Interview with Laura, founder of PINUPGIRL CLOTHING by Rachel Clinesmith (Originally for Vampyre Magazine)

 How did Pinup Girl get started?

Pinup Girl started officially in 1997, in the dressing room of a strip club in Los Angeles. I was working as a photographer. I had always wanted to be a photographer. For ten years, I was working as a photographer. I was photographing mostly creative types. Lots of bands, singers, some actors. And I was really enjoying that. I always thought that I wanted to be a photographer. But the two years before I started Pinup Girl were the years where I had started really getting a lot of work, and being very successful. I was shooting a lot for a bunch of magazines. I was shooting for record companies, so I was working a lot. But at this exact time, magazines were starting to close and go out of business, because you kind of had that period where print magazines were dying and online magazines were going to start in a couple of years. It was so stressful for me. I was doing this thing that I loved, but it would take me months to get paid, (which is normal in the business).

But because these magazines are going out of business, they would sometimes close before they could pay me. So, there I am with a nine-month-old baby, and I'm working a lot, but I'm kind of working for free. So, I had to go back and strip three days a week. I went back to that same club and I'm working the day shift, taking my nine-month-old to a babysitter so I could go strip to support my photography.

At the same time, my stuff is coming out every month or so in these magazines. So, it looks like I'm kicking ass! So, I start sewing. You know, I had been sewing for my daughter. Now, I had only gone back for like, maybe six weeks, and a woman walked in, and she was making clothing for the dancers, but it was really low quality. It looked like if a seam broke, it would just open up. And you could just tell it was just some woman who thought, “Whatever, I'm going to make this stuff for these strippers. And it doesn't matter if it falls apart.”

It was $40 for a little mesh mini, and because I could never keep my mouth shut, I'm looking at this, and I've been sewing at home, so I confronted her. I ask her “Why is this so expensive!?” She said, “Oh, you don't understand.” And I said, “There's no matching underwear! This is a white, see-through mesh dress. What is she going to wear underneath? Why don't you make up some matching underwear?” And this woman starts getting really upset with me. I noticed the stitching was bad, and she's like, “you don't understand what goes into it, this is a fair price.” And I go, “Actually, no, I can make the same thing, and I can make it better. And I can make it with matching underwear! And I can charge less than what you're doing. You're ripping these people off.” So, you know, I was always making friends.

But then, she said something really stupid. There were probably twelve of the girls in the dressing room with me. (This was the day shift.) She made a really bad mistake in front of these other girls. She says to me, “Well, I don't see you doing that, I see you here stripping!” like, really dismissively. This woman was never a stripper, just a money-making thing. And the girls were like, “what the fuck did you just say?” They couldn't believe that. She showed right there that she had no respect for the people she was selling to. I got mad, too! I was like, "I will go home right now, and I will make a bunch of outfits. I'll come back tomorrow and I'll sell them for less than what you're making." 

She must have realized what a bad mistake she’d made, because she couldn't sell! Six months later, she wasn't in the business anymore. Or, at least she wasn't selling at the same clubs I was.

After that, the other girls start giving me their clothing and saying, “Here, can you copy these lap shorts? Like these little shorts?” And I did. I went home. I had the stuff at home, and I didn't go to bed that night, because I deconstructed the little booty shorts. I made the underwear. I had some stripper clothing. I copied it, and I came back with, like, three outfits. I remember walking in with this little duffel bag and pulling it out. And the girls, it was amazing. (I still love strippers so much. They're my people.) They went crazy. They were like, “You fucking did it! I can't believe you did it!” I'm like, “of course I did it.”

They bought it. And I went home. I had to go to sleep, then I woke up, and did it again. Six weeks later, I stopped stripping. And I just started going around all the clubs and selling clothes, I launched the website in 1999, almost exactly two years later. And I think I probably went to the clubs for, like, another year.

(Many of those girls who were in that dressing room that day still are still my customers, which I fucking love! It's been 20 something years.)

So that's how I started it. And it was interesting because I never thought that I was going to stop being a photographer. I thought that was going to be my career. Even when I first started selling the clothing, and even when I started the website, in the back of my head for probably the first five years of the website, I thought, “Oh, well, this is just what I'm doing for now for money.”

I never thought of it as a career, and so it was kind of interesting. I took the business side of it extremely seriously, but that was just more survival. I grew up in an abusive household. Both of my parents were abusive, (I always say just name a type of abuse.) Psychologically, verbally, et cetera. I kind of grew up in that. I knew that my parents and my situation was not normal. But I think a lot of times people when they're in these lifelong abusive situations, they don't always understand what is abuse. They know it doesn't feel good. They know they got to get out of their house, but they actually don't understand.

No, whatever you get from your parents, that's love doesn't matter if it's abuse or not. That's what you view love as. That's how it happens.

But I think that people became aware of me after they became aware of Pinup Girl, and then they only became aware of Pinup Girl after 2012, when we blew the fuck up and Pin Up Girl was introduced famous, and everyone in the world knew the fuck we were.

