An inspiring journey of motherhood, creativity, reinvention, and building a brand alongside her children.
For Michele, a Westport mom of two, that journey has been anything but linear — shifting from graphic design to fashion design, rediscovering creativity through tennis, and eventually building a small-batch vintage-inspired tennis dress brand with her children.
- HOW OLD ARE YOUR KIDS AND HOW LONG HAVE YOU LIVED IN WESTPORT?
I have two kids. Uzi is a 14-year-old young man entering Staples High School in Westport, and Wallis is a 10-year-old girl at The Southport School. We moved to Westport in 2012 from the city.
- HOW DID YOU END UP WHERE YOU ARE NOW IN TERMS OF YOUR JOB?
Before having children, I worked as a graphic designer for 15 years in the beauty and fashion industry. During my first pregnancy, I asked myself — how can I tell this child to “be anything he wants to be” when I’m not who I want to be?
That question changed everything.I enrolled in night school and, 3.5 years later, earned a Fashion Design degree from Parsons. At age 38, I was a mother of one and an intern at Proenza Schouler. I briefly launched my own maternity collection while pregnant with my daughter before returning to graphic design as a VP for a former boss.
After moving to Connecticut, I commuted to NYC for two years until I was laid off — and that became a turning point. My daughter was phasing out of naps, my son was failing first grade, and eventually all three of us were diagnosed with dyslexia. We switched schools, renovated a farmhouse, and I picked up tennis for the first time as an adult.
Learning tennis was humbling, but it connected me with incredible people and gave me a sense of team for the first time in my life. I’ve always collected vintage sewing patterns, so I started updating old tennis dress designs from the ’70s and ’80s just for fun — wearing them on court, designing a team logo, and eventually printing fabrics with custom patterns.
Then Covid happened. Life slowed down, and creativity became a bright spot in an otherwise isolated time. As I homeschooled my daughter, we did endless crafts and hands-on projects — and soon I found myself making more and more tennis dresses.
A group of women at Birchwood Country Club asked me to make uniforms for the tennis team. That’s how The Birchy was born — a 70s-inspired white tennis dress with navy trim, a patched pocket, and a waist tie.
But I wanted more than a dress — I wanted a story.
While teaching my kids entrepreneurship, we set up an LLC through LegalZoom, filed trademarks, sourced fabrics, chose trims, built moodboards, designed logos, learned Adobe Illustrator, did a photoshoot on a friend’s tennis court, and built a Squarespace website together.
We created a business plan, pitched it to my husband (now our investor!), and manufactured a small batch of vintage-inspired tennis dresses.
Now, we’re learning marketing, sales, and meeting as many tennis players as possible through pop-ups — keeping expectations low, going slow, and focusing on joy and curiosity.
Fingers crossed for Top Banana's future.