About Ruby Idol- Women's Online Boutique

Hi, friends! I’m Michelle Kelly, the owner of Ruby Idol Apparel.

I’m a wife, mom, middle school science teacher, small-business owner, gardener, chicken keeper, historic-home caretaker, and lifelong lover of fashion. My life stays pretty full, but I honestly wouldn’t have it any other way.

Ruby Idol began with my love of clothing and styling and with a desire to build something that could also make a difference in our community.

I have loved fashion for as long as I can remember—and I have always had a weakness for leopard print! But one thing I have learned through the years is that I actually enjoy dressing and styling other women more than I enjoy dressing myself.

There is something special about helping another woman put on an outfit and immediately feel good in it. I love helping women find pieces that are flattering, comfortable, wearable, and still make them feel a little extra special.

That is really the heart behind Ruby Idol.

Fashion for Real Life

When I choose clothing for Ruby Idol, I think about real women and the lives we actually live.

As a teacher, wife, mom, and business owner, I know most of us need clothes that can do more than just look cute in a picture.

We need pieces we can wear to work, church, dinner, school functions, ball games, family gatherings, errands, date night, vacations, and all the places life takes us in between.

I love finding boutique styles that are fashionable without feeling impossible to wear.

Ruby Idol carries clothing from some of my favorite boutique brands, including Judy Blue, Haptics, Zenana, Umgee, Dear Scarlett, POL, and many others. Whenever possible, I also try to offer styles across a broad range of sizes because I believe women deserve fashionable choices at every size.

Ruby Idol isn’t about telling women what they should wear.

It is about helping women find clothing they genuinely enjoy wearing and pieces that make them feel like themselves.

More Than a Boutique

From the beginning, I wanted Ruby Idol to be about more than selling clothes.

One of the greatest blessings of owning this business has been the opportunity to use it to help people right here in our community.

Over the years, Ruby Idol has helped provide clothing, shoes, hoodies, hygiene products, school-related support, and other needed items for students and families in our area.

And some of my favorite Ruby Idol memories have absolutely nothing to do with making a sale.

Giving Back Through the Years

During the winter of 2022, Ruby Idol helped design and provide 24 stylish hoodies for students in our community. We were able to give them away as gifts while also helping provide clothing and hygiene items to students who needed them.

During the 2022–2023 school year, we were able to give our school’s BETA team members a $500 cash gift, along with additional spending money for students who otherwise would not have had money for snacks and other small expenses during their trip to Orlando.

One of my absolute favorite memories happened on the last day of school that year.

We brought in around 200 pieces of clothing, along with shoes, and let the girls choose the things they loved so they could head into their first year of high school with some new outfits and a little extra confidence.

Watching them try on clothes, style one another, laugh, and get excited about what they had chosen was incredible.

As someone who loves fashion and loves styling other people, that day combined two things that mean so much to me.

Honestly, it may have been one of the best last days of school ever.

During the 2023–2024 school year, Ruby Idol was able to provide more than 40 hoodies to students in need. We were also able to support the Roulhac Middle School BETA Club and the Chipley High School football program.

Our giving continues today.

We also provide clothing to women and teenage girls in our community who are in need.

Sometimes someone is going through an unexpected hardship. Sometimes a teenager needs clothing for school. Sometimes a woman or family simply needs a little extra help during a difficult season.

Whatever the circumstances, I love being able to take something Ruby Idol already has—clothing—and put it into the hands of someone who can truly use it.

I especially love helping teenage girls choose things they actually like and feel confident wearing.

Because there is a difference between simply giving someone clothing and giving her the opportunity to say:

“I love this. This feels like me.”

Those moments matter to me.

When you shop with Ruby Idol, you are supporting a small business, but you are also helping that small business continue doing good right here in our community.

My Teacher Life

Teaching is a huge part of who I am.

I teach middle school science, and while a classroom full of eighth graders certainly keeps life interesting, I genuinely love finding ways to make science meaningful for my students.

Some of the women you have seen modeling Ruby Idol clothing over the years are actually teachers I work with.

Taking pictures, trying on clothes, styling outfits, and occasionally talking each other into buying something we definitely did not need became part of the fun of Ruby Idol.

It gave our little teacher tribe something fun to do together outside of the everyday stresses of education—and for a while there, we even joked that we were becoming micro-celebrities around town.

Growing Together

One of the school projects especially close to my heart now is our Growing Together Outdoor Learning Garden.

Growing Together gives students an opportunity to step outside the traditional classroom and learn with their hands.

We are growing flowers, vegetables, herbs, and plants for pollinators while giving students opportunities to observe living systems, collect data, solve problems, learn responsibility, and see science happening right in front of them.

The project has also become about much more than plants.

There is something special about watching a student discover that he or she enjoys planting, watering, growing food, caring for something, building, or simply being outside.

Not every child finds his or her place sitting behind a desk.