I don't think people understand that. There was a lot. In fact, for years, people didn't even understand that I was only 50% owner, that there was another owner of the company, and I was being abused the entire time. I went from one abusive relationship into another. Then, the company itself was almost an abusive relationship in 2019, like, completely. There was no part of it that I think that anyone could really envy. I'm sure on the outside looking in, they were like, oh, look at this woman.

It's really kind of insane the way talented creative people will attract demons like these. There are people you attract, whose entire goal in life becomes to try and stop you from doing anything. Literally, they put themselves in your life to shut down your flow, and your energy, and your movement to doing other stuff. It's really interesting now. I’m very grateful for having that kind of, (I don't want to say being “canceled”,) but of having this kind of online Lynch mob, because it made me understand life.

Because I had to get away from all of it, I had to get away from all these people. And after I did that, all of a sudden, my life starts moving in the right direction. Because all these people were gone. They either were there to fuck me up, or it was people who decided it was too fucked up. “Oh, the pug ship is sinking. Time to delete!” As soon as it looked like Pinup Girl was on its way out, people were like, “bye!” All of a sudden everything starts working because I didn't have anyone trying to hinder what I was doing anymore!

 The situation at pin up girl for years was one where a company started around these dresses I was making, and, ultimately, I had no control over the company. I was the designer. I got paid very little. I didn't even own the whole company. I had a former associate who stole more than a million dollars from me, and former employees who left the company, and spent years trying to bully me. These employees knew all of this was happening. They knew that I literally had hired forensic accountants in 2015 to figure out how much had been stolen from me. They knew that I was not getting any profit They knew all of this. That is like the worst part is like to the world in 2016, it looked like they were punching up at me.

But in reality, they knew they were kicking me when I was down.

They all felt that both I and the company were vulnerable, and the harassment and the bullying was intended to be a deathblow. In fact, when I decided in May of 2019 that I was done and I couldn't take it anymore, I made a video. I'm not a crier, but I was just in tears. It was a 45-minute video, and I'm crying because I basically have to give my customers the bad news that I'm done. That I can't take this shit anymore.

I said there was never really a point where I was in control of the company. At the time I made that video, May 2019, I had finally gotten control. After I went on strike to finish that story, and started Laura Burns Design. That was when I finally got control. When it looked like it was in the fucking ground. Former associates didn't pay people for six months. I'm on payment plans. I'm still paying off people that Pinup Girl owed money to. Which is fine. As soon as I came back, I called everyone out, like “Hi, I’m in control of the company. I made everything better. There were fabric people I owed thousands of dollars to that I paid them off, and then I started buying from them again.

When it all started, they were ultimately kicking me. When I was down. They knew that there were so many problems and all this shit, but that's fine. I always say that the only thing I remember. I have very few memories from 2017 and 2018, except for panic attacks.

It's really rare that I ever feel sick. But I had to go to my doctor and request panic attack medication, like sedatives. And that's the first time in my life that I ever had to be medicated because it was just beyond belief. I remember those days, and I'm very proud of the fact that I don't even have aspirin in the house at this point.

Now I can say I'm glad it's happened, but everything is kind of where it needs to be.

It's amazing how many of us have the exact same kind of story, though.

Yeah. Between social media between 2012 and 2016, 2017. It really generated so much envy and people looked at that, and just saw me growing and succeeding and doing well. You just saw this explosion of people deciding they were going to take down anyone that they didn't like for any reason whatsoever. But that's a good way to figure things out. 

It's crazy because it's this double-edged sword. When social media came out, it was really wonderful because you could share your life with your friends, with your family, with other people. And I love that. I love the fact that me and my best friend from high school can stay in touch. She's still in New York, but I can stay on top of her life and see her stuff!

But, still, there's some people who just can't take that. They don't want to see that you're doing well.

And I think it's so sad, because I'm 52 years old. I was born in the Sixties! I remember ten years after I graduated high school, I had a good friend named John, and it's ‘96-‘97. I had no idea what he's up to. I started asking my friends how he is, and no one has heard anything. I ended up writing a letter to his mom who still lived in his childhood home, just to see what he was up to. She writes back, “oh, yeah, he's doing this and that”. Now? We can just go online and we can write to whoever.

It's super easy, and that's so wonderful. Social media, however, really did bring out people's unchecked, envy and unhappiness and bitterness. And it does suck that those people kind of ruin it for everybody else. It's still great that you can do this, and it’s super helpful to small businesses. Pinup Girl was a small business at the start. But we had the Internet, and we were able to find our people because of that. Even with all the algorithm changes and the craziness, it's still wonderful that you can do that.

Now I feel we need to be aware that there's just people who can't take seeing other people do well. And there's always going to be people out there that are just going to be hateful and try to ruin the experience for everybody else.

Is that why you created the Lounge initially?

No, I created the lounge because of the first big algorithm change that Facebook did in 2012. Before 2012, if you had a page for your brand, you would get all these people adding you. So, we had our basic Facebook page for Pinup Girl Clothing, which had 900,000 followers. But right at the time we got to that 900,000 followers, Facebook changed their algorithm and made it so that nobody can see the posts you had to go to the page and go and look at visitor posts to see what's going on.

