By Olivia Bardella

A few years ago Janet Easter, blogger and Instagram fashion thrifter, found herself burnt out. As the co-founder of Verily Magazine, she was doing what many might consider a dream job - working in New York City and promoting beautiful, authentic media for women. As the Style Editor she was in charge of creating, editing, and sourcing all Style and Beauty content for print and online. She was coordinating and art directing photo shoots for the Style and Beauty Departments, collaborating with photographers, stylists, makeup artists and models, and helping to direct Verily’s overall vision and mission.

But after five years of working all hours of the day and writing the bulk of the magazine’s print and online fashion and beauty articles, Janet was exhausted creatively and physically. “I craved simplicity in my life,” she admits. She had also moved to Pittsburgh, was newly married, and pregnant with their first child.

Basing her decision on practicality and a desire to focus on motherhood, Janet left Verily in 2016 to be a stay-at-home mom. “I left at a time where I was ready to leave.”

But her love for fashion and desire to promote all things beautiful remained.

"I never felt like I was totally qualified for Verily,” she explains. “I never felt like I peaked (in my career) because I was always hungry, because I wanted to do things better; I wanted to learn.”

Now, three years later, Janet is thrifting for vintage and modern clothes that she curates in her new online retail shop, Ever Thrift. Beginning in early 2019 on Instagram, Ever Thrift is a place for Janet to share her love of beauty in the everyday and communicate women’s dignity in fashion in a fun and beautiful way.

A NEW LOOK AT FASHION

As a high school graduate and Indianapolis native transplanted to New York City, Janet attended Fordham University for her undergraduate and studied English, because she didn’t have a specific passion or drive at the time. But ever since she was little she had loved fashion and would cut out clippings and peruse through bridal magazines.

It was providential then, Janet says, that during her Junior year of college she landed an internship with Elle Magazine in the Beauty department. It was her first small taste of the fashion industry, and for a few years she wrote pieces for Elle.com.

Shortly after the second year of her internship, a month before graduating in 2010, Janet had a major reversion to the Catholic faith. She had grown up Catholic, blessed with a strong faith base.

“But, I think, as any girl, I struggled with college and expectations and trying to figure out what the Church taught,” she says. “I didn’t see anyone around me doing it; I didn’t think it was possible. I thought it was just an ideal. And I was pretty miserable.”

Through her reversion, Janet saw God’s mercy, and everything changed for her. She was astounded by John Paul II’s Theology of the Body and the Church’s views on the feminine genius.

“A light bulb - really an explosion - went off over my head, like, ‘Why do we not know this? Why can we not do a beautiful photoshoot that is high-quality, and gorgeous, and inspiring and aspirational but also good for women?’” she says about her new-found perspective on fashion and media. “I had never seen that before and I wanted to create that.”

Stunned by the truth, she decided to leave the secular fashion industry.

It was during this hiatus that the recipe for Verily was forming in Janet’s heart. All the ingredients were there to make it happen: a taste of the fashion industry, her reversion, and a new-found understanding of women’s dignity. “All of a sudden my passion came to me and God gave me that desire to create something I had never seen, which is happy, healthy women wearing beautiful clothes.”

RECONCILING ONE GOOD THING FOR ANOTHER

With the launch of Verily Magazine two years after her graduation, Janet was collaborating with a team of like-minded editors to support women becoming the best versions of themselves through attractive and real content. Verily was one of the first magazines to not create or publish photoshopped images of their models.

However, after her life events that led her to consider devoting more time to motherhood, Janet’s decision to leave the magazine that she helped bring to fruition brought unexpected difficulties.

For years she had subconsciously relied on placing her identity in being the founder of a magazine. She found herself struggling to let go of that identity over her new role as a mother, and would often catch herself giving her background in the magazine to feel validated.

“For whatever reason, I used Verily as a crutch,” she explains. “I didn’t realize I sort of hid behind my identity of my work, that my worth was tied up in the mission of Verily. Even though it was a good mission and I did feel called to do it, after so long it was very hard and really humbling to say ‘I’m a mom.’”

Learning to reconcile her past work with her new stage in life was a lesson in humility, she says. “I never thought it wasn’t enough (to be a mother), but it’s a different kind of humility to be at peace and rest in that.”

Even though her success and work in Verily was something she was passionate about and knew God had called her to, Janet found that the pause she was taking in her life was necessary to find that peace she so desired.

DREAMS BORN IN THE QUIET

Instead of planning what would be her next step, Janet slowed down from her fast-paced lifestyle and took time to reflect and allow new interests to blossom. What she could have seen as a roadblock, Janet saw as a time for hope.

Her creativity was growing, not diminishing.

“It was in the solitude, and it was in the quiet that the desires, new passions, new creativity was born,” she says. “All of a sudden it’s not about you. God gives us these desires that in the end make us the most alive, make us the most happy.”

It was during this time that Janet fell in love with floral design, gardening, baking and cooking, and photography. “It was only when I really ever let go of what I wanted to do, per se, that it was in that surrender, in that quiet that I was filled to the brim.”

She found her “a ha” moment, what she describes as “a new-found passion to bring beauty into the everyday.”

Taking that inspiration, she started a lifestyle blog called Ever Easter in the spring of 2018 as a way to curate her new interests and hobbies and share her love for beauty. These interests fueled her in a way that the creative industry left her burnt out. Janet describes this time as an organic process, something that grew naturally and wasn't forced.

Her creativity kept growing, and she realized her backgrounds in fashion, design, and photography were like touch points combining into what would be her next creative venture. The seeds for Ever Thrift were taking root.

