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Life and Work with Gina of TeenieGenie Style

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Gina.

Gina, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Wow! Let’s see here. I grew up in San Clemente, CA. A small beach town in South Orange County. Growing up, I never really felt like I fit in. I guess you could say I was one of those small-town girls with big city dreams. I always loved fashion. By age 13, I subscribed to pretty much every fashion magazine under the sun and would spend hours analyzing the outfits and trying to figure out the latest trends. Somehow I found out about Santee Alley in the LA garment district and dragged my mom up there to go shopping. I would buy all these cheap trendy clothing and terrible knock-off bags. San Clemente is a total surfer town, so the standard wardrobe was Rainbow Sandals, Converse and Hurley hoodies at the time (early 2000’s). I would walk into school with my fake Prada bag and hip-hugger jeans with lace-up detail and get laughs and eye-rolls all around. I also didn’t reach 5’0 until my 17th birthday, so I got called shorty and made fun of all growing up.

I decided to go to college at the University of Miami in FL, as far away from San Clemente as I could get (that was still near the beach). The beach was probably the only thing that Miami had in common with San Clemente and I loved it. The student body was made up from kids all over the country and around the world. I became fascinated with learning about new cultures and places. Every person I met had a different accent and their own “style” that rubbed off on me a bit. I joined a sorority, made a ton of friends, and partied like crazy. My South Beach lifestyle called for attire I couldn’t afford so I learned how to be a savvy shopper and resourceful with what I had. I also quickly discovered regular size women’s clothing my friends bought was too big for my small stature l so I learned ways to refit and style attire.

I majored in Advertising and thought I wanted to be an Account Director. I never even considered fashion or a creative role in Advertising. In elementary school, I had this terrible art teacher (I hope she has retired by now and not still ruining kids lives) who would have us follow along as she would break down drawings. I sucked at drawing and she made it known. I was an over-achiever and straight-A student so I wasn’t used to getting negative feedback and snarky comments about my work. I knew everyone had subjects they were bad at so I convinced myself mine was art. I also lumped all things “creative” into this category. Throughout the rest of my school years, I shied away from all things artistic. I was interested in areas like photography and graphic design but never pursued them. I had a MySpace page that was completely tricked out, but I had no idea what that even was. I eventually discovered I had a talent for writing, but I just lumped this into “English.”

Flash forward to college graduation during 2009, the height of the recession. Like mostly everyone else, I had no job prospects and no real idea of what I wanted to do. It was the worst time of my life. One week I am rubbing elbows and drinking champagne with NBA All-stars at LIV in South Beach, the next I am back at my parent’s house in my old bedroom in San Clemente. My dad had long made it known that after college, the gravy train was over. Not one dime. He told me I had three weeks to find a “real” job or after that, I had to go begging back to my old high school waitressing job. Waitressing, me? After I had just been drinking bottles of Veuve in South Beach? The fire under my ass was lit.

I hustled like no other and somehow found a job in the Ad Sales Department of OC Weekly. Soon after that, I had friend looking for a roommate in NYC and the next thing I knew I was signing a lease with no job, and maybe $4,000 dollars to my name. I pounded the pavement, networked like crazy, and refined my resume like nobody’s business. Three weeks later, I had a job at the Television Ad Sales Department at ESPN. At the time I thought I was just lucky; at the right place, at the right time. But later I would see it wasn’t entirely just luck.

One thing I quickly realized was that NYC was the wrong place at that time for me. I was so poor and just not happy with my situation there. When ESPN asked me if I would want to transfer to LA, I jumped at the opportunity. Once I got to here, I realized that Ad Sales wasn’t the job for me. I left ESPN and got caught up in a slew of jobs before I finally landed a position at a very small startup. A startup was the best place I could have possibly landed. I was tasked with everything “marketing” by the CEO. I had no idea what I was doing, but Google became my best friend. I loved the challenge of figuring things out. I got to help design collateral pieces, write copy for emails; a creative’s dream. I began growing my skill-set and jumped at any opportunity to learn something new. I became a marketing “jack-of-all-trades.” I continued to work my way up until where I am now, the Marketing Director of small financial technology company.

