Speaker: 00:00:00

Hi and welcome back.

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I'm Emily Benson, host of the Booster Boutique podcast.

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And today I'm gonna introduce you to someone who is not only moving the plus size fashion

space forward, she's also showing us how to lead with heart, style, and strategy.

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Tracy Christian is the founder of Sante Grace.

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Her background is in the entertainment industry, but that's the cool part is that being in

the entertainment industry as a plus size woman,

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She found out she had nothing to wear ever to like the Oscars.

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Turns out other women had this problem too.

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So she set out to create style for plus size women that look chic.

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In today's conversation, we're gonna dive deep into how she started.

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What really was the motivation behind starting her own clothing brand?

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And some of the hurdles she's faced creating a brand that's inclusive.

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of a lot of different body shapes.

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you're a boutique owner, a brand builder, or someone who cares about getting into the plus

size fashion space, this episode is for you.

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So let's dive in.

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Here's the thing.

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I want to talk about you and talk about what you've been doing in LA because I think,

number one, more people need to understand that there are amazing women like you out there

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trying to change the status quo.

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for clothing, fashion in general, like boutique owners.

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I mean, I think it's like sort of across the spectrum.

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But I would say that like for you, more than other people I've ever met, you really

developed Sante Grace out of your need.

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Not just like, I wanna have nice clothes.

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You were like, I literally am wearing paper bags right now.

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Like what is going on?

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there is actually nothing for me.

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Like how many years do you feel like you spent just being?

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Like, are you joking so frustrated?

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More than 10 years, more than a decade.

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It's a long time.

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I mean, where were you even shopping for clothes or were you not?

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You were really trying to make your own clothes from the beginning.

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So, Bloomingdale's, I had a hodgepodge, right?

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I make a gumbo, an Irish stew, if you will.

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could always get, like, Lane Bryant was always reliable for undies.

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And then I would go to

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Spanx for leggings.

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They had really good leggings there.

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They came in a 2x 3x that fit well and then ASOS you could get like a derivation of

whatever was in style at the moment like a watered down.

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right I feel like ASOS is the one that you could really that's where I knew I could always

get fashion clothes.

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Yeah, ASOS.

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For a while.

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I shopped so much at ASOS.

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A weird thing happened, like I met a friend who had some kind of executive position there.

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I shopped so much at ASOS, I had an automatic discount at ASOS.

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That's actually wild.

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Yes.

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So ASOS, Bloomingdale.com.

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Then I would buy handbags at Barney's.

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yeah, so that was pretty much the...

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and then look, it's Los Angeles, right?

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LA gets hot.

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So there's a very fast fashion store called Rainbow.

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So during the summer, sundresses, I would buy sundresses at Rainbow because, you know,

those didn't need to be rainbow designers or whatever.

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I knew I could like zhush them up.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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It was horrible.

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was horrible.

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It was horrible.

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I mean, I remember shopping at Rainbow in New York and you could just get some stuff for

like 15 bucks.

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I mean, it was really very much like discount.

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Pricing but also not the best clothes.

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I mean, I feel like it was where you went for like your night out random shirt You need

that right now Not anything that was worth keeping no and nothing lasted just entering

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this conversation with you.

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I like I'm not manifesting it, but I'm crying like that it was Horrible, it was horrible,

you know Yeah, being a young person and being in business you modeled

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who your boss is.

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You're like, okay, that's success.

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That's the district manager or whatever.

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Right?

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could never get, I was never going to be successful because I could never look like that

person.

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It didn't matter.

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That's frustrating.

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Right.

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didn't.

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That's only demoralizing too, honestly too.

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It didn't matter how much I made, how well I produced.

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And I think probably in every business or every office, certain things become in style.

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Right?

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In my industry, remember we all had our Neverfull bags or we had our, I forget if it was

Balenciaga, the city bag or whatever it was.

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Yeah, there was a Balenciaga bag.

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I feel like there was a Marc Jacobs bag at one point that was like that big hobo tote that

everyone had.

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I mean, we ran in the same level of people where it's like fashion, music, art, kind of,

you know, all in the same, yeah.

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I mean, I like it.

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I like in your story when you tell your story, talking about how you were interviewing and

you said, please stop calling me back for more interviews.

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It's obviously before like zoom interviews, but you were like, I have no more suits left.

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Like I don't have more to wear.

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So please stop interviewing me.

