Sigrid Olsen is an internationally recognized fashion designer, known for her eponymous clothing brand and its unique prints and tropical color palette. Her “Beach to Bistro” line is the culmination of four decades in the industry, and she currently runs her small business from an office in Palmetto, where she and her partner, Mark, live most of the time on their boat docked on the Manatee River.

Olsen, 72, discovered her love of textiles back in the early 1980s, as a young art school graduate. She began printing her designs onto fabric and making clothing that she sold in a tourist shop in Rockport, Massachusetts, where she lived. A chance meeting with someone from the fashion industry led to a business partnership and the creation of the Sigrid Olsen fashion brand, which flourished and was purchased by the Liz Claiborne corporation in 1999.

But Olsen’s path hasn’t been easy. In 2005, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a double mastectomy. “That whole process was overwhelming,” she says, “especially for somebody like me, who was working 60-hour weeks
and not taking enough time for myself. It forced me to slow down and heal.”

Then, in 2008, when the economy tanked, Olsen’s was among 45 brands that Liz Claiborne decided to close. Olsen wanted to continue the line on her own, but the corporation owned her name and trademark, and a non-compete clause prohibited her from making and selling her clothing. Olsen knew she had to find a place to regroup and landed at a quiet, restorative refuge in Tulum, Mexico. 

“I never really had more than a week-long vacation in 15 years, and I ended up staying there,” she says. “I did yoga and meditation and walked along the beach every day.” Her time in Tulum inspired her to create yoga and art retreats for women, which she still offers today.

“What the breast cancer diagnosis and the yoga retreats showed me is that sometimes you think the worst thing in the world has happened, and it’s actually paving the way for your next iteration,” Olsen says. “The key is stopping for a moment and asking yourself, ‘How is this impacting me, and how can I take this experience, learn from it and evolve even more?'”

Another upheaval occurred in 2013. Olsen’s husband, Curtis, died of a heart attack while out riding his bicycle, leaving her suddenly single and alone. “It was very difficult,” she says, “but I had no choice except to carry on and proceed as an independent woman.”

In 2014, after some legal wrangling, Olsen gained back ownership of her business name and trademark. Now she runs her own show, selling her clothing through her website as well as wholesale to boutiques. She says that the strength of her creative drive is what’s always kept her from giving up during challenging times.

“It completes me to be able to come up with new ideas using different colors, shapes and patterns, then see the results of my ideas come to fruition,” she says. “When I work with women in my retreats, I share with them my three-part process: Pause, breathe and reflect. In each of these crises in my life, intentionally following that sequence helpd me begin to understand on a deeper
level how I can turn a setback into a positive thing in my life.”