A freckle face girl with sun bleached hair roamed the sage brush prairie. Happily traversing barbed wire fences and unapologetically squishing black creek mud between her toes on the family ranch just north of Billings, MT. She would be the fourth generation to call these acres home and when it was time to go inside for the day, she was mostly content to sit and draw and dream. Most often she dreamt of growing up and making fun things to sell in a little shop of her own. Well, as so often happens, that little ranch girl inevitably did grow up.

Tiffany Miller-O’Brien studied fashion design in Seattle, WA where she then spent 10 years as a freelance costume and apparel designer as well as a stylist and special events coordinator for companies such as the Bon Marche, Macy’s, and Nordstrom. But as much as she tried, the fashion industry never felt completely right in her heart. And the more time went on, the more she felt Montana calling her back. In 2009 she traded the concrete jungle of the city to return to her roots of sage and sandstone and black creek mud.

Little industry existed back home for sequin corsets or fashion shows or haute couture anything for that matter, so Tiffany pivoted her design career for the first time. Miller-O’Brien spent the next 10 years designing under her own label specializing in one of a kind wearable items for wedding parties, dance and performance artists, and musicians as well as a series off the rack wearable items utilizing recycled and repurposed materials. She also produced various collections of hand made, craft printed graphic items for local businesses including: Carter’s Brewing, Limber Tree Yoga, Lilac, Not Your Boyfriends Band, Red Rover Bicycles, Good Earth Market Co-op, The Bike Shop, The Petroleum Club, Pictograph Caves State Park, Liberty&Vine Country Store, Billings Area Trail Runners Club, Project Lunch, Eat.Share.Give, Swanky Roots, and the Produce Depot.

All this while raising two of her own freckle faced, muddy footed girls with her husband and their dog, not too many miles from where she first dreamt of a little shop of her own. And everything is sunshine and rainbows and … SKreeeeech. Hit the brakes. Enter worldwide PANDEMIC!!? Who saw that one coming? (watch closely, here comes another pivot) The country is quarantining and the schools are closed so she’s working during the day now posing as a teacher, lunch lady, custodian, bus driver of a Honda Pilot for two small girls but thankfully, THANKFULLY her professional life can flex and pivot and keep going. Nights are for designing and printing t-shirts and stitching up hundreds upon hundreds of face masks. Days are laundry, making pb&j’s, shuffling online learning with virtual meetings, refereeing girl fights and wiping tears. This schedule is strange and challenging every single fiber of her being but she is thankful for every minute of this new normal.

Wasn’t it Darwin who said “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.” Tiffany will just be over here… adapting.