How To Build The Perfect Capsule Wardrobe As A Tall Girl ft. Whitney Jennings Founder of Whitney Allysyn

Good morning everybody. You are currently listening to a tall Girls podcast hosted by a tall girl named India. I hope everyone who's tuning in today is doing super fantastic. We have a very very very very special guest with us. Her name is Whitney. Oh my gosh, Hi Whitney, Hi India, how are you doing today? I'm great, I'm great. Thank you for having me. That is so good to hear. Thank you for being here with me so early on a Sunday morning, especially the top of the week. I'm sure we would love to be in bed, but hey, we gotta do what we gotta do. You know what, we gotta talk. We gotta talk about fashion. We do any day of the week exactly twenty four, seventh through sixty five, tall fashion period. So just take a moment to introduce yourself to the audience. Hi. I am Whitney Jennings. I am the founder and creative director of Whitney Allison, a tall woman square collection, and we're based in New Jersey, just outside of New York City. And I am five foot nine inches tall, all arms and legs. I felt the all arms and legs part. I'm not gonna lie to you. I would say that there's three reasons that people are a tall, long neck, long torso, and long legs, and yes, both of us with the long legs. So I want to hear about your experience as a tall girl, the good, the bad, the ugly. What was it like for you? Well, I was. I don't think I really realized I was tall until middle school when it was clear that I was taller than the boys and then taller than my mother. I was an athlete, I was a dancer. I was a gymnast, and by the time I was thirteen fourteen, I had to reevaluate my athletic career because as a gymnast, you know, on the uneven parallel bars, they would raise them as high as they could go, they would widen them as wide as they could go, and my feet were still touching the floor and touching the sides of the bars. So I had to had to hang that up and find a new sport. But growing up tall was it was always a fashion issue. My feet grew so fast. But I think by the time I was twelve, I was wearing a size eleven shoe, So that was, you know, a struggle trying to find shoes that were young looking but in my size, so you know, the struggle started early. I felt that also, it was just so interesting that you're saying that you were a gymnast, because I don't know, I feel like that's like one of the very few sports that I feel like would actually have high caps. I was watching a TV show. It's not a reality show. It's called Make It or Break It, ever, and one of the gymnasts ended up actually because she got injured, and oh my gosh, let me know if you guys like know about that TV show, but one of the gymnasts, she ended up getting injured, so she had to take time off to rest and heal, and she ended up growing like three inches in the process, and that they had to change like her entire routine, her entire strategy in order to because the whole point was to go to the Olympics, so the whole time strategy in order to get there. And I was that genuinely like made me wonder how tall do gymnasts have to be or how short do they have to be in order to succeed? But you know what I mean, sport, it's a short girl's sport for sure. I think one of the taller gymnasts was like five six, and you know she was right exactly, that's a tall gymnast. Oh, that is interesting, but it also makes sense what you said with the with the what did you say the bars even parallel bars, Yeah, even parallel bars and the other I know they have like three other things, but that's not the top of my head. Yeah, vault bars being floor those were and so vault was easy for me, like you don't, height doesn't matter with vault was fun. That was my favorite. But when it came to the bar and then floor, of course, you know, the sky's the limit with floor, but the bars was they only make them so high and so wide. That is interesting though, But I do want to ask what was something involving your height? It could be a question, it could be a comment. What was something involving your height that you absolutely hated hearing where's the flood? That was the number one thing. And middle school was a little bit traumatic in that sense because you know, it was the nineties. We were wearing wide leg jeans and my mother was not worried about like she was like if if it's at your waist and you can zip them, up and you can button them. Uh, those pants fit, so they were you know, a few inches higher than maybe they should have been, or you know what it looked like on everybody else. But you know, it's always that one kid that shouldn't be making fun of anybody, asking where's the flood and you know, poking fun at my short pants. You know, I was gonna say that's a first, but I don't think that's a first, because I think there was another one too, because you were talking about the nineties and I had another guest, her name is Karina, she also experienced that too. That's yeah, it's because of you said that the jeans the pants were extra few inches shorter. Yep, yep, Okay, I get it out. Yeah, it always happens in middle school. Tool that's the that's the other thing. It always yes the middle school. But that's why so many people don't like me middle school. They're like, I had much more fun in high school. I loved middle school. But you know, with the exception of the you know, sometimes taunting. But that's probably why people hate middle school, because middle schoolers are mean. They're actually ruthless at such a young age too. It's crazy. I used to teach middle school math and science. And they're ruthless is the exact word. They're ruthless to each other, to teachers, to that they have no they no chill, zero, no chill. So you did mention earlier in your introduction that you had a brand. Can you tell us a little bit more about it, Like, what is your mission? What? What do you sell? Stuff like that? Yeah, so our mission at Whitney Allison is to help tall women dress the way they're meant to dress without compromise. So you