We had this vibrant Facebook community on our Facebook page for two years between 2010 and 2012, and then all of a sudden it just implodes. It sucked because from the very beginning I was always talking to my customers. I started the website in 1999, and at that point I was in strip club groups on Yahoo and making friends on there and promoting my company. Then, after that was Friendster. Then it was MySpace.

 To me it was an extension of that dressing room. I always say that I learned how to do business in that strip club dressing room. Strippers are the best customers to have because, first of all, you can't lie to them. You can't tell them they look good in something to make a sale, because if they put on that outfit and they don't make money on stage? They're never going to buy from you again.

I also learned, based on what happened with that woman, if people don't like you, they won't give you money. Selling anything is 99% personality. That is also why the people who don't like you will try to destroy your reputation. When it happened to me, these people tried to lie about me personally and say that I was a bad person. That I was mean, and that I screamed at people, and that I abused people because they understood that if people didn't like me, they wouldn't want to buy from me.

St was very important to them to destroy my character. But, like I learned in that dressing room, if people know you and like you, then they're going to buy from you rather than someone they don’t know or don’t like. We've always treated Pin Up Girl like a big party. Now, there's burlesque shows everywhere in Los Angeles, but in 2007 to 2008, there weren't. So, for my birthday in 2008, we put on a Burlesque show at Bordello, and it was such a success that we decided to start doing shows every couple of months. So, for a couple of years there, Pinup Girl would put on Burlesque shows, and we’d essentially have these parties. The lounge is really just a continuation of the party. 

We had Instagram for a while. But Instagram isn't quite the same, because you make a post and then there's comments. But it's not the same as having a community, which we did have with the Facebook page. In 2016, I noticed that my customers were going and creating groups on Facebook for pinup. And I was like, wait a minute. Pinup Girl clothing should have their own group.

So, in February 2016, we just started the lounge, and it's been great because we kind of got back what we had been doing anyway. I mean, it's pretty much just the same thing that we were doing when it was just the Facebook page, but it's good! To this day my favorite thing in the world is seeing customers wearing my clothing. So, now I get to log on every day and see everyone. And it's so much fun! That's the best part of the job.

But it also provides an Avenue for you to keep it a positive discussion and keep the trolls out.

Well, we removed a troll two days ago. It hasn't stopped. It's gotten most of the trolls. It's been years now. Most of the trolls, except for the severely mentally ill ones, have burned themselves out. But there are still people that go in there, who are fans of other clothing companies. Sometimes they join, and then we notice that all of a sudden, they start posting, and sometimes they'll even wait for somebody to post something negative, so then they comment and say, “Oh, well, yeah, that's why I've been buying from so-and-so lately. We have to remove those posts every week. It hasn't stopped. Social media has made it easier. We restrict comments, we mute people so they can't get that same traction that they used to. But no one of the things I've had to accept is that envy is real, and social media has made it that much easier for negative people who need help to come and try to make your life hell. But they've also made it easier now to kind of shut those people down.

I had to hide a comment, and I looked up the person and they hadn’t ordered from us. They literally lied and said, “oh, well, I've been buying from here lately,” and it's like, you've NEVER bought from me. The

I started the Lounge in February 2016, and within a few months, the nonsense started. I actually think that me doing the lounge was one of the things that got people feeling threatened because there were all these other groups on Facebook that were for Pinup culture. And I would notice that people were finding the style. They would search online, and would find Pinup girl clothing.

Then there'd be nowhere to go. So, they’d join these other groups, and in the other groups, they would sit there and then start advertising other brands. “Oh, this brand is the same as Pinup Girl, but it's cheaper!” I was like, “Well, why am I allowing my customers to be exposed to other brands?” I felt like I was doing advertising for these other people. So, when I started my lounge, I just said, “look, you can talk about a brand if we sell it at Pinup Girl, and If we don't, you can't talk about it here. You can go into all these other groups and talk about it there.” Now, all these other groups are dead, but they saw the writing on the wall.

So, me starting the group kind of led a little bit to the issue. It was good, but it actually got a lot of people panicked because suddenly I was taking back control.

I don't feel threatened if one of my customers buys from another company, but I'm also not going to facilitate a situation where my customers are being exposed immediately to other brands. Why should I do that? Fuck that. Also, there was a lot of weird negativity. And again, I think it was the prologue before it just exploded.

Pinup Girl had been well known. This was 2016, and we might have just started the lounge, but it had been well known online for a really long time. So, a lot of people joined that lounge, but there was just a lot of negativity in there. People complaining and whatever. Then, of course, that led to the bullying and the harassment. So, we started getting trolls in there immediately. Then, at the height of the harassment people would send me screenshots, and then I started screenshotting everything. I hate being autistic, because it means that I remember everything that I read. So, I was trying to kind of isolate myself from it. But also, like I said, even within my own company, I didn't have people who would protect me from this. They wouldn't delete the comments.

So, if someone tagged me, I would see it. Then, about a year into the bullying and the harassment, I realized there were probably about 30 people that were just causing the most trouble in my lounge. It took me a while, but I finally started looking up people's order numbers and looking up what people had ordered, and I started discovering that people were straight-up lying about things. Like, for instance, someone would post a skirt and it would literally look like they ripped a seam and they're going, “Oh, there's all these quality issues, and this is why I shop at other brands now, not here!”

