LoveShackFancy began at trunk shows and grew from there. One dress at a time. One trunk show, one store at a time. As soon as we opened our first store, we began hosting trunk shows for other up and coming brands as a way to pay it forward. We have done so ever since. Every month there is a new and notable brand popping up at one of our 20 locations! Stay tuned on social and in our monthly happenings email for latest news on what trunk shows are happening when. This month, we are working with HerStory.
When the founders of HerStory—women themselves who are passionate entrepreneurs with backgrounds spanning fashion, philanthropy, and business—looked around the industry they loved, they saw something missing. Women. The women behind the products, the craftsmanship and the legacy were too often invisible, underpaid, and undervalued. So instead of waiting for the fashion world to catch up, they created HerStory, equal parts ethical fashion destination, traveling trunk show, and ode to female-led craftsmanship, with a deceptively simple idea: every product carries a story and women aren’t just seen, but celebrated.
Today, HerStory is a compelling voice in the world of ethical luxury—a curated collective that supports over 250 brands and more than 300,000 artisans across the globe, which is a wildly impressive statistic if you think about it—but also kind of beside the point. To understand HerStory is to look beyond the numbers and into the spirit. Because when you interact with HerStory (be it online or at one of their trunk shows), it doesn’t feel like a multi-brand shopping destination and to call HerStory a marketplace would be a disservice when instead it feels like a group text. Like a community. Like walking into a room full of women who say “Oh my god, you have to try this on.”
The founders knew from the beginning that connection was the secret ingredient. Connection to the makers. To the stories. And ultimately, to each other. A living, breathing ecosystem of female creatives, artisans, and consumers who believe that fashion can be a force for good.
Tinsley Merrill Paul, Founder & CEO, and Brittany Merrill Underwood, Co-Founder & Advisor.
From the moment you step into one of their trunk shows or browse their site, you can feel it. This is not about volume—it’s about voice. You can see it in the wide-brimmed suede hats by AB.LINO, hand-crafted in Mexico. Felt. Suede. A little sculptural. And somehow both cowboy-adjacent and incredibly chic designed to crown the woman who wears them, while honoring the woman who made them.
Take Corazón Playero, for example. These are beach hats meant to wear when you want to feel like the main character of your own vacation montage. They’re loud, hand-embroidered, full of color and joy and possibly sun protection. A tribute to the women who craft them: vibrant, expressive, unapologetically original, they’re made in the sun-soaked town of San José del Cabo by women who have clearly never believed that “less is more” when more is a full embroidery moment that tells a story.
Or Lorna Murray, whose foldable straw sun hats—light as air, detailed as lace—from across the ocean in Australia are so elegant, functional, and sustainable and they make you feel like the kind of person who definitely eats fruit for breakfast and always remembers sunscreen. They collapse into your bag and expand into your alter ego: the traveler, the dreamer, the one who summers. (Where? It doesn’t matter. You summer. That’s the point.)
And then there’s Olympia Le-Tan, who handcrafts embroidered book clutches—whimsical, literary, meticulously hand-embroidered—are fashioned to resemble classic novels. Each bag is made in Portugal by women artisans and looks like a tiny novel you can carry in your hand. It’s what Jane Austen would use if she were attending Paris Fashion Week (and, of course, she’d wear flats).
But HerStory isn’t just about what you wear—it’s about how you wear it. It’s about showing up in something that says, “I support women,” without having to literally say it on a T-shirt (although we’d wear that too, obviously. See Power To The Pretty Tee). It’s about shifting the conversation from what we wear to who made it. About remembering that our clothes don’t just speak to our style—they reflect our values.
Even the tequila tells a tale.
HerStory serves Socorro Tequila at their trunk shows and what makes that remarkable isn’t the taste (though the taste is delicious)—it’s the impact. For every case sold, Socorro Tequila donates a case of water to a community in need. In a world where luxury is often defined by excess, this is something radically different: indulgence with purpose. It’s the kind of detail that makes you want to cheers to something bigger. And maybe text your ex. (But don’t do that. Just drink the tequila.)
The genius of HerStory is that it doesn’t hit you over the head with its mission. There’s no guilt, no shame, no doomscrolling while mentally reorganizing your shopping habits. It’s a gentle seduction. A slow burn. You show up for the style. You stay for the substance. You leave with a new appreciation for women who weave, stitch, dye, bead, and build—with their hands and their hearts. But linger a little longer, and what you’ll find is something far more compelling: intention.
It’s easy to forget, in the noise of trends and drops and influencers, that fashion once meant something more. That what we wear can hold history and what we wear is personal. Clothes carry memory. Jewelry carries history. Accessories speak. And when the story behind them is told by a woman who made it herself, suddenly your wardrobe becomes a little more radical. A little more yours.
HerStory hasn’t forgotten. It remembers. It honors. And most importantly, it creates space—for the women who make, the women who wear, and the stories that connect them. In that way, HerStory is turning fashion into activism—there’s a quiet revolution unfolding here, and it’s happening one piece at a time: A clutch that brings literature to your fingertips. A hat that carries generations of craft. A bottle of tequila with a conscience. A ring that feels like a declaration. And behind every piece: a woman, working not just with her hands, but with her whole heart. Because we’ve worn stories for centuries. In embroidery passed down from grandmothers. In fabrics dyed the color of our landscapes. In jewelry engraved with names we no longer speak aloud. HerStory simply brings that tradition forward—honoring the past, embracing the present, and imagining a more inclusive, ethical, and beautiful future.
So the next time you reach for something new—something special—ask yourself: Who made this? What does it say? Whose story does it tell?
If the answer is hers, then you’re already part of something extraordinary.
