“It took me half of my ’20s to figure out that this can be my real job,” says Suzanne Holifield, owner of local clothing business, Sorry Clementine. The brick & mortar shop opened last October and she describes it as “a huge experiment.”

The conjoined shop/work-space was something that appealed to Suzanne because she can interact with customers. Suzanne describes herself as a people person, “It gets really lonely working for yourself,” Suzanne says, “especially when everything’s online.” Personal contact allows her to collaborate with customers to make custom designs. A person can modify a garment they like such as adding or removing buttons, pockets – even go into the back room to choose fabrics.

Although she designed clothing as a teenager, it wasn’t always her plan to run her own business. While studying social work, Suzanne sold online under the name Drop Dead Designs but when a Craft Lake City selling opportunity arose in 2008, she took the full-time plunge. Suzanne realized her style and work ethic had matured and was not so much in line with her prior punk, do-it-yourself mentality so she changed her name to Sorry Clementine which better reflects her style and allows for a broader demographic. She admits the name is relatively arbitrary.

Suzanne recently enrolled in SLCC’s fashion design program. She admits it is a little backwards to be returning to school now, after she’s established her name. On the first day of class, a fellow student mentioned owning a Sorry Clementine shirt. Suzanne even won a fashion design contest over another local designer who ended up being one of her professors. “I’m self-taught, built a company, and now I’m going to school for it,” she says with a smile.

See Suzanne’s work at the Sorry, Clementine 366 S 500 E #104, at 1970 in 9th&9th, and at Unhinged in Sugar House or visit www.facebook.com/sorryclementine.