They were always attacking my quality, which is hilarious, because to this day, none of our competitors has a better fit or better quality than what we do. Then I started looking up these people's orders, and that person never even bought that skirt. And if I said something about it, then it became “oh, I bought it on Poshmark.”

“No, you didn't. You're literally lying right now!”

It was kind of crazy for a while there, and then everything changed in 2019. It was two months after I got my company back. Even though, on the one hand, I was very happy and relieved to finally, for the first time in my life, to be wholly in control of Pinup Girl. It was also very overwhelming. I was left with a huge mess to clean up.

Yes, I'm ultimately responsible as I'm the owner of the company. But again, people didn't realize I was only a half-owner of the company. I was only 100% responsible for 50%, not the whole thing. So, I was very stressed. And even though it was years later, the harassment was not ending. It was so much for me. There's only so much you can handle of seeing every single day someone calling you old, crazy, abusive, vile, awful racist, all this crazy shit.

None of it had any basis in reality, but I was just so worn down. So, I've had the company for two months, but I remember just looking around going, “Why am I even doing this? I'm 50 years old. Why don't I just retire?” I hate to say it, but I felt that no one appreciated what I was doing. I felt like no one cared anymore. I'm like, “What's the point of me doing this?” So, I pretty much just said, “Fuck it, Everyone wins. I'll close Pinup girl.” Like, Good luck! Let these other companies that think that they're better than Pinup Girl take the space. Fuck it. I'm just going to move to Europe and live happily ever after because this is bullshit. 

So, I told my lounge in May of 2019, and I said, “I'm sorry, and I'm done. I'm just quitting. I can't take this anymore.” And there were people in that lounge that had seen everything.

I didn't really understand this then, but when you're going through it... I'm getting these comments every day. I'm getting messages. I'm getting people sending me screenshots. I'm getting nonsense. I mean, I was also getting cyberattacked on my website. My newsletter was getting spam-reported every single month. Then I hire someone, and he discovers that there's Russian bots adding thousands of real, farmed email addresses. They were adding thousands of email addresses to my newsletter specifically so I would get spam reported.  And this tech person said “This is wild! Normally, when we see Russian bots, it's phishing so they can make money. This is literally just the entire purpose of this. So that your newsletter will get spammed reported and it won't work. Someone is literally just paying these Russian bots to fuck up your newsletter.” It was crazy shit like that from all sides.

When all this stuff is happening to you, it feels so huge, like you're swimming in it. It was fucking hell on Earth for me. But I didn't realize that other people couldn't just look at my situation and see how bad it was, and that's the hardest thing. You feel so alone when you're going through it. Of course, as soon as I told my customers what was going on, when I said, “I can't take this anymore, and I just need to shut down the company. I'm just going to go live my life, and maybe I'll continue making dresses, but I'll cross that bridge.” It was a shock for them, so immediately I start getting messages from my customers, and they were very upset. And obviously they didn't want me to close the company down. My customers were sending me photos of their closets and saying, “look, it's 100% Pinup girl! What am I going to wear if you close down?”

Many of my customers messaged me and they said, “We've been watching what's been going on. And one thing we noticed is that, the people bullying you and harassing you online... Very few of them are plus size”. Like I said, many of my friends now are the people who reached out to me during this time, and they were very angry because they saw this and they said, "They don't just hate you. This is fat-phobia. They hate big girls. They know that you are dedicated to making clothing for plus-size people, and they hate that about you too.” So, my customers took it very personally. They saw it as an attack on them as well, and they pointed that out to me, and it's true.

I've told so many people about your line. Not everybody I work with has heard of you. A lot of people have, but a lot of them haven’t. And the first thing I'll tell them is, “I have never in my life encountered any brand where it fits every body type, and it fits the way it's supposed to!” Even if you just look at three different fat girls, we have completely different shapes, but It fits all of us. How?!

I'll tell you how! Step one, you have to give a shit. Okay? Like, you have to literally give a shit about making sure that all of your customers look good. And if you're fat phobic? You're never going to get that.

60% to 70% of women in America are plus size. That's like the majority. And 3% or less of retailers carry anything, and what they do have is like potato sacks with floral prints!

It's insane. And I mean, I've always thought that was wild. Back in the day, I’d get interview requests, and it was wild to me because people would actually ask me, “Well, why do you make clothing and plus size?” And I would say, “Why not?” I said, “you need to ask yourself Why you are asking me that question?" and that's how I would answer it. And it would never get into the interviews because I would call them out. I was like, “What's wrong with you? Why wouldn't you?” That's still my question. Why wouldn't you? Why does clothing stop at extra-large?

That is a very neurodivergent point of view, though, because it’s been so ingrained in our society through media for the last 50 years. It's recent. There have been fat people forever. It's not a new thing. It's not a recent thing. There's nothing wrong with it, right? But we have been taught for the last 50 years that "this is a negative thing,” and people associate it, either subconsciously or consciously with negative traits. That's why. But most people never question the status quo. Most people just don't. I wonder how much of this comes from it being industries that are more catered towards women because we’re pitted against each other from birth. And that's also an ingrained part of our culture. Everyone says the makeup industry is so toxic, the clothing industry is so toxic but when do you hear that about tech?

