Erin Andrews on Following Her Long-Time Dream to Create a Clothing Line

Erin Andrews is fulfilling her dream of designing a clothing line!

The sports journalist and Dancing with the Stars co-host, 41, is launching her clothing brand WEAR with the NFL and tells PEOPLE how she was inspired to pursue her fashion goals.

WEAR is a clothing brand that Andrews created with NFL Consumer Products to complement individuals’ personal style, with nine styles of wardrobe staples for all 32 NFL teams.

Andrews tells PEOPLE the reason she created her clothing line is to provide a solution for female fans.

“I was looking at what was available to women and felt like women would appreciate more options out there. It just seemed like there was white space and we wanted to make it more age-appropriate, make it fashionable, make it size-inclusive, make it comfortable, make it subtle, which kind of goes along with the fashionable point,” she says.

“We thought, ‘Let’s place logos down at the bottom of the sweatshirt, let’s put them on the drawstrings, let’s place it on the sleeve!’ We wanted to make a line of apparel that people can wear everywhere and anywhere not just on game days,” Andrews says. “They could wear it out to lunch, they could wear it to a game and not feel out of place when they go to dinner with it on or go to a bar with it on. Just something functional, comfy, fashionable, and age-appropriate.”

And the clothing is very much in line with Andrews’ own sense of style.

“I like to look at myself like I wear a tomboyish kind of vibe. I love a T-shirt, I love a bomber, I love a jean shirt, I’m always in a hoodie,” she explains. “I love having team spirit, I love having an organization to support, but I want to do it in a kind of subtle and fashionable way.”

Andrews also recalls wanting to pursue her dreams after being diagnosed with cervical cancer and undergoing successful surgery in 2016. “It makes you kind of not take every day for granted and want to live your life to the fullest. As cheesy as it sounds, that has a lot to do with this clothing line,” she says.

“It’s been something I’ve been wanting to do for several years. When you’re faced with scary times in your life, like a health scare, you’re like, ‘You know what? Alright, we’ve beat this — now let’s go tackle the stuff you’ve been wanting to do for so long,” she shares.

Reflecting on her cancer diagnosis over three years ago, Andrews says it gave her a new perspective on her health.

“It changed my life,” she says. “I think a cool way that it’s affected me is I just don’t really feel like I’m a victim of the whole thing. You kind of go through a period where you feel sorry for yourself but I know it happened to me for a reason. I feel like kind of to become the face of it — as crazy as that sounds — and just encourage women to get tested. It obviously has made me want to be a health-conscious person about my health.”

As a newcomer to the fashion world, Andrews was stepping into uncharted territory.

“My favorite part of the entire process was just seeing it all come to life. I’ll be honest with you, I did not know what I was doing — I’m still learning. It’s kind of baptism under fire,” she recalls. “The manufacturing group will bring up a term of the clothing, or just the fabric, or just the font and I’m just like, ‘Huh?’ Literally, I’ve sat at my kitchen table with my husband trying to type out fonts that we think would look good on clothing. So that’s been a huge learning experience for me.”

Andrews says her husband, former hockey player Jarret Stoll, whom she wed in June 2017, couldn’t be prouder of her big clothing venture.

“My husband’s been hearing me speak about this whole idea since, really, we’ve been together, and the day we got the samples sent to our house he was like a little kid,” she recalls. “He got a pair of scissors, opened up the box, and started going through it, and I was like, ‘Um… excuse me, this is my line, can I look at it?’ He was holding up everything, saying the teams’ names and giving his opinion on everything, so that was pretty cool. The feedback on the line has been so positive, so I’m excited to see the styles fans gravitate towards.”

No doubt, the clothing line has been Andrews’ baby of sorts as she went from concept to final product. And as for starting a family of her own, the star says the duo’s concerns about her health are in the rearview mirror.

“Starting a family’s been on our radar over the last couple of years. Obviously, we had to worry about my health and take care of that, but yeah, we are working on it,” Andrews says.

Andrews’ collection will be available at NFLShop.com and Fanatics.com starting Oct. 3.