FREE SHIPPING ON ALL ORDERS "How you feel on the outside impacts how you feel on the inside" Monarch XVII
The Full Story
ABOUT
At Monarch XVII, we sell fashion-forward clothing, heels, and accessories. However, our ultimate goal is to empower our customers to feel confident and comfortable with what they wear and how they dress. We provide styling suggestions based on body shape – rectangular, triangular, pear, hourglass, or apple -- derived from reputable sources and qualified stylists.
More often than not, we are not educated on how to dress for our natural body shape. We are encouraged to wear outfits in order to try to imitate having a certain body curvature. We are more than our size and more than one shape. We are beautiful as we are, and we should embrace our natural assets.
Join us on our journey to reinvent how we shop and dress, empowering us to feel confident and like a Monarch. Our events and accomplishments are below. Subscribe to emails to receive updates.
RENEE BANKS-JACKSON
CEO of Monarch XVII
From Fort Washington, MD, I am a retired Marine currently studying at Savannah College of Art and Design for a Masters of Fine Arts in Luxury and Brand Management. I earned my undergrad in Music Education with an Instrumental Emphasis from the University of Lynchburg. I am a proud mother (son and daughter on the way) and Marine wife (almost 5 years).
If you have any direct questions for me, please contact me today and I will get back to you as soon as I can!
MISSION
Monarch XVII’s mission is to redefine the retail shopping experience by advocating body positivity and inclusivity through providing personalized styling advice in order to instill confidence in all of our customers.
Fashion has always and forever will be a tool to exercise personal choice of expression; political, cultural, ethnical, spiritual, or, simply intrinsic expressivity. There are so many genres and subsequent categories of fashion that cater to the quirky, artsy, plain, seductive, and modest in order for people to find what they believe showcases their true self. No matter the garment or style they use to express themselves, all clothing should make the wearer feel confident, beautiful, and powerful.
PURPOSE
Our purpose is to create a shopping experience for our customers which promotes confident, personalized purchases while also advocating for body positivity in order to create a wardrobe that makes the wearer feel confident, sexy, and regal while simultaneously lessening fashion's environmental impact.
Fashion has always and forever will be a tool to exercise personal choice of expression; political, cultural, ethnical, spiritual, or, simply intrinsic expressivity. There are so many genres and subsequent categories of fashion that cater to the quirky, artsy, plain, seductive, and modest in order for people to find what they believe showcases their true self. No matter the garment or style they use to express themselves, all clothing should make the wearer feel confident, beautiful, and powerful.
THE STORY
Monarch XVII was created because I, CEO Renee Banks-Jackson, saw a fault in how we shop and feel in clothes. So often, I would shop either online or in-person and see the mannequins and models lavishly displaying outfits that were trendy and appealing. Of course, I bought those outfits believing that they would make me look just as fabulous and sexy. When I got the chance, I would try on my new treasures, full of excitement and beaming with hope. Then, looking in the mirror, I realized that it was not flattering on me, I did not look sexy, and I felt far from the confident-looking model with the perfect body and million dollar smile.
In 2022, I watched a show called “Queer Eye” that Netflix recommended. Blissfully ignorant of what the show was about, I binged the entire series. One member of the show that stuck out to me was Tan France, the fashion designer and stylist. Though he has his own opinions, he encouraged each person to be the inner version of themselves they wanted to be. In addition, he styled people based on their body shape, not necessarily their body size.
What I realized was that knowledge for how to style based on shape is not directly shared with consumers. Fashion brands and even influencers exploit this innocence by showcasing outfits on specific body shapes, enticing them to buy from them in order to achieve the look they are presenting. The results are that most consumers do not look like the prototype displayed and subsequently lack confidence in their own natural assets, fail to find outfits that suit them in a way that make them feel beautiful, and limit fashion concepts to one body standard.
I wanted to create a brand that supported all body shapes and also empower the customer. I, along with other people, will religiously shop at stores that can provide me with products that make me look and feel good. Why can’t my go-to store also teach me how to be my own stylist? Why can’t my go-to store also preach empowerment to their customers as well as their employees? Why can’t I find clothes that make me feel like a goddess, empress, royalty? Why can’t I find a store that does all the above? I wanted this reality of myself and everyone who feels the same, thus was the creation of Monarch XVII.