It's really sad because it's true. When I started Pinup Girl, and the entire time I was doing Pinup Girl, my philosophy was “a rising tide raises all boats,” and so I would support smaller businesses. I was always trying to kind of bring people in and be collaborative, and it became very clear how that was an outlier. I do think that attitude you were talking about is a holdover, and I'm hoping that women are getting over this and realizing how this just serves the status quo.

I think we're reaching that point, I think Gen Z is doing great about that!

t's a completely different world now. It really is. And, you know, I feel bad for all those people who have made their whole life and their career, just talking about other things and being shitty online, and that sort of thing.

Like Perez Hilton?

Yeah, that sort of thing. That is what is dying.

Oh, yeah.

No one fucking cares anymore. We don't need someone to tell us that “shit's bad,” or that “person fucked up”. Like, no one even cares anymore.

There was also a huge movement towards pro-neuro divergence that happened in the pandemic, where we just basically said, “we're not doing this anymore.” People became aware of being autistic and ADHD and demanding accommodations and working for themselves and being more informed.

And figuring out just to have understanding for people! It was kind of interesting, like who they chose to pick on. Basically, the people that were fucking with me when we were friends, they were my frenemies. They used to make fun of me and call me autistic. Then I got my diagnosis, and then they went online after we weren’t friends anymore, and said I was faking it because I couldn't actually be autistic because then they would look like monsters. So, instead they just said I was faking it. Every last one of my frenemies was like that. They said that I would yell and scream, (which I don't if I get upset, I shut down,) But if I'm animated, just like now, like if I'm telling a story, then I'm moving my hands, and I'm talking and they would say that that was yelling and screaming. Then they would tell people that. Like, insane fucking shit.

Or the number of people who are autistic that have been called narcissists.

Oh, yeah. And it's like, no, actually, we don't have that gene, right? We don't care. That's the thing. Autistic people have a much stronger sense of self because they don't let anyone fuck with them. They're very rigid. They're into what they're into, and they don't care what people think about them. Narcissists have no sense of self. And that's actually why they're so fucked up, because they feel like they're shit and that they're nothing. And to mask that, that's why when you first meet a narcissist, they become your BFF very quickly. And they want to do everything that you do.

They copy everything that you do. They pretty much become you. Then, once that happens, once they've taken on your identity, they have to get rid of you because they don't want anyone wondering, “well, which one is real.” So, then they start calling you what they are. They start completely trying to destroy you and your character so that they can step into your personality and your person.

I've actually never heard described that way, but that's super accurate. You're describing what I've read about it, and it’s just so succinctly accurate.

And that's why literally, they start off as your best friend. They end up as your worst enemy. And it's an actual process. Even when they're pretending to be your best friend, they fucking hate you. The one thing I noticed about people like this is, if they had fans, especially the kind who are like “Oh, I watch all your stuff!” They say, “Oh, that person's crazy.” A narcissist would see that, and see that person as a threat, because, y’know “game recognizes game”.

And why? Because they recognized that obsessiveness, and they don't want anyone doing to them what they've done with other people.

An accusation from a narcissist is a confession.

It's funny, because it can take a long time for these people to finally be exposed. And it started happening during the pandemic. I started noticing all these customers that had left and hadn’t ordered for years, started coming back! Like, it's a flood of people every single day are coming back. And it's really amazing to see.

I'm doing stuff that’s getting copied, which is fantastic! I have no problem with that. Because that's something I kind of realized. I can't get upset about it. If Pin Up Girl is a trend-setter, if we put something out and then people immediately copy it, that's a good thing! That means they're going, “Okay, what Pinup Girl is doing is making money, We want to make money, too!”

For a couple of years there, I wasn't producing anything. I was trying to close down the business and fucking move to Europe to get away from all the shit. But ever since I decided to keep the company going, and I decided I was just going to do whatever the fuck I want, (and that’s why the shit that I'm doing now is not Pinup style. It's just whatever the fuck I want to make,) the customers, can see what’s happening.

It's fucking bittersweet because I had to go through all that shit alone, (because we all go through it alone, for the most part). Take note of who's helping you, of who's hurting you, and of who's silent. The majority of people are silent are still fucking hurting you. There'll be maybe two or three people fucking helping. It fucking sucks.

It's funny, because, a lot of my best friends now are people who were actually customers. They were people who were there to the fucking bitter end. Like, when I was on closing, they were like, “Laura, maybe you can do it as a small company? We'll support you no matter what!” And that was amazing because they were there at like, rock-bottom.

And I think it’s really amazing to have that kind of supportive mentality, as opposed to having people be threatened because of societal condition.

Yes, absolutely. Women literally being threatened by another woman's success is ridiculous. It needs to stop, because it absolutely fuels it. I know dudes have got companies, and they're in scenes with other dudes, and they have falling out, but they don't literally go nuts and hold grudges for like years. I get it. You're unhappy with someone, but you just don't need to just try and destroy their life. And that's a woman thing.

