The "herstory" behind skirt!® Part 2

Editorial note:  We continue our series by skirt!’s founder, Nikki Hardin, who tells the “herstory” behind skirt! magazine, skirt! books and skirt.com. We hope you enjoy taking a look at just how far skirt! has come. Click here to read Part 1 of the series.

By the time skirt! was 9 ½ years old in 2003, we had established a name and reputation for quality, integrity and innovation in our community, and praise be to all the goddesses from the dawn of time, we were making a profit. We had loyal, often fanatical readers, who stayed with us year after year, and we were drawing readers and contributors from around the country. We had a tiny financial safety net, but after salaries and expenses and making improvements to skirt!, there was nothing left for expanding into other markets. And we needed to expand because imitation skirts were springing up all around us. In some cases, they were direct ripoffs and in others, not-so-subtle variations on our theme. In one blatant instance, the knock-off was actually called “Skirtz!”–no confusion there! It was a free-for-all, and we couldn’t afford lawyers to protect our brand and our trademark. So much of my life had gone into eating, breathing, thinking and feeding skirt!--so many months when I didn’t know if I’d be able to pay the bills. So it was frustrating to have to sit back and watch other strangers borrow our ideas.

In the fall of 2003, five men in suits walked up the steep stairs to our office and proposed that we do business together. They were from a media company, Morris Communications, based in Georgia. The women of skirt! were amused and confused...who were these guys and what did they want? It was like the Mac vs. PC commercials. We were wearing jeans, shouting across the room at each other, loving life and dropping the f bomb and the estrogen bomb. The Pinstriped Suits seemed charming, but we were wary. First we tried to partner up, but it was too complicated to work, and then they offered to buy skirt!. I stalled, said yes, said no, went back to the table, balked at the terms, said no again, agonized, had crying jags, fought with my beloved co-workers who loved our independence, saw a shrink, called my kids, went back to the table, looked at the fact I was 60 and had no savings or retirement fund, named a figure and got it. Celebrated with a bottle of Champagne. Woke up with a hangover, cried, worried I’d made the wrong decision (I’m a Libra!) and went back to work.

If someone tells you it’s easy to sell a business you’ve poured your heart and irritable bowel syndrome into, don’t believe it. You go through mourning. You rebel. You see your shrink more often. You can’t let go of the smallest detail. You kvetch. You forget you don’t own it anymore. You remember you don’t own it anymore. You miss living on the edge. You go back to work.

But here’s the up-side. Selling skirt! meant we could expand and take it to other women in other cities. It meant we had access to resources we’d only dreamed of before. It meant all the skirt! staff had better benefits (love that matching 401k!). It meant a bigger, more sophisticated web site. It meant starting our own line of skirt!books – please check out our new titles while you’re on the site. It meant that if we could imagine it, we could probably find a way to do it. And we are still imagining. 

The best part is that we still have the same skirt! ethos. Our Charleston office runs the way it always did: we are independent thinkers; we have fun; we wear jeans (no pantyhose, please!) or we glam up and go out on the town; and we still drop the f bomb and the estrogen bomb. You can count on us to rebel and talk back, and our owners understand that if we didn’t, we wouldn’t be skirt!. Before a new market launches, their staff comes to the Charleston office to train, and if we do our job right, they go back home and create their own version of a firebrand skirt!.  Because we believe in the United Skirts of America.