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She is sure, she is sure, she is strong, she
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is true, is true, she is brave, she is she
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is you.
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She is you, she is you, she is sure.
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She is true, she is strong, she is straw, she
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is true, is true, she is brave, is bray, she
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is she is you.
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Hello, everyone, welcome to today's Word of Mom Radio. Here on
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the Word of Mom Media Network. I'm your host Story
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Di Carlo, and you know we are here week after week,
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show after show, breaking those myths that entrepreneurs and business women,
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especially those of us building our businesses from home, they
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were just dabbling in between bake sales and getting our
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nails done. We're not. We are smart, we are savvy,
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and we are sharing the wisdom of women in business
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and in life. And I am very excited to be
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bringing our guests into today's show. Tracy Christian is a
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veteran talent agent with more than twenty five years in
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the entertainment industry. She is the president of TCA Management,
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a boutique talent agency representing trained character actors, producers, and writers.
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Named as one of the top Black female executives by Forbes,
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Hollywood Reporter, Essence, Black Enterprise, and More, Tracy has represented
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a list as varied as producer Mona Scott, Young Academy
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Award winner, Octavius Spencer, Emmy and Golden Globe winners, Elizabeth
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Moss and Jeremy Piven, Emmy nominees, Michael Kenneth Williams, Jamie Hector,
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Grammy Award winner Tony Braxton, and industry veteran Tricia Campbell.
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Tracy is by coastal with residents in both Los Angeles
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and in New Jersey, and after years of having difficulty
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finding clothes that accommodated her lifestyle, Tracy started Santa Grapes,
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an upscale plus size clothing line. Tracy functions as both
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the founder and head designer. The line has been featured
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in multiple fashion magazines and blogs like Fashion Bomb Daily,
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Who What Where, Refinery twenty nine and Time Magazine, and
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now Here Onward of Mom Radio. So with all that
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being said, Tracy, welcome to the show.
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Thank you. I'm happy to be here, I am.
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Thrilled to have you, and I have to tell you
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some of the people that you represent are just some
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of my favorite actors. Right now. It's met Elizabeth Moss.
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I mean, having watched her all the way from the
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West Wing. She was just a teenager to where she
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has gone. It's a wonderful thing to see a woman, yeah,
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in control of her career, like that same thing with
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Octavia Spencer. Wow, talk about somebody who's become that household
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name and really representing women that don't take a lot
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of stuff and are strong enough to step out of
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the box. So I would love for you, Tracy, to
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take us on your journey from talent agent to fashion designer.
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Well, it's really simple. I have a beautiful, big, broad
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life and I couldn't find any beautiful, big broad clothing.
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So like even in college, you know, my friends and
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I would go skiing, and I'd have to rent men's
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clothes to go skiing because they just didn't exist in
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women's sizes.
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You know.
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I guess whomever is responsible for making women's ski clothes
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thought the fat girls were staying home eating bomb bonds
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and we weren't out on the slopes too. But it's
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always been a bit of that. And then as I
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became I'm a working professional in the entertainment industry. You
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look at your boss or your boss's boss for an
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example of success. Right, what car does that person drive?
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Where do they live, how do they conduct themselves? How
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do they dress? And for me, I was never going
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to be able to replicate that because the clothes were
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not available ARMANI was in making a suit a woman's
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size twenty or you know Chloe or Stellem, a car.
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It just it didn't exist for me. So what I
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would do is I would go through Vogue and Harper's
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Bizarre and I would pull out these images and then
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go to my seamstress and we'd make the alterations that
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you need to make for something to you know, look
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good on my body. And I replicate this stuff. And
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I knew fabrics. I worked for a converter for a while,
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so I knew fabrics fairly well. And I would pick
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out all of the text that we were to use
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and I would create a collection. So I did that
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for years, you know, making clothes for myself. And it
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was expensive, and you know, you learned a lot of
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production lessons. And it meant that when my suitcase was late,
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you know, with me traveling somewhere or even worse, stolen,
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I was really up a creek because the other girls
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could go downstairs in the hotel and just pick up
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clothes or go to the local mall and buy clothes.
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But I was stuck. There's no such thing as Lane
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Bryant in the South of France. I was not going
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to be walking down, you know, the cosset with my
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client in some dress from I don't even know. But
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it taught me I'm probably not the only one with
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this challenge, right there are options that we don't have
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once you get above a size twelve or a size fourteen.
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So I knew I wanted to start the clothing line,
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but I have a career and I didn't have time
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to give some make patterns or whatever. But when the
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pandemic struck and we were all sitting around wondering what
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the next step was, I literally heard a voice one
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night that said, create your clothing line, and I got
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up at three o'clock in the morning, I bought the
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domain and that's when I started.
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Women start with why I say it all the time
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on this show, we really do. Women see a need
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that's not being filled and we fill it. And I
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love that you did this because again, like you said,
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you shouldn't be reduced to having to buy men's clothing
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because some designer decided that, oh you know women of
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that size aren't going to be doing this really, so
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it's foo how did that helpen They know exactly. And
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it's amazing because when we were talking about this earlier
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forty something years ago, I can't believe it's literally forty
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two years ago. My gosh, that friends of mine were
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plus size models for Sears and Macy's, the catalogs and stuff.
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Back then, in nineteen eighty two, a plus size model
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was a fourteen to an eighteen, depending on the clothing.
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In today's world, a plus size model is a size eight.
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And we wonder why women have such screwed up images
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of our bodies because of what Hollywood puts out. And
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when there is a woman with curve, where do they go?
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Where do they find fashion?
