DEAN STREET SOCIETY
We’re about ENCOURAGING BEAUTY. Practical wisdom + sublime inspiration to help brilliant women find MORE JOY + LESS OVERWHELM in their style + life.
There is nothing so powerful as a woman who believes she is beautiful.
It affects the way she walks into a first date or final interview, how she interacts with her husband or her children, how kind and generous she is as a friend and human. Yet having worked with hundreds of clients and students as a stylist, I’ve seen that whether a size 2, 12 or 22, women who are 17 to 67 -- we all struggle to feel beautiful.
Culture tells you to buy more, or weigh less.
Instead, we focus on shopping less, learning how to dress your shape. When we buy things we get a dopamine rush that fades quickly. When we instead learn how to get creative in our closets we can create that same high, for free, again and again. When we focus on losing 10 pounds as the secret to happiness, we stay a victim to the insecurity that returns with any weight gain. When we learn principles of shape, fit, fabric, how our head and heart are involved, we’re empowered over our beauty.
The answer is education and empathy -- wise grounded teaching on style and self-perception, plus a heartfelt community that lets us hear the lies one another believe and therefore question our own.
HILARY RUSHFORD
Hello, Love!
I’m Hilary Rushford.
I started my styling business while living on DEAN STREET in home sweet Brooklyn.
My apartment was in the center of our friends, and had a big living room (by New York standards) for hosting. Whether it was 26 folks over for Thanksgiving, costume parties, or impromptu drop ins for coffee, there was a “we’re-in-this-together” vibe of my neighborhood crew.
That was the heart I brought into my business. While style can be an exclusive world where you don’t feel you have the right size, budget or ability, this space is all about inclusivity. I have seen stretch marks and tears and talked about it all over glasses of wine.
My last career was musical theater. Broadway tour, Radio City Rockettes and all that jazz. In other words I excel at changing clothes really quickly, dancing in high heels and have been wearing red lipstick since the age of five. (wink)
Meanwhile, being the starving artist dancer I was always asked how I pulled off my style on a budget. As a professor at heart, I was headed to go get a masters degree in theatre, when my friends on Dean Street pointed out there was a business to be born in helping other women feel beautiful.
I put my theatre career on hold for one year, and never went back. I feel in love with the look on a woman’s face when she looked in the mirror and said, “Wow I look pretty in this!” I realized this wasn’t a side job, but a ministry.
A California girl originally, I live in home sweet Brooklyn with my husband Jeremy and rescue kitten Freddie Cappuccino.
A few of my favorite things include college football, The West Wing, tequila soda with lime, fresh chocolate chip cookies, Taylor Swift and traveling with my passport. My life mantra is “elegant excellence.” How can I live an extraordinary and brilliant life, with simplicity and grace…
FAVORITE QUOTE
We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same..” - Marianne Williamson