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I'm like, it was a joke.

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No, no, that was UTA.

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One of the biggest agencies in the world, in the world.

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Okay.

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My little black girl self from the projects of Newark, New Jersey.

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I have worked hard, I've done all the things, and now I'm meeting with the partners at UTA

about them bringing me aboard as an agent.

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And literally had to say to them, yeah, and this was before Zoom.

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So I'm walking in a room.

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You guys are going to have to stop calling me in for interviews.

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If there's another partner that wants to meet me, they have they should come in.

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I'm out of suits.

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I'm out.

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Gone.

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No more.

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There's no more.

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mean that's that's the honest no well and that's the honest truth of being a plus-size

woman especially 10 years ago 20 years ago yeah that was the truth of it is there was 18

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20 right not even like not even a 30 year no like we're not talking barely average 28 30

now I'm like a 4x 5x but no no no

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I was a 2X, 3X, no more.

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this is it.

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This is all you get.

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This is all you get.

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Yeah.

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I mean, I think that at the end of the day, the fact that the opportunities in your life

are limited because of the access to clothing you have is pretty wild to think about.

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I mean, we know that there's obviously like ways that people will get marginalized out of

certain places and jobs.

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But to think that like you don't have the clothes to wear for the job that is not like

women need to wear suits in lots of jobs.

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Like it's not even just in being an agent.

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But I think for you that trauma and I'll call it trauma because it is that trauma you've

taken that and made a different, you're trying to make a different future for.

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women coming up behind you.

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And I think that's where you're like, you know what, I'm going to take this pain and like

turn it into something.

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It was so bad.

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Um, occasionally you like, you'll put a client on a new television series or on a feature

film and you can go visit your client.

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Like, they're shooting, you know, the new, um, Godzilla movie in New Zealand.

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Sure.

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And that client is making, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars.

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for the agency, okay, yeah, go visit them.

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Yes, go visit them.

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And I would be dreading it.

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What am I going to wear?

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Right?

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I've got to wear something where, number one, my client feels like, yeah, that's my agent.

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Let me introduce my agent to everyone.

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She looks professional and stylish and comfortable in her own skin and all of that.

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Number two, oh dear God, the weather is warm.

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How am I gonna do all of that and I can't, right?

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I can't like, my God, there are gonna be other agents and managers there.

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They're all gonna be wearing XYZ, right?

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The to a degree people recognize and they're gonna look put together and tucked in.

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And I'm gonna be wearing my sundress from Rainbow.

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Is that what I'm wearing?

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Right, right.

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Probably, that's not good.

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And I don't care what people say.

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We respond, like before you know anybody, you're walking down the street, you see the

person and you have a response.

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Okay, am I gonna, is this scary?

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Does this person look scary to me?

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Do they, right?

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What do I recognize?

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Yeah.

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Right.

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And does this person like look respectable?

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Does this person look like an agent or a manager who's doing millions, dollars?

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Is this person my equal?

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Is this person my Is this person my equal?

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Right?

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And I'd already kind of created a character for myself like, I'm different.

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Everybody else is wearing a suit.

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I'm wearing a leather jacket.

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I'm downtown.

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But at a certain point, you just got to elevate.

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And then age too.

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When you're in your 20s, early 30s, whatever, people know that you're working hard.

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You have a lot of money, whatever.

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I'm at a certain point where, come on, girl, if you want me to stay with you, if you want

me to do business with you, get it together.

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walk the walk, talk the talk, look the part.

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It just is what it is.

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If you can't get your own life together and your own look together, what makes me think

that you could do that for me?

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Harvey Weinstein always looked like, you know, a pig and whatever he was wearing, Brioni.

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It does, it does matter.

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Right, right.

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Yeah.

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I want to transition into like, okay, so all of this really made you so aware of what was

available in the marketplace, what wasn't available.

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And you were in LA.

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So at what point did you become aware of what the opportunity was in LA to either work

with a small seamstress or at what point were you like, wait a minute, maybe I could kind

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of fix this problem.

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When did that start to happen for you?

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As my career was accelerating, knew this is not, I don't have time.

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You know, they always say billionaires have a uniform because they don't have time to

think about.

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I came to the same conclusion.

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I was not a billionaire, but I came to the same conclusion and I thought, okay, here's a

look that I I like a fitted, you know, I got at the time I had kind of a narrow waist and

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a big butt.

