Meet Susan Gomez (Our CEO)

The founder and CEO of Sugopetite, Susan Gomez, has been around clothing her entire life. You could say that fashion design is in Susan’s blood. 

Susan got her start in fashion at a very young age in Guatemala. Her father was a couturier in the very small town of San Jose Buena Vista. Señor Gomez was the oldest of a large family and taught his brothers and sister to sew. To this day, two of Susan’s uncles and one aunt continue the trade in Guatemala. When Susan and her brother were old enough, he taught them the family business as well. 

Unfortunately, Señor Gomez passed away when Susan was just eight years old. She was left with the desire to follow in his footsteps and learn more about creating beautiful dresses. At just 13 years old, Susan sewed her very first piece - a dress for herself - under the direction and teaching of her aunt. 

When Susan was 19, she began studying fashion design at the Colegio Tecnologico Creativo Los Proceres in Guatemala City. With her already extensive background in sewing, she was able to complete a degree in fashion design in two years. Susan then followed in her family’s professional footsteps in Guatemala City until she moved to Houston in 2007. 

After a decade of making bespoke pieces for her clients, she launched Sugopetite in 2019. Living in a big city, buying clothes off the rack was almost impossible for her. They were too big, everywhere! She knew there were other women out there - of every ethnicity - having the same problem. And unlike Susan, they didn’t have decades of experience tailoring each piece to their petite frame. 

Her rural Guatemalan roots are also the cornerstone of Susan’s - and Sugopetite’s - focus on sustainability. “There was a huge abundance of natural resources, like food, water, and fertile soil. Everything was grown locally. There was no industrial pollution or mass manufacturing.” Susan’s passion for the fashion industry was at odds with her more natural upbringing. Instead of contributing to the problem, Susan chose to lead by example. She founded one of the world’s first petite sustainable fashion lines to be a part of the solution.