Leela Cosgrove
Leela Cosgrove wasn’t supposed to become the founder of a successful company.
She grew up in a housing commission suburb in Brisbane, Australia, surrounded by violence, drug use and the ongoing rhetoric that she would amount to nothing.
She refused to submit to the expectations set for her, defied the odds and escaped the cycle of poverty around her by starting her own business and growing it into a multi-million dollar enterprise.
Leela’s style journey began with her husband (who was way more into fashion than she was) suggesting she find a dressmaker to work with and then brought her to my atelier to order pieces as a Christmas present. The aim was to have clothes that fit and cut her free of the tyranny of shopping where she was overlooked, ignored and morally judged because of her body size.
But what Leela really needed to learn went way beyond an arbitrary dress size. She needed to position herself iconically as a business woman who knows she will be judged on her appearance but be determined to not conform to what society and corporate culture says she should look like while still attracting valuable opportunities.
But where do you find such a person – a dressmaker with whom you can collaborate?
A friend’s mother made Leela’s second wedding dress, but where and who to turn to for the most important act of getting dressed to position her enigmatically in the world of business? Outside of retail, this was not obvious or easy to find.
Leela’s husband, Gulliver Gilles who has sat through many green room meltdown moments before her onstage appearances, says:
“It’s so good to be 72 hours out from an event and my wife is not freaking out about what she is going to wear.
“It’s a relief to know that for the next few mornings, instead of a shoe flying across the room in frustration because the dress she tried on in the shop which looked ‘fine’ is ‘not fine’, she has multiple options of equal greatness at her fingertips. That makes me really happy.
“She deserves this level of effortless style because she puts the effort in to fix this; that’s the way she does all of her life.”
Quote from husband Gulliver Gilles who has sat through many a greenroom meltdown moments before Leela was about to appear on stage;
“It’s so good to be 72 hrs out from an event and my wife is not freaking out about WTF she is going to wear.It’s a relief to know that for the next few mornings, instead of a shoe flying across the room in frustration because the dress she tired on in the shop that looked, “fine” is “not fine” that she has multiple options of equal greatness at her fingertips, that makes me really happy.
She deserves this level of effortless style because she puts the effort in here to fix this because that’s the way she does all of her life.”
