Sophia Amoruso

by ICONHOUSE
“You create the world blink by blink. It is entirely yours to discover and yours to create”

In less than a decade Sophia Amoruso has built herself an empire. What started as an eBay profile and a rented pool house is now a company of over 300 employees, an office in downtown Los Angeles and a brand new, debut brick and mortar on Melrose Avenue.

In 2006 Amoruso had spent a couple of years hitch-hiking, was a recovering shop-lifter, got fired from her retail job and had to take a day-job in an office so she could get her hands on health insurance. From this desk her time was spent on MySpace and her interest was piqued by friend requests from eBay sellers. She saw something that she liked, something that got her excited and she knew she could do it even better. The name, NastyGal, contrasted the more bohemian sites she had seen and cemented the Betty Davis vintage badass vibe. And then she did what she does best, she worked.

She learned the secret to hunting down discarded vintage, digging much deeper than a focused thrift trip. It was about rag-houses and cast off warehouse rooms. “You have to establish relationships,” Amoruso says. “One person leads you to another person, if that person is willing to talk. It’s like the drug trade.” And she developed the sense for it. One of her big scores was a Chanel jacket, she found it at a Salvation Army store for $8 and turned it around for $1,000. She did the research and learned what visual representation got the most views, what key words were trending, regionally where she could find the best vintage.

And she was a queen of social media before social media was ready for royalty. Then: 60,000 MySpace friends, now: 206K Instagram followers.

In 2008 nastygal.com was launched. On Day One the site sold out of its inventory and Amoruso got a call from Kelly Ripa’s stylist looking for a specific piece. Six years later and NastyGal is an international online retailer, an apparel and accessories brand, a storefront, a semi-annual lifestyle publication, and a way of life. NastyGal is about being bold, confident and badass, with #Girlboss Sophia Amoruso at the helm.

“It’s cool to be kind. It’s cool to be weird. It’s cool to be honest and to be secure with yourself.” - Sophia Amoruso