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Speaking of Curves: Meet Plus Size Vintage Boutique Owner, Carla Brown!
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Oct 31, 2024
We're back with another Speaking of Curves series where we spotlight, celebrate, and support entrepreneurs and businesses in the Plus community! Join us every Thursday at 12pm, EST we will interview different businesses, designers, indies, and influencers in the community! Today's guest is Plus Size Vintage Boutique Owner, Carla Brown!
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0:07
hello hello hello welcome back to speaking of curves
0:12
i'm marie denae the creator of the kirby fashionista i'm here to we do this this
0:20
um live every thursday right every thursday at noon we are here to chat with other
0:26
business owners influencers creators business owners to show up to you know basically for you
0:33
to get to know them so that you can show them love and support especially now as we're in arona
0:39
in this panini and we're just trying to figure out how to keep everyone moving forward right
0:46
keeping everyone encouraged but most importantly supporting the small um plus size
0:51
businesses plus size um adjacent that's you know to really help them ensure that they're they're on the other
0:58
side of the road right and so that's why i started this and it's been really encouraging just like selfishly
1:05
because it's helped me stay and motivated and encouraged and excited about
1:10
um and sometimes just even affirming right like you know you're not in this alone you
1:16
know talking with other business owners it's really encouraging and it's really exciting to be able to
1:22
um share with you have different conversations whether it's talking about
1:28
mental health um being innovative overcoming odds um taking leaps of faith
1:34
right and so today's guess i'm really excited about her because they've been like
1:40
literally has used the rona to launch her business right we talk about pivot we talk about
1:48
you know innovation in the roma like this person our special guest
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literally started her business during the rona and has literally just like taken a growth from and has grown from there
2:00
we featured her a few weeks back um and i love like how she kind of came
2:06
about and heard about our brand and now now she's being featured now she's being interviewed so as you're joining in do me a favor
2:14
say hello let us know where you're tuning in from if you have questions comments any of
2:20
those things make sure you drop a comment make sure you show our guests some love
2:25
do me a favor and welcome miss carla of mary brown girl hello carla
2:32
hello marie thank you so much for for coming for being a guest how you
2:38
doing today i'm doing good how are you doing good so if you guys out there our vintage lovers
2:47
are love a good thrift love to do resale love to get some fun fashion on a
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budget loving to look for options and want to support a small business especially who supports
3:01
plus size fashion you're going to want to stay tuned and keep listening because miss carla
3:06
is up to some fun things now miss carla the girls are already saying
3:12
hey girl um lauren said lorna said i'm the guest big sister from jackson that's her big sister
3:20
that's my oldest sister hi lorna hey big sister yes guess big sister i love it i'm
3:26
loving all the support already you've got um jaden coming in from new york we've got
3:31
debbie from texas we've got keisha from arkansas we've got tammy tammy's always on here
3:37
he's always showing love so you do plus sizes or you do vintage
3:44
and resale correct correct and you started this business during the rona yes yes
3:52
girl tell us this story how did that happen so i had a friend at the time she would
3:57
go to the goodwill bins and she would get all of these items and then resell them on poshmark and makari
4:04
and i was like okay what if i could do that but i didn't want to do it by myself
4:10
so we started originally lorraine thrift co and loren in french means queen um and
4:16
so i started lorraine through code then i decided well i kind of want to do this by myself
4:22
when i came back from a trip to new york in september and so i was like well i don't want to just resell regular items like i love
4:29
vintage items so i went and i sourced a whole bunch of vintage items from antique stores
4:35
high-end thrift stores and even estate sales and that's how i built my collection and
4:42
then i was like that's it i'm just going to go ahead and watch my shopify site i have to do it so i did it in october and then i've
4:48
been doing it ever since that is impressive i mean especially during the rona
4:54
because like everyone's kind of like what the hell is happening how do i navigate this for you you saw
5:00
it as an opportunity to kind of explore or test the waters right exactly test the
5:07
waters i mean the worst that could happen is i shut the site down and then just continue to resell
5:13
on poshmark makari curtsy and depop um that's how i looked at it but it had it
5:19
it hasn't happened it's just been going up it went up the support is coming more
5:24
the people who are finding out about the site are just coming from all walks of life so
5:29
it's just been beautiful to experience now where are you based for those who don't know
5:35
i'm based in jacksonville florida all right so we've got florida in the house
5:40
so so for someone like who wants to shop with you
5:45
um walk us through a little bit of your process like i mean you know do you sell via like um an
5:51
instagram live do you have a newsletter like how can folks connect with you and
5:57
you don't just sell plus size correct no i don't just sell plus size i also
6:02
sell um what i call like standard sizes um decided to typically don't have like a w like the
6:09
women's behind it or anything that's smaller than like size 12 for women um i do sell plus size men items and
6:16
i've been having my partner modeled those for me so that's been exciting because i was like i wanted to be
6:22
inclusive for someone who might have broader shoulders than myself someone who may have more of a who want
6:28
more of a masculine forefront than what i'm looking for um and so
6:34
i went ahead and i started adding what i would say are men items but not really it's just more of a masculine touch if
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you're looking for something like that um because i don't pick gender right i don't i don't put gender on my items
6:46
because i shop in the men's section that's where my vest is from so i just i don't think that you have to
6:53
go to the section because of how you look shop for what's comfortable so excuse me but um from when i received
7:01
like the item i do not bring the items in my home for 24 hours typically i leave them in my
7:06
trunk um just in case you know depending on where i get them from especially because
7:11
um some stores do not wash their items so i'll leave them in my trunk for 24
7:17
hours in the back that they're in then from there i'll bring them in if they need to be dry clean i'll get them to dry cleaners
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there's literally one like a block away from me um and they have a pretty good discount usually it's just like the wool