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There are a lot of challenges. One, human beings are
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getting bigger, period, just they're getting bigger. So what was
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a size six in nineteen sixty is no longer a
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size six, So it's a it's screwed up in that way.
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And then in women's fashion, there's no law that says, okay,
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a size ten is this measurement as opposed to men's
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clothes that are sold by the measurement right. So if
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you're a size sixteen neck, if you know, for a
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men's shirt, that's a particular measurement. It's not about are
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you fat and skinny, you're this, you're that. It's just
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what the measurement is. And what it allows manufacturers to
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do is to manipulate women a bit. So when you
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have something that's European made, it runs smaller. When it's
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American made, it runs larger because the Western body is
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a little larger. So if you're buying Liz Claiborn or
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Donna Karen or whatever, you can buy a whole size small.
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It's all kind of a mind game, and it does
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really that socialization has really screwed up women who try
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to fit. Look, everybody knows what spinx is, everybody knows
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what skims are. We alter our bodies to fit the clothes,
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when really it should be the other way around. The
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clothes should be changing to accommodate us. That's how screwed
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up we are. And I tell people all the time,
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forget about the size and my clothes. Decide how you
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want to look in that outfit, and then just by
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the size that gives you that the number has no relevance.
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But that's so hard, that conditioning is so hard for
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us to undo.
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It really is, and it's an amazing thing because it
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shouldn't matter when you look at all of these companies
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out there now where I have a friend who's a
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size for that that little teeny thing, and had bought something,
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how to return it three times she wound up head
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having to get like a three X for it to
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fit her little tiny body. I'm like, in what world
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is this like the twilights over those little chin characters
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or something.
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That's fast fashion. So there's a real lack of consistency
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in sizes based on the cost of the garment, where
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it's made, how it's made. We really tried to we're
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conscious of that, particularly with plus sizes, and so we
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really work on what I always say, we're here to
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end the crying in the fitting room. Very few women
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who run into the fitting room knowing that everything is
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going to fit or look exactly the way it looks
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on the model or the mannequin. But we give as
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much of an education as we can and describing the garments,
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describing what the fabrics do, and why clothes that are
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a little better made look better on a curvy body. Now,
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you probably we were talking about when you grew up,
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and you grew up at a time where people were
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very conscious of you wanted a good belt, you wanted
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a good bag, a good pair of shoes. Those were
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the foundations of your wardrobe. And people knew if you
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had a good pump, all you had to do is
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take it to the cobbler and you could put a
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new soul on it. You could polish it and it
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was like new. You got a good pair of fair
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gambo flats or you know some other thing. You save
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for those kinds of things, and they'd last forever. They
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were quality made, and that meant something. Never mind the prestige,
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but it was an investment. I'm gonna wear I'm gonna
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buy this basic black pump, buy this designer because I
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know I can wear it for the next thirty years.
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So even if it costs one hundred and fifty dollars,
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amamortizing that over years, not three months. Well, fast fashion
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came in and they kind of threw all of that out,
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and now you'll see women who are twenty five just
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really entering the job market. Between thirty five, they don't
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know about bridge, They don't know about better, they don't
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know about an investment wardrobe. What they do know is
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I went to Bloomingdale's and this blazer was two hundred
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and fifty dollars, and then I looked online at Shean
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and something that looks exactly the same was nineteen dollars.
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So they buy the nineteen dollars, but they're not taking
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into account one is it gonna look like? Is it
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gonna look like the other blazer when I get it? No,
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how's it gonna fit? What's the fabric? Am I gonna
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sweat like a pig in it? And how many times
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am I gonna have to spend this nineteen dollars?
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Think about that, Think about what Tracy just said, because
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sheep is expensive, It really is. So we're going to
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say thank you to our sponsors and we'll be back
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here in just a moment. On Word of Mom Radio.
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She is brave, she is bold, she is you, and
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share your journey with us on Word of Mom Radio?
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Go to wordommradio dot com and register as a guest.
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We want to tell your story because when you win,
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we all win.
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In twenty seventeen, Unsilenced Voices was formed to help survivors
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of domestic abuse and gender based violence worldwide. The organization
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currently serves Siri Leone, Rwanda, Ghana, and the USA. In
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twenty twenty two, Unsilenced Voices gifted over thirty three thousand
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dollars to survivors in the USA and in Siri Leone,
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there are over twenty six young girls who have been
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rescued from sex trafficking and domestic abuse and now going
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through vocational training school in order to better their lives.
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We need your help. Donations are critical in order for
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us to continue our work. We also need volunteers to
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help with research and development. Please visit Unsilenced Voices dot
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org for more information.
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And we're back here on Word of Mom Radio. We
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are talking with Tracy Christian about our clothing line, Santa Grace.
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I love. I'm serious. I love what you were saying
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because people really think, oh well, I got it's for
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such a better price from this place. Like I said before,
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we broke, Chepe is expensive. So it doesn't matter if
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you only spend fifteen dollars on something. If you wear
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it once and have to replace it, it's already torn
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when you're taking it out of the bag, and then
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they don't bother have and you send it back because
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why bother? But it doesn't matter because it's already torn.
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You're not gonna wear it anyway. Either way. They gave
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you your refund of your money, but you've wasted your time
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on something that's gonna look good on you, those signature things.
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And you know, I laugh because I think of my
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mom back in the day. You always wanted to make
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sure you have the little black dress with a cute
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little bolero jacket or this jacket or you know, the
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different things you can throw over it, but you want
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that shell underneath to be able to dress up, dress up,
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dress down. It's like having those pants, oh look, and
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those shoes.
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You had a good pair of pumps. You had a