The existence of the multi-hyphenate millenial professional has become a trope these days. Still, while I may not quite qualify as a “millenial,” the idea of a multi-hyphenated identity is one I cherish. It really is my life.
Six years ago, when I was still willing to play the New York City 24/7 hustle game, I was (and I’ll own it) a multi-hyphenate. I was a mother, a wife, a fashion designer, a yogi, a martial artist, and a runner. I wasn’t just a “homeowner” like my mother before me, I was all of these things at once. Each one held its own, irreplaceable significance to me, and each had a day of the week or a time of the day. Plus, each had a metric of success, a practice, a commitment attached to it, and depending on when or who was asking I could be any of these things.
The liberal end of conventional wisdom would say how stressful that all sounds. The conservative end of conventional wisdom would say there’s no way I could be a good mother and still have all these duties outside the home. I call BS on both.
If you’d really like to discuss my mothering ability– I’m sure my college-educated, gainfully employed and wonderful kids would be open to talking to you more about it. As for the other bit — this wasn’t stressful, this was freedom. For the first time in my life I was choosing how to spend my time, how to train my body, how to be who and what I wanted to be.
I knew then that motherhood came in many forms, wellness in many sizes and joy in many colors. Still something wasn’t adding up. No matter how much I “hyphenated” and self-identified, I felt like fashion/society at large was still asking me to conform. All the workout clothing I could find was dark, featureless, and felt like it was *designed* to hide me rather than celebrate me.
In 2012, my close friend from college and I started PRISMSPORT. We built our lines with inspired patterns and bold aspirations – to change the way the fashion industry looked at women’s health. We were designing with women like us in mind, women who deserve to be championed with clothing that is as dynamic and charismatic as they have to be every single day. That’s why our styles are agile, beautiful and highly functional.
To this day we choose to wear clothing that makes us feel beautiful rather than clothing that feels trendy or expected. this is how we stand for who we want to be — hyphens, flaws, and all — rather than who we’re supposed to be. We invite you to join us, to slip on a pair of our high-performance apparel and embrace your inner print.
Emily is a lifelong athlete: she is a former competitive freestyle skier, an avid tennis player, and trains daily in martial arts. Earlier careers include fashion and sports marketing at Ellesse, home organization, and multiple small craft businesses. She has 2 daughters, 28 and 26 years old and lives in NYC with her husband. BA, Dartmouth College