7:29
items um or i'll call my granny and ask her how i need to wash them so some of them are hand washed because i
7:35
don't want you to get them and then they're all shrunk so i watch them when i receive them take the picture in it
7:41
wash it again um and then they go and they hang up in my storage closet until they're sold i love it i love it
7:49
so if you guys are just joining us we're chatting with miss carla of mary brown
7:54
brown girl she is a vintage reseller she has launched her business in the middle
8:00
of a pandemic y'all she used this as an opportunity to kind of like take a leap of faith on on a passion of hers right so we're
8:08
talking with her getting to know a little bit about how she got started um and and
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where she's you know where her um business is growing into and so as you guys are joining in don't
8:20
be shy show some love give her some hearts some thumbs up and and let us know and ask us some
8:26
questions because i know there's some someone out there who's got a question who wants to start something
8:32
and they're kind of like well how the hell do you do it and so um ms devin
8:39
has said miss carla hi carla i'm proud of you thank you i mean it's literally like you
8:45
know just taking a leap of faith like that is has to be nerve-wracking but you sound like you have an amazing support
8:52
system around you i do and i can't thank anybody who's in my
8:57
circle for that enough like i like to say i have a small circle but then when i thought about like how many
9:03
group chats i was talking in this morning i have a pretty i have circles like i have small circles
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um so i'm very thankful for that because a lot of times with small businesses you expect the people closest to you
9:15
to support you monetary like with money um but a lot of times it's just sharing
9:20
it just fine my co-workers knowing that hey i have to do this today
9:26
and i'm like girl go ahead you know my boss has ordered for me she's highly supportive and that just
9:31
makes me so did you just say your boss ordered from you yes
9:36
girl can we talk about this for a second because like this is right now you started it but you still
9:42
work a full-time job your your job is supportive of your
9:49
um your journey they are yes i mean that's rare like you know
9:55
sometimes people keep their little side hustles like quiet because they don't get that you were trying to
10:01
how'd i find out how did they find out so we were talking about small businesses i was like oh my god i love small
10:08
businesses so much this was um this was in january um because uh young
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another young lady who previously worked where i'm working at now um she had a small business where she makes
10:20
like hand soaps um candles and i smell her canvas and i was like oh my gosh and she's located out in nocatee here in
10:27
jacksonville and i was like well i'm gonna go see her and then maybe i'll connect with her and collab with her with my small business
10:32
and then when i said i was like because i didn't want them to know started talking about
10:39
myself uh-huh and what happened they went to my site and everybody was
10:45
looking at it and they signed up for my newsletter and then i got two orders and i was like oh my god thank you that you are very
10:53
fortunate with that because oftentimes not a lot of jobs are supportive of
10:59
um you know side jobs right so you now have your job knows they're
11:04
ordering from you and then now you talked about your your groups
11:10
right your family and close friends but you also dropped a gym you said that sometimes like you're
11:16
close-knit the people close to you they may not support you monetarily there you are you're here sorry that's
11:23
okay baby so that you said that they may not support you monetarily but they support you
11:28
like in other ways can you just run those down because oftentimes people think that support is
11:34
only monetary but sometimes it's just a share or a like or a comment
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go ahead so one of my friends stays in new york um and so she also sells well i consider
11:48
her my best friend because her and devin and haley that's who that
11:54
was i'm so proud of you that's dead um devon and hayley we all stay in like different
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cities but they're just so supportive um whether it's them sharing on their story so then they're reaching out to like
12:05
their alumni we all um attended historically black colleges or universities and so
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reaching them is why i got orders in fayetteville north carolina and i know that for a fact
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it's why i got orders in birmingham alabama and all of that because they're re-sharing on their pages they're
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talking about it word of mouth sharing it with their lying sisters whatever they're doing they're helping me
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um from my oldest sister from my oldest sister she has a lot of
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friends who of course are older than me because i'm 24 and she's oh this morning she's like 38
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i believe um well she'll be 38 this year and so she's reaching another age bracket for
12:45
me where then they're then going and they're signing up come on marketing channel so yeah so
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that's the way i like to do it um and then just have my share on twitter i had to start my twitter from scratch
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because my current twitter um my personal twitter it was shut down
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and so when i started my i had to start it from zero followers so
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i just started promoting calling you know just telling people hey i'm a small black owned business follow me here find out about me and
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then having them promote me them reshare just like you like when you were posting your blog and you're also
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tagging me that's free promo and so that's the way that you can get support without getting orders every
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order counts but more so every resure counts every word of mouth every email everybody's talking about you in
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conversation because everybody knows somebody right and you're operating in such a space of gratitude
13:42
like and and and i think sometimes like some um your sister said um i think
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that's lorna right lana said girl she's 35 oh sorry
13:55
she said don't be putting ages don't be putting years on her i have to add sometimes it's really bad i have to
14:01
ask that's okay that's okay so um [Music] shout out to um not is it nothing
