Martha Anne Dyer’s MAD Styles
In a small corner of our bustling town, one Mississippi State senior fashion design and merchandising major is making waves by turning her passion for sustainable fashion into a budding new business. Meet Martha Anne Dyer, a 22-year-old visionary who has taken the leap to start her own pop-up thrift shop, MAD Styles, coined from her initials. Her personal strategy is to blend style, affordability, and environmental consciousness to create a safe place for people to find their confidence.
Originally from Houston, Texas, Dyer has called Starkville home for the past 5 years.
Her passion for fashion has always been evident, and as a little girl she wanted to be a famous actress and especially loved played dress-up. Mimicking her older sister's interest in fashion design, Dyer found a special talent in creating, but it wasn't all about that for the young girl. Living in Peru in a family of missionaries, Dyer spent four years in Peru during her formative years and saw firsthand the impact that even the smallest of good can do.
“I've wanted to do this for a really long time. In high school when I started thrifting, I wanted to resell clothes on my blog, and then sophomore year of college I worked at a thrift store. I would make lists from there about what I wanted to do and what I didn't want to do in my own store. Then, I got connected with the entrepreneurship center on MSU's campus and I pitched them my idea. The rest is history.” said Dyer.
“My entire life in Peru was focused on helping people and finding ways to make people's lives better, so after that my interests were completely changed and all I wanted to do was do something to help. I chose my major because I wanted to make a difference in the fashion scene, and not just in the fashion aspect of things. There is so much that isn't talked about as far as labor trafficking. There are an estimated forty-million people in modern slavery right now, and the second largest contributor to that number is the fashion industry. Of that, 2% of the people working in the fashion industry are paid a living wage.”
What sets Dyer's MAD Styles apart is her commitment to community engagement and education. Regularly referencing her personal motto of, “reduce, reuse, recycle,” Dyer aims to inspire customers to embrace the sustainability of shopping secondhand themselves.
“What I love so much about Starkville is the community around local artists. You don't find that everywhere else. The scene surrounding people here that want to make a difference and produce art is so heavily supported, and that's so important especially for young people like myself who have a big dream and want to see it grow right here.” explained Dyer.
“I've always been a clothes girl, and thrifting is the most sustainable way to shop. Because of that, thrifting has always been my niche for shopping, and it's so cool because now I get to actually see my dream materialize.”