Meet Mallory Ottariano, founder of Youer, a women's clothing company located right here in our city. Her tenacity, talent, and passion have brought Youer to our community and beyond, offering up fresh and colorful designs that are made with care and consideration.
Mallory, your journey to present day is so inspiring, and like most inspiring stories, they are laced with courage, hard times, and triumph. Back in 2012 when you had a fresh degree in architecture, what about that career didn't cater to your creative core?
Well, I started off at art school and that was incredible. I was pursuing a fine arts degree at a school that didn’t have any academics and it was such an immersive creative life of making art constantly. Then, after a year there, I realized that I needed to make a choice about my future and go to a cheaper school, so I transferred. And I thought “What am I going to do with a printmaking degree?” So I thought Architecture seemed like a logical pivot within the field that could guarantee me a pretty solid job with a pretty solid salary. But about halfway through, I realized I wasn’t going to be the next Frank Gehry. I was probably going to be drafting basement remodels and adding closets next to bathrooms. I wanted to be in charge of ideas! Not bringing someone else’s ideas to life. I worked in the field really briefly and did exactly what I predicted I would do—designed remodels and bathrooms and spent a lot of time behind a computer.
It seems that your working conditions have never been glamorous. Can you speak to how those little spaces (often times windowless or hot!) have inspired you to do more than consider manufacturing but dive right into it?
Well, it’s really not to do with those little spaces that we’re manufacturing in Missoula—it’s because of dozens of experiences over the last decade working with USA factories who really fumbled the ball. The options were to go out of business, move production overseas, or do it ourselves. Apparel manufacturing in the US is extremely unsupported. The workforce, technology, and funding behind it have dramatically shifted since the 1990s and now only 2% of the clothes Americans buy are made here. That means that as a small brand, you don’t have a lot of options when things go wrong. And, with limited financial power, you’re always deprioritized if a larger account comes along. That continually happened to us and we were already managing every link of our supply chain. So I figured, what’s managing one more? When I first started this business, I was sewing everything on a $100 sewing machine. And after a couple of years, I couldn’t keep up so I outsourced to other factories. Now, 12 years later, we have a team of seven and are making clothes on about 50 thousand dollars worth of sewing machines!
Tell me about how the realization of what it takes to produce clothing inspired you to make a difference.
I’ve always been obsessed with clothes, ever since I can remember. I grew up making a lot of clothes and in a very creative household so the appreciation for creating things with stories is a very innate part of me. I’ve always sought out things that you couldn’t find everywhere and have had an affinity for the unique. After years of making clothes and hearing “Ooh you gotta sell those!” I finally did in 2012! I went to thrift stores and found weird and wonderful clothes and cut them up for fabrics. A whole sustainability story was born out of that, I learned a lot about upcycling in fashion, but it wasn’t sustainable for growth. So a few years in, I started making my own fabrics and taught myself how to design fabric prints and got connected with a printer. I started custom milling fabrics from recycled and bio materials so that our impact would still be as responsible as it could be, and then started sharing the story of how things were made with more people. I think making clothes in a responsible way is a non-negotiable piece of business.
Tell me about this Youniverse.
The Youniverse is what we call our factory. Montana’s first athletic apparel factory. We’re small, so we can be a little more experimental in how we do things but we still practice principles of big factories because at the end of the day we have quotas to hit. The Youniverse is a big space that houses all our business operations at every level. It’s a fun place where you can see how clothes are made and meet the people making them (as long we’re open for a tour), pick up orders, come be involved in content we make, and see a group of people having fun working together. We have a great team and there’s a lot of joy in our day. We’re currently in the process of moving our operation to a new location that’s going to be colorful and themed and have whales hanging from the ceiling and murals on the walls and an entrance that looks like a solar system.
What does it mean to have community supported apparel?
Well, Community Supported Apparel was a little term I coined for a crowdfunding campaign we ran back in 2021 to fund this factory. I called it a CSA in a little play on the agricultural format to get funding for a growing season. At the time, we had just made the decision to bring some production in-house and we raised $100k in 30 days. Our community knew we needed to do this next step and they came forward in a really big way. It took three years, but in June we finally bought a building and used the CSA funds to do so! It’s pretty powerful to know that our community came together to get us exactly what we needed. And we can’t wait to celebrate with them on our grand opening September 14.
What's your favorite thing you've ever designed/produced and why?
Youer is really an extension of my personal style so I love most of what we make. I was the designer for many years, but I’ve now passed that hat along to Sarah Cabral who is our lead designer and much more talented at technical design than I am. I think my favorite thing we’ve made is the Superpower Blazer. It's really a spectacular depiction of what Youer is all about—beautiful clothes that are technical and designed for movement, even if they don’t look it. The blazer looks like a classic oversized blazer with some feminine details, but in fact it’s made from stretchy legging fabric so it really flips the idea of businesswear on its head. We designed it for women who lift and have shoulders that are restricted by traditional blazers. The places women wear these blazers is really what makes them special to me—dressed up on a date, casually over a hoodie and leggings, and often to litigate in court. It’s a piece that really transcends activewear for us.
If you could change anyone's perspective on how clothing is made, what would you say? In other words, what's one sentiment that has stuck with you through this journey?
Ethical sustainable fashion isn’t expensive, it’s that fast fashion is artificially cheap. We’ve grown to expect clothes should cost $5 or $10 when in actuality there are so may exploitations involved in that low price. I think we really have to examine our consumption as a culture. In the 1960s, the average American bought less than 25 pieces of clothing a year, spending the equivalent of $4000 on them ($160/piece). Today, the average American buys over 70 pieces a year but spends only $1800 on those 70 pieces. Style is individual and if you build a closet for your personal style instead of trends, the pressure to consume at the volume we do dissipates.
"I think my favorite thing we’ve made is the Superpower Blazer. It's really a spectacular depiction of what Youer is all about."