EVER THRIFTING

While dropping off donations at her local St. Vincent De Paul Society thrift store in Pittsburgh, Janet would spend time looking through the racks of clothing for fun. She would get excited to find what seemed like “lost treasures” amid the racks, she recounts. One of those times, with her third child, a newborn, in tow, Janet couldn’t help share her excitement and posted videos of her finds on her Instagram stories. A few friends reached out asking her to find something in their sizes, and she ended up finding eight vintage dresses. “I felt like a dork, but I just took a video of me wearing them,” she says, laughing.

In December 2018 she sold her first stash of clothes. From there she realized she could do this regularly, taking her kids along and recording videos on Instagram.

Since then, Janet has created a retail website for Ever Thrift at shopeverthrift.com, launches new releases once a month, collaborates on photoshoots with local photographers to create seasonal lookbooks, and donates $1 of every sale to a new charity each release.

Initially, thrifting was healing for Janet. She was looking for affordable clothes to fit into after having three kids in three years, and it offered her a chance to switch off of “mom-mode” occasionally. Janet says when thrifting she grabs a cup of coffee and thrives off of the visual and sensorial experience of running her hands through the clothes, feeling the fabrics, and searching for certain colors and patterns. “For a visual person it’s so fun!” she says.

Her favorite pieces to look for and wear have been vintage men’s sweaters paired with big statement earrings. She also loves “grandma” blouses tucked in with overalls or skinny jeans accented by feminine jewelry and nail polish; and, of course, floral midi skirts.

JOY IN THE UNIQUE

While thrifting and curating second-hand and vintage clothes has its eco-friendly appeal, Janet’s inspiration for Ever Thrift came from the sheer joy she had in finding and sharing unique pieces. Vintage clothes, whether classic, funky, or feminine remind her of the vast expression of the feminine genius in each woman.

“When I found something vintage, especially, I felt like it was so unique, it was unrepeatable, and it made me so happy wearing those things,” Janet explains. “It was a manifestation of what deep down I knew to be true, but we can so easily forget as women - that we are unique, that we are unrepeatable, that we have this specific feminine genius that is not the same for every woman. That’s why I’ve always loved fashion and beauty because they are tools for us to communicate our dignity.”

Ever Thrift’s customers express their joy in the clothes, too, by sharing with Janet how it makes their day or they’ve found their new favorite dress in a vintage floral print midi. While she says it might seem silly on the surface, Janet hopes to inspire women to have more fun getting dressed everyday and not worry about following trends or fitting into a cookie cutter mold. “The freedom with vintage is that you can have fun with it,” she says.

BALANCING AND EVOLVING A GROWING PASSION

Now with Ever Thrift growing, Janet has big dreams and would love to see it expand to a brick-and-mortar shop as a collaboration space someday. But with the shop advancing beyond a fun hobby to an almost part-time job, Janet looks to weigh it against time needed with her family.

Balancing her small business as a mother, she’s always looking for answers from other working moms.

She admits that there is no perfect formula, but she remembers some advice she received from another blogging mother:

“The balance will never be perfect,” she was told, “but you will find joy and what works for your family.”

For Janet, a mother’s spiritual, physical, emotional, and mental health all affect the family. She found that she needed a creative outlet to feel energized and to be a good mother, but Janet says it looks different for everyone. “There may not be a perfect balance, and it’s very much dependent on what your family can do,” she says.

But she hearkens back to finding quiet time and letting go of control. “When I try to live more selflessly, let go of what I want, I find that God gives me pockets of time. It’s like little gifts.” Whether it’s time to snap photos of her latest collection or write an Instagram post, she is present to those windows of time to be creative.

Her advice to other women and mothers looking to start a small business is first to cultivate quiet time to let dreams be planted, and then communicate it with one’s husband and friends. “When you let it germinate,” she explains, “when you kind of till the soil of your heart to receive a dream or a passion, and then you can grow it by talking about it."

Finding the support of family and confidants gives a dream the chance to take shape, Janet says.

And then Janet advises to jump in once a good idea has been planted; don’t wait to have the perfect website or social media feed. She says through doing one can learn what works and what doesn’t for oneself and their family. It’s an ever-evolving process, Janet claims, even now for her with Ever Thrift.

SHARING BEAUTY IN THE WORLD

From co-founder of a woman’s magazine to mom-of-three fashion thrifter, Janet has come full circle in sharing her joy of fashion and women’s dignity through unique clothes and beautiful content.

“I always say this, and I really believe it, every woman wants to be beautiful and they want to be loved, and they want to communicate their goodness to the world,” Janet professes. “That is the truth of the feminine heart.”

Janet laments that culturally, beauty has become synonymous with sexy. “I think women are so confused now what it means to be beautiful, what it is to be whole, what it means to be confident.” She believes that a self-possessed woman who knows her worth finds joy in giving herself and communicating her dignity and personality through the way she dresses. But her perspective is not reduced to modesty. Rather, she emphasizes that fashion and beauty are tools, not ends in themselves, that allow women to see their own beauty - something she hopes Ever Thrift is doing.

She makes the connection that just as Catholicism draws the good from the culture, so can fashion, by pulling the good from the industry and using it for the good. “We are called to be in the world, to be a light,” she says with joy. “And I think something as simple as being the best version of yourself and choosing something that makes you smile in what you wear is so important.”

Shop Janet’s one-of-a-kind finds at shopeverthrift.com, and follow her on Instagram at @everthrift and her blog at evereaster.com/blog.