The Style Club entered the Shark Tank in Season 8 with their unique brand of clothing for women. The apparel is vintage-inspired, and fashionistas everywhere can join in the fun by being a brand ambassador.
We interviewed founder Hilary Novelle, an entertainer, who started the business while on tour with Destiny’s Child and Christina Aguilera. In anticipation of her Tank airing, she said, “Our ambassadors are literally the reason why we do this, for example, we have girls hosting their very own pizza viewing parties all over the US on November 4.”
Here’s what else she told us about…
How the Idea Came About
I spent my whole childhood traveling the world as an opening act for all these now superstars. My goal was to reach the top of the charts but my hobby-because I couldn’t afford fancy costumes-was designing my looks for the stage with my mother. On the Christina Aguilera tour with Destiny’s Child, Levis was the sponsor, so I started taking the jeans and incorporating them into my costumes. It caught on with the girls on the tour and then Levis made me their Levis’ girl. When starting The Style Club, I really wanted to create that one stop shop for social commerce aka the QVC for the newer generation, so when I started I was just curating different brands…We were getting views but not a ton of sales because it’s all about having exclusive unique product. It wasn’t until I went back to what I was doing 15 years ago, designing costumes, that we really started to make some headway and now here we are an actual apparel brand that’s now sold in Urban Outfitters, Nordstrom and of course on our direct site.
Their Style & Bestsellers
The Style Club brand was inspired by my love for vintage shopping and discovering underground artists. I love finding hidden gems at the flea market that I can put my own twist on. At The Style Club we put that love for vintage and art into each piece we design. Our mission is to create limited edition collections that say something and mean something just a little bit more than your average tee. Our best sellers are our Babe jackets and Babe baseball caps. The baseball cap basically went viral; it’s literally been everywhere!
Partnership With Sophie Tweed-Simmons
Sophie discovered what I was doing through social media and reached out. She is one of those true supporters of female empowerment and that’s what The Style Club is all about. We love collaborating with her in everything we do.
How the Team Formed
My brother is my CFO so I pretty much forced him to quit his job on wall street to come work with me and he brought his friend from Harvard Business School to join us. And I found some amazingly creative and talented like-minded girls to join me in the execution of the look and feel of the brand.
