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GRAVITAS MAGAZINE GravitasMag.com | 65 Sigrid Olsen Fashion Designer & Artist, Sarasota At the pinnacle of her career, Olsen was lauded on the global fashion stage as a leading women's designer with a bev y of flagship stores, peak sales of $100 million a year, and a passionate customer base of Baby Boomer-aged women. en in 2008, unceremoniously and abruptly, Olsen was forced into early retirement by the parent company, Liz Claiborne, who dismantled her 24-year-old business, closed 54 stores and laid off dozens of employees. Devastated by the loss, Olsen reinvented herself through her other passions: art, yoga and travel. Today, her new, original women's clothing line is sold on HSN. She proudly describes the collection as ageless and versatile for the next generation. Instead of finding inspiration in the hand-printed textiles that launched her career, Olsen says she found a new source of inspiration from the women she hosted and befriended on yoga retreats. In this inter view with GV ITAS, Olsen talks about the lessons she learned as a designer and businesswoman and the passion she feels from regaining her creative footing in the fashion industr y. How did your love of art evolve into fashion? I was an only child and quite a restless soul. I liked to stay busy. Creativity was my way of keeping myself amused. For my birthday each year, my dad bought me a box of magic markers or crayons. As I grew older, I found that creativity just came naturally to me, from seing the table to doing flower arrangements to mak ing art. When I became a mom and was mak ing Christmas cards out of potato prints with my k ids, I realized if I used silk-screen textiles I could stamp it on fabric. at was the "aha" moment that changed my life. A er graduation from art school, I k new I wanted to get involved in textiles. I bought a loom and started weaving. I loved all the different colors of yarn and mi x ing them together. I spun and dyed my own yarn. It became too tedious, so when I discovered I could do my potato prints, I set up a production studio in my barn where I printed fabric with stamps cut from potatoes. en, I cut it into pieces, bagged it all up and sent it to home-sewers to have them make it into garments, pillows, quilts and baby buntings. While I was work ing in Rockport, Massachuses, a man came into the shop and said he loved my prints and wanted to start a company. He asked me, "How many of these can you do in a day?' I said, "I don't k now, like 10?" We became partners and started look ing for someone to silkscreen the fabrics into a manufacturing process. We went to New York and shopped around with our samples. One night, my partner met a man at a restaurant where he was eating dinner and they struck up a conversation. e next day, he invited him to view our sample line and he wrote a check on the spot. He ended up Continued on page 66 Famed fashion designer Sigrid Olsen has lived more lives than most women would dare dream. From a world famous fashion designer, to art gallery owner and yoga retreat leader, she is the picture of youthful radiance at 62. Like every great metamorphosis, Olsen has emerged stronger and more creative than ever, transitioning back into the fashion world, but this time on her own terms. Visit GravitasMag.com to hear the full interview embedded into the digital page.

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