Actress, dancer and content creator Emma Arje turned a teenage idea into a growing accessories business, while building a social media audience, pursuing acting professionally and encouraging other young girls to dream bigger.
At 14, Emma Arje sat down with a sketchbook and started drawing. There was no established fashion company behind her, no years of business experience and certainly no guarantee that anything she put on those pages would ever become a real product. There was simply an idea, and a teenager willing to see where it might lead.
Two years later, those sketches have become EmmaArje.com, a growing fashion and accessories brand created around colorful hair products, beauty essentials and a message that matters deeply to its now 16-year-old founder: confidence, individuality, kindness and dreaming big.
“The idea really came from my love for fashion and creating things,” Emma says. “I remember sitting around the table with my family talking about what we could create that would actually stand out and mean something.”
Hair accessories emerged as the answer, but Emma didn’t want to create products simply to hold someone’s hair in place or finish an outfit.
“I wanted every product to have a message behind it,” she explains. “I especially wanted young girls to feel inspired and reminded that they can dream big and go after whatever they want.”
That philosophy can be found throughout the brand, where product names and messaging repeatedly return to confidence, positivity and believing in yourself. For Emma, those aren’t simply marketing phrases.
“I never wanted my brand to just be about selling hair products,” she says. “When someone buys one of my clips or brushes, I want the message to remind them to dream big, stay positive, be themselves and be kind to other people.”
Starting With a Sketchbook
Emma was 14 when the possibility of creating her own brand began moving from conversation to reality.
“At first, it was honestly just an idea, but then I thought, why not actually try?” she recalls. “Anything can happen if you’re willing to start.”
She began sketching designs, experimenting with colors and developing concepts. From there came the considerably less glamorous realities of turning an idea into a product: finding a factory, developing prototypes and making decisions about what the collection should ultimately become.
“Eventually, something that started as drawings in my sketchbook became EmmaArje.com, which is still so crazy and exciting for me to think about,” she says.
Emma remains closely involved in the creative process, from sketching designs and selecting colors to naming products and determining the messages attached to them.
“I’m a very visual person, so I love being part of all the little details,” she says. “I can get so excited over something as small as the exact shade of pink or the sparkle on a product.”
Her enthusiasm for beauty and fashion started long before the business. A self-described “girly girl,” Emma grew up experimenting with hair, beauty products and fashion alongside her sister, who is a makeup artist. Hair accessories ultimately provided a natural starting point: practical enough to be useful, but creative enough for Emma to put her personality into them.
Among her current favorites is the Dream Big brush, a glittery design she describes as looking “like a brush full of sunshine.” Another is her New York City clip, a reflection of the city that has played such a significant role in shaping her identity. She is also particularly fond of the brand’s mini brushes, which she carries with her while traveling between acting, dance and days in the city.
Learning What Happens Behind the Pretty Products
Creating the collection also quickly taught Emma that entrepreneurship involves considerably more than designing something cute.
“The amount of work that goes into it definitely surprised me,” she says. “When I first started, I think I pictured myself mostly sketching cute products and choosing designs. Then I realized there is SO much more behind a business.”
Emma now participates in product development, ordering, the website, marketing, social media, packaging and fulfillment, as well as outreach to retailers. She credits a strong support system around her but makes a point of being involved throughout the process. That work has begun translating into something tangible. Products are now being sold in stores, and online orders have reached customers well beyond Emma immediate New York community.
“I remember seeing orders come in from places like London, Tennessee and Westchester and thinking, ‘Wait, people all the way over there are finding my brand!’” she says. “That was such a crazy feeling.”
It has also given her an early lesson in one of the hardest parts of entrepreneurship: creating something is only the beginning. Finding an audience is another challenge entirely.
“You can create something you love, but then you have to figure out how to actually get people to see it and connect with it,” she says.
Fortunately, understanding audiences is something Emma has already been learning in another part of her life.
When 8.6 Million People Are Watching
Alongside acting, dance and entrepreneurship, Emma has developed a substantial presence as a content creator, building more than 13,000 followers on TikTok and producing multiple viral videos. The first time she realized her content was reaching far beyond her usual audience came after posting an outfit transition featuring dresses for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour.
