I always thought that most people all ready know how it all started, but as we have grown and gained more and more followers, I have realized that not everyone may know what made me, a mother of three with roots in Sweden, Spain, and Finland, start a clothing store in a small village with just 2,000 inhabitants.
I have always been interested in clothes and I have dressed originally since I started dressing myself. I have never cared about restrictions, followed trends or adapting myself to ridiculous rules, just because you I’m curvy (which I always have been, I simply have a curvy figure!). In most cases when I would try on clothes, the tunics went under my belly and buttocks even though the size was right, the arms were either too long or too short, tightened in the wrong places it generally felt “wrong”. Even though the garments were the right size, they had a bad fit and were always dull and in a dark color. I did not find clothes that fit my body or my style and shopping wasn’t a fun experience at all.
FUN to try on clothes
I preferred to buy clothes abroad when I was traveling, on my trips I found unique clothes and jewelry that were colorful, sat like it was made for me and made me feel pretty. My friends and acquaintances also liked the clothes, so they started asking if they could buy the jewelry and clothes I was wearing. It didn’t take long before they started asking me to buy extra jewelry and clothes from my travels. This is the explanation why the company later became known as “Dress like Marie”.
I started buying extra of the things I wanted myself, because I knew that otherwise I risked being without myself. After a while there was no more space in my house for all the clothes and things I bought on my trips, so I had to open a small shop in my in-laws’ basement. The store had no regular opening hours, it was open only for booking. I often arranged styling evenings with music and wine for private parties and charter buses with people from different places in Ostrobothnia in Finland who took a trip to the store. My goal was always to make shopping a fun experience where you would feel good and experience that it is actually FUN to try on clothes and play with colors, patterns and fun combinations. With me, NO ONE would feel that they are in the wrong place.
Shopping in Spain! I want to feel and squeeze on everything, everything I bring in for sale, I want to try it one myself before.
It wasn’t always the easiest thing to bring home everything nice I found!
I was trying all the clothes I found in my Spanish apartment.
To disprove the styling rules
Many customers came in with preconceived notions about what they could or could not wear no matter what they actually liked. My mission was to disprove these limiting views! I wanted to show that you certainly can wear a striped pattern even though you are 2XL and that you can wear red pants even though you have curvy thighs. EVERYTHING is about styling and what you feel pretty in. Styling is about dressing in what you think is nice and not about what others say you should wear. I realized that what I was doing was important and that there was a big need for clothes I liked, so I decided to open an online store to make it easier to reach more women. So together with my eldest daughter Lisa we started the web shop www.dresslikemarie.com in 2013!
Pictures from the shop I had in my in-laws’ house.
In the beginning, I bought clothes from other suppliers. However, I often encountered problems as the clothes sometimes had a bad fit, did not have enough sizes and sometimes I simply could not find patterns I liked. The natural step to take was to create my own clothing collection. A collection with good sizes, the most beautiful patterns and above all a good fit. Today it is me and my other daughter Emelie who design all our clothes. We are very careful that all clothes we bring in have a good fit, are easy to style and can be used for several seasons, which is something I missed when I used to walk around in clothing stores.
Clothes – a tool for self-confidence
This is what happened when clothes became my tool to make women of all shapes and ages feel beautiful and make them flourish just as they are. I have developed a strong sense for fierce and flattering models and styling combinations – the more I styled, the more I learned, and I still do! We want to convey all this to as many people as possible, both through our physical store and online. In 2018, we launched an online styling service that had a huge impact, and we continue to develop this service all the time.
Our goal is to produce stylish, flattering clothes for all bodies, regardless of whether you are a size S or 2XL. We do not want to call ourselves a plus size store because that is not what we are. We are ALL size, Normal Size. We strongly believe that it does not matter what the patch in the clothes says. For us, it’s all about finding the right fit and the right styling, for the right person!
The feeling I had in the beginning, the desire to break misconceptions, of course still applies – like that you should always dress in black if you are bigger, because it would have a tapered effect. Why should you only dress in what you think makes you slim when you can dress in what makes you feel happy? Our clothes focus on what you want to emphasize rather than what you want to hide.
I’m often traveling. Here I am on a shopping trip in Thailand.
Pictures of ordinary people
From the beginning, it has always been important for us to use “regular” models in the images we spread – it was not a conscious strategy from the beginning, it was just a natural part of my styling! I was so happy when I saw how the person in front of me shone up and felt pretty in my styling, that I had to take a picture so I could share the beauty with more people! I noticed how appreciated it was, and since then we have continued to spread our styling images. We want to present what people actually look like and not just show a minority and claim that the majority also looks like that. This applies to the models in the online store, in our blog posts and all our styling images we have on our social media. We want to take styling pictures of real people who come into our stores to then be able to show “ordinary people” in the picture and thus make your feed on social media richer with people who are like you! Which are not wrinkle-free or retouched, and still radiate!
Body positivity and the desire to inspire others drove me to start Dress like Marie and that is what still drives the company today. My mission is, and always has been, for you to flourish for who you are. Nothing makes us as happy as when we find a perfect match between customers and a stylish outfit. Seeing how someone lights up when the clothes fit perfectly and highlights the beauty of the wearer and makes her feel beautiful, confident, comfortable and stylish fills me with such warmth and reminds me of how important it is that we exist and continue to spread body positivity, inspiration and confidence!
Xoxo, Marie
