain points is that some of those brands that are out there the more established brands that are for tall women can have a little bit of a matronly feel right

[00:05:21] they can be either really basic or they can feel a little bit like they're geared towards older women and so what I want to do with my brand is to create clothes that are really joy inducing

[00:05:33] it's kind of the term that keeps coming back to me you know bright prints, bright colors lots of movement not taking ourselves too seriously and just having fun with fashion so that's where I kind of see it fitting in the market

[00:05:47] that's what I've heard a lot of people describe those types of clothing so I think that it's really nice that you are aiming to make clothes that are joy inducing fun and flirty

[00:05:58] yeah and you know it's funny because when you look at it from just an industry perspective like I said you have to go on these websites or you have to go

[00:06:09] I mean there are obviously major major brands that have tall versions of pieces like Abercrombie and Old Navy and some of these big box stores but I think my goal is to be one of the first if not the first brand

[00:06:24] that would be carried by a Nordstrom or a Neiman Marcus or you know somewhere where it's a little more accessible you know in major cities but it's also treated as an upscale brand

[00:06:37] right and not necessarily in terms of a price point but just in the setting where you can actually find it right yeah that honestly is cool and it would be nice if I did happen to see one of your pieces in Nordstrom

[00:06:53] I mean that's my ultimate goal being from Seattle and Nordstrom being such a landmark brand in the city I think that's sort of like the Mecca gold dream for me someday

[00:07:04] yeah and I also want to know like what challenges did you face in designing and creating these pieces that fit taller women and can you also speak about how you overcame them

[00:07:20] so you know and this is something that is also faced in the fight for size diversity in fashion in terms of you know plus size as well is that one of the biggest challenges is that it's really hard to find dress forms

[00:07:34] that go way outside of what the typical standard sample size is right so you know a normal the most common dress forms that you're going to find for a designer who's working on it

[00:07:46] and dress form is you know like the mannequin that you actually are pinning the clothes on as you piece them together sample size in the industry is like a 2-4 or 0-4 and that also does not accommodate a much longer torso

[00:08:00] and you know so I think that's the biggest hurdle and I know that from working with other designers when I've asked them about size inclusivity in their designs they also expressed well tough part is that once you develop patterns in certain sizes

[00:08:16] you kind of have a library of sorts of these patterns so while I think it might be a little bit of a cop out to say well I've already developed all these templates it's so much work for me to develop new templates and wider sizes

[00:08:30] I think it's again I think it's lazy so my goal is to develop right off the bat a wide array of sizes that addresses those and make sure that I'm getting more creative in terms of developing a wide range of patterns

[00:08:49] that address longer torsos longer inseams so that it's not like a well I've already built my business based on this small portion of the population if that makes sense yeah it does and you did speak a little bit about that actually in your previous answer

[00:09:09] but can you talk about just a little bit about your process of how you are bringing these pieces to life yeah the easiest thing to do when you're learning is to use yourself as your model obviously so as a 6 foot 1 woman

[00:09:28] all of my patterns and everything that I've designed has been technically for tall women as I've been the model and but it's also kind of changed as I've learned one of the easiest ways to learn how to sew is obviously to find patterns that you follow

[00:09:44] and you find step by step instructions whether it's tutorials Etsy has a lot of people who will sell patterns that have accompanying videos so that's where I started I started with kind of downloading the simplest patterns just learning how to make the seams work

[00:09:59] what's the style to work to use you know depending on the fabric and all of that and then what I've started doing is I have two different dress forms that I work off of

[00:10:09] one is actually a size 16 because I really do want to be size inclusive with what my samples are and then one is an adjustable dress form where you can actually make the torso longer as needed you can expand it in the areas where you need to

[00:10:26] so you can make the bust wider you can make the hips wider the waist wider with I mean on an isolated basis so you can really make the dress form fit to whoever you're designing for so that's been really helpful and it's really required me to learn

[00:10:40] how to adapt to whatever the size is that I'm creating that specific garment in this is actually really cool like an adjustable dress I mean I'm pretty sure that they have those around but it's not as calm as you would think

[00:10:59] so I honestly think that that's really cool and what types of pieces are you selling exactly so a lot of what I've done so far I've done custom pieces for people I've done a lot of custom dresses I'm working on some custom P coats right now

[00:11:18] yeah which is kind of cool because that's something that people wear so much of the time that it's really fun for them to be able to pick out their own fabric for the outer layer and their own lining completely custom and I really because I'm newer to it

[00:11:33] I'm charging a very very reasonable price you know so it's kind of cool for my friends and family to be able to place orders with me for these custom pieces

[00:11:44] and ideally I'd like to you know I see this being something I want to do for the rest of my life and I see it scaling to having all kinds of different pieces but for now most of what I've made so far

[00:11:57] are dresses, jumpsuits and then some sets like shirts with skirt matching pieces yes and in my opinion just in my opinion those are probably the pieces that us tall women struggle with the most so that is actually really cool and you are in pre-launch mode right now

[00:12:22] so with that kicking off what are your hopes for the future of Rach Will what are your hopes for this pre-launch era that you're in right now are there any exciting plans that we should look forward to?