“I remember being in the car on my way into the city and my phone just kept getting notification after notification,” she recalls. “I was staring at it and smiling so big because I couldn’t believe it. I remember thinking, ‘Wait, what is happening?!’”
Then came a video with actor Milo Manheim. The pair created a TikTok using “Someday” from Zombies. The result reached approximately 8.6 million views and 1.6 million likes.
“It is still absolutely insane to me,” Emma says.
For someone who also dreams of building a professional acting career, the experience carried another meaning. Emma has seen Manheim perform on Broadway and says working alongside him as an actor one day would be a “full-circle moment.” Her approach to social media is a mixture of planning and spontaneity. She saves sounds and ideas when she knows she will be traveling or visiting an interesting location, but some of her favorite content simply comes from whatever is happening around her.
“I LOVE dancing. If I’m standing somewhere, there’s a pretty good chance I’m going to start dancing,” she says.
Yet for Emma, the most meaningful measure of her growing platform isn’t millions of views. It is the messages she receives from younger girls. Some tell her she inspired them to start a business. Others say one of her videos encouraged them to dance, act, post something themselves or simply stop feeling embarrassed about sharing what they love.
“Those messages make me so happy because they remind me that social media can be so much more than numbers,” Emma says. “If one person feels more confident because of something I posted, that’s amazing to me.”
Growing Up With New York as Inspiration
New York is woven throughout Emma creative identity, from the clip bearing the city’s name to the fashion and individuality she encounters simply walking down the street.
“When I walk around the city, I feel like everyone has the freedom to be themselves,” she says. “Nobody looks exactly the same, everyone has their own style, personality and way of expressing themselves, and I love that.”
She points to SoHo as a favorite place to shop, people-watch and absorb ideas, but says inspiration can come from almost anywhere in the city.
“You can be walking down one street and suddenly see a movie filming, an amazing outfit, a performance or something completely unexpected,” she says. “It’s loud, exciting, creative, unpredictable, and I honestly love all of it.”
Those influences are increasingly intersecting with another major part of her life. Emma has pursued acting since she was around 10 and recently signed with Daniel Hoff Agency as she continues developing her professional career. She is also a trained dancer, making her daily schedule a combination of school, auditions, acting training, dance, content creation and running her business.
Sometimes that means filming an audition at 5 a.m. Other times, it means staying up late sketching ideas for a future collection.
“It can definitely get crazy,” she admits. “But these are all things I genuinely love doing, so I’m grateful that I get to do them.”
Rather than viewing acting, content creation and entrepreneurship as competing careers, Emma sees them as different expressions of the same creative instinct.
“Acting and fashion are completely different forms of art to me, but both let me be creative in different ways,” she says. “Sometimes it honestly feels like two completely different versions of me, but I love both sides so much.”
“You Are Not Too Young”
Perhaps the clearest indication of what Emma wants her brand to represent comes when she talks about other teenagers with ideas of their own.
Her advice is straightforward. “You are not too young.”
She knows starting something doesn’t guarantee immediate success. There will be mistakes, uncertainty and ideas that don’t work the first time. Her own experience has taught her that waiting until everything is perfectly figured out can prevent an idea from ever becoming real.
“The first person who has to believe in your dream is you,” she says. “Start somewhere, even if it’s just writing down ideas, drawing your first sketch or telling someone what you want to create. Everyone who has created something big had to start with an idea first.”
It’s a philosophy that closely mirrors how EmmaArje.com began: a 14-year-old, a sketchbook and the decision to try. Now Emma is already thinking about what might come next. She hopes eventually to expand the brand into clothing, along with additional beauty and lifestyle products. Given her enthusiasm for fashion, she readily admits she can spend hours shopping, styling outfits or even reorganizing her closet, clothing feels like a natural evolution.
But as the product categories grow, Emma says there is one thing she doesn’t want to change.
“More than anything, when someone sees, wears or uses something I created, I want them to feel confident, happy, special and completely themselves,” she says. “I hope the brand keeps growing and becomes something really big, but no matter how much it grows, I always want that message of confidence, individuality, kindness, positivity and dreaming big to stay at the center of everything I create.”
You can follow Emma Arje’s journey by visiting her Instagram @emmaarje_, TikTok and website here: www.EmmaArje.com