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natalie yeah she said she's such a fan and she's launching her boutique shout out to you love starting
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[Music] um so i saw that comment with your
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sister and i just like i totally lost my train of thought but it was really hilarious i had to tell you
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she was like get that right so i mean but that's what big sisters do
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i'm a big sister i surely will and i mean i only got a couple years on my sister but i'll be
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i'm the oldest so for you you've been invited you haven't even been in business a year yet
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and you're over here operating in a space of gratitude being grateful for each share if you are a new business owner if
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you're an aspiring business owner it is important that you show up the same whether it's one person
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or 20 people or 200 people or 2 000 people so for you what is gonna come next then
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love like what is next for you like you've only you haven't even hit a year
15:13
yet but what is that next step and how can we help you get there my next
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step is making sure that i continue to try to look for pop-up shots in the jacksonville and surrounding areas
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and then from there try to solidify a brick and mortar opportunity
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um here in jacksonville there's a specific area that i'm looking for and it's called riverside um
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the rent spaces rental locations out there they're pretty costly but it pays off and it's worth it um and
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so i would love to get a brick and mortar storefront within the next year i love i
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that's amazing i long long long ago had a dream of having my own physical boutique
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and then um the kirby fashionista took a different turn so i was like oh we're going this way
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and so i kind of like followed that path who knows it may bring me back you know down the road but you know i'm
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here so it's not an easy thing but i give so much props to those like you who
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take that leap of faith who set up those plans and make it happen so um what can we do to support you
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to support me you can shop marry browngirl.com it's built like how you see it um right
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here in front of you um on top of me i guess um it's without the oh marybrowngirl.com you can go
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there and shop um oh my gosh that's my mother hi mom
16:39
hi miss jacqueline how you doing hi mom i'm so excited you didn't told on
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yourself you said that it was your mom right
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[Music] she said she had to come back after being off of facebook for 10 years
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that's love that's love because my mom does not do facebook as we say she does not have an instagram
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but i love you guys so that's definitely how you can support me you can definitely um follow me on instagram facebook
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and twitter um as well as pinterest um because i'm very very active on
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pinterest so nice nice nice and so um to debbie's comment she was saying you
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wish you could show us some of your collection we did share the url um we did share the url so that way you
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can go to the site um and she has new pieces that drop
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every i'm setting it up for you every monday at 7pm eastern standard time so if you're
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looking for new things want to see what she has you can go on you can literally sign up for her newsletter so every monday
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you get the email like yo we got new pieces um and i'm for those of you guys so listen
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we're in arona we're chillin in mostly loungework pieces the only time i get dressed up is
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this is on thursdays for y'all that's the only time makeup hair all
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that fun stuff but on days off like i've been going through my closet purging getting rid of things so for you
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when it comes to product you know some vintage summary people resell what is your process
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if people wanted to send you items to go you know especially to kind of
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build up your plus arsenal how could they send you stuff so if you want to send me items at the
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bottom of mayor brown girl like at the way bottom of the page of the home page you'll see a donations tab when you
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click on the donation tab at a hobby file form from there i'll contact you ask you if you have a priority shipping
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box that you can put it in if not i'll let you know you can go to the post office and do it that way
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and then i'll send you the label i email you the label and i'll pay for the shipping so that you can
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ship it back to me vote so now here you she just shared like you
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know if you want to send items if you have some vintage items and you're just like you know what she
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lived a good life in my closet and it's time to pass her on to the next person she takes donations i did drop the
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google um it's a google doc i did drop that that's the link that her donation request goes
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to so there therefore you can go ahead and you know submit the form and be like yo
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i've got a couple of pieces i want to send them to you and she will go through that process so therefore you know it's like everyone's
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being able to help you know for me i send my pieces to different resale or um
