Endurance Couture: How Functional Endurance Sport Clothing and Fashion Collide. A Conversation with Betty Designs Founder Kristin Mayer on Life, Sport, Motherhood and Connection
Episode 022.
Endurance Couture: How Functional Endurance Sport Clothing and Fashion Collide. A Conversation with Betty Designs Founder Kristin Mayer on Life, Sport, Motherhood and Connection
Episode 22: Show Notes.
Today’s guest is the very inspiring Kristin Mayer. As an athlete, she has completed marathons, ultra-marathons, and triathlons while also raising her son, designing beautiful clothes, and running a successful business. Today she shares her story about how her divorce led her to establish her own clothing line Betty Designs, which doesn’t just provide functional and stylish sports attire to female athletes, it has also inspired and created a community of women known as the Betty Squad. She explains how the butterfly and the skull logo came about, how the Betty Squad of brand ambassadors was established, and how she chose the women she included in it. She discusses how she coped with the pandemic, in terms of her physical training and her creativity, and how she feels about her son going off to college. Get some insight into some of Betty Design’s upcoming kits, and what’s next for the business as well as Kristin’s athletic career. To hear what Kristin learnt through her own journey, as well as some encouragement for those of us who feel that we should have it all together but don’t, tune in today!
Key Points From This Episode:
- An introduction to Kristin Mayer, designer, mom and athlete.
- How it was not courage or inspiration, but fear that motivated her to start her company.
- Kristin shares what she learnt through her own journey and gives encouragement to people in their 30s and 40s who don’t yet have it all together.
- How Kristin managed to stay fit during COVID: she took a break from endurance training and went skiing instead.
- How her creativity soared even though she struggled emotionally and physically.
- Kristin explains where the butterfly and the skull came from in the Betty Design logo: the two sides of her, tough and feminine.
- How Kristin came up with the idea to have a Betty Squad to represent the brand, and how she chose who to include it in the squad.
- Britt and Kristin discuss the sense of community that has formed among Betty Squad members and the value of this.
- Kristin’s future plans for Betty Designs: Her enjoyment is more important than the growth.
- Upcoming Betty Designs product extensions.
- Kirstin shares some of her favourite kits over the years.
- How Kristin’s son has influenced her designs and how she feels about him going off to college.
- What is next for Kristin on the training docket: altitude training.
- What new kit is coming out for Kristin’s next race, why she chose white, and the benefits of skin suits.
- One thing that people who know Kristin don’t know about her: She’s not actually as outgoing as she seems.
- Why Kristin will never do another Triathlon.
Tweetables:
“My real passion is design and being a mom, and those two things being woven together is how Betty Designs launched.” — @KristinMayer [0:02:09]
“At the end of the day, you have to say to yourself ‘What’s really going to make me excited to get up in the morning?’ and then start working on that, as your side hustle — that invigorates you in all areas of your life.” — @KristinMayer[0:04:48]
“Sometimes I just think ‘I am tired of adulting, I am tired of learning,’ but that is all part of it and, as athletes, we’re more resilient to that. — It’s the same with business; try stuff, it’s okay to fail.” — @KristinMayer [0:05:32]
“You’re female and you’ve got this other side of you that’s so tough and focused, and it’s those two sides. The skull the tough head-down focus, and the butterfly the femininity, the other side.” — @KristinMayer [0:13:10]
“If I could have a Betty thing to wear for every single sport that I do, that would be my dream. And that’s a lot of sports!” — @KristinMayer [0:19:40]
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
Betty Designs on Instagram
All Betty Squad Sponsors outlined on image