Founder & Designer, Michele Genevieve has taken her 14 years of experience working for Nordstrom to launch the Premium Denim Company, Hollywood Million Denim. Combining her love of denim, her eye for fashion, and her attention to detail, Michele Genevieve has wrapped it all around a sexy, hip, and chic new line, created to make every woman feel beautiful.
Since she was a little girl, Michele has always dreamed of starting her own clothing line. Her mom was a seamstress and would sew all Michele’s clothes for her. She would take Michele to fabric stores to let her pick out her own patterns and fabrics. Michele would watch her mom sew for hours and when her outfits were completed, Michele and her mom would take the leftover fabrics and make matching outfits for her barbies. This was the start of her love for designing.
During Michele’s 14 years in upper level management at Nordstrom, She was constantly coaching the designers of the lines she bought from. She would sketch designs for them to manufacture and help them tweak their designs to give them a selling edge.
After 14 years at Nordstrom, Michele decided to take some time off to be with her family and just be a mom. She always planned to start her denim line when her son started high school. During the 6 years that she took time off from working, she researched factories and fabrics, played around with designs and patterns, and had samples made of her creations. In September, 2008, the moment her son Quinn James started high school, she founded Hollywood Million Denim.
Michele has great attention to detail, and every design is named after her family members or close friends. She creatively uses their initials and their birthdates for the style number. She also wanted to bringing positive energy to each wearer, so she named her fabric washes things like, Gratitude, Thankful, Faith, Integrity, etc. Michele even designed cupcake-like pink corrugated boxes for the jeans to be sold in. And of course, she made sure that the cardboard was made out of 100% recycled paper.
Michele also strongly believes in charity work. She tried to find some way to incorporate her line and giving back to families and communities across the USA. So she developed a program called “Give Back. Give Thanks.” With every HMD jean sold, her company donates 5% of the proceeds to each consumer’s favorite charity. HMD has only been in stores for a few months, and there is already a celebrity following. Style makers like Kim Kardashian, Drea DiMatteo, Jenny McCarthy, Kara DioGuardi, Dawn Olivieri, the cast of The Real Housewives of Orange County, count themselves as big fans of HMD!