THINGS IS COOL: Do you have a team or is it just you? In other words, are you designing and doing all of the strategizing for the brand?

JULIA LEACH: Gosh…I am. It’s very much entrepreneurial in the old fashioned way. While I don’t have a staff, I have great relationships in that my web design team and warehouse fulfillment partner are both fantastic. The production person out of L.A. is a consultant, and my web developer is a consultant. I did design everything, but I hired a technical designer to do all the tech packs. The goal now is to grow the business, and then there most definitely will be a team. I really want it to feel authentic, to put it out there in a way that I would want to discover a brand.

T.I.C.: So you are Chance at this point.

J.L.: [laughs] Well I am, but I have to say that on a certain level, it has been like a barn raising. I have an incredibly generous and inspiring group of friends who have all said, “What can I do to help?” It’s a very loved brand; it has a lot of godparents. So while I am Chance, I could not have done this without my friends.

T.I.C.: What about the name, Chance? Where did it come from?

J.L.: Well, I was considering several options. But then I was watching the Peter Sellers movie, Being There, in which he plays a character named Chance who’s a gardener. The quote on the Chance website slideshow, “And all will be well in the garden,” comes from the film. And in the movie, one of the journalists says about this character, “He has a particular brand of optimism.” And when I heard that, I just thought that chance and optimism are so much what I am about. And I never looked back. The name was Chance.

J.L.: I want it to be a brand that inspires people. These are difficult times, but I think doing something entrepreneurial, as much as it involves some anxiety, is worth it. It’s worth it for me creatively, and hopefully it can provide some oxygen to other people who want to do their own thing but aren’t sure where to begin. I do want it to be a business, now and always, that people will be inspired by and learn from, and I mean that in a very humble way. That’s what will make it all worthwhile for me.