A passion for fashion drives Hailey Hastings’ entrepreneurial spirit

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For Hailey Hastings, being an entrepreneur is all about building a community. Her company, Girls Just Know, had its early beginnings in a blog Hastings launched to share beauty and fashion how-tos and general life advice for girls.

But after spending a year living in London, England, she decided to turn her love for reading and writing about fashion into a search for affordable fashion – what some would call an oxymoron – that was both durable and stylish.

“I thought, ‘Why am I spending $30 to $45 on a shirt I can only wear four times until the color fades or the shape gets disproportioned from the wash. Just because I wasn’t spending $200 and up on a sweater doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have quality,” she writes on her website.

She spent more than a year researching, sourcing and importing quality clothing and then launched the Girls Just Know e-commerce site in April 2017. It’s part fashion, part empowerment, and all girl.

“Our clothing is made for real women so it was important that our clothing wasn’t see through, didn’t shrink, and had quality fabric that didn’t show every nook and cranny,” says Hastings.

The Wild Child Waterfall Coat (above left) and Emma Dress are popular items on the Girls Just Know e-commerce site. (Photos: @girlsjustknoww / Instagram)

She adds that what we wear can add to our overall feeling of confidence and she wants to leverage that to help empower women. “We aren’t selling clothing as much as the feeling you get when you are in our pieces, the way you feel walking into the room confident in one of our dresses or creating a look you wouldn’t normally wear,” says Hastings. “I want the clothing to change how you feel as you put it on. You can create so many different personas: rocker, girlie girl, high society, whatever you want.”

That desire appears to be resonating with Girls Just Know community. Hastings says the business has been growing quickly, likely due to a combination of quality clothing, “killer customer service,” and great pricing.

Hastings, who grew up in Huntsville and now calls Toronto home, continues to share beauty and fashion DIY tutorials, product reviews, and life advice both on her YouTube channel and also on her blog. She has plans to launch her own line of Girls Just Know clothing designs for both young adults and women and has a secret project in the works that will launch this spring.

“It’s an amazing experience and we appreciate each day we have doing what we love and interacting with such amazing people,” says Hastings.

For more information, visit girlsjustknow.com.