Diane Bull

Diane is a Revelstoke native and committed business owner, mom and community leader! She is always ahead of the trend in her business and in supporting the community. Style Trends was a pioneer in online stores in Revelstoke. Diane embraces technology and shares her knowledge of web marketing and social media with the business community. She is an active volunteer in the Chamber of Commerce, contributing to our success and the success of her fellow retailers. Her attention to detail is exquisite from the ever changing creative window displays to fantastic fashion shows with live music and local models! We are blessed to have her in our community! - Judy Goodman

Kootenay Business Magazine talked to Bull to find out how she manages to stay on top of everything and run this successful business.

What word would you pick (other than “influential”) to describe yourself as a businesswoman? Please explain.

I would have to say that I would describe myself as somebody who dreams big. We are a small shop, in a small town – but I try not the let that limit us. I try to ensure that our events are high quality, that we have creative and fun window displays, that our product keeps things new and fresh. We have our own in house photo studio where we shoot at least twice a month (often more!) so we have unique images to use on our website and social media accounts that give our customers a better vision of our products and how to wear them. We collaborate with other local shops, with businesses that fall in line with our esthetic from surrounding areas, and with creatives and artists that we reach out to for specific projects. We want to be able to give our customers that small town, personal service while providing them the products and experience they would find in larger centres.

What was the toughest thing you had to deal with when getting into business?

As I think most woman in business would say, the toughest thing when we started out in this business was finding the balance of work and family. Our kids were quite young when we started out in the business, and for the most part have grown up around the shop. I am not somebody who keeps my home and work life separate, but rather I like to see them wind together a bit which was tricky to figure out. Now that the kids are older, they help out at the shop when we have to stay late and set up for events, they help out in the back or do staff lunch runs on busy days – it is truly a family business. I could also talk about finding a balance while starting to work side by side as a husband and wife team in the business, but we’ll save those stories for another day...  

What was the last photo you took on your phone?

The last photo I took on my phone is a photo of my daughter excitedly holding a chicken belonging to a family friend, before that, a photo of our new jewelry display to post on instagram, before that, a photo of the new custom benches we had made for an in-store display. Honestly, I have over 6000 photos on my phone, I’m sure 75% of them are work related and the other 25% are the most random photos of my kids....seriously, who answers this question with ‘my daughter holding a chicken’. haha.