Chicago Heights Native Creates Women's Empowerment Movement

CHICAGO HEIGHTS, IL — Women’s empowerment coach Gina Bell started the Tears & Tulle Movement to inspire women nationwide. The Chicago Heights native and mom of six created the project, which will send a rainbow tulle skirt to participants around the country as a symbol for life’s color and versatility even in difficult times.

Bell teamed up with designer Cassandra Youngs to create the movement so women could “connect with their color…. right now,” she said. “Not when we feel like everything is perfect. Not when we answer the last email. Not when our laundry is done. Not when things go the way we think they should. Right now. Right this very second. Right in the moments that make up our lives.”

Beginning Oct. 1 and continuing through next September, the trademark skirt will travel to the homes of 52 women across the U.S. and Canada. “These women will wear it, play in it, snap a picture of themselves in it and send it off to the next sparkly sister on the list,” according to the movement guidelines. Photos will be shared on the Tears & Tulle website, social media and in a magazine set to be published at the end of the first year.

Though this year’s participant list is full (with a waiting list in place for next year), women interested in creating Tears & Tulle tribes in their own communities are encouraged to sign up and use the hashtag #tearsandtulle on social media to share their stories.

“The response has been incredibly positive and supportive. These are real women showing up and celebrating their ability to grow through their pain, reconnect with color in their lives, and take a stand for women everywhere,” said Bell, who came up with the idea after a photo shoot last year. “I was wearing a beautiful Cassandra Youngs rainbow tulle skirt that I had intentionally paired with something black — a symbol of the responsibility we have to ourselves and the world to share our color from within our darkness. Oh my gosh, this was the coolest women's empowerment ‘tulle’ I had ever used. It dawned on me that myself and women everywhere are a lot like rainbow tulle skirts. And we don't need to be a bride or a ballerina to wear one.”

Participants are asked to pair the skirt with something black as a symbol for everyday struggles and hard times. “We often become so busy and distracted by everyday life that we forget to stand up and connect with what makes us feel the most alive. Rainbow tulle skirts remind us of how colorful, durable, versatile, mysterious and beautifully layered we all truly are, especially when we show up from within the messiest parts of life. Also known as our ‘tears.’”

The “tulle” half of the movement is inspired by what Bell calls the “fantastically transparent and real” material.

“It doesn't need any other additions - no bells, whistles, glitter, or gold - nothing to change it into something it is not. The ‘tulle’ of our lives can be squished up, packed away and seemingly forgotten. However, without a doubt, it can bounce back full of life and spunk when the whisper of our dreams are calling it out of the closet. It is also stunningly transparent and knows how to make an entrance into the place outside our comfort zone.”

Bell was born in raised in Chicago Heights - “where Zarlengo’s ice cream is basically a food group and D&D’s Italian Deli should be a landmark,” she said.

“It was in my old Chicago Heights neighborhood that I learned so much about how to use my imagination to bring fun and light into the world,” Bell said of her upbringing. “My childhood was full of exciting moments where I saw my parent's creativity come to life. They threw mystery parties, costume potlucks and held ‘Saturday Night Live’ skits in our detached garage. My brother and I often tagged along while they created funny ‘This Is Your Life’ videos for family and friends. My mom was always cooking up some new way to be creative.”

“As I grew older, I realized what a gift it was to grow up surrounded by adults who were connecting with their imagination. I also learned that belly dancers weren't a part of normal adult birthday parties,” said Bell, who uses art and visualization exercises to help people reconnect with fun, happiness, self-love and inner beauty. “It was even later in life that I realized we all could reconnect with our creativity and imagination from within a place of struggle and darkness. I realized this by opening and growing and reconnecting to my color from within that dark place. I now support and empower women to grow from within that space too.”

For more information on Bell’s work with women’s empowerment, including a Full Moon Women’s Circle in Indiana this Friday Sept. 13, visit ginabell.co.