On this day 12 years ago, I walked away from it all.  I loaded all my essential possessions and my faithful companion Luna into my Honda Odyssey and hit the road.  My first destination was Portland to spend time with the family before truly hitting the road.

I had hoped to rewrite my Mexico/Central American Saga on the tenth anniversary, but was waylaid by a plethora of puppies. I feel it is important to go back in history to truly share my Odyssey, so I’m taking you back to my humble fashion beginnings.

“Have you ever wanted something so badly that it possessed your body and your soul through the night and through the day,..”

Oh, I wanted it badly.  I wanted to see my name in lights!  Well, maybe not in lights exactly, but certainly on the labels of thousands of pieces of clothes, clothes that would hang on the racks of chic boutiques and grace the bodies of complete strangers.  I wanted to be Sheila Moon, the famous fashion designer!

In order to achieve this dream, I enrolled in yet another year of school. Five years at the University of Oregon, two BS degrees, one in History, the other in Journalism: Advertising, and two years working in mindless temp jobs pushed me to enroll in the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (FIDM) in Los Angeles.  I was going to learn everything there was to know about running a successful fashion business.  Well, I learned how to draw pretty pictures and to translate those pretty pictures into actual, wearable clothing but I didn’t learn much about running a business.

I served my time in Los Angeles, a miserable two years and one month.  I finished my one year of school.  I worked for two completely crazy fashion designers, running to the café for their afternoon cappuccino and completing other similarly critical tasks.  I lived in a small studio apartment in Hollywood with two male friends from University.  I had my sewing machine stolen from the trunk of the car on my first day of school, and my entire car was stolen six months later.  It was found and returned, but now I had a cholo car, complete with chain steering wheel. I could not escape Los Angeles quickly enough.

I returned to San Francisco to devote myself to my dream of my beautiful SoMa warehouse and the Sheila Moon Collection.  After more mind-numbing temporary jobs, my first failed fashion line, Swoon, another job with another crazy fashion designer, and a losing car/bike skirmish, I found myself with a nice chunk of change and a bit of freedom to pursue my vision.  I set myself up in my dream warehouse in SoMa, I had my very first freelance patternmaking client, Swobo, and ideas for the Sheila Moon Collection were racing through my brain.  My first fully functional day in the office, seated at my pattern table, I gazed out the bank of windows to see the fog rolling over the hills to the west and a vision of the sun filled downtown and Bay Bridge straight ahead and to the right.  I could not believe that somebody was actually going to pay me for doing what I loved most – creating beautiful clothing from thin air.  My dream was finally on the way to becoming reality.

For the first nine years of my business I lived in commercially zoned warehouses.  My loosely defined kitchen was a bar sink, a hot plate, a toaster oven, and a mini refrigerator.  I had two huge ADA compliant bathrooms, beautifully equipped with a sink, a toilet with handrails, and nothing more.  My shower was the 24-Hour Fitness, a mile away.  The downstairs tenant was a chicken processing plant.  I lived with the constant hum of the largest walk-in refrigerator I had ever seen.  I loved that place. It was truly my dream come true.

But my life seemed to be perpetually out of balance.  Either I had plenty of freelance work and the money was flowing freely, or I had neither work nor money but plenty of time to work on the Sheila Moon Collection.  I began to feel like I was making everybody else’s dreams come true while my own dreams withered and died in a dusty corner of my beautiful warehouse.

After three unsuccessful trade shows and a newfound terror of cold calling, I turned my energies to bicycle racing.  It was on the race course that I achieved the phenomenal success that had eluded me in the world of high fashion.  I discovered a community of people with whom I could completely relate. I also found an overwhelming need for good women’s cycling apparel.  It did exist but it was so horrible that I, and many of my female friends, opted for the men’s clothing. 

I asked my cycling industry friends about the wisdom of launching a cycling apparel business.  The answer was a resounding, “Don’t do it!”  So that is exactly what I did.  My first so-called collection was a tote bag filled with a few hats and accessories made from fabric left over from my last fashion collection, a one-page line sheet/order form, a smile, and nothing more.  I was blessed the good fortune of being a relatively successful female bike racer and having many friends who worked in bike shops.  At the time, there was approximately one female for every ten male cyclists on the road, and finding a female bike shop employee was like discovering a unicorn in a haystack.  Just hearing a woman’s voice on the other end of the phone could get me an appointment with any shop I called.

With $40,000 in credit card debt, barely $3,000 in accounts receivable, and a paltry sum of money in the bank I launched Sheila Moon Cycling Apparel – truly on a wing and a prayer.  I fired all my freelance customers and set about making my own dream come true.  In this incarnation, my dream was finally realized, surpassing my wildest dreams, with almost 100% year over year growth for the first four years. I could not believe how fun and easy it was!

If you are interested in the very early years, check it out here.

Part Two, Being “The Sheila Moon” is now out!