Paige Adams-Geller: A Better Fit

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Paige Adams-Geller, who runs apparel company Paige Premium Denim with her husband, won the Miss California pageant two decades ago and competed for Miss America – where she won the swimsuit competition. It was quite a victory for a once-pudgy girl from Wasilla, Alaska. Adams-Geller, now 41, started competing in scholarship pageants as a teen to show off her singing voice. But there were consequences. As pageants and modeling required weight loss, she developed anorexia. When she moved to New York at 16, she was raped by a boyfriend who couldn’t deal with their breakup. Later, she worked in Los Angeles as a fit model for some of the top premium denim companies. But she was attacked in a workplace incident that she can’t discuss because of a confidential settlement. At 30, Adams-Geller sought treatment to deal with the post-traumatic stress and her continuing eating disorder. Adams-Geller then launched Paige Premium Denim in 2004 with her spouse, Michael Geller. The company has grown from designing women’s high-end jeans to include a line of men’s jeans and other clothing for women. The clothes are sold at high-end department stores and boutiques across the United States; Paige stores are in Beverly Hills, New York and Las Vegas. Adams-Geller sat down with the Business Journal at her Culver City office to discuss growing up in Wasilla with Sarah Palin, the traumas of her life and her feelings about deciding to not have her own children.

Question: What’s your role at Paige Premium Denim?

Answer: I’m here all day, involved in every aspect of the business from choosing fabrics to doing fittings to reading sales reports to talking with the sales teams in New York and Los Angeles. I usually go to my stores on Saturday and check out what’s going on there. I travel a lot, so I end up on the road doing personal appearances on the weekends and then I’m here during the week.

You do personal appearances?

My favorite part of the business is interacting with the customers. So I love doing personal appearances at my store or at other retailers that sell Paige. I love seeing the consumer put on the product and seeing how they react to it. It’s the best way to learn. I ask them what they like and don’t like and incorporate that by doing a different kind of wash or fit.

You and your husband, Michael, started the company. Is that stressful?

It can be challenging that we are around each other almost 24/7. It’s important for me to take a timeout and make time for my friends. But sometimes it can be difficult to turn work off. I work with my husband and my two stepchildren. So having it as a family business, sometimes it’s hard to stop talking about work.

What do you enjoy about owning your own business?

One thing I love is having a safe environment to work in. When I was out in the world modeling, fit modeling, singing and acting, I’d been put into positions where several work environments weren’t healthy.

What do you mean?

I was attacked in the workplace, and having been attacked in the workplace, I find that having a safe place to come to work every day and a place that nurtures and fosters employees to do their best work makes me proud. It’s important to me.

What happened?

Part of it I can’t talk about, but I did have to go to the rape treatment center and get help. It was one of those pivotal moments in my life where I was able to get help and get my voice. It gave me a lot of strength and courage in myself to confront the person. And shortly thereafter, I started Paige.

How did you decide to do that?

What happened was I had gone to this person named Elizabeth Gamza, who is a life coach and an acting teacher. She was talking to me about fit modeling and clothes. She said: “You aren’t passionate about acting as much as you are about clothes, women and helping other people. Why don’t you just start your own clothing company.” I started talking to my husband about it and he thought it was the perfect thing for me.

What was the biggest challenge in starting the company?

My competitors had gone to some of the manufacturing facilities here in Los Angeles, and said, “If you work with Paige, we are going to pull our business from you.” So I had some obstacles to overcome being the new kid on the block and not being in the clique.

But the manufacturers eventually worked with you?

I showed them how many orders I had and that we are a legitimate company with a solid background and funding. But we had the same obstacles to overcome with our distributors, especially trying to get our product distributed internationally. Once, a certain distributor was interested in us and they found that they had terms in some of their contracts that they couldn’t work with us. So I had to work around that.

How did that make you feel?

It made me feel good because it meant we were competition. It was a negative, but something that made me more challenged because I love competition and I knew I was a force to be reckoned with.

How did you become a fit model for clothing designers?

In the early 1990s, I was pursuing an acting and singing career, and I met this woman who put herself through college and law school as a fit model and she started her own agency. She said, “You need to come in and get fitted.” As a fit model, you are a model and muse for designers. So I started dabbling in fit modeling and I started getting more jobs in the late ’90s. Then I started working with Guess and Lucky Jeans.

Where were you born?

I was born in Utah, but my family didn’t live there at the time. My parents were living in Southern California and my mom was visiting her family in Utah and I came out six weeks early. I was 4 pounds and I almost died, I had pneumonia. I think I’ve always had a strong will.

How did your family end up living in Wasilla, Alaska?

My father was from Alaska and he grew up there and had always wanted to go back. My dad was a school teacher in Southern California, but an entrepreneur at heart. When we moved back to Alaska, he started his own company. He was a contractor and started a company where he sold cabinets, countertops, linoleum, vinyl and drapes. He designed kitchens and installed the kitchens and carpet, and grew it into his own construction company.

You knew Sarah Palin?

I did. She was a senior when I was a freshman in high school. I was a cheerleader for the basketball team she was on. My mother was Sarah’s pageant director for Miss Wasilla.

