Featured on VoyageUtah - Community Highlights

May 27, 2025

Take a look VoyageUtah's recent highlight featuring Lavanda Co.!

Today we’d like to introduce you to Nadia Gajardo Hess.

Hi Nadia, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
Lavanda Co. has been something I have been wanting to create for a long time. I have always been obsessed with clothes and interested in how a good outfit can make you feel more confident, so I always dreamed of having a clothing brand filled with styles that I love and are often hard to find. I have also had a natural talent when it comes to creating and editing content – its still very common for friends and family to reach out to ask me to edit videos or photos for them, haha.

On the other hand, my husband studied Business and has an affinity for learning and building things. Together we are a great complementary team as I handle all things creative – choosing clothing styles, creating content for Marketing, raising Brand awareness, while he handles all things business – the financials, tax and entity compliance, Inventory and PO Management, etc.

We started Lavanda Co. this year, and are still a very small business, but have been so excited and grateful for the growth and support we have received from all of our special customers! Our goal is to boost women’s confidence across the US by providing stylish and unique clothing made from quality materials.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It has been somewhat smooth, although I am sure that most business owners would agree that everything takes much longer than we thought – whether that is getting everything completely set up and ready to start selling, or actually growing the business. The biggest struggle we faced was not knowing what we didn’t know – understanding the basics of starting a business (entity creation, ensuring that we are properly prepared to be tax-compliant, learning how to create a site that is secure and supports payment processing, etc.). Clothing brands themselves are also very difficult markets to compete in, so we have had to be creative in how we market ourselves.

We have been fortunate enough to build a network of mentors that have been through this before who have offered us great advice on the direction to take things. Since we started and are operating everything on a tight budget, we obviously can’t get to everything all at once just yet, so it is a matter of always having our priorities established to make sure we are solving the most important problems first.

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Lavanda Co. was born from the idea that being yourself is the most beautiful person you can be. We are proud to be building this brand for genuine and sincere women who know and love themselves and want the world to see them for who they are. Confidence doesn’t come from one outfit, but from knowing who you truly are and showing that to the world.

Lavanda’s mission is to deliver unique styles that highlight this inner-confidence in every woman, using high quality and sustainable materials. Every woman knows the exhilarating feeling and increased level of boldness when a stranger complements their outfit. We aim to deliver this same confidence in their self-expression every time a Lavanda Co. outfit is worn.

How do you think about happiness?
The connection that we have with our customers and community truly makes me feel happy. We have been able to foster some really incredible friendships from clients that reached out to talk to us.

What makes my day is when a customer tags us in a post on social media, sharing how confident, bold, and beautiful they feel using Lavanda Co. outfits. Seeing their excitement reminds me why we started this in the first place and helps me feel the impact we are making in every individual’s life.

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