By Mary Grace Godfrey
Mary Grace, one of our collaborators for MHI Fashion Week, shares for our readers the story of how her passion for beauty resulted in the creation of her own fashion brand.
It seems that every child is asked, “Who do you want to be when you grow up?” While most take this as a nice thought-provoking question, I took it to heart and began to build a vision in my head of who I wanted to be and what I wanted to do. I have always known that I wanted to create beautiful pieces and tell stories about them.
I grew up in an artistic family, where the arts were taught and nurtured. I have early memories of making all sorts of friendship bracelets with my sisters and selling them at our neighborhood swimming pool. We bought big fishing tackle boxes and filled them with our DMC thread, pins, yarn and finished bracelets. During the regular top-of-the-hour pool breaks, we worked on our bracelets and sold the finished ones. And since we were competitive, we pushed each other to work faster and create more elaborate designs.
Friendship bracelets eventually included sterling silver and glass jewelry in later years. While in high school, I became intrigued with the wide variety of textile choices available in stores and enrolled in sewing classes at a local fabric shop. I couldn’t afford the classes on my own, but my negotiations with my dad were successful and he helped me pay for this extracurricular activity. Even though in my heart I knew that sewing classes were good for me, I couldn’t bring myself to tell my friends and coaches. I thought they might belittle my choice to learn a skill that has so little interest in today’s world.
I stopped sewing in college. I was a Division 1 swimmer and my workload in class and in the pool were demanding. I didn’t dig out my sewing machine again until I had completely finished competitive swimming my senior year of college. It was at this point that I realized I had lost track of my passions and talents and that I needed to return to them and find a career and life in the world of design and storytelling.
Since then I received formal sewing training at a variety of universities and worked in costume and tailor shops. I started Anagrassia as a hobby while working for an estate planning law firm. In 2013, the hobby became a business that really took off when I made bridal separates for my sister and best friend and then posted their photos and stories online. (This was before wedding separates were widely available on the market.) Since then, I have created and sold thousands of custom-made garments worldwide.
The name Anagrassia comes from my Ukrainian heritage. It is a combination of my sister’s name, Anastassia, and my middle name, Grace. My Ukrainian grandmother was a professional seamstress and my first teacher. She made my sisters and I promise to pass on the Ukrainian arts and traditions to our children and others.
Running a small business is a lot of work, but the rewards are great. The most rewarding part about my job is that I can create the environment I work in. My workspace is wonderful and happy. I am fortunate that I can decline work from difficult or unkind people and only work with honest textile companies. This is not only healthy for me, but it will be important when I start a family of my own. Like most working women, my work spills into all aspects of my life and sets the tone of my household.
I believe if you follow your calling, talents, and passions, you will ultimately find yourself working in your dream job whether or not you have held onto it since your childhood. I never set out to own a successful custom clothing business, but my core desires brought me here. Despite the rough days and living a life much different from that of my peers, I continue to get up each day and continue trying to grow because I can’t shake off my God-given talents, nor do I want to. Perhaps it is my calling to create things in order to make our world more beautiful!
I am thrilled to help Murray Hill Institute with the upcoming MHI Fashion Week. We will have a variety of speakers, classes, and events lined up for the week-long fashion program. There is so much I wish I had known before I started my business. Undoubtedly, the students will walk away from this course with a valuable head-start in pursuing their dreams with lots of inspiration, information, skills and friends. I am excited to be a part of Fashion Week and I look forward to meeting the students and spending an afternoon teaching!