Did you stay in touch with her?

I stayed in touch with her little sister, Molly, who was a good friend of mine. Wasilla is a small town, so everyone knows everybody. I met Bristol recently and I went to “Dancing With the Stars” to watch Bristol and saw Sarah. I hadn’t seen Sarah since high school.

You also competed in pageants as a teenager?

I was involved in scholarship pageants, which jump-started my modeling career. I’ve always liked to perform because I’ve always loved music. And one of the motivators to be in the pageant was to be able to have a platform to perform, sing and do charity work.

But you developed an eating disorder as a result?

I think the eating disorder started when I was around 14 or 15. When I started doing the teenage pageants, talent agents would come and talk to me and say, “You’ve got such a beautiful face and you are so talented, but only if you just lost some weight, you could have a serious modeling career.” I took that into consideration and I started working out. Little did I know that I’m the type of person to take it to the extreme, and a little bit of working out became obsessive working out, which then led to people telling me, “You look so good,” which led to starvation.

That was a problem.

Eventually, I was eating 600 calories a day, I would get up in the morning and do the Jane Fonda workout before school and have coffee and maybe a tiny bit of oatmeal. For lunch, I’d have lettuce and a rice cake and maybe some raisins. For dinner, I’d maybe have some lettuce. If I went over 600 calories, I would freak out. And I would do a Jane Fonda workout again after cheerleading practice.

But you became a model.

The first modeling search I was involved in was for Teen magazine. I then went to a modeling and talent competition in Arizona and that led to a contract with Elite modeling agency. I moved to New York when I was 16, after I graduated from high school, to model with Elite.

What was it like moving to New York from Wasilla?

It was an eye-opening experience for me. I was overwhelmed. It was a lot for me to take in. I was probably about 25 pounds to 30 pounds lighter than I am now when I was doing runway modeling. I was 5 feet, 8 inches and weighed under 100 pounds.

You didn’t stay in New York long.

I started school in the fall at USC when I was 17. The modeling industry made me feel like it was an unhealthy place for me, and in the back of my head I knew it wasn’t my passion.

But your eating disorder continued.

When I went to school at USC, I tried to get back to a healthy balance. But I messed up my metabolism, so I would try to eat normal like my friends and I would gain weight really quickly and that would cause me to panic. So then I would start overexercising and then restricting my calories. This went on through college.

Did it stop then?

I graduated USC and became Miss California. So I competed for Miss America. And competing in the swimsuit competition – I even won the swimsuit competition – I was back to my thinnest. The eating disorder went on until I sought treatment when I was 30.

What pushed you to seek treatment?

I was attacked in the workplace. I went to the rape treatment center and sought counseling for the first time. I never told anyone that I was raped when I was 16. So I finally talked about what happened to me. So having gone to therapy at the rape treatment center and knowing that I had a lot of these things to deal with, the best solution was for me to go away for a 30-day treatment program. I was sick and tired of not being happy, and I couldn’t figure out what was wrong.

What happened to you at 16?

It was actually a boyfriend who I had broken up with. He was older than me and I didn’t feel comfortable in the relationship anymore. But “no” was not a word he could understand and he couldn’t deal with the breakup. I went through a process where he stalked me and wouldn’t stop calling and this went on for months. I agreed to see him to say goodbye before I went away to college and for a long time I thought that was my mistake. I just wanted him to leave me alone. I blamed myself for a long time and that’s why it was hard for me to talk about it and I never told anybody about it until what happened to me later in the workplace.

How have these experiences shaped who you are?

Reaching out and going to the rape treatment center was a really big step in my life and from that experience, I had to go away to deal with my eating disorder and get help. I had never gone to therapy or sought treatment. I always thought I could do everything on my own and I realized that I couldn’t do everything on my own. I needed to hear stories from other people and how they came through the other side.

You are a stepmother, but do you have children of your own?

I don’t have any children of my own.

Do you regret that?

I don’t think so. I always felt that I would be a career woman. I never had a strong maternal instinct. Even though I’m a nurturing person, I’ve never had this strong desire to have my own child. I love being a step-parent and I always felt I would be a step-parent. I think of my company has my baby. It’s my passion. I love it and I love putting my energy into it.

What do you like to do in your free time?

I love to go hiking and be out in nature. I love traveling and I love experiencing different cultures, food and music. I love going to concerts and the theater.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

When I was younger, I wanted to get my ears pierced and my dad was like, “Why do you want to get your ears pierced?” And I was like, “Everyone has their ears pierced.” And he said, “Why do you want to be like everybody else?” And that is something that has stuck with me all of my life. I’ve always tried to be the best me I can be and not try to be like everyone else.

Did you ever get your ears pierced?

I do have my ears pierced.

Paige Adams-Geller

TITLE: Creative Director and Co-Founder

COMPANY: Paige Premium Denim

BORN: Vernal, Utah; 1969.

EDUCATION: B.A., communications, USC.

CAREER TURNING POINT: Deciding to launch a clothing company.

PERSONAL: Lives in Brentwood with her husband, Michael; has two adult stepchildren.

ACTIVITIES: Hiking, traveling, concerts and theater.

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