Your Way

I’m going to tell you a secret about Rebecca Broadstone, something that is going to shock you. She hates coffee, absolutely, positively despises it. Now, I know what you are thinking, the warm mug, the steam, the contented sigh. Well the mug and the steam are real, but the happy look on Rebecca’s face…fake as a Gucci bag from Chinatown!

How do I know this, you ask? Because I know everything there is to know about Rebecca. I know that she started YourWay in 2021, when she was a lowly student at FIT and wanted to create clothing that every woman could feel good about. I know that her first few videos were terrible, only got like ten views each. (They are long gone from her page of course, but its the Internet so I imagine you can find them somewhere if you search hard enough.) I know that her goal is to get her clothing line into every major department store in the US. I know that her favorite food is macaroni and cheese with bacon, her favorite color is sky blue, and her real hair is not the bright red curls you see on TikTok, but light brown and straight as a pin. 

I know all of these things and more because it is my job to know them. Every viral video you have ever seen of Rebecca Broadstone, every blog post you have ever read, all created by me. Before I came along, Rebecca was a mousy looking twenty something with a couple of YouTube videos and a sewing machine in her living room. Now she is an Internet sensation.

Ironically, one of those early videos was how I found her. There she was, sitting on her couch in a t shirt, jeans and a ponytail; no makeup, no personality. She was going on and on about how she was tired of going shopping and never finding anything that she really liked. “Either it didn’t fit,” she had complained to the camera. “Or it was tacky. Or it was made in a sweatshop in China.” Rebecca had smiled then. “So I decided to just start making my own.”

But it turned out that Rebecca hadn’t just started sewing her own clothes. Anyone and everyone was doing that. It was what she did next that was truly brilliant. 

She described the process in another low budget video, once again shot in her living room. “So like what if you could go to a store right? And you buy a dress that you kind of like. Only it is a little big on top. And also, you wish it had buttons instead of a zipper. Or like a little bit of lace on the bottom. Or whatever. And now what if you could message the manufacturer and say hey I love your dress but I wish you could just add these three things.” Rebecca had grinned at the camera then and that is when I saw it, something marketable. “Well with my clothes, you can!”

Rebecca’s idea was basically this: She would make a dress and sell it online. Customers could just buy it as is, or they could message her and ask for any number of changes or additions, each one for an extra fee. Longer sleeves. Shorter hem. A v-neck instead of a scoop neck. Ruffles. Sequins. Furthermore, once the dress arrived, if it did not fit quite right they could send it back along with a photo of themselves in it, and she would alter it for free.

It really was a genius idea. But Rebecca herself was a mess. I told her this, in a nicer way of course, when I contacted her that weekend. 

You see good ideas are a dime a dozen. But most people don’t understand how to market themselves, how to look, how to talk, how to make a video go from 500 views to 500,000. That’s where I come in. Rebecca Broadstone made clothing. But I made her a star.

We started with her hair. Rebecca was plain Jane; long, straight brown hair that stopped right below her shoulders. I made her look like the Little Mermaid instead, with bright red wavy locks that practically twinkled in the sunlight. We then swapped her glasses for contacts and her baggy t-shirts for form fitting tank tops that showed off all of her best attributes. Rebecca had balked at this at first. “I am not selling my tits,” she protested, to which I had laughed.

“You are selling shirts right? And dresses?”

Rebecca nodded.

“And your goal is to make women feel sexy right?”

She nodded again.

“Well you have a great rack. Clothes look great on you. Your customers will want to look like you.” I shrugged. “Don’t think of it as selling your body. Think of it as selling what clothing looks like on your body.”

I was right of course. Views to her videos quadrupled overnight, and we were just getting started.

We rented space in an artists studio with bright yellow walls and huge windows that let in the afternoon sunlight. With my help, Rebecca moved all of her sewing stuff over there, and then we bought lights, microphones, tripods. I revamped her entire website and started a blog, written by me of course, that discussed everything that was wrong with modern clothing trends. We then started creating content for YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok (Rebecca wasn’t even on TikTok before I showed up!). Each video started the same, Rebecca slowly sipping from a steaming mug of coffee. I told her it would help the viewers connect to her.

Rebecca had frowned. “I can’t stand coffee,” she said. 

Orders were coming in constantly, some of them off the rack, but many of them requesting specific looks. I convinced Rebecca to triple her prices, pointing out that what she was selling was really a luxury brand. After all, each item was one of a kind, like a piece of art really. When she pointed out that her goal was to create clothing that ALL women could feel good about, not just the rich ones, we created “YourWayBasic”, a separate site where customers could order cheaper items with only one or two simple alterations. The main site became “YourWayElite” of course. 

Three guesses which one got more hits.

Early on, when things first started to take off, Rebecca had offered to put my name on everything too, to have me appear in some of the videos. “It feels funny to pretend that everything is all me,” she said. “Like I’m lying or something.” But I refused. 

“YourWay is Rebecca Broadstone,” I replied. “Your idea, your clothing, your face. I am happy to just be behind the scenes.”

I negotiated for a good salary of course, and a percentage of the sales. We were doing really, really well. It was the perfect partnership.

Until it wasn’t.

The truth was I was just like many of the women who buy Rebecca’s clothing. I just wanted to feel sexy, to feel comfortable in my own skin, to like what I see when I look in the mirror. I had turned Rebecca Broadstone into a star, and although I was happy to remain behind the camera, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to the occasional bout of jealousy.

Still, I blame what happened on the alcohol.

We had a party at the studio to celebrate the launch of a new line of capri pants, with multiple decorative options. Within hours of posting, the video already had 100,000 views. Orders were coming in. At this point we had taken over the entire floor, bought more sewing machines, hired staff. Everyone was there; the champagne was flowing.

Rebecca had invited Jackson, this guy who she had been dating since college, since before everything had taken off actually. It was clear they were head over heels for each other, would probably get married at some point. I’m not sure what I was thinking really. I had had too much champagne and Rebecca was just so damn gorgeous in a bright green dress she had of course made herself. One minute I was standing by the window, munching on some kind of spring roll and thinking about how I had created all of this, and the next I was in the hallway, my body pressed up against Jackson, his warm lips on mine. 

He kissed me. That’s what I told everyone, that we were talking about the new line and he had suddenly leaned in, his breath hot in my face, and kissed me.

Who cares if it wasn’t quite true? None of this was true, that was the whole point, to create something out of nothing, to sell the image that people want to buy. In the end, success has very little to do with truth.

They had a huge fight, but eventually she believed him. She met me for coffee the next morning, both of us in dark sunglasses. 

“I just think it would be best if we went our separate ways,” she said. Her voice was quiet but her lips were set in a firm line, her eyes cold and hard. “I really appreciate everything you have done for me. But I think it is time for me to do something else. It was never meant to be about all of this, you know? It was really just about making nice clothes.”

I was given a good severance package. A video came out later that week, just Rebecca, no coffee. She was on her couch again, explaining how it was time for her to follow a different path, her hair back to its boring brown lines.

The video got over 2 million views. I have no idea why.

I’ll be ok though. There are always people who need someone to be the brains behind their beauty, the hard work behind their flash and fire. Thank god we live in a world where the greatest accomplishment a person can have is how many times someone double clicks their photo.

Do I have any regrets? Well, if I’m being perfectly honest, I probably should have made Rebecca a blond instead. Everyone loves blonds.