About Katie:

Katie is the founder of Wabi Sabi Threads, a vintage kimono company that she started in 2017 while living abroad in Japan. “Wabi Sabi” means to embrace imperfect beauty in Japanese. This year, Katie launched the Flawed and Fearless Podcast to continue her mission of encouraging women to embrace their imperfections and live confidently.

Where to Find Katie:

instagram.com/itskatiesharp

instagram.com/WabiSabiThreads

WabiSabiThreads.co

Flawed and Fearless Podcast

Links We Talked About:

Podcasts:

How I Built This

IKR

Fun Quotes from Podcast:

Transcript of Podcast:

The Sandi Savage Show

Katie Sharp

Sandi: Well, hey everybody. Welcome to the Sandi Savage Show. So glad that you are here. Today, I am super stoked because we have Katie Sharp here. I am going to have her tell you about everything that she’s doing and about her business and her podcast. I’m going to let you do it. I’m going to let you talk about it. I could go, “Oh, here’s all these wonderful things” but I want to hear it from you. Tell us about yourself. What are the things you’re doing right now?

Katie: Sounds good. Thank you, Sandi. I have a vintage kimono business that I started about two years ago now while we were living abroad in Japan.

Sandi: That’s so cool.

Katie: I started it because I saw kimonos all over the place- Forever 21, Target, everywhere. They’re fake and with a creative background, are they ethically produced? Are they good for the environment? Most likely, not. The kimonos that are with my company Wabi Sabi Threads are all vintage, one of a kind, silk kimonos. I have sourced them and now I have buyers set up, so each kimono is over a hundred years old. There are no two that I’ve come across that are alike yet. Long, short, all of that. Wabi Sabi Threads is the name of the kimono company. Wabi Sabi in Japanese loosely means ‘to embrace imperfect beauty’ so-

Sandi: Wow, I love that.

Katie: Yeah, I’m trying to make it more than just about selling clothes. I’ve always been passionate about fashion and helping women feel beautiful, so I started that about two years ago. Just in the last few months I launched a podcast called Flawed and Fearless so kind of going along with that Wabi Sabi theme. It’s in English now. I don’t have to explain it. Flawed and Fearless, just kind of bridging that gap between the highlight reel we don’t want to see online, especially in real life. Just kind of realizing we’re all human, we have challenges, we have mistakes we make and we’re always learning and growing. Those are my two main things right now. We’ve been in Lexington, Kentucky for about a year and a half. Ohio before that and then we were in Japan for about two and a half years.

Sandi: What took you there? Why were you in Japan?

Katie: I never thought I’d live in Japan. I’d never been to Asia. My husband’s job- he’s an engineer. We were there for about two and a half years. While we were there, his job relocated to Lexington. That’s how we’re here. I loved it. I’m sure I’ll talk about it later in our conversation as well but definitely travel is worth it. Save your money. Save your vacation days. Asia especially was amazing. Neither of us have actually ever been to Japan until we went there to pick out our house. It was a little nerve-wracking. I was a little nervous. That plane ride was a long 14-hour plane ride.

Sandi: You were like, “Where are we going?”

Katie: It was amazing. An awesome experience.

Sandi: Do you miss it?

Katie: Yes, I’ll move back. I would love for him to get promoted and then maybe a fe