Liv Myers is offering sustainable solutions to micro trends and throw-away garments through her business, Overchill the Label. The Winter Park resident and Rollins College graduate launched the brand in 2020 with a mix of environmental consciousness and enterprising spirit.
“There are several entrepreneurs in my family,” she told the32789. Among them is her great-grandfather, Francis E. Myers, co-founder of F.E. Myers and Bro. pump manufacturers. Her father, Paul Myers, is a marketing partner with DBG Promotions. However, her first ambition was not to join the corporate community.
“I was very politically motivated and started as a political science major,” she said. “But I received a bad grade on my first exam and my instructor was like, ‘I don’t really know if this is for you.’”
After some initial outrage over the comment, Myers gave it some consideration and entered Rollins’ communications program. Despite enjoying the curriculum, she wasn’t sure it was the right professional move; internships at two Chicago-based firms left no doubt. “What I didn’t want to do was dedicate my time and creativity to running someone else’s social media,” she said. A different path revealed itself through a longtime interest in fashion and recent thrift-shopping trips with a family member.
“I have always been fashion conscious, but I never saw a career in fashion,” she said. “I used to not care about sustainable fashion – I was just a college student trying to find the least expensive clothes without caring where they came from – but I eventually started doing some research.”
The term “fast fashion” refers to quickly changing trends, the rate of production and delivery, and the rate at which items are worn and disposed. “One out of three fast fashions end up in a landfill within six weeks,” said Myers. And the use of cheaper, synthetic fibers means that garments will not decay, increasing the carbon footprint with each passing trend.
Overchill the Label offers upcycled vintage garments, sourced from thrift outlets and other distributors. “We keep the original labels on them to prove they are recycled,” Myers said. The brand also offers a line of trucker hats and tote bags made from 100% recycled materials.
Myers founded the business on three pillars: sustainability, philanthropy, and family. She is assisted by two nieces and two nephews but is largely responsible for logistics and operations. She sews and styles garments herself and works with local seamstresses to repair and upcycle apparel, such as creating button-down shirts from bedsheets. She also creates prints, used to customize blank garments with eco-friendly vegetable-based inks, and even crafted a dress out of newspapers from 1997 for the 2022 Orlando Museum of Art Met Gala event. “I’ve always been a tech nerd and just taught myself how to do all that,” she said. “I want the people who purchase our stuff to be proud of the fact that it’s one of a kind; why would we all want to match?”
Sales are mostly made online, but small-batch drops of new items are featured at pop-up retail events around the Central Florida area and at Overchill’s 225 W. Canton Ave. office. “I’m also working on art gallery pop-ups to show that our clothing is like wearable art that can be appreciated versus something that you’re only going to wear a few times.”
A recent pop-up event was held in a Chicago location that Myers was able to secure via the PeerSpace rental property app. “New York is so saturated, but Chicago is an untapped market,” she said. Events in Miami and Palm Beach are also in the works.
While sustainability is the focus of her business, Myers also believes in benefitting the community at large. Overchill has been a participant in the Winter Park Fashion Week show, benefitting the Grafton Family Foundation, and was part of the Aug. 26 Fashion and Hope event, benefitting The Faine House and Hope for More Foundation’s year-long grant initiative.
Myers admits that following the advice of her political science instructor was the right move but makes it clear that her desire to change the world remains intact.
“I would love for Overchill to be seen as less of a brand and more of a movement,” she said. “I think I’m probably going to end up on Capitol Hill after all, fighting for climate change.”