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And I thought, okay, I like a pencil skirt and I can wear cashmere twin set.

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I can wear fitted uh polo shirt.

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Like, know, like this will be a good look for me.

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And like a leather jacket.

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Okay, so that'll be my look.

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could not find the skirts, know that they didn't exist.

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But I also knew I knew how to make pencil skirts.

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So I made my own pattern.

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I went down to a fabric store called Michael Levine in downtown LA.

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And I was looking around at different fabrics.

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And, you know, as we talked about before, I'd worked for a converter before.

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So I knew I had a little bit of fiber and textile knowledge.

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So I started making, you know, these skirts.

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And the top was smaller.

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So I could still buy the prestige stuff from the store.

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Barely fit, but I get myself in there.

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oh Figure it out.

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stretch it out a little.

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I'm dieting to fit into clothes now.

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Dieting to fit into clothes.

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And how stupid is that?

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So, uh, but one day I was at Michael Levine, I was buying some fabric and there was this

young lady standing next to me and we struck up a conversation.

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She said she was seamstress.

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And so.

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I just tried her out and I would pull things out of Harper's Bazaar that I had, you know,

for 10 years, because I like clothes and I'd say, okay, let's do this, but let's change

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this to a Peter Pan collar and this and that.

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I would go, there's a um vintage store here called Decades or there was another one called

Cat.

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I can't remember exactly what it was, but I remember I found a vintage Vivian Westwood

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jacket like a hunting jacket or something.

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oh It was so intricate.

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Then I said, I'm going to stop doing clothes that just look like the clothes in these

magazines and we're going to actually make these clothes.

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And Cassana, who had very high, you know, she was a great seamstress and she was up for

the challenge.

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She said, great.

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then I would go to Decades and I would buy

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these designer clothes that did not fit me and were never going to fit me.

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But most of them, a lot of them, I won't say most, a lot of them, especially like Vivian

Westwood was with the tailoring, were so well made that now my clothes, my wardrobe,

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boosted another level.

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Because even without training, we can spot a great suit.

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We can spot, you know, a well-made jacket or a handmade this or that.

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So now people are approaching me and saying, what, you know, oh, Tracy's really

fashionable.

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Where'd you get, you know, like little size six weeks.

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you take, so you had, right.

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So you had the Vivian Westwood jacket.

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You brought it to your scene stress and she would basically size it up or would she

totally recreate it for you?

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She would grade it up and not that I should be, should be changing anything that Vivian

Westwood constructs.

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But I knew certain, no, no, sure, sure.

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Certain silhouettes needed to be changed for my figure or what have you.

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So I'd make whatever amendments.

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Yeah.

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Right.

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And besides that, we have a Muslim.

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She makes a Muslim.

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I try it on.

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OK, the peplum doesn't look great on me.

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So the peplum does kind of, you know, whatever.

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Right.

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So so then I would take these designer.

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I would take a vintage Halston, you know, ultra suede coat dress and say, OK.

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I want to do this coat dress, however, this is going to be very pimpish.

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I want you to put this vent in the back." And she would be like, what?

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And then we graduated to finding my own style.

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Instead of just recreating what they had already made, then it became Tracy's designs.

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And I don't sketch really well.

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So literally, I would have to be like, this collar.

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with a three quarters sleeve with a this, you know, almost like fashion by Legos.

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Do you remember?

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Yeah.

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um Like paper dolls.

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They weren't even paper dolls.

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When we were little girls, you'd have color forms.

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The sticky ones.

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Yeah.

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You put things together.

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Those were my favorite things ever.

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In the right.

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then we would create a whole different line.

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So then once I started getting compliments, instead of just looking the part,

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I was creating fashion now and I started getting compliments from people like Andrew

White, who was a big agent at William Morris and then became a stylist and, know, June

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Ambrose and, you know, people like that, Kelly Coutron, whatever.

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But I thought, okay, I might not look like such a schmuck.

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I might, you know, actually be onto something here, onto something and well turned out.

259

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So then I wanted a clothing line, just, you know, clothing lines are like, why don't I

open a caviar restaurant?

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It's so inexpensive.

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Well, I mean, at the time, you know, I think that a lot of people that are opening today

their business, especially like an online boutique, honest to God, they just don't realize

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how easy it is now.

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They're over complicating it.

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I mean, the in 2014, when I launched online, it was the most complicated system.

