Meet the extraordinarily talented Karen Caldwell of Karen Caldwell Design. [10:06-15:10]

to always look my best because when we'd go out with her, people would come up to her and compliment her on, I love the way you did your hair. I love this color on you. And I also found that was a way for her to meet friends and meet new people. And I love people very much. And so I knew by having that little twist of doing things with her style and wearing a certain color and wearing a smile on your face. I'm convinced that wearing a smile on your face and having a kind heart brings people into your life. Oh, hundreds of fans. That's where it comes from. And she inspired me a lot. I have a beautiful girlfriend. She's German. And she told me recently, I said, oh, you always look so beautiful. And so does your two-year-old daughter, you like fashionistas. And she told me that style never takes a day off. No. And style never stops at the age of 50 either. I just turned 52 myself. And I do not mind getting old. I always think if you have an optimism about you and you're happy in general, aging is a wonderful thing. We tend to put a little bit of a dark cloud over aging. And I never wanted to be one of those women where we turned 50 and we're like, it's over. No, it's not over. It's the beginning of a great decade. It's the new 30s. And I think you should keep that going the rest of your life. We forget and we maybe sometimes stop taking care of ourselves. I find this is the best. It's easy to get into the switch. It's not easy to get into the switch. It is. It's like I do that every so often, of course, but dressing up is a lot more fun, I'd say. So how did you transition from people coming up on the street and asking you where did you get these beautiful clothes? So you obviously started making clothes. How did you get your first sale? I mean, what was what was it? It was very awkward because I have to tell you I am not a good salesperson. I hate having to take money from somebody. I just not like taking money, but you feel bad charging them because you know they're they're so happy with what you made them. And but unfortunately my account now is saying you can't quite do that all the time. You have to create a business. But there's a joy of thinking especially a woman because I grew up with sisters and I just love women. I have a lot of women in my family. I've lots of them. And I think what happened is it created this feeling. And so finally getting to the step where somebody wanted me to make them something, I felt, wow, I think this is this is going to be my new my new business and my new lifestyle. This is going to be great. And so what was the first transaction? How did you do that? The first transaction. I'm sorry, remember, well, you know it was funny because I never really sold things until a girlfriend by a dear friend Heidi Pettit who reached out to some people in Hollywood and had a connection to the Oscars and Golden Globes that people that attend those. And through that and through some blogs that were written about me on recycling clothes. I love taking old clothes and reinventing them using a little key or all this. They've been a huge thing again. And they recycle or they call it upcycling. And they're like such joy in doing that. They can show the things not thrown away but it's reused again and somebody loves it. And she reached or what happened is Olivia first, Colin first wife who was doing the King's speech at the time. I remember this. They reached out to me and through that I met the most amazing people through them. So what happened the stylist in LA who works with all the big movie stars, Olivia energy speech to her. And through that I was able to receive so many wonderful, you know, some opportunities to make clothes for movie stars, which was a dream that was to see it being worn and a photo on the red carpet. What have you? That to me was just incredible. And from there people would see there was something in in style on a dress I did on Jessica Chastain and so I had several orders from that. And it was great. And I felt like I've got a little business going on here. I better stick with them. Incredible. It's really fun. So you started out in San Francisco though. You started out dressing women in San Francisco. I did. I have a lot of friends sometimes and sometimes you find women that are quite insecure with themselves. It's often that women feel very insecure about her body and you don't want women to feel that way. I think all women are beautiful, no matter what your style is, your size. But sometimes you need somebody outside of yourself to tell you what will help you a little bit more. And I find that I'm very good at that. And so I started addressing women friends for free. It was basically dressing them up for events. For me it was just pleasure to see them wearing the dresses and wearing my costume jewelry or seeing how I told them to do their hair a certain way. They felt great. They felt great about themselves. And so I read in your bio that you like to dress women of all ages and all sizes. I do. I mean my next goal is I'm trying to, I've got connections right now. I'm hoping, hoping, hoping that Helen Mirren is a somebody I'm trying to reach out to. I think she's amazing. I think she's 70 foldable. And she's still sexing glamorous. I want to be her when I'm 75. Oh wow. I tend to look towards older actresses. And that might come from my grandmother because she was older and always look her best. I thought