Meet the Brand: Ugly Bitch Enterprise
The Founding Members of UBE | Photo Courtesy of Ugly Bitch Enterprise
If their name serves as any indication, Ugly Bitch Enterprise isn’t interested in blending in. The clothing brand, created by Lauren Pichiarella, Gabby Sullivan, Claire Zehnith, and Mira Dandiker, is an unapologetic mix of DIY upcycling, y2k trendiness, and alternative fashion designed to stand out from the rest of your Instagram feed. With the help of some shiny safety pins, bleached pinwheels, and a few well-placed rhinestones, the four craft the kinds of pieces you’d only find in your older sister’s closet or a boutique you’ve never had the courage to visit. Add in some strategic marketing, and you’re left with a booming student-run brand focused on sustainability, affordability, and a general sense of badassery you won’t be able to find anywhere on Marshall Street.
Before the brand was reaching hundreds of followers and making consistent sales even throughout a global pandemic, Ugly Bitch Enterprise started as most good businesses do— with a casual conversation between friends. “Me and Claire, we were just talking, and we were like, ‘We have so many clothes, and it’s so wasteful because we don’t wear any of them,’” Dandiker remembers. The two decided to start selling some of their clothes in the interest of building more sustainable closets, and Pichiarella then began to steer the group towards buying thrifted and vintage pieces to redesign and sell.
“We all started off in our own individual hometowns,” Pichiarella says, including her home in Scranton, Mira’s neighborhood in Minneapolis, Claire’s stomping grounds in Cleveland, and Gabby’s hometown near DC. The four spent their breaks from school scouring their local thrift stores for cool products, and as their own clothes began to sell out, the group was able to find wildly different clothes to upcycle for a steadily growing base.
Photos Courtesy of Ugly Bitch Enterprise
“It was very small drops at first,” Pichiarella says, all of which took place over their Instagram account @uglybitchenterprise. “We would only get small amounts [of clothes], and then they’d sell out, so then we started getting more and more.” Now, she says one of UBE’s biggest issues is dealing with the constant stockpile of new clothing that always seems to end up in someone’s dorm or apartment.
It’s clear that the brand has grown up a lot, and fast, but it wasn’t always that way, and the girls had to put in a lot of work to build Ugly Bitch’s reputation on campus. “A lot of it at first was people we knew, our close friends,” Dandiker says. From here, the four targeted their own communities and began to market UBE around campus through word of mouth. “It’s cool because we each have our own group of friends, so... it gets out to so many people, and they don’t overlap,” Pichiarella explains.
In addition to knowing different people, each member of the group also has a different style to bring to the table. Pichiarella and Dandiker, for instance, describe themselves as the edgier members of the brand, specializing in motorcycle tees and distressed fabric. That leaves Zehnith and Sullivan to handle the “quirkier” side of things, working with floral designs and funky lettering. According to Pichiarella, this kind of style diversity has proven to be a huge asset in creating pieces that a wide variety of people like. “It helps having more people, because obviously it’s chaotic when there’s four, but all of our styles are very different, so something that I’m like, ‘I don’t like that at all,’ we’ll buy and someone likes it,” says Pichiarella. “It’s crazy though, because we used to sell out all the time, but now you have to see what [the customers] want.”
Photos Courtesy of Ugly Bitch Enterprise
Figuring out exactly what UBE’s audience wants can sometimes be a bit of a guessing game for the group, but since the pandemic, the four have been experimenting with designs they’re passionate about. With everything shut down, UBE has had a real chance to focus on novel designs without worrying about what everyone else will think, and this exploration is pushing the brand to the next level.“When lockdown first started, I would say it was sort of beneficial because it gave us the opportunity to try new things and spend more time on certain pieces,” says Dandiker. “It was kind of fun to completely broaden what we could make.”
The downtime in quarantine has also allowed the UBE girls to reevaluate exactly what they want their brand to be, which has led them to try out some different style elements that they haven’t done in the past. “Before we were kind of playing it safe, and we sold what we knew would sell,” says Pichiarella. “[Now] we’ve kind of been playing around with sewing, dyeing, drawing, and stencils to make it more of a brand rather than just something we do on the side.” UBE still wants to please its loyal followers, of course, but the pandemic has given the four the time they needed to really streamline their aesthetics and think about what they want UBE to look like moving forward.
While Ugly Bitch Enterprise will continue to evolve as the world around it does, at its core, it’s a brand that’s helping Gen-Z feel like their coolest selves without looking like everyone else around them. “This is kind of like our baby and an extension of our own art,” says Pichiarella. It’s not about creating pieces just because they’re popular or jumping on style bandwagons for fear of being left behind. It’s about trying new things, being open to making mistakes, and creating a brand that all four founders actually love. A brand that reminds you to fuck with the mainstream, give up on perfection, and do whatever the hell you want, even if it scares you. Now that’s ugly bitch energy.