Meet Suzanne Miller | Textile Designer and Writer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Suzanne Miller and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Suzanne, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
From my own experience renovating my home, I found that there was little variety in textile design. In other words, in a certain aesthetic, there were only a certain amount of choices and those were already all over Instagram. Even as beautiful as everything seemed, its reappearance on social media channels made it feel very ‘samey.’ I started conducting my own research and discovered that at that time, we were on the cusp of a major shift in the industry with printing processes and the digitization of art. Having grown up in a family newspaper printing and publishing business, I had some fundamental understanding of the printing process, which was very helpful. I’ve always had a creative side so pushed myself way out of my comfort zone and began creating patterns and playing around with how they would look on textiles.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?

My business, The Storied House, began as a custom order fabric design studio. It featured my water color art that was unique and accessible. I took particular pleasure in that my little studio was different from the traditional fabric houses in that we custom printed each order, which eliminated a lot of waste from overproduction. We developed a system that could turn around orders fairly quickly and things were humming along. I was expanding into other consumer products such as table linens and bedding when COVID hit.

Suddenly, I was home schooling an 8 and 10 year old, confined to my home and it didn’t feel appropriate to conduct ‘business as usual’ – if it were even possible – when the situation in the world was so dire. I pivoted to a newsletter focused on creativity and creative activities to ‘attend’ virtually and built a following over the course of a year.

When the world started opening up again, I was met head-on with supply chain issues, which made it very difficult, to say the least. I also noticed a steep decline in quality on the fabrics I could get. Quality is such a priority for me, I didn’t want my brand to be associated with something subpar, so I played the waiting game and finally feel like the supply chain and quality are getting into alignment. In the meantime, I’ve been focusing on creating new designs, sourcing the highest quality of linen and ensuring that the product is as eco-friendly as possible.

The lesson I learned is that there is no one way to do run your company successfully. Each business has its own set of circumstances and priorities. I want the Storied House to be known for sustainable luxury and originality, so was willing to let it play out and wait for the supply chains to recover and focused on my consulting revenue stream. Sticking to my brand values helped me stay on track, even if it meant a short-term set back to pivot.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?

At the time I was itching for a career change, I discovered Vanessa Loder, who was coaching women who were seeking to create work they loved. She had a program that I enrolled in that was in tandem to me getting the business ready to launch. That was an amazing resource. She also introduced me to Gay Hendrick’s “The Big Leap,” which is a brilliant book that discusses ways to identify where our true talents are and practical ways to harness them.

Website: www.storiedhouse.co

Instagram: @storiedhouse

Facebook: The Storied House

Image Credits
The image of me at my work table is by Colin Miller