This brand has gone through lots of changes over the last 7 years.
Starting out as Somewhere Between Vogue and Van Gogh in 2015 to Pretty, Young & Motivated, and now being Her Collective. This platform has been my passion project since its inception. Meaning, like me, it has changed quite a bit since October 2015.
I started blogging as an outlet for myself, an online journal to share my thoughts and passions as I transitioned out of an identity that was really hard for me to shed – cheerleading. I had no intention of creating anything more than the blog itself. However, as my life began to shift and change, my passions did too. I moved away from cheerleading and found myself struggling to identify who I was. Blogging helped me try on different versions of myself, it allowed me to express who I was and meet people along the way who felt the same as me.
The Pretty, Young & Motivated Era
After a life changing study abroad trip, I feel like I stepped into my own power and found confidence in myself again. During this trip, I found myself advocating for the women in the group and trying to encourage them. This is when I had found my passion for empowering women and creating space for authentic conversations. In 2016, I rebranded as Pretty, Young & Motivated. This was all during the girlboss era and PYM felt fitting for the direction I wanted to take the brand.
I wanted girls to read the blog and feel inspired on their own journey. I wanted them to leave the page feeling pretty, young & motivated. The PYM name stuck for 5 years and things slowly took off for us.
In 2019, after getting a big girl job and having less free time to blog, I decided to expand the blog to welcome multiple female writers. I wanted it to share more perspectives than my own and create a community on the platform. Enter the PYM Girls. This was a pivotal moment for the brand. It felt like this decision really accelerated our growth and expanded our reach; our community started to grow.
It was soon after this that the girls and I decided on hosting our first women empowerment conference. This was a shot in the dark but we were excited to plan all the details. We were blown away when almost 40 women showed up in Grand Rapids on June 22nd, 2019. This flipped a switch for me – like wow, this could really be something!
We kept the momentum going into November when we hosted our second event, this time even bigger – almost 100 people! Things were looking really good!
At this point, I decided to LLC the business and start ramping up our events. I wanted to make this my career and it seemed really possible at this point.
Fast forward to early 2020 – global pandemic enters the chat
Everything stopped.
Our 3rd event was planned for in-person and we had to move it to virtual. From there, it felt like things slowly started to roll back. It got really hard for me to consistently show up online with this positive girlboss energy the brand was known for when it felt like the world was stopped. It got difficult for the girls to create fresh, new content while being stuck at home. In-person was not a thing anymore.
I kept trying and trying again to keep content coming. We created a podcast, a youtube channel and started hosting virtual events in order to keep our message and community going. However, traction started to fade.
I made a personal decision to move to California at the end of 2020, it felt like it was time for a big change and I had always wanted to experience the west coast. So, I took the leap.
This too changed a lot of my motivation for the brand. The experience made me really turn inward and question everything about myself and my values. Being so far from everything I knew, I had to get comfortable with solitude. Though this helped me learn a lot personally, it impacted my drive to keep up with PYM. I was so wrapped up in my own thoughts and mental health all the time, I constantly felt drained.
In addition to this, working from home has become my new normal and I spend every day looking at screens for 8+ hours. I was not feeling motivated to spend more time staring at a screen beyond those hours, and I still feel this way. I want to see people in real life and have a genuine conversation with this community.
The Transition to Her Collective
In late 2021, I once again packed up my life and moved back to Michigan. This is also when I made the decision to re-brand Pretty, Young and Motivated to Her Collective.
This change was due to the shift in myself and the shift in culture. PYM no longer felt welcoming and it wasn’t the direction I wanted to take the brand. Her Collective felt more timeless and inclusive.
Since starting this whole journey, I’ve changed so much and the brand has reflected these personal shifts. This name feels more relevant to what I want the brand to focus on going forward. I want to focus on women’s health, authentic conversations, advocating for women’s rights and providing resources. Her Collective is for community and connection.
It’s been a long journey, filled with many ups and downs but if you’ve made it this far – I’m so glad you’re here. I’m looking forward to the future of Her Collective and creating something for you to resonate and connect with – because when life gets tough and we feel isolated, we all need that gal pal to go to and that community to feel supported by – this is Her Collective.
Follow along on Instagram: @itshercollective