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uh what do you call it resell second hand i've said my pieces
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yeah just to keep it recycling and then the things that aren't good enough for recycling i donate so you know for you guys out there if
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you've been cleaning your closet and having like some serious conversations with yourself about are you really going where it is
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is it bringing you joy right like marie kondo like you know this you know
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no i'm serious right so like spaces and places like mary brown girl um are here to take your
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pieces right they're here to receive your pieces so that they can pay it forward and then you're helping
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literally helping the plus economy right you're literally helping the economy local businesses
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you're shopping small and it's kind of paying itself forward um
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lawson lawson jay bodie said proud of you carla girl
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thank you mr body um and then uh natalie said she loves your website
20:39
thank you i'm ready for yours to drop oh and so like you've got a lot of support
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already and you've got your folks here they're giving you love so what kind of pieces do you find
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that's like the hardest when we talk vintage we talk plus size vintage like
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what do you find the most and what is it the hardest to find and plus
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the hardest thing to find with plus is decent sized jeans um because typically when you get a pair
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of jeans as a plussize person you're gonna hold on to them and you're gonna give them away when
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it's time to give them away um and so plus size denim is extremely hard to
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find and when i find it it's a diamond dozen um sometimes i'll have people dm me on instagram asking
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when are you gonna get some more and it's just like i'll let you know when i get them but it
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until then it's it's really difficult um so those are very difficult to find
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um the easiest thing to find with plus-sized fashion is dresses
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we have a question real quick is everything vintage or do you also um do you take
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also new pieces or new clothing items i do accept new clothing items um those
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type items i resell on macari poshmark and curtsy um for new items i
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do not sell them for typically more than ten dollars just because i feel like it's a donation
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um and so it's all profit so there's no need for me to you give me something for free and i'm
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gonna go and resell it for fifty dollars just because i can um so typically i don't resell for over
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ten dollars if it's something that's brand new but i do accept brand new items not just vintage
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awesome and then we had another question from nikki nikki said it's a storefront next to her property for rent honey she
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said ask me about it girl i'll be damn you don't worry miss are you in jacksonville miss
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mickey cause that's where she's oh you know her that's my name i love how your pride is coming through
22:40
i love it i love it they are showing you so much love and support right now but miss nikki said yo there's somewhere
22:47
open right next to her love it love it and um oh tammy says she has something she can
22:54
send most are brand new so that she also said great question so you don't look forward to getting a couple
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of pieces from our live folks right so
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for you like is there anything that you won't sell what i won't sell are children items um
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for those when i go to the thrift store and i see children items i prefer to leave them just because
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my mom was a single parent um and so we didn't per se go to the thrift store but we did wake
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up at six o'clock in the morning and we would hit jc penney and doorbuster sales like it was nobody's business um because i was a husky kid and so she
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had but i was always cute you know um
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and so hey you never knew where we had to go but she had to do what she had to do so i would rather leave those um and
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then my older sister she's a single parent and so with her having four girls i'm like
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i don't want to take that and then go and resell it when there's somebody that can come and get it especially like baby clothes
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babies go out of their clothes so frequently and so it's literally brand new items that i'll see sometimes i'll pick them up and then
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i'll just go and i'll redonate them or if i know what my friends um are going to be expecting soon or one of my
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family members then i'll take it and i'll just wash it really good with the um oh it's in the pink bottle
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the pink laundry detergent bottle i'll wash it with like a baby soap and then give it to them to re-gift it well
24:25
that's awesome that's awesome and i appreciate you saying you know like you understand some of the challenges like you know
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and when you see kids close so you keep it there so that people can actually who are you know needing those things
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and trying to find them so you say you find a lot of dresses dresses come frequently and the harder thing to find
24:49
thank you yes um natalie says she's getting ready to purge
24:54
um so natalie we dropped the um donation link it's a google doc we did share that
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in the comment section however on her site mary brown girl
