Style Consultant - Julianne Costigan

Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Julianne Costigan, founder of Julianne Costigan Executive Fashion Consulting Firm, located in Toronto, ON, Canada.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

My mission as a Toronto-based stylist and CEO is to forge trustworthy, female-empowering relationships with risk-taking, rule-breaking, glass-ceiling-shattering clients and bring their values, stories, skills, and goals to life through style.

Through personal styling, our Digital Style Guide, and our bi-annual Portraits With Impact events, my team and I provide our clients with the tools to enhance their natural beauty and help them curate a wardrobe that reflects who they are. I believe that great style leads to confidence, and confidence leads to success. With this philosophy at the forefront of my business, we always aim to build meaningful and thoughtful closets while empowering our inspiring clients.

Tell us about yourself

I have always recognized the power of clothing. Since a young age, I've understood the connection between mood, mental health, and clothes—how a bright yellow top could bring a smile to a friend's face or how wearing an ill-fitting garment could cause you to shrink in a room.

I began working in a small designer boutique at age 13. I learned quickly that great style and beautiful clothing could empower any woman. Everyone gets dressed every day, and everyone has a relationship with their clothes so, why not make it a great one?

I'm driven by returning clients who tell me how I've changed their life for the better. Knowing that my services can impact a person's life so greatly keeps me focused and driven on a daily basis.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

My biggest accomplishment as a business owner has been helping women learn to invest in themselves. Taking the first step is the hardest, but it often becomes pivotal in finding success if it's in the right direction. Guiding women down the road of self-confidence and empowerment through helping them achieve great style is and will always be what I am most passionate about and proud of.

What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?

They say your greatest strength is also your greatest weakness. Although I encourage women to invest in themselves and pursue their missions, I have found it has been the hardest aspect of being a business owner.

Knowing your worth, trusting your gut, and having faith in yourself and your business is something you constantly have to work at. I work hard to surround myself with the best team and a great support system who inspire me and keep me focused and devoted to my mission.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

You can’t have everything - you have to rely on the support around you to help you. On days when I’m at work, I trust my child care to be a mom to my son. On the days when I’m with my son, I trust and rely on my incredible team to run my business. If you try to be everything to everyone at all times, you’ll burn out and be inefficient.
Prioritize yourself. I work with so many women who are 40+ and have hired me because they’re done with putting everyone else first. They recognize that they can’t be their best self to their family, friends, and co-workers unless they are good to themselves (hiring me is often the first step in prioritizing themselves).
Be mission obsessed as a founder and not product obsessed because the product will be great if there is a mission behind it, but if we lose our mission, the product won’t survive. I always go back to this - for me, the mission is and will always be to create a world where women don’t feel held back by their clothing. That is my mission, and everything my team and I do ties back to this mission.

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://www.juliannecostigan.com/
Facebook: https://bit.ly/3GKwS8a
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/julianne_costigan/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julianne-costigan-a89130197/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solopreneur that you'd like to share, then email community@subkit.com; we'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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