know, it's not it's not a luxury for us to walk into a store and find pants that are long enough for us, or find blazers and tops that are long enough for our arms. And you know, shorter people, average type people, I think, take that for granted that they can just waltz into a store and pick up something real quick. They don't. It's not something they have to really plan for. But tall women have to think about that much more than I think the average type person does. So at Whitney Allison, we're trying to reduce that friction of shopping for clothes that are not only high quality, but are have style in mind, have a lot of thought behind how we present ourselves because we're not just like everybody else. Tall women are not like everybody else, and that's a great thing. So Whitney Allison hopes to be part of the space where tall women can be themselves without compromise and be able to enjoy who they are as they are. Oh my gosh, I absolutely love that. And I can't help but notice, like, are those like pictures that like some of your projects behind you? Yeah, yeah, this is my This is my working mood board and sketchboard and kind of where I put all the things together. And you know this, this is a good representation of the process of creating the collection. That is so cool. And I also understand that one of the main themes of your business is like building that capsule wardrobe. Why why do you think that that is important, especially for like tall people to have a capsule wardrobe? Like, can you talk also about how your brand approach is building a wardrobe that you know is sustainable, can last a long time, but also flatter you know, our tall body types. Yeah, so my philosophy is that you really only need like seven types of pieces in your wardrobe to create that capsule wardrobe that stands the test of time and that you can mix and match and create you know, endless outfits with. And that's a blouse, a blazer, a body suit, pants, a dress, a skirt, and a jumpsuit. And I do put the bodysuit in the jumpsuit in kind of the extra category, but they just I love one piece dressing. I love being able to just put on one piece of clothes, some shoes and be out the door. So having that versatility, those options to be able to do that with these seven pieces is really what It's what I've been curating for myself over the last you know, decade or so, and I've really found that it's helped me be more sustainable and not contributing to the problem that fashion has on the planet. I feel like it's easy to kind of fall into the whole fashion type of situation, especially with like the rise of social media and seeing all of these trends, especially fashion trends, and you know, especially like as a tall person, it could be hard to follow those trends because you know, it's not easy for us to just walk into a store and just easily find a pair of pants or easily find a shirt, so that somehow gets us into this cycle of purchasing who it doesn't fit, purchasing clothes again and hope for the fitting, and it just keeps going on and on and on and on. Well, not only is it a waste of money, it's also a waste of time and it hurts the environment too. So I think that it's great to hear that you know, you're helping tull them and build a capsule wardrobe that will last them a long time and that will ultimately like help them in the long run. And it's the difference between you know, going into a fast fashion store and spending one hundred dollars versus you know, waiting maybe another month and saving up for two hundred or three hundred dollars and buying that one buying one solid piece that's that fits you properly and is going to last you way longer than any of those pieces that you bought, you know, that hole that you got for one hundred dollars. So it's it's a mindset shift that we kind of have to overcome in this fast fashion world. Yeah, and it also helps with decision fatigue as well, because we can only make so many decisions in the day before we get burnt out. So having like a smaller wardrobe and just having to think less about oh, what should I wear today is also very helpful in our day to day. Right, I wanted to also ask, like, how does your brand embrace low fashion principles while also catering to the needs of tall women. This could be like the manufacturing process, this could be the ideation, like how does that work? So, you know, aside from taking my time and researching and talking to tall women, like having actual conversations with tall women and really trying to understand their pain points, one of the things that's really important. So as I'm developing these seven pieces, I've developed four of them so far, and the idea is that with these seven pieces, with these four pieces, now with the seven pieces, eventually I'm helping reduce resources, you know, the amount of resources that it takes to go to create these clothes by taking my patterns, changing the fabrication, and reusing the patterns year after year after year. Because it's also because the pieces are so classic, they're timeless. You can wear them today, you should be able to wear them in ten years because they fit. Because of the fit because of the styling, the ideas that by changing the fabrication, it's almost like a new, you know, completely new garment. This is not a new thing in fashion. It's not revolutionary. Brands do this all the time. You know. One of my one of the brands I look up to, Veronica Beard. They have a their their classic blazer. They change the fabric every single season and offer it. So you know, this is not a new idea, but it is a way to help women look polished, to be predictable, but also give them options year after year after year that they can rely on. First of all, first I would like to say that I also like, you know, the fact that you actually conduct the market research. I'm not saying that you know brands don't do this, because there are some that do. But I also like, especially like the bigger brands, they just don't really invest the time to actually sit down with