Kylie Haulk has had hot pink hair for about ten years, and she has built an entire business around dressing loud! After a decade as a graphic designer, she launched Wear Your Weird the very same day her job ended. Her Indianapolis shop calls itself “Carefully Curated Chaos. For Maximalists By Maximalists,” and it is packed with her own wearable art plus pieces from other artists she adores. Follow her on Instagram @wear_your_weird_store, and shop at wearyourweird.store.
DomaChroma: What is your favorite color, and why?
Kylie Haulk: Green. I’ve loved green for as long as I can remember. Growing up my grandma made me a green Holly Hobbie quilt for my bed, I had the green Care Bear (Good Luck Bear!) and my bedroom walls were green. Honestly, my bedroom walls are green now too.
Yellow and orange are very close seconds and the three colors together have become my signature color palette. They’re the colors of the Wear Your Weird logo and they represent me and my two cousins who are like sisters to me. I’m the green in the 💚💛🧡. They were also my wedding colors, which earned me a spot in Offbeat Bride Magazine, which I had always wanted!
They are the perfect colors for someone who loves trees, nature and fall as much as I do. My birthday is in October and my favorite time of year is when all that green starts turning yellow and orange. I’ve basically built my signature color palette around the things and people I love most.
DC: Where are you right now in life?
KH: Honestly, I’m in a really weird and exciting transition.
I spent about 10 years as a graphic designer at the same company and when it closed earlier this year, I launched Wear Your Weird the exact same day my job ended. I basically went from having a very predictable career to trying to turn this tiny colorful business I created into my actual job.
At the same time, my stepdaughter recently left for college, so my husband and I officially became empty nesters. I’m figuring out who I am when I’m not someone’s parent or someone’s employee. I’m 45 and somehow starting over while also feeling more like myself than I ever have.
We definitely thought becoming empty nesters meant our house would finally be cleaner. Instead, our art projects have basically taken over the entire house and it’s MORE messy. 😂
Wear Your Weird has grown much faster than I expected, which is amazing and also means I’m learning basically everything in real time. Right now my life is a lot of creating, packing orders, taking photos, making videos, pausing only when my cats need me, figuring out what comes next and trying to build something sustainable by working at a completely unsustainable pace.
DC: What was your inspiration to launch the Wear Your Weird store?
KH: It really started with the way I dress.
For a long time I had been using clothes and color as this little daily source of joy without necessarily realizing how important it was to me. Getting dressed became a creative outlet. I stopped worrying so much about whether something was age appropriate, flattering or trendy and started asking a better question: Does this make me happy?
When the company I worked for closed, I suddenly had the opportunity to take everything I love about art, photography, graphic design, color, collage, style and individuality and put it into one place.
Wear Your Weird is basically my world turned into a store. Some things I design myself, some things I find from other artists and small businesses, and now I’m creating one of one wearable art too. But all of it comes back to the same idea: wear the thing that makes you feel most like yourself or most happy inside.
DC: I love your line: “Getting dressed should feel like turning on the lights.” How would you describe this feeling?
KH: The first time I remember really “turning on the lights” was the first time I ever got clean & sober. I had gotten to a point in life where I was suicidal and sought treatment for my addiction in 2008. My recovery hasn’t always been linear, but this November I’ll be eight years completely drug and alcohol free.
Before being in recovery I had stopped caring much about how I looked and didn’t realize how much of myself I had lost. Once the drugs were out of my system, I almost immediately started exploring style again and caring about what I was wearing. The entire world started to look colorful again. It genuinely felt like everything had gone from black and white to vivid color pretty quickly. In recovery people refer to that initial time when everything feels great as a pink cloud and that feels pretty on point with my experience.
That’s still what I mean when I say getting dressed should feel like turning on the lights. It’s that moment when you put something on and suddenly feel more awake and more like yourself. Color genuinely affects my mood. A funky pair of pants, a bright sweater or an outfit that probably has “too much” going on can completely change how I feel walking out the door. It can put me on my pink cloud.
“Turning on the lights” is really just becoming visible to yourself. Like, oh there I AM! That’s the real me.
The transition isn’t as drastic every day as it was when I first got clean, but I always feel gratitude for the addition of color to my life and my world.
And I want other people to find whatever their version of that is which doesn’t have to look anything like my version.
DC: You curate other artists alongside your own originals. What makes a piece a Wear Your Weird piece, and what gets rejected?
KH: That is actually pretty simple because I truly just trust my gut.
I have to genuinely love it. I’m not trying to chase the latest trends or predict what everyone wants. Wear Your Weird is basically an autobiography of my life and my world, so if I wouldn’t wear it or get excited seeing someone else wear it, it probably doesn’t belong in my store.
I’m drawn to color, especially my favorite colors and rainbows, interesting details, fun silhouettes, comfort and things that feel unique or different. I love anything with cats, subtle things that are silly or funny to me and things that have some kind of nostalgic meaning. If something reminds me of being a kid or brings back a feeling or memory, I’m probably going to love it. I also have a very random love for food jewelry, which has absolutely made its way into the store.
I reject way more than I accept or buy, and the goal isn’t for everyone to like everything. Actually, I hope they don’t. I’d rather have someone absolutely lose their ever loving mind over one thing than think everything is just OK.
DC: Pink hair is, in my opinion, the best hair. Please tell us how pink hair has changed your life!
KH: I had no idea how much having pink hair would change the way I interacted with other people in the world or the way people saw me before they knew me.
Between my pink hair and the way I dress, I feel like if someone is in trouble or needs help, I’m often the person in the room they decide looks approachable or trustworthy. Random kids will ask me for help and strangers come up to me constantly to compliment my hair, which gives me an opportunity to compliment them right back. It creates these tiny positive interactions with people that I probably wouldn’t have had otherwise.
It also has become part of how people identify me. When someone doesn’t remember my name, I’m “the girl with the pink hair,” and I’m completely fine with that. And nobody ever seems to mistake me for a fan of our current president, which I’m also quite happy about. My outside is able to show open mindedness and I think that’s pretty cool.
I’ve had pink hair for about 10 years now and I genuinely think making that choice helped give me permission to become more myself in every other area too. The clothes got brighter, I stopped trying so hard to look like everyone else and now I’m building an entire business around that idea.
DC: What is it like being a color maximalist in Indianapolis?
KH: Interesting, but also really fun.
People stare sometimes and once in a while someone is rude. Most people definitely don’t look like me, especially when I’m wearing one of my more unique outfits, but for the most part the reactions are incredibly positive and kind even in more conservative spaces.
I also know how to dress it up enough to fit in pretty much anywhere while still being myself. I’m never going to suddenly show up in beige because the occasion is fancy. There will be color. There will probably be something weird. I’ll just upscale my weird a bit when needed.
And honestly, being surrounded by people who mostly dress differently than I do makes it even more fun to be who I am.
DC: What advice do you have for creatives who live in conservative places?
KH: Wear & do whatever makes you happy. Make the art you want to make. Be kind and stop spending so much energy trying to imagine what strangers might think about you.
One of my favorite things to remind myself is that what other people think of me is none of my business.
I think we sometimes assume people are going to react negatively when most of them really don’t. I walk into plenty of spaces where I very obviously look different and the overwhelming majority of my interactions are positive. If you treat people with kindness, you’ll be surprised how often you get kindness back.
And when somebody doesn’t like it? They likely aren’t your people anyway.