It was about a year ago where I found myself bored in my personal life. I spent a lot of time on Instagram having fashion blogger envy, wishing I could do something like that. I was at a networking event with a group of pretty-high level marketing executives talking about the marketing strategy I had taken at my company, and the programs I had implemented in my short six months there, “You built a website by yourself?” “How did you generate that many leads in one month?” “What’s that platform you used?” “Wow, you are so creative.”

It was at that moment, the floodgates opened. I realized I knew a lot. My positions at startups had helped me cultivate a unique skill set that many people didn’t have. Was I creative?

These conversations ultimately gave me the confidence to start my blog. I desperately wanted to explore fashion, but I didn’t want to leave my job, and I didn’t want to work for someone else. I knew I wanted to do something with petite fashion since I was experienced and it was something I could help others like me with. My nickname in college was Teenie Genie and it was my Instagram name so I chose the name TeenieGenie Style. If these girls could do it, why couldn’t I? There was nothing stopping me. Nothing to lose. I dove in head first and haven’t stopped swimming since.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Honestly, I believe a smooth vs. rocky road is ALL perspective. I credit my professional career (and my therapist) for helping me think this way. Every bump in the road is a learning experience. Every rejection is an opportunity to overcome. Persistence and self-confidence are everything. For me, the hardest thing about starting the blog was overcoming the thought of judgment from friends and acquaintances. I could just envision a group chat of girls I hadn’t spoken to since college:
“OMG. Have you seen Gina’s Instagram?”
“Ya WTF, does she think she’s a model?”
“Seriously, everyone in LA thinks they can be a blogger… did you see that one photo with the white dress.”

That prospects of that chat haunted me for a while until one day I was thinking about all those E True Hollywood stories. In every story, they would flashback to the person’s high school days where their mom would talk about how they were ridiculed for following their dream. Sounds lame, but that’s honestly what I thought about! At that moment, I was just like, fuck it. Those people are just unhappy with their own lives, and anything they say is just bred out of their own insecurities.

Once I committed, I completely stopped carrying. Through social media, I met so many women of all ages who were doing the same thing and faced the same judgment. The blogging community has been SO wonderful. To any girl looking to get started, my advice is to network on social media with this community. You’ll find so many supportive people who are willing to help you and give you advice. It’s really amazing.

My other piece of advice is to continue to be persistent and dedicated. A blog is exhausting, especially if you have a full-time job. There are sometimes I come home exhausted feels like blowing off a blog or photo shoot, but I don’t. I push myself to finish, and when I do, it’s the most rewarding feeling. It’s the feeling that propels me to keep going and setting new goals for myself.

Please tell us about TeenieGenie Style.
TeenieGenie Style is a fashion and lifestyle blog with a focus on petites. I found a lot of online articles discussed clothing you should “avoid” if you are petite, and I thought that was bullshit. As a lover of fashion and trends, I don’t believe petites or any women should have to sacrifice certain styles because of their height or body shape. My blog offers tips on how you can work in certain styles and trends into outfits that are deemed “taboo,” while still flattering your figure. I also have a more generic lifestyle and fashion posts that appeal to women of all shapes and sizes.

Petites are considered any women 5’5 and under, which accounts for 70% of the US female population. The average inseam for pants in the US is around 35 inches which are designed for a woman that is roughly 5’9! In the last couple of years, there has been a lot of great strides in fashion for plus size women and I think that is absolutely wonderful. I think sometimes petites get overlooked. A number of big box brands (Gap, Banana Republic, Ann Taylor) offer petite sizes, but the styles and number of sizes available are often limited. One of the goals I have for my blog is to shine a light on petites for more upscale, trendier brands. I would love to do a collaboration with retailers like Revolve or Nordstrom for a petite line. I would also love to see more petite women on the runways.

There is so much opportunity it’s crazy. My blog still is still very much growing and evolving and I love that. I am excited for the followers and community I am building along the way. There’s still a long way up the ladder for us petites, but I am excited about the climb!

Are there any apps, books, podcasts or other resources that you’ve benefited from using?
HubSpot (a marketing automation software) https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing has an AMAZING marketing blog with tons of templates that I have been using for years. Obviously, it’s more business marketing focused, but I highly recommend it for bloggers, too. It will teach you marketing principals that crucial to blogging that you won’t find in normal blogging resources.

Contact Info:

Image Credit:
Denise Vlosky

Getting in touch: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.

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