Kelly Moffat, the Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Kirrin Finch, a clothing brand for women and non-binary folks, was recently featured on the 2025 Curve Power List. The list “celebrates LGBTQ+ women and nonbinary individuals making seismic shifts in North America-shaping culture, policy, and social change.” When we chatted, Kelly was fresh off of Hetrick-Martin Institute’s Women Speak Panel: Unlocking the SHEconomy, during Lesbian Visibility Week. I am thrilled that Kelly squeezed our chat into her busy schedule so I could ask her about tariffs, sustainable clothing, and, of course, queer joy.
Kelly and her wife Laura founded Kirrin Finch nearly ten years ago, when they had grown frustrated with their inability to find clothing that fit their identities. “We were tired of walking into the men’s sections and saying, ‘We like those styles but they don’t fit our bodies.’” The couple knew there were other folks out there who felt the same way. When they were getting custom suits made for the first time, Kelly says, “There was an ‘aha’ moment.” While the experience felt great, the couple realized that “custom isn’t always the space that exists from a price perspective or timeline.”
Kelly tells me that Kirrin Finch serves a primarily queer base. “We would be hard-pressed to find someone shopping from us who isn’t an ally,” she explains. “We lean into our messaging, and our imagery is important to show authentic images of folks who don’t feel represented in traditional fashion spaces.” While they didn’t shy away from creating a “queer” brand in 2015, Kelly acknowledges that, ten years later, now is a difficult time for the LGBTQ+ community. Their brand, however, was built with longevity and sustainability in mind. “We continue to look at different places where it feels like we can be impactful,” she explains, including the materials they source, but she believes that their partnerships matter, too. “A big part of our pillar that we lean back on is our social mission, how we as a brand are creating a place where someone feels seen.”
I ask how the Trump administration’s tariff debacle is impacting the brand. “It is unnerving, scary, unpredictable, and quite frankly not a constructive way to have business decisions be made,” she says candidly. The brand primarily manufactures their garments in Italy and India, so they were already paying tariffs, but watching the numbers skyrocket from around 15-17% depending on the garment, to upwards of 40% has the team scrambling to figure out how to handle the situation. She tells me that the team is doing a great job, but that “normally we make these decisions a year out, and now we have to do this in a few weeks. You lose the ability to be as strategic as possible.”
When it comes to stressful decisions, I ask Kelly what it’s like being in business with her spouse. She acknowledges that “it’s very hard to turn it off when there’s a crisis or something that needs to be dealt with on a timeline.” Having owned a small business with my wife for 7 years, I can relate to this. You might be on vacation or out for a date night, but business talk will inevitably come up. Still, she adds, it’s great to work with someone you trust entirely.
As the brand’s 10-year anniversary approaches in September, Kelly is looking forward to launching a more robust knits program, “and we’re just hoping that things settle down a little bit, and we keep the chaos at bay.” I ask her what she’s most excited about. “I am super excited about the new sky gray Georgie that just came out,” she reveals, along with another secret: There’s an emerald green Georgie on the horizon. I am thrilled to hear this, because emerald green is my color. I guess I better update this month’s What You Need Now.
Finally, I ask Kelly what queer joy means to her, and she says what most of us are thinking, that queer joy matters during “this slightly demoralizing time,” but that there are uplifting stories. “Certainly there’s not always joy, there is hardship and challenge, but ultimately it’s about the joy that you get from seeing yourself represented,” she explains, “and how that joy transcends generations and experiences.”
The joy that Kirrin Finch brings her includes the brand’s partnerships with a variety of LGBTQ+ organizations. Not only do they make monetary and clothing donations to auctions and fundraisers, but they have a partnership with SAGE to support prep for their food pantries. “We get our hands into the pot, if you will,” she says. Something that Kelly and I have in common? We both keep coming back to our goal of amplifying queer stories, which Kirrin Finch accomplishes with their Dapper Scouts program. “We highlight different folks in the community who are doing special stuff. We amplify their experiences and share their stories.”
The Kirrin Finch brand and philosophy are proof that when we feel comfortable in our skin, we can change the world. As Kelly says, “Style helps people share their identity.”
Hey there. Laura Leigh here. I’m a wife, writer, mama, small business owner, podcast host, and the Head of Content here at Pink Robin.
I love supporting the queer community and bringing shared experiences to life.
If you have a story to tell, I’m here for it.
la********@pi***********.com
I remember when my wife and I first became moms, I knew that our ability to “pass” was behind us. I was never going to pretend that my wife and family were something other than exactly who they were. It was freeing to know that I had to live my queer life out loud, that I would forever be myself in every space, all the time.
In a 2023 CNN article Daniel Korschun, associate professor of marketing at Drexel University explained that when it comes to supporting the LGBTQ+ community, executives “are becoming much more skittish about taking these stands and making strong statements.
According to a 2022 Pew Research Poll, roughly eight-in-ten U.S. adults say there is at least some discrimination against transgender people in our society. Because trans rights have become such a contentious issue across the country, companies that used to view supporting pride as “low stakes” have become less likely to support the LGBTQ+ community as a whole. “The pendulum is swinging a bit back … toward a more conservative approach, where they’ll be less vocal,” says Korschun. According to a recent NBC News article, Target stores will only sell pride merchandise in select locations this year. The retailer will not have Pride collections in about half of their locations. Additionally, they will only sell pride merchandise for adults.
An argument that Target has made in the past and is now using again is that this decision protects their LGBTQ+ employees, but let’s be clear: Conditional allyship is not support. Pulling queer merchandise from their shelves and essentially pretending that we don’t exist–and ignoring those of us who have children that want to celebrate pride with us–is detrimental to our community. Erasure threatens our safety. This weekend my mom told me that she’s done with Target. Like her, I can’t say I feel good about spending my money in a place that doesn’t value my family. As of today, the ACLU is currently tracking 515 anti-LGBTQ bills in the U.S. We exist, and abandoning us only endangers us.
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