Sometimes a student finds it with dirt on their hands and a watering can nearby.

That is one of the reasons I love this project so much.

I want our students to understand where food comes from, appreciate the natural world around them, learn practical skills, and discover that they are capable of growing something from a tiny seed into something beautiful or useful.

Growing Together has turned out to be a pretty perfect name because that is exactly what I hope happens—not just with the plants, but with our students and our school community too.

When I’m Not Teaching or Working on Ruby Idol…

There is a pretty good chance you will find me outside.

I absolutely love gardening.

What started as simply loving flowers and growing things has turned into a much bigger interest in gardening, food production, soil health, sustainability, and permaculture.

I enjoy learning how plants, pollinators, soil, water, insects, animals, and people can all work together as part of a healthy system.

I grow flowers because I love beautiful things, vegetables because there is something incredibly satisfying about growing your own food, and sometimes plants simply because I saw them somewhere and decided I absolutely had to try growing them myself.

Not every gardening experiment is successful.

That is part of the fun.

There is always another season.

There is always something new to learn.

And there is always another plant I probably don’t actually have room for.

Life With Chickens

We also raise chickens, which means life around our house is rarely boring.

If you have ever owned chickens, you already know that every single one seems to have its own personality.

They are funny, curious, occasionally ridiculous, and somehow capable of convincing you that you need just a few more.

Gardening and raising chickens have also deepened my interest in creating more sustainable systems around our home and learning more about permaculture and working with nature rather than constantly working against it.

Our Historic Home

Another ongoing labor of love is our historic home.

Owning an old house is a little bit like adopting a very beautiful, very demanding member of the family.

There is always something that needs to be repaired, restored, researched, planted, painted, redesigned, or added to the next project list.

But I love it.

I love preserving the character and history of an older home while making it work for the way our family lives today.

I enjoy the design process, planning gardens around it, finding ways to improve the property, and slowly making each little corner feel like ours.

Apparently, I have never been very good at choosing hobbies that involve sitting still.

I Just Love Creating Things

When I really think about it, many of the things I love have something in common.

I love taking something and helping it become something more.

I love taking an empty garden bed and filling it with life.

I love watching a seed become a plant.

I love watching students discover something they didn’t know they were good at.

I love working on our old home and imagining what a forgotten space could become.

And I love taking a rack full of clothing and helping another woman put pieces together until she looks in the mirror and smiles.

Maybe that is why Ruby Idol has always felt so natural to me.

It brings together fashion, creativity, people, and community.

The Heart Behind Ruby Idol

Ruby Idol has evolved over the years because life has evolved too.

Being a wife and mom comes first.

Teaching is an enormous part of my life. I also run another small business, work on far too many projects, grow far too many plants, raise chickens, work on an old house, and apparently continue finding new things to add to my plate.

And sometimes life changes your plans for you.

In the summer of 2026, I was diagnosed with melanoma, while also continuing to manage ongoing autoimmune health issues. Those experiences have made me more intentional about where I spend my time and energy and about focusing on the people, projects, and things that matter most to me.

So yes, Ruby Idol has looked a little different in different seasons.

There have been seasons with Facebook Lives, lots of modeling, constant new arrivals, and a whole lot of hustle.

There have also been quieter seasons when family, teaching, health, and other responsibilities needed more of my attention.

But quieter has never meant that I stopped caring about Ruby Idol.

Quite the opposite.

Through every season, one thing has remained the same:

I still love it.

I still love discovering beautiful clothes.

I still love opening new arrivals and immediately thinking about who would look amazing in something.

I still love styling women.

I still get excited when someone puts something on and says, “Oh my gosh, I love this!”

And I still believe a small business can be about much more than selling a product.

It can create friendships.

It can bring women together.

It can strengthen a community.

It can help a student.

It can provide clothing to someone who needs it.

It can turn coworkers into a little tribe.

It can give someone confidence.

And it can take something you already love doing and give you an opportunity to use it for something bigger than yourself.

That is the kind of business I want Ruby Idol to be.

Thank You for Being Part of Our Story

If you have ever purchased something from Ruby Idol, shared one of our posts, recommended us to a friend, modeled an outfit, sent me an encouraging message, donated alongside us, supported one of our community projects, or simply followed along through all of our different seasons…

Thank you.

Every order placed with a small business matters.

Every share matters.

Every recommendation matters.

And every person who chooses to support Ruby Idol becomes a small part of what we are able to do next.

I appreciate every single one of you who has taken the time to visit my store and learn a little more about the person behind it.

I hope you find something at Ruby Idol that makes you feel beautiful, comfortable, confident, and completely yourself.

And I hope that along the way, we can continue using this little boutique to do a whole lot of good.

Thank you for visiting Ruby Idol.

With love,

Michelle Kelly

Owner, Ruby Idol Apparel

Wife • Mom • Science Teacher • Small-Business Owner • Gardener • Chicken Keeper • Fashion Lover