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The pictures weren't good.

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We weren't using our phones as cameras yet because the cameras weren't that good.

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I mean, it's just in 10 years, in 12 years, the speed at which we're able to have a

business on the internet is insanely different.

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And so I think that's part of it too, is like technology has moved faster.

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And, you know, it's almost like you went to fashion grad school, kind of like testing this

stuff out and...

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doing it on your own.

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Like you developed like your, you know, your thesis collection basically like for

yourself, right?

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Like learning as you go.

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And then really COVID hit and that's, that's where you started to say, you know what,

like, let me figure out how to make this a thing, make this a business.

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Yeah.

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I mean, if you, if I had turned my camera, which I won't do because I have so many things

plugged into it over here as a bookcase and it's lined with marketing, e-commerce.

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fashion for profit, small business start books, books, books.

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And these are books that I have been reading for, you know, 15, 20 years.

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It was always in the back of my head, but financially I couldn't swing it.

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Time wise, I couldn't swing it.

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Cause to your point, back in the day, you had to hire something called a webmaster who

would create your website for you.

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Right.

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And then you had to,

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And it was in every bank, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, you had to find a bank who

would actually link to your account and accept credit card payment.

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And that was no easy task.

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And then like Emily said, we didn't have these phones were flip things.

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They didn't have cameras on them, which meant you had to hire a photographer and models

and fabric and production and

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Is the webmaster the one uploading the stuff on the website?

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then how do people find the word description?

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Oh my gosh.

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I remember some of the, remember Google starting.

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How does the person find your website?

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Then back in the day people are complaining about, well, and that's the thing people

complaining about the Facebook algorithm.

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I'm like, girly, like we didn't have Facebook, like even in 2020, there was no Facebook.

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There was no algorithm.

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Yeah.

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They were like, here's a business page.

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I mean, I think it took Facebook maybe 10, 12 years to have business pages and realize,

there's money to be made here.

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And so in the next 10 years, it's obviously totally shifted.

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I mean, the accessibility that one has these days to everything from capital to website

development to...

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high quality photos.

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mean, honest to God, I feel like, you know, even for you, you and I have seen the shift in

such a major real time situation, but I feel like also there's a beauty in sort of

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learning the old school way of doing things.

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Like I remember in college, we learned how to hand letter things and we measure, like it

was very, I went to art school, it was very hands on.

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And now I feel like, oh yeah, I can look at anything out in the world and kind of edit it

and da da da.

305

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So it's interesting because you did take all that time to really learn the rules, learn

how things work, learn how materials drape.

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Like you really put the energy into it so that when you did launch in 2020, you were in a

position, I mean, maybe I didn't know you then, but did you feel like you were set up to

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be potentially like successful based on everything you had put in to that point?

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I knew I would be successful because I'm stupid.

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Okay.

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There is something to that.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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I don't have time to now since then I've gotten a little smart and now I'm a little

worried that I might not be successful.

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But no, I just, I do believe like if you put out good quality, you work hard, you work

smart.

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Maybe you're not going to become anasui or something, but you'll have a good business.

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Right.

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And I work in a very competitive field and you know, by the grace of God, I've survived.

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I've made money.

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I've hired people, all of that.

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So I wasn't quite worried about getting things off the ground.

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That wasn't my concern.

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It was getting the message out.

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Cause clothing for me had been such a, what do I wear on this date?

324

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What do I, it had been such a block.

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for so many things.

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And I didn't want that to happen to any other woman.

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I tell this story, true story, I used to work at this, it was a store in the Cooper

building, like luxury plus size clothes called Jerry's.

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And I remember I was like the youngest person that worked there.

329

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They were all kind of older gals.

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And I put a woman in the fitting room, know, put her clothes in.

331

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And as I was walking by, I heard her crying, not like,

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you know, but like the kind of crying and I was about to ask her like, is everything okay?

333

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Can I get you some water?

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And one of the other salespeople just said to me and she shooed me away.

335

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And then um when the woman came out, she was composed and she uh came out and she said um

nothing fit except this top.

336

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So I'm in or the jacket, whatever it was.

337

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She's like, so I'm going to get that.

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I took her to the counter and

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We did the transaction and she left.

340

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And then, and I was like, you know, it's offsetting.

341

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And I thought about, again, getting emotional.

342

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How many times I cried in a fitting room because nothing fit or it did look on my body the

way I wanted it to.