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at the very bottom there is a donation um tab that you can just click and it
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will take you to the donation uh the donation link yes and lorna says
25:17
she got some vintage pieces honey she's sending them your way i love it
25:23
um if you guys are just joining you know real quick we're here with miss carla of mary brown
25:29
girl she is a vintage reseller she caters to the plus size folks and we're learning about her journey
25:35
because real wildly like she launched during the pandemic right she literally
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launched this new business during a pandemic with the support of her
25:46
her employer because she this is you know she does work full-time this is her um new side job new side gabe right
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and she's growing this business and we took a liking to her we wrote about her
25:59
and then we're like yo you want to be on our lives like let's check and so um you know one of the things
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that's really cool is that like how she's starting and like she's taken us through her process so
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carla tell me did you in a million years imagine yourself doing what you're doing
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now no when i was in high school i would go to the thrift store it was
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owned by the at the time by um first close no more homeless pets everything there was 50 cents so um i
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would go there and my mom would only give me my own like five dollars because then when
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i come out it's a garbage bag full of stuff and she's like you i didn't have room in my closet for it
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so then i was trying to use her closet the hallway closet um but that pushed me into like what i'm
26:51
doing now um people would pay me at school give me like ten dollars to go and get them items and they would say i only want four
26:58
things i never told them it was only 50 cents so then i consider that like my buyer's fee my styling fee
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so how about that and so that's kind of like how i was like okay well
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i've always been a ticklish thing yeah you've always been doing it and now like
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you know you have this opportunity and you just ran straight through and took it
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and so five years from now where do you envision mary brown girl where is carla and mary brown girl
27:31
five years from now i want to be able to have minimum about 20 employees um 20 full-time
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employees i want to be able to have a full-time photographer on staff i want to have someone who's going to be
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able to handle my marketing because it is a lot trying to do so many different social media platforms at one time when it's
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just you um in five years i want to have at least two storefronts
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because i just see that it's possible there's no reason why i should not be able to obtain that and i definitely want to be retired i
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keep telling my mom i don't want to work until i'm 65 i won't go into business for myself i
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want to work because this is what i've been wanting to do since i was 13 working in this line of work but not
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forever i want to be able to live out my dream and then just sit back and be like wow so yeah i mean let me just tell you
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something you said you're 24 right yes that is an amazing five-year plan
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amazing because i think at 24 i'm about to be 40.
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so at 24 i was like i think just i was still in my mba program
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and i had no idea what i i swear i was going to be somebody's retail executive um i have to give it to you because that
28:52
is so impressive like and especially i want you to hold on to
28:57
that if you have not written that down i mean you have yes
29:03
that's and that's why you was able to right now every month in what i call my brain
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oh i love it i love it so i mean like that is an amazing but i
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tell you in all sincerity like you know remind yourself and keep going back to that
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because eventually you'd be like like just swiping things off you know
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scratching it out as hit and hitting your target so that is impressive and really really really
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exciting thank you so much darling for joining us um we wrapped up so do tell me do me a
29:40
favor and tell everyone again where and how they can follow you you can find me
29:45
on almost every social media platform except for tick tock um at mary brown girl and the brown is
29:52
without the o you can shop my website marybrowngirl.com if you don't see anything that you may
29:57
like you can definitely send me a dm i do personal styling services where i will ship the items to you
30:04
or you can just sign up for the newsletter buy a gift card find something for somebody else do
30:09
something but yes or just share by word of mouth thank you oh well thank you so much for
30:16
taking the time um you know we're definitely going to keep following you on your journey
30:22
i i speak nothing but future success um natalie says she prays success over
30:28
your business i pray for six figures within five years i mean
30:33
yeah we are all receiving that for you darling right really exciting thank you guys so
30:39
much for those who are watching i'm here with carla of mary brown girl we do these lives every thursday at noon
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eastern standard time if you've just joined in you can join us on the rewatch but we
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interview different business owners designers influencers creators um especially now like in showing how you
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can support them um especially through to and and it's also to ensure that we have these small
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businesses on the other side right and so um make sure you guys tune into the kirby fashionista.com
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for the latest news recaps updates about what's going on in the plus-size space i am marie danae the creator of the
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kirby fashionista thank you so much
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