Women Working in The Arts: Michelle Satterlee

By Alicia Puig

In this next installment of our ongoing interview series featuring inspiring and influential women in the arts, we meet gallerist Michelle Satterlee. She walks us through her journey from clerical assistant to part owner and gives us the inside scoop on starting Dressed To Match, a series of photos capturing her carefully curated outfits that bear a striking resemblance to works of contemporary art. Hear the challenges of pushing her content to the next level while remaining true to her original intention of maintaining the account as a creative outlet, her best advice for ensuring the success of brand collaborations, and the exciting plans coming in 2022!

Tell us a bit about your career path in the arts thus far. What do you do now and what is one piece of advice you have for working in the art world?

Growing up, my parents always encouraged me to discover and express my creativity. Whether that meant sending me to art classes, visiting museums or tinkering around at home with paints and markers, it seems as though I was destined to find my way into a career in the arts!

While in high school in the early 2000s, I got a clerical summer job working at an art gallery called Elliott Fouts Gallery in Sacramento for a few hours every Sunday. Though my time there was mostly spent stamping envelopes and doing other monotonous tasks, I really enjoyed my surroundings and found myself intrigued by the local art scene. From there I went on to get my degree in Art History from UC Davis, while continuing to work at the gallery part time.

Upon graduation in 2010, I began working at the gallery full time, really immersing myself in the business and learning everything from planning exhibitions and how to properly hang art to marketing and working with collectors. Today I'm proud to say that I now own part of the gallery with Elliott and feel incredibly fortunate to enjoy a career I am truly passionate about!

This might be unconventional, but one piece of advice I would give for working in the art world is that it is not absolutely necessary to obtain a master's degree in the arts in order to achieve success in this field. I felt a lot of pressure to go to graduate school after I received my BA, and though I went as far as travelling cross-country to tour the one elite university I had applied to, ultimately I rejected my acceptance into their Arts Business program because I wanted to focus my efforts on gaining practical experience outside of the academic realm.

When did you come up with the idea for your Instagram account @dressedtomatch? How did you develop your content and grow your following when you first started? How would you say you have evolved over the years?

Dressed To Match began coincidentally in 2015, when I wore a pink ombré Diane von Furstenberg dress to an exhibition opening that matched an abstract painting in the exhibition perfectly. The likeness was uncanny—it really seemed that a collaboration between the designer and artist had taken place! Though the match was completely unintentional, it made me wonder if I could match another piece on purpose ... and so my obsession began.

One thing I have always been very conscious of with Dressed To Match is my “why.” I think all artists and creators have to check themselves at times to remember what their purpose is in doing what they do. For me, Dressed To Match is first and foremost a creative outlet that allows me to express my personality and mutual love of art, art history, fashion, and photography. Not far behind that is my desire to share that passion with others through my matches.

There are times when I have become distracted by how many “likes” a match gets and have put too much stock in correlating that number with a

match’s overall “success.” In those moments, it’s necessary for me to remind myself that at the end of the day, I am doing this for me, and if a match doesn’t “perform” as well as I anticipated, that's okay! Don't get me wrong, I am incredibly grateful for my followers, who constantly encourage me on this adventure, but within the past few years, I have made a really conscious effort to focus my attention on creating to share rather than to receive. Thus, having a really clear definition of my “why” has really helped me stay focused on enjoying both the process and outcome with equal force.

Can you share some tips for collaborating on brand partnerships?

I've had a few really great experiences with brand partnerships, and I think that's because I'm very conscious about who I partner with and why. I'm definitely more about quality over quantity and I would never want a collaboration to feel forced for the sake of monetizing a match. The majority of my collaborations have been non-paid, which works best for me personally because I don't feel a sense of obligation or the added pressure of matching turning into “job.”

I realize not everyone has that flexibility, since Dressed To Match is a creative outlet for me and not how I make my living. Nevertheless, whether a partnership is paid or unpaid, my advice would be to align with brands that authentically reflect the creator's own interests and overall brand. I would also suggest directly reaching out to a brand to inquire about partnerships—it never hurts to ask. Some of the most exciting collaborations I've been part of began with a simple email!

What have been a few of your favorite matches thus far? Any interesting stories behind them? Best places to look for your outfits?

My favorite matches are the ones I get to shoot with my sister, Natalie, who photographs the majority of my content. She's been there since the very beginning and literally had no photography experience prior to me asking her to shoot our first match together in 2016! It's really amazing to see how far we've come as a team: she not only understands each assignment but also gives me valuable input and ideas that have really elevated the content we've created.

For instance, both due to inexperience and nerves, my early matches were all similarly composed: me standing next to the art, hand on hip, rather stiff but with a smile on my face. Now I would say that I'm more of an active participant in the compositions—not necessarily so I can stand out more, but more so to enhance the connection I'm creating between me, the outfit and the art. Natalie's encouragement has really helped me go outside of my comfort zone, and it's very rewarding to see how my matches have evolved to be visually more compelling, complex and cohesive.

As far as searching for outfits is concerned, lately I've really focused on finding secondhand dresses to include in my matches. Cost and sustainability are important to me, and websites like TheRealReal, Poshmark and ThredUP, make it easy for me to bookmark items and wait for additional sales!

And finally, what are you currently working on— any exciting projects on the horizon that we should look out for?

Right now I'm finishing up my maternity Dressed To Match series, which has been such a fun and special way to document my pregnancy. I fully intend to continue matching postpartum, and we'll see if my son makes an appearance or two in one of the new matches! Beyond that, I'm looking forward to an extended trip abroad that my family and I have planned for 2022 in London and Paris. I have several “bucket list” type matches that I would love to do at a few of the major museums and galleries in both cities, so I've already started plotting my course for those!

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Learn more about Create! Magazine | First image photographed by Christina Best Photography.