My name is Shikha Miglani and I am the co-founder of Girl of Substance. I came to United States of America to pursue my Master's in Electrical Engineering from Penn State University. After I graduated, I worked here as an Automation Engineer. With an engineering consulting, services company and Girl of Substance, I am now a full-time entrepreneur. Unable to find clothing that help little girls inspire, imagine and dream big, I started Girl of Substance and here is my story:

I am an engineer, an electrical engineer to be precise. I love science. I love maths. I love reasoning. I grew up with a dad who worked as the shift supervisor in an hydro electric power station. I grew up drilling holes in the angled iron for my dad's pet projects. I grew up fiddling with screws, nuts, bolts, nails, screw driver and hammers. A beautiful childhood urge that gets me to assemble furniture or fix my vacuum cleaner before anybody gets to it. I also grew up with dolls, dresses and kitchen sets. No body ever told us what we were supposed to play with. That was 1980s.

I always thought that my daughter in 2016 will have more than what I had. In lot of ways, she does. But in lot of ways, she is also obstructed by the gender stereotyping of toys, clothes and expectations at full display in the children section. 

There is nothing wrong with stars, hearts, butterflies and cute messages. The dolls and cooking sets are incredible childhood learning toys. What is disappointing is that it is not only marketed to a specific gender, the other sets of toys do not make it to this side of the aisle. Even if they do, the message through which girls are expected to play with these toys is painfully stereotyped. To a little girl brain, shades of pink and image of only girls playing on the packing box does not mean much. But sending these messages again and again, one toys after another in a shield of pink would condition their minds into thinking what they will or will not be interested in. 

As I was getting used to this extreme gender stereotyping of toys, books and clothes, I thought I could tackle this issue by buying stuff for my daughter from both the aisles. I was completely wrong, Children are perceptive. One day I got her an astronaut tshirt from the boy aisle and before she even looked at the print, she said, "Thats not mine, that's Siddhant (her cousin brother). 

My daughter grew up playing with balls, stackers, babies, dinosaur, puzzles, legos, planes, truck, cars, bats, soccer ball, pots and pan in kitchen, books, color pens, paper, bikes, dramatic princess dresses, and just anything which can appear to be a fun thing to big inquisitive eyes. She loves roaring like a dinosaur as much as loves changing her baby's diaper. She pretends to spin like a earth and she pretends to read like her mommy. She twirls like a princess and she chases her soccer ball like a sportstar. It is not just her, all her friends who visit us want to play with everything that comes their way. I had boys who came and picked up trucks in one hand and a pink mini mouse in other hand. I had girls in who were holding the screwdriver and looking to take apart that excavator with curious eyes. For children, everything is a toy. It's we who are constantly telling them through, colors, packing images, aisle and for boys/for girls labels that this is more of your toy than others.

This is the core motive of this store: to create girl clothing that expands their world view. STEM is one of the aspect. In addition we have Arts, Flying Objects, Outer Space, image from NASA and messages of strength and leadership that encourages them set a higher benchmark for themselves. The clothes does all that by celebrating the feminine energy. A unique perspective. A way of looking at things never seen before.

We are located in the beautiful state of Pennsylvania. Our clothes are digitally printed, a technology that allows us to have vibrant visuals in a short turnaround time.

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