Meet Sacha Knoll | Owner of Traveling Gowns Dress Rentals

We had the good fortune of connecting with Sacha Knoll and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Sacha, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
I have always wanted to be my own boss, knowing that a 9-5 job just wasn’t for me and what I dream of for my life. When I started my business, I had been freelance modeling for almost 2 years. As much as I loved doing photoshoots with different aesthetics and ideas, I was always drawn to the photoshoots with amazing creativity and especially dresses. What girl doesn’t love putting on a big dress and running through a field?! After searching a long time for dresses that weren’t just your normal dresses you would wear everyday, but the over-the-top dresses that you would only wear once in a lifetime. I found that most of these dresses were expensive, usually between $200-$800 and there was no reason for me to buy something that expensive to wear only once, which is where my business concept came from. Renting dresses for content shoots, maternity shoots, and even just for fun. I wanted to make these amazing dresses more affordable and assessable to everyone. I started Traveling Gowns shortly after that, and right after the pandemic. I am very grateful to be able to offer these amazing dresses to other women like myself, moms, and anyone else out there that wants to feel beautiful for a couple hours in a dress!

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
Traveling Gowns started small with around 15 dresses from sizes 0-6 and only an instagram page to to reach my clients for dress rentals. Knowing that I wanted to keep these dresses affordable to lots of people, I keep all the dresses between $50-$100 for a 3 day rental. Now, a little over a year later, I have grown my business to include over 30 dresses, including sizes 0-18 and maternity friendly options, a complete website and nearly 2000 followers on instagram. I want to be known as a size-inclusive gown rental page that is affordable and has so many gown options for any style! I also ship anywhere in the United States.

In the beginning, I honestly had no idea where to start, I took a leap of faith in myself knowing nothing about running a business and I have learned so much along the way. My biggest challenges in my business have been marketing, self-doubt, and work-life balance. Marketing has been a learning curve due to the instagram algorithm and Traveling Gowns being mostly word of mouth until recently with my website. I now spend the time to research how to post more efficiently as well as doing paid marketing more frequently to reach a larger audience. To help with both my work-life balance and self-doubt; I spend either an hour a day or a long day on the weekend to plan out my posts in advance, update my website, research gowns to buy, do affirmations, and read books. These help me ground myself and remember why I started this business, to help other women feel beautiful in some fun, extravagant dresses!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
My biggest supporter besides my family is my boyfriend Shawn. He was the one who helped me make the huge decision of starting Traveling Gowns, and has been a huge support system for me along the way. Shawn helped me overcome any doubts I had about myself and starting a business I knew nothing about. Without him, I probably would not have started Traveling Gowns and wouldn’t be as successful as I am today!

Website: https://www.travelinggowns.com

Instagram: @travelinggowns

Facebook: Traveling Gown Rentals

Image Credits
@cierraannmedia @ciaracgphotography @jphsmits @kiraports @toodopeshots