翁迪尔 While most graduates go off to interviews and internships in order to fulfill their dreams, Kelsey Brehm, A’17, decided to take a different route.
Upon graduating, she has already started her own lingerie company, called A Little Something, and made it into a successful business.
“I have been sewing since I was a young girl,” Brehm said. “My mom taught me in Girl Scouts.”
Despite having the ability to sew engraved in her at a young age, it was not until Kelsey studied abroad in Amsterdam that she realized her true passion.
“[I] saw some lace at a market and I thought to myself, ‘I want to make myself a bra,’ and everyone really dug it,” she said. “One thing leads to another, and people started paying me for them, and now it’s A Little Something.”
With A Little Something, Brehm aims to take an approach that the typical retail outlet does not: make clothes personnel.
“There’s very much a person behind it. It’s super fun,” she said. “Everything is hand-made by me and an assistant to make women feel comfortable in a little something that they can wear: a very functional piece of lingerie that they can wear every day.”
What her customers can expect is lingerie personalized to them and completely unique.
“It’s more inclusive because it’s not factory made and will never be factory made. That’s not our morals. They will be handmade forever. I get to have those happy customers because I have my hands on everything,” she said.
Brehm’s desire is to create something one-of-a-kind, mimicking the fact that women come in a variety of different shapes and sizes.
She said that drives her ideology, which is “making women feel comfortable and powerful in their own skin in clothes that, if they feel necessary, that they need.”
A Little Something has also been gaining support from the local community. Last year, Kelsey hosted her first fashion show at The Willow using her own lingerie and models.
Most recently, A Little Something was featured at Boyfriend’s Fifth Annual Birthday Extravaganza on Sept. 1 at the Joy Theater.
“I and Boyfriend are kind of all lined up in our belief in women’s rights and health and supporting women and who we are and what we do,” Brehm said.
A Little Something has taken off at a rapid pace. Brehm said she has turned a profit from her first transaction and continues to do so.
“It’s definitely a growing business,” Brehm said. “It’s always been successful. I put $20 into this business that first time and I just kind of ran it from there. Now I’m paying accountants and I’m buying new machines.”