If a woman is mad at you, you're not allowed to exist. I was just reading Facebook news today, and this woman, she just pled guilty, and bear in mind, these are grown women in their forties, and I think one was almost sixty when this happened. They were professors at a college. They were friends. Then, one of them shows up two days before Christmas at the woman's house, and says “Hi. I'm here to talk about my feelings,” and then proceeds to try and kill her!

And she's like, “I'm in love with you. And I can't believe you didn't realize I was in love with you!” and the woman, while she's actively being murdered, has the presence of mind to be like, “oh, but I love you, too. I just didn't know what to say. Could you please call me an ambulance so I don't die and we can be together.” And so she does, and then when she gets to the hospital, she's like, “this woman tried to kill me.”

And I was like, my God, this is literally the extreme example of what women do to each other in our society. If a woman is upset by another woman, they can't even allow that other person to exist.

It’s funny, because, even now, most clothing companies are owned by men, and most makeup lines are owned by men, and they’re just catering to women. 

It's very interesting how it's really rare that the men behind these companies were never attacked. Even during everything that was happening to me, it was all “avoid Pinup Girl Clothing and Laura Burns”. They never mentioned my male associates. They all knew they were part of the company, but they literally got to escape unscathed, right?

Anyway, in 2019, “I was like, I'm done with this,” because I had been struggling for years to just keep everything going. And I finally got to that point, and I said, “Why am I doing this? I'm an artist. I've been an artist my whole life. All I care about is making art, taking pictures, making clothing. I don't care about the business side.” Yes, I have learned over time and, especially in the last two years, that I'm quite a good business person, too. It may not have been my goal, and now I've had to identify myself that way. This is the first two years, in fact, it’s the only two years, that I've been happy at Pinup Girl. It’s the first time that Pinup Girl is being run the way I want it to be, and it's doing well! And it's because I'm in complete control. But not only that, it’s because I have a team of people that is not concerned with being well-known. Before that, people joined my team at Pinup Girl so that they could put their faces in the Lounge and on Instagram, and in front of my customers. There were so many employees of Pinup Girl who built their entire Instagram followings off of their Association with Pinup Girl.

Now I have people who just go to work and go home and they do their job. They get paid for their job, and they care about the company doing well, and nobody knows who they are. And my employees are completely fine with that.

Another thing that came up every once in a while. My employees, when they would quit, they would make an announcement in the Lounge, letting my customers know that they were no longer with the company. It was like, crazy, drama-llama shit. Then, of course, the trolls would be like, “Oh, another one bites the dust!”

Ever since 2019, it's a completely different situation. Now, I identify as an artist who has a business. And it's great because the people at my businessare like, "No, the only thing Laura should be doing is design and marketing. She should be dealing with the customers in the lounge, and doing what she does best,” which is great! I love interacting with my customers because it helps me understand what they want and what they need.

Also, I love the fact that on your site, obviously, you go to your site, and you’ll see people of different ethnicities and sizes and background and all the clothing, because obviously it fits everybody, which is still beyond expectations and I don’t know how you do it.

I also think that is hilarious. Historically, at my very first Pinup Girl photo shoot, there were women of color there, I didn't have anyone that would be considered plus size, but I had someone who was like, a size large. Still, we were using diverse body types, and diverse ethnicities from the beginning, which was in 1999.

Even now, a lot of companies will go, “I can't afford it! I can't afford to cater to bigger sizes or to find models who are people of color!”

That's bullshit. Whenever they say that they're full of shit. There is a difference between designers and manufacturers in the clothing business. I'd say 99.99% of people you see making clothing are not designers, they're manufacturers. So, when they say “I'm not doing plus sizes because it's too expensive,” or any of that, what they're covering for is the fact that they don't know how to. They're not pattern-makers. I make patterns. I've been making patterns since 1997, so I understand how to change a pattern as the sizes go up to accommodate different bodies. Right?

The fact that it's the same clothing... In fact, I don't know if there's another brand that does that. Is there another brand that does that?

No, I don't think so, and that's because there's very few people who understand pattern-making. I'm making the patterns, and I'm changing the patterns. I don't just make a pattern for myself and then just blow them up. There's changes. You have to have the ability to do it, and also, you have to have the will to do it. So, most of these other companies, they don't have that ability. Even if they did, they don't have the will.

If they wanted people plus-sized people in their clothing, they'd find a way to do it. But they don't. So, when they say that it's too expensive, they're just covering for the fact that they don't have the ability to make patterns, and they don't have the will.

To be honest, I would be embarrassed to call myself a designer if I couldn't make clothing that fit all my customers. First of all, I call myself a designer because I am a designer, but even so, I would be embarrassed to call myself a designer if I couldn’t make clothing that fit all of my customers. That's what I'm doing, I’m designing the clothing for you guys. And so that just proves that I'm a designer.

You know, people think design is, “oh, I drew a pretty dress!” No, that's a fashion illustrator. You can draw dresses on a piece of paper. Can you take that drawing and translate it so that it looks just like the drawing while on a person? Can you make a piece of clothing that fits a XXX person and fits an extra small person, and have them both look great. If you can do that, call yourself a design.

You’re the only person who can do that in the industry. Or that’s willing to. How did you learn your pattern making?

