Empower Hour With Corinne Croce

At Generation Love Clothing, our mission is to create clothing that empowers women to feel confident, motivated, and ready to achieve their goals, while cultivating a community where they feel uplifted and supported. As part of this mission, we’re introducing our "Empower Hour" Q&A series. Through these interviews, we’ll be highlighting women who inspire us with their achievements, whether they’re leading companies, excelling in high-level positions, or balancing the responsibilities of managing a household. This series is about celebrating self-confidence, positivity, and the many ways women define success. Welcome to Empower Hour!

In our latest interview, physical therapist and entrepreneur Corinne Croce joined us to share her experience in launching Body Evolved, her love for integrating fashion into her professional life, and her holistic approach to physical therapy. Her innovative approach to wellness and fashion continues to inspire and transform the way we view self-care and style.

R.H: Hi, everyone. I'm so excited to sit down with one of my best friends and inspirations, Corinne Croce. Did I say that right?

C.C: Yes!

R.H: Which means Cross in Italian! She is phenomenal and a huge inspiration to Audrey and I. Not only does she have magic hands, to say, because she's a physical therapist and she treated both Audrey and I, but she created this amazing business on Bond Street. And I'm so excited to sit down with her and talk about what it was like to start her business, and how she's grown her career, and also her love of fashion, and what inspires her every day with fashion. So, hi, Corinne.

C.C: Hi!

R.H: Well, well, I'm welcome here, so thank you for having me.

C.C: Thanks for wanting to do this.

R.H: Yes!

C.C: For loving and supporting me all the way since we... we don't even know when, what, 10? 12? years?

R.H: A while ago, a while ago.

C.C: I'm so humbled and honored and so excited to talk about what I love to do every day and my love of fashion.

R.H: You really do combine fashion with what you do. I feel like, I mean, honestly, I think that you have so many different styles. You have your, like, kind of streetwear style. But then I know you'll pull out something really avant-garde and fun and sexy, like feathers and bustiers.

C.C: I’ve worn that.

R.H: I know, with me! I just feel like you have a lot of different fashion faces, I'd like to say. And I know though when we come here to see you, you might be wearing really cool sneakers like you are right now or with like a sweatsuit like ours or someone else's. But I just feel like you have a lot of different layers. So what inspires you daily with fashion? Like, how do you choose what you choose to wear?

C.C: Well, one, thanks for thinking that because I love that. One, I love, truthfully, how you guys also have those. You have all that, right? You have edge, you have classy type, elegant stuff to stuff that's fun, sweats, because in our line of work, it's not common, right? People wear like, not to say it's negative, but like very formal, like khakis and a polo shirt.

R.H: Oh, really?

C.C: It's like very physical therapy.

R.H: Interesting! I did not know that.

C.C: Could you imagine me in that?

R.H: No, absolutely not.

" And we at least hope we're doing a job of kind of disrupting the industry and making it a little different. Not that that's not right. It's just not right for us and what we believe the movement of the industry should go. "

C.C: So at work, it's super fun to, like, be able to showcase some of your personality with fun sweats and workout gear that has color and life to it when that wasn't a thing. You know, at least when I started my career, it was like you wore athletic wear that you worked out in, and nobody had athleisure or like fun, comfy clothes. And then that's what's fun about it also, in my personal life, is because I don't get to wear real clothes. I love having the opportunity to wear real clothes that are more of a fun personality or fit the mood of the event because on an everyday basis I’m wearing athletic wear.

R.H: Yeah. That's so funny. Yeah, I think now that it all makes sense. We never had this conversation before, but now that you say it out loud, like, whenever I do see you or we go out to dinner, it's like loud and proud.

C.C: Yeah. Yeah!

R.H: Now I get it.

R.H: I love that. Amazing. What was it like starting a business as a woman? I know your partner is Darius. He's amazing. And I think, you know, behind every business there's always, obviously, men and women. But what was it like being a woman and telling your family or your friends like, "I'm gonna start my own business?" Did you feel sometimes you had any obstacles because you were a woman?

C.C: You know, one, I was so lucky, everybody was so supportive. And Dariusz, ‘Dee’ we call him, is my business partner. We have such a great kind of, we call it the dance, the way we work together. So I think I actually never felt alone as somebody might feel different as a woman because we, we're, counterparts to each other. However, when we built the space out, I will say not that I felt any sort of negative way. But I remember feeling like, maybe not taken seriously, maybe it was our first business, kind of like I had to almost put on a little bit more of a serious sense of being. Not that I'm not serious, but I'm very comfortable talking to anybody as if I’ve known them for a long time. And I felt that in the construction process, actually, who funny enough that everybody who works on the project is actually now a really good friend of mine.

R.H: That says a lot, that says a lot, going through construction and to build out something.

C.C: And actually, I'll tell you, they'll make you laugh because they'll be like, "You were scary in the beginning."

C.C: And I'm like, "Me?"

R.H: But that means you were tough, and I like it.

C.C: And maybe I didn’t need to, maybe that was my own projection. But that's the only time I would say I felt it, where I was like, I don't know if it's because I’m a woman, I don't know if it's because it’s our first business again. Like, I don't know the reason, but I did sense, like, "Oh, there's definitely obstacles people, you know, have to deal with in starting a business when they are a woman or maybe when they're younger or a new business." And I do also think we're a little at advantage because we're such a small company. We don't deal with, like, politics in a company or feeling that way. There's, you know, it's like a family here. But I think often how lucky we are because if you're in a bigger corporate environment, I would definitely feel things like that more than I would in my own environment.

Watch the full interview with Corinne Croce, where she discusses her experience in launching Body Evolved, blending fashion with physical therapy, and her innovative approach to wellness.