Daily Inspiration: Meet Gilley

Today we’d like to introduce you to Gilley.

Hi Gilley, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
Love Street really started with a great friend of mine. We were looking for social clubs, and I personally just couldn’t find exactly what I was looking for. I had considered places like Soho House and some of the newer social clubs popping up around LA. We also looked at country clubs because we love to play tennis — although we’re very much beginners — but nothing really felt like us. So eventually we were like, why don’t we just make our own?

I’ve also always wanted to be an event planner, so at first we thought it would just be a fun way to get our friends together more often. But it was always part of the DNA of Love Street to invite the girl you just met, or the girl who doesn’t know anyone, or someone you think would be really interesting to bring into the mix. The whole point was making new friends, trying new things, getting out of the house, and just having a bigger life. I remember feeling like, there has to be more to life than this.

I had met so many incredible women through completely different parts of my life, and I kept thinking, I literally just need to get all of these women in the same place at the same time and the magic will happen from there.

And it kind of did. From day one, we were blown away by how much demand there was. We started with really simple meetups at bars, and it quickly turned into bigger wellness events, dinners and lunches, beauty events, our Women in Business series, content creator days, tennis events, pool parties — all sorts of things.

My plan is to always keep it fresh and interesting. I don’t want Love Street to ever feel like the same event over and over again. I want to change the venue, change the vibe, change the theme, try something we haven’t done before. LA has so many beautiful, iconic, coveted, and sometimes really hard-to-access places, and part of the fun for me is finding ways for us to experience those places and try new things together.

Ultimately, I want to create a new kind of social club. Something that makes your world feel bigger. You meet people you never would have met, go places you might never have gone, try things you might never have tried, and hopefully make some really great friends along the way. That’s always been the heart of Love Street.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It definitely has not been a completely smooth road. I had never done anything like this before. Before Love Street, I was modeling — I actually started modeling when I was seven — so building a company, producing events, managing people, creating a brand, all of it has been a completely new world for me.

It’s really been a constant learning process, and Love Street grew out of my hands much faster than I expected. Every single event teaches me something new. Sometimes it’s an intimate dinner with 15 women, and sometimes it’s a 200-person, four-hour wellness event with a million moving parts. No matter how much you plan, there’s always something you didn’t anticipate, and I’ve had to learn how to figure things out very quickly.

And then there are all the things that have nothing to do with actually throwing an event — keeping up with social media as we grow, figuring out our branding, building a website, managing partnerships, creating systems and just learning how to actually run a business. I’m learning all of it as I go.

But honestly, that’s also been one of the best parts. I’m constantly meeting incredible people, learning from them, making connections and being introduced to worlds I probably never would have experienced otherwise. I think I’ve learned more in this period of my life than I could have imagined.

There have definitely been obstacles and mistakes along the way, and I’m sure there will be plenty more, but every event gets a little better. I’m figuring it out in real time, and I think there’s something really exciting about that.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’ve been modeling since I was seven, so I honestly don’t really remember getting into the industry — I was just so young. I started modeling again seriously as an adult when I was around 20, and I’m 31 now, so it’s been a huge part of my life for a really long time.

Modeling has taken me all over. I’ve gotten to live in Italy, New York, Miami, and travel to some really incredible places. I’ve met amazing people and been invited into rooms and experiences that taught me so much. But I always describe modeling as a roller coaster. There are really high highs and really low lows, and you just have to keep holding on.

Over the years, I’ve also done a little bit of everything within that world. I’ve creative directed shoots, styled, worked as a modeling agent for a period of time, and worked with brands. I also worked for an app called BeautyPass, where I onboarded restaurants, beauty salons, hotels, and other businesses. I didn’t necessarily know it at the time, but all of those experiences were teaching me things that I use now with Love Street. I draw from that knowledge constantly, and even from the relationships and contacts I’ve built over the years.

I think modeling also exposed me to so many beautiful events, interesting people, brands, hotels, restaurants, and different ways of creating an experience. I was always paying attention to those things, and now I get to take everything I’ve seen and learned and put my own spin on it.

At a certain point, though, I felt ready to graduate into something new. I wanted to build something instead of always being the person hired to be part of someone else’s vision. Love Street was honestly a bit of a happy accident. I don’t think I sat down one day and decided, “I’m going to start a social club and become an event planner.” It just kept growing, and I grew with it.

I’m probably most proud of that — taking all these seemingly random chapters of my life and realizing they actually prepared me for what I’m doing now. I’m still figuring it out, and it’s definitely challenged me in ways modeling never did, but I’m really happy to be here and excited to see where it goes.

What was your favorite childhood memory?
My dad was a surfer and photographer, so some of my favorite childhood memories are from the North Shore of Hawaii. Every year, we would spend about a month there during the surf competitions. My parents would take us out of school, and we’d basically just live there for the month.

Looking back, I feel incredibly lucky that we got to have that time together as a family. We weren’t just going somewhere for a few days as tourists — we really got to settle in, experience the culture, meet people, and live a little bit more like locals. And obviously, being a kid in Hawaii for a month was pretty much paradise.

I think those experiences actually shaped me more than I realized at the time. They gave me a love of traveling, experiencing different cultures, meeting new people, and really immersing myself somewhere instead of just staying in my own little world. I think there’s something so important about getting outside of what you know and broadening your perspective and your horizons in life.

More than anything, though, I just really cherish that quality time with my family. Those are memories I’ll always have.

Pricing:

• Love Street is currently transitioning from individually ticketed events into a private membership-based social club.
• Select events are still available for individual ticket purchase, with pricing varying by experience.
• Love Street Country Club tennis socials typically start around $75 for general admission, with VIP experiences available for select events.
• Founding Membership applications are currently open, with additional membership details available directly through Love Street.
• experience. Our intimate Women in Business dinners are application-based and limited to approximately 15 women.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.lovestreetsocialclub.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lovestreetsocialclub/
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@lovestreetsocialclub

Image Credits
Kelly Ridgeway