their customers, to sit down with their target audience and actually try to figure out their pain points in relationship to their clothing. And I also wanted to ask, like a follow up, you said that you want to create seven pieces, you only had four. What are the seven pieces that you want to create? And which of those are the four that you currently have. So the seven pieces are the seven that I mentioned. As far as building your capsule wardrobe, that's exactly what we're creating here. So right now we've created the blazer, which I wanted to make sure. Creating the blazer was probably the most difficult piece, just because of the shape, the construction, getting the fit right. Blazers are not easy, so I wanted to get the hardest thing out of the way first. So we have the blazer, we have a pair of pants and the last of drawstring waste. You know, coming out of the pandemic, women were just we were not we were not ready for the tight clothes, and that still kind of holds true. We've come to value comfort over other things. You know, comfort has risen to the top of our list. Being chic, of course, being fabulous, being stylish, yes, but if it's not comfortable, you know what's We only have one life, Why why live uncomfortably? Exactly? And then our jumpsuit. And I wanted to offer the jumpsuit as one of the first pieces, just because jumpsuits are so hard to find for us, so I wanted women to have another option. And then our skirt is developed, so you know, we're taking pre orders for the skirt in our in our vegan leather fabrication. But then the next pieces would be our button down blouse, which is nearly perfected. That's what I have on now and thanks, and then our dress would be next. Again. One piece dressing is so important to me to be able to just reach in your closet, put it on, be out the door because I am not a morning person. So the less I have to do in the morning, better the better. And then finally the body suit. The things that I've heard tall women have to do to make bodysuits work for them, the bodysuit struggle is not mine. I have a you know, average hype person's torso you know, sitting my mother was about five to five, and sitting next to her, she was taller than me. But then when I stand up, my leg took over and you know, towering over her. But the things that women do to make body suits that they buy in stores fit them, I was shocked and appalled at you know them with their sewing, kids, adding fabric, adding cooks and eyes, like, we should not have to live like that. Yeah, so I am working on developing a bodysuit that accommodates the longer tourso and that's easy to put on and take off and use and where, and it's also fabulous. That is amazing to hear Whitney. Thank you so much for sharing all of that. And I do want to ask this final question of the episode, and that is, what is one piece of advice that you want to give to the tall girls who are listening right now, who are also struggling with their self esteem because of their height. I would say, find your tribe. I think that was kind of my saving grace, you know, going finishing middle school and moving into high school. I think the first thing was I middle school to high school. I did not go to middle school and high school with the same people. I had to switch because of where we lived and this and that, and my parents are like, no, you're gonna go to the high school that's across the street where none of my middle school friends went. So, you know, that transition was hard. And then you know, not knowing anybody was difficult. Being the tall girl at the back of the classroom who was just by herself for those first you know, a few weeks of school was very difficult. But as soon as I started playing volleyball and met girls who were my height and taller, it was like, oh, I'm not the only one. I think. That's the hard thing to realize is that you're never the only one like it may feel like it sometimes, but once you find your tribe, that stick with them. And so even in adulthood, I've always the older I get. I'm still I still gravitate toward taller women. I live in New Jersey, you know, near New York, and over the last couple of years, I started a tall women's meetup group. And again it's it's trying to cultivate a tribe and help tall women to come to give give tall women a reason to come together, so that you know, we could I love just walking down the street, you know, with a bunch of tall women and the heads are turning. Yes. Absolutely, we're tall and we're beautiful, and it's we can see over crowds and we can reach things up high. We don't have to ask for help. You know, that's empowering. So when you can do that in a pack, that's even more empowering. So it multiplies. Yes, Yes, so I would say sign your tribe for sure. Thank you so so much for that advice. Thank you so so much for joining me today in this episode. Where where can we find you? Where can we find your brand on the interweb? Like, where where can we find you? Yeah? So you can find us at our website Whitney Allison dot com. That's Whitney traditional spelling Alison A L L Y S y N dot com. My parents got a little creative with that one. We're on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok at Whitney Allison and also I'm Pinterest at Whitney Allison's. It'll be linked to below so that it'll be easy for you guys and just click on and head on over there after this episode. And I'm just going to take a moment to shout out myself. You can find me at a Tall Girls podcast, Instagram, and TikTok, Pinterest. That's also the website. You just do a quick Google search and I'm sure will come out at some point. And thank you again so much Whitney for joining us today. It was honestly a pleasure to have you here. Thank you so much. I appreciate it, and thank you so much audience for tuning in If you have any questions for us, have any questions for Whitney, make sure you hit us up. Like I said, all of our information is going to be linked below. And yeah, I'll catch you guys into the next one. Good night and goodbye.