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Or sometimes when I would go to Lane Bryant and I would turn my back to the mirror, get

dressed, whatever.

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And then I would.

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turn around after I composed myself.

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And I realized that woman, you know, who made five times as much as me, looked very

successful or whatever.

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She was crying because clothes didn't fit her.

348

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Now that's not to say she's stupid, but we can send, like we say, we can send a rocket to

the moon.

349

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Why can't we make clothes that fit women?

350

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And I don't know if there's like a grand poobah somewhere that decided, keep those women

down.

351

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keep them depressed, keep their self-esteem low, keep them out of business, you know, but

those are all the things that simply not being able to dress the way you want to be able

352

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to manifest the way you want, that's what that does, right?

353

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And because women, we're usually, you know, the keystone in the family, we're raising kids

and we want them to have self-esteem.

354

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How can we give what we don't have ourselves?

355

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So what are the things that we're giving to not just our daughters, but our sons?

356

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We're like kind of incomplete, not completely happy, uh not well adjusted women

perpetuating that.

357

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And I just thought, wait, we can change all of that by just making sundresses that fit or

jeans that fit?

358

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It's really easy.

359

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Yeah, my solution right out in this this how this you know monologue of mine, you know my

mom uh I remember, you know, as you get older your high school class gets smaller because

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of deaths and things so my mom got an invitation to her high school reunion and they'd

combined like a bunch of different

361

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you know, classes because the classes were the zero ending people.

362

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Yeah, they do that at Greg's school too.

363

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Yeah, yeah, yeah.

364

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So, um, she was all excited and she talked to some friends and they were all going to get

together and whatever.

365

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So, um, she's like, I got to get my clothes together.

366

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And my mom, you know, is plus size and she couldn't find anything she liked, anything that

was her.

367

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She felt like

368

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She had this vibrant life in LA and she does all these things that she wanted to share and

talk about with the friends that she had left from her high school experience.

369

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But she didn't want to show up in a shmata, in a like polyester, you know, mother of the

bride, mu mu, whatever, no disrespect, Ashley Stewart, you know, she didn't, that's not

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who she is.

371

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So my mom opted.

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not to go to our high school reunion and see people who she might never have an

opportunity to see again, rather than present an image that wasn't her.

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And that hurt me to my heart.

374

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And again, I thought, how many women are doing that?

375

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How many women aren't showing up to life?

376

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How many women aren't dating because they can't find the right dress or the right

whatever?

377

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How many women aren't applying for the job or getting the job?

378

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And again, as you get older,

379

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As you get bigger or whatever.

380

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In my head, I still feel like, you know, Tracy, that would do stupid things like drive to

TJ with my friends and get drunk and dance all night and drive back.

381

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But I know I don't look like that.

382

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Right.

383

00:26:47,203 --> 00:26:48,074

Yeah.

384

00:26:48,074 --> 00:26:49,505

I hear you though.

385

00:26:49,505 --> 00:26:56,929

At least with my clothing, I'm able to project a bit of who I really am on the inside.

386

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Right.

387

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And that's what clothes are.

388

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all about, all about for me.

389

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I'm able to project a little bit of my rock and rollness and my daredevil make hair and

all of that, but it's in cashmere.

390

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So that's why I created Sante Grace.

391

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My stuff isn't for everybody, but I just wanted women to have the quality and to be able

to represent themselves well.

392

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hope you loved hearing Tracy's story, her mission.

393

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her passion, and the reason she started Sante Grace.

394

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But here's the thing, the real gold is in part two.

395

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If you are curious about how clothing brands are actually started and produced, from

fabric sourcing to finding factories in Los Angeles, to managing production timelines and

396

00:27:45,946 --> 00:27:53,372

all the moving pieces and parts of manufacturing your own line, Tracy breaks it all down

in our next conversation.

397

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Honestly, it's one of the most

398

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comprehensive, practical, and generous episodes I think we've ever aired on this podcast.

399

00:28:02,281 --> 00:28:10,384

If you've loved any of my other conversations with past guests, you're gonna absolutely

freak out about this one because most of the time it's really inspiring.

400

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This episode is incredibly tactical and I cannot wait to share it with you.

401

00:28:15,446 --> 00:28:20,368

You're not gonna miss it, so hopefully you'll head over there and I'll see you on that

one.

402

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Bye.