[00:12:39] yeah I actually have a couple of very large very distinctly different projects that are underway right now to your point I'm in pre-launch mode when it comes to creating a capsule collection

[00:12:51] it could really be something that I can create so that wholesale buyers can purchase my line and sell them in their boutiques so right now I'm actually doing a Kickstarter campaign you know a lot of people are launching their brands on Kickstarter across a bunch of different industries

[00:13:10] and I've seen a lot of fashion brands be very successful with it what it's allowed me to do is set a goal for fundraising in this first round that is completely based on the cost of materials it'll take to mass produce

[00:13:23] and I say mass but it's really just creating a capsule collection it's six distinct pieces and then I would be doing it in five different sizes for each of those so it's a total of 60 pieces that I'm developing for this first capsule collection

[00:13:38] and Kickstarter makes it really cool because you can create incentives for the people that back your brand so they can pre-purchase items from the collection so they basically put down a certain amount towards your to contribute to your brand

[00:13:54] and then they can get either one or two pieces from the collection once it launches they can get an additional you know reward of a tote bag that's branded Rachel they can get a fashion print based on how much they contribute

[00:14:07] so it makes it something where you're not just asking for a donation you're actually kind of you're building your customer base and a loyalty right off the bat which is exciting so I have that running that campaign is running until the 24th of July

[00:14:23] so I have a couple more weeks to hit my goal and we're about 20% funded so still have some big goals to hit but very excited about that and then the other big project I'm working on is actually my first runway show

[00:14:38] for New York Fashion Week which will be on August 31st in New York City I won't say too much except that I'm doing a very limited 10 piece denim upcycled collection so every single piece is made from recycled denim that I have had donated to me

[00:14:56] from the community that I live in so two very distinct projects that I'm working on right now but lots in the works wait no I'm actually so excited especially with New York Fashion Week that's obviously a big thing in the fashion world

[00:15:10] and you know what I'm gonna say right now I hope I see your stuff in the news that's all I can say oh thank you oh my gosh I mean one baby step at a time I'm just focusing on like just making the pieces

[00:15:23] I'm collaborating with a really talented artist who I frankly kind of had a fan girl moment being asked to collaborate with with him again I don't want to say too much because I think there's a lot of

[00:15:36] you know there's I want to have that wow factor on the day of the show but I'm definitely hoping that it builds some excitement for the brand overall honestly good luck and I am really honestly all of us all of us listening to are rooting for you

[00:15:52] and of course I always have to end my episodes with this question what is one piece of advice that you want to get to the tall girls listening right now who are struggling with their self-esteem because of their height oh man you know it's such a personal journey

[00:16:13] that we all have in accepting it and I think a lot of us have had that moment where we wish that we could change it and I think the piece of advice would be

[00:16:24] to find a space where you feel it is your superpower whether it is a sport whether it is modeling whether it is whatever it is find the place where you feel powerful and where you feel yourself standing

[00:16:39] taller because that's something that you should definitely latch on to and and harness oh my gosh that was so nice I'm gonna say also for because you were talking about finding your place where it's your superpower podcasting is also an option too

[00:16:56] hey podcasting no it's true and creating community amongst people who are able to relate to something that is a shared struggle or a shared experience that is a gift it is a superpower and it is very important

[00:17:14] and so I applaud you for the community that you've put together I know it matters to each and every one of us who listen week after week and feel like we've found our people and we found a community where we completely feel understood

[00:17:28] and that's really important so I applaud you for that thank you so much I really do appreciate that I really appreciate you especially for coming on and talking about your journey I think you're probably the first brand that's like completely in pre-launch mode that came on this episode

[00:17:47] so we need updates on your journey absolutely I'll be sharing you can definitely tune in on my Instagram I've been posting little periodic updates on how the how my pre-launch fundraising has been going so you can tune in there yeah please plug yourself website socials everything

[00:18:07] oh yeah I'm fine yeah well my website just went live it's just reach will dot com so our a c h w i l l dot com and then my Instagram is reach will design so spelled the same R a c h w i l l design

[00:18:26] yeah that's where that's that's the heart and soul of everything that's happening online so any updates will be posted there awesome and I cannot wait to keep up with that everything is going to be linked in the description

[00:18:38] and of course I'm going to take a moment to plug myself at tall girls podcast Instagram TikTok Pinterest you'll get all of the updates on the newest episodes and of course I'm going to be reposting all of Rachel's updates as well

[00:18:54] because I'm actually excited to see what comes out of this this is so cool and thank you again so much Rachel for coming on here and just share a little bit about your journey yeah I appreciate you so much for having me thank you

[00:19:10] thank you and thank you listeners for tuning in this week and I'll catch you on the next one good night and goodbye