Well, when I started sewing, it was because I went to my baby shower. I was pregnant, and my ex-husband's aunts had made some baby clothes for my new baby. And I thought that was so great! I was like, “Oh, my God! Yes! Clothing!” And so, I decided that I wanted to make clothing for my daughter. So, I started buying commercial patterns. And the commercial patterns, at least for me, are very confusing because they'll have all the sizes and also the tissue paper, and the whole thing was kind of a nightmare. And I started, of course, making clothing for myself. And it was the same thing. I was going on e-bay and buying vintage sewing patterns because I was into clothing from the 50’s and 60’s. But it was so confusing to me.

It was really kind of a tough learning curve for me and I was like, “Fuck it. I'm going to have to learn how to make patterns because I can't handle these patterns!” So I went to the library, (I'm a big advocate of public libraries,) and I found a patternmaking book from the 50’s, and it kind of explained everything. So, it was like, perfect for an autistic person where it was like, “Here's the basic shape for the top. Here's the basic shape for the bottom. Everything. Every other shape follows from this. All the fundamentals they want to leave out all the time. If you put it together like this, you get a dress!” And I'm like, Fuck yes!

I just started making the patterns myself. And then one of my best friends at the time, who was also a stripper, could be considered plus-size. (I don't know what her actual size was.) I'd say she was probably an extra-large everywhere except for her waist, which was probably a medium. She was an extreme hourglass shape. After I started making stripper clothing, I realized that nothing fit her on the waist, so I started custom making her clothing for her. So, she would see a fabric and tell me, “Oh, I want this.” And I'd make her clothing for her.

Very early on, when I started the website, you would pick the style that you wanted. There was a page that had all the fabrics, and you would pick the fabric you wanted, and the style. Then, in the comments, when you were placing your order, you gave me your height, your waist, your bust, your weight and your hips. So, between 1999 and 2003, everything was made-to-order.

So, I was making for every single size, and we were literally making it to fit You. So that was built into Pinup girl from the very beginning. There was never a point where I said, Okay, small, medium large and that’s the end of it. 

The only learning curve was with the people who did my pattern-grading, because normally you come up with your pattern and then you give it to a pattern grader. Most other companies, they make their patterns in a computer. It's a computer program. We don't do that. I make my patterns by hand. I have a paper copy of everything we've ever made, and we do it originally on the paper copy. Then I take it to the grader. He traces it. Then you grade your other sizes from there. But most people, you give them that pattern, which is normally a size small, and they just grade according to some rule.

But I had to go in and work with my graders, and I would give them specs for every size, and all the little changes. That's why my grade rule is a trade secret. My patterns were accessed in 2018. So, if you see anything that looks like mine, and it came out before 2018, that's why, ever since 2019, Everything that comes back. It's a brand-new pattern, and I change everything, and I'm actually redoing my grade rule as well. And I'm really improving it because also, I get better every year.

So, it makes sense to just kind of do that. From the very beginning, I was making clothing for every body-type and again, I think this is why people would say, “Why do you do it?” Because it's inconceivable to people that you may have gone through so much effort.

You can make so much more money, and you do! That’s another thing, there's so much of the population that's not being served. It's not a money thing. No, it's literally fat phobia.

With me. It's the reverse. I fucking love it. I love the fact that, not just that there are customers out there wearing my clothing, but that I'm making clothing for people that have not historically had the ability to buy stuff that fits them really well. Like, I'm making these people happy. Also, it was my plus size customers who kept my business going. When I decided I was closing it, they were the ones who said, you can't. And I was so touched by that.

I didn't even realize until 2019 that the plus-size customers needed me. You know what I mean? I was just doing it. And then I was like, “oh, you're right. There's not a lot of companies out there doing it! So, I need to keep it going for you guys.”

And that is the way it is now. I tell my customers tall the time “I'm doing it for you.” And I've got to say, having my customers kind of come out and support me and what I was saying before, without even realizing what I was going through? It was amazing. When they did that, they also became very protective of me.

As someone who was abused as a child and also into adulthood, I think it’s very hard for people who were abused to conceive of the fact that people care about them. You know what I mean? Like, truly cared. And it was so powerful and so touching to see how much my customers cared about me and loved me. In a way, that began the healing process for me from this whole thing because I realized, “well, yeah, there's people who never loved me, they hated me, and they've been spewing hate at me for years, and they've been trying to destroy me.” And of course they would. They're haters.

But I need to focus on the people who love me, and I need to focus on them. So, the minute I realized that No, Pinup girl is not for anybody else. If you hate us, fuck you. Pinup girls for the people who love us. And it made all the difference.

As I said, it hasn't really ended. I have to remove comments daily, either from my own Instagram or from Pinup Girl Clothing's Instagram. But now I kind of see it for what it is. I feel pity for people who harass me now because I just understand that they're just going through whatever. And that's what you realize. It feels like the whole world is against you, but, No, there's like a dozen people. I feel like these haters, they must be going through so much. Their lives must be so dark, because they have to know what they're doing. I feel like their intention is to make you feel the way they feel every day.

Where do you get your inspiration for your designs?

I get my inspiration from literally everywhere. But generally, I love to travel. I've always loved to travel. I had a flying phobia. Three times in my life, I was so scared to fly cross-country and I took a train instead.

And then in 1998, when my daughter was two, we went to Amsterdam, and it was a long flight, and I was sick the entire time just because I didn't want her to know that I was afraid. That was the point that I decided I had to get over my flying phobia. So, I got myself over a huge flying phobia so that I could travel. I've always known since I was young that I wanted to go places.

And especially in the last couple of years, after I decided to bring the company back, I would go places, and every time I plan a trip, I would say, “Well, what am I going to wear?” And then I would design clothing to wear in that specific place. So, I definitely get inspired by travel. But also, like, anything.

I love history. And one of my extreme special interests is ancient history. But it's really all periods. So, for instance, during the Pandemic, I got really into Renaissance, the Medicis, and Mary, Queen of Scots, who was a little bit later, (even though they put them together in Reign.) During the Pandemic, I started watching all this stuff about Medieval and Renaissance history. Then, of course, I designed the Lucretia gown and the Seraphine and everything. It's really nice having a clothing company, because then any idea of anything you want to make you can just make. So, it's really from everything.

One of my favorite designers, (even though, for some reason, I've never been able to buy anything he designs for women that fits correctly) is a guy named Paul Smith, and he wrote a book that was called You Can Find Inspiration in Everything*: *And if You Can't, Look Again and he's right. I think I've just got the kind of brain that anything I see reminds me of something else, and then I want to do that. It's almost too much. Like, I can get an anxiety attack because I have too many ideas.

Another thing that happens to me, and literally the focus of my meditation has been around this. If I get an idea, (and I think it's because my brain puts it together and my brain can see the idea finished,) the minute I get an idea, I actually get stressed because I want it to exist at that moment immediately. Then I'm stressed because it doesn't exist and my brain wants to make it happen. And I'll literally get anxiety because the thing that I just thought up doesn't exist yet. It's insane. So yes, the answer is fucking everywhere, and it's a bit of a problem.

And it's always been that way. I have favorite designers that I'm always definitely inspired by. If you're familiar with Alexander McQueen, Christian Dior and Balenciaga, you're going to see shades of that in the stuff that I do. But it's a sensibility. Like, the Morgana jacket that's just based on it. A little bit more wearable, but still fabulous. Yes.

Alexander McQueen did a jacket for his graduate thing. His graduate collection is called “Jack the River stalks his victims", And he did this amazing jacket with, like, a bustle. It's just gorgeous, and I was like, so that my Morgana jacket is just follow you.

Since it is Vampire Magazine. What is your favorite fictional depiction of vampires or historical? If you prefer that,

I've got to say, it's going to make me sound basic as hell. But The Hunger Vampires are the best. I didn't see that movie when I came out because I was too young. It was like eleven or twelve, but I was probably 13 or 14 the first time I saw that VHS. That opening scene burns into the brains of all the little baby Goths. That was it. I was always into monsters and stuff. I had read a bunch of vampire stuff. I had read Bram Stoker's Dracula. And, what is it? Carmilla?

It is Carmilla.

That's an amazing short story. But I was like in middle school last time I did that. But vampires are great. But it was The Hunger that I was like, okay, “here's the vampire aesthetic.”

I've never gotten that answer before. I love it.

For me, it was The Hunger. And I don't know if that movie was set in New York, but I'm from New York, and it definitely has that The Hunger vibe.

What would be the single most important business advice you'd give to somebody?

Don't go into business unless you have a real passion for what you're doing, because business is not easy. So, make sure that you're going into business for the right reasons.

People won't tell you this, but try to be as debt free as possible if you're going to go into business. The first 15 years of my company, I had a policy, which was “Nothing enters my business unless it's paid for in full and nothing leaves unless it's paid for in full”.

We didn't have accounts payable, accounts receivable. We had no Net 30, except for credit cards. We made sure that we paid for everything. And that gave us a flexibility. And it meant that I just didn't have to worry about going into debt owing people money.

After I took control of the company back, we instituted it again. So, I guess I would say, “don't start a business for your ego. Don't start it for any other reason unless there's something that you love doing, and people are willing to pay for it.” Also hire to your weaknesses!

Don't try to do everything, even if you think you can, just get good people because it's going to get away from you. I had more stress trying to run that company, and the minute I was able to take that out of my hands to where I could say, ”Look, I'm a designer. Let me just design.” It went so much better. 

Don't go into debt. If you can help it, just try to pay for everything that you can and hire the right people. And I guess that's it for that's good.

Is there anyone you've always wanted to work with or any product you've always wanted to do, but haven't gotten to yet.

Yes. I mean, as far as clothing goes, there's stuff that I've wanted to do, but I'm not going to get into it specifically. I'm pretty happy with the way things are going. I'd actually like to get into, and I will be doing it more over the next year, is home goods, because I'm kind of like a frustrated aspiring interior designer. I buy houses and then I fix them up, and that's actually kind of a side-thing that I do that people don't know about.

And I love design. I realized like, well, it's a smart idea. Just buy houses, places that you want, that you visit a lot or places that you want to live. And then when you're not there, you can rent it. I'd like to do more home goods, just stuff for the home, wallpaper and pillows and stuff like that, different types of textiles.