The Glossy Podcast

Despite sharing a name with a popular music streaming platform, Pandora -- the jewelry company -- never had a problem with name recognition. Charisse Hughes, the company's CMO for the Americas, put the company's name recognition at 90%. "People know Pandora," Hughes said on the Glossy Podcast. However, that hasn't meant that people are buying from the brand. The company lost more than a quarter of its market value in 2017, followed by another 61% in 2018. Hughes attributed the decline to a lack of innovation in the brand's aesthetic and not using consumer data to react to shoppers' wishes. But the company has made changes, bringing on a new CEO last year, striking partnerships with the likes of Millie Bobby Brown to appeal to younger consumers and overhauling its stores with engraving stations and a popular items section. "There's no silver bullet to get us back to where we need to be," Hughes said. Hughes talked about the company's iconic charm bracelet (which is turning 20 this year), Pandora's take on expe

Birdies co-founder Bianca Gates started her company as a side hustle while working at Facebook, but it took a two-month sabbatical to realize she ought to dedicate herself to the shoe company full-time. "We saw the impact of me jumping in and helping out more," Gates said on the Glossy Podcast. "We started to look at different data points. There were sales, editors were talking about us, celebrities wearing us, people wanting to invest, and I thought: 'I guess this is kind of that moment where you just take that leap of faith.'" Birdies launched in 2015 and has since raised $10 million in funding, opened a brick-and-mortar store in San Francisco and expanded its original product line -- slipper-like shoes chic enough for a party host -- to include tougher-soled shoes that can be worn about town. Gates talked about that critical moment mid-sabbatical, her evolving leadership style and the reason the startup rush for unicorn status is like the housing crisis.

In a 35-minute conversation, James Miller brought up the concepts of speed and the need to keep up repeatedly. "If you stand still for too long, then you're just going to fall behind," he said on this week's Glossy Podcast. Miller would know about those things. He's the CEO of the Collected Group and just took on the added role of chief creative officer last week. That puts him in charge of the design as well as the business side of the clothing company's three brands: Joie, Equipment and Current/Elliott. Still, the group plays within the industry's established timelines: "We do 12 deliveries a year for each brand, and they're sold in seasons," Miller said. It was late January, and he was fresh from reviewing some of the deliveries that would go out this fall. Where the Collected Group does innovate is in its gender-fluid clothing, its emphasis on email marketing over social media and its sustainable practices that extend even to the clothes' labelling.

This week, we bring you a bonus, New York Fashion Week Edition of the Glossy Podcast, featuring Christine Currence, the president and owner of Badgley Mischka. Glossy Podcast host Jill Manoff sits down with Currence to discuss working with Rent the Runway, collaborating with a game app and making big adjustments this season, as Oscar Sunday overlapped with fashion week.

Sali Christeson has worked in industries from banking to big tech, but one thing has remained consistent about her day-to-day work life: "I've always been frustrated with shopping for workwear," she said on the Glossy Podcast. Christeson found the same pain point among her friends, which was further confirmed by a study she stumbled on in 2015. The study's authors measured "the impact of what someone wears on their bottom line over [their] lifetime," Christeson said, meaning that your look impacts your salary and job level. "It ends up being a 20% to 40% difference on your personal income. That was the catalyst for me. I read that, and I was like, 'OK, see ya, corporate world!'" Argent, the women's workwear company she went on to found, has offices in San Francisco and New York, and sells direct-to-consumer items ranging from blazers and pants to dresses. Since launch, the company has raised more than $4 million in Seed funding (with a Series A coming toward the end of the year, Christeson said), and has been

Whatever the challenges of Mel Peralta's job, he has an honest customer keeping him on track. "Kids don't lie to you," Peralta said on the Glossy Podcast. "They'll let you know if they think your stuff is whack or your stuff is dope." Peralta is head of the new Foot Locker-owned brand incubator known as Greenhouse, which partners with both established labels in the sneaker game -- like Fila and K-Swiss -- and up-and-comers who might create the youth market's next cult product. Accordingly, the retailer changed its mission statement last year, saying it aimed "to inspire and empower youth culture." In Peralta's words, "Project Greenhouse is Foot Locker's incubator to find what's next." The company wants to do that by being involved with designs from square one. "Because we are a product creation hub -- and we're not just launching other people's things -- we have to be involved with every single project at the very beginning," Peralta said. The incubator's products are mostly sold via its own app, but they've

Michael Stars wants to strike a balance between evolution and tradition. "You could call it quote-unquote sustainable, because my stuff doesn't get thrown away," said Suzanne Lerner, the company's co-founder and president, on the Glossy Podcast. "It doesn't end up in the landfill after that season that it was so trendy." As evergreen as its styles are, Michael Stars' revenue model is quickly changing. "Fifty percent of our business is specialty stores," Lerner said. "About 20% is our own e-commerce site, and the balance -- 30% -- is a mix of other [retailers'] e-commerce sites and subscription boxes," she said. Next, the company is looking to rebuild the brick-and-mortar retail network that it "successfully" pulled away from, Lerner said, starting with pop-ups. On the podcast, she talked about how the company has embraced direct-to-consumer model, how she met her husband-slash-business partner and why, when it comes to the company's political engagement, "We've got to be out there speaking."

Luxury brands typically want little to do with the second-hand market, but resale companies like Fashionphile are slowly winning them over. Founded in 1999 by Sarah Davis, the company invites customers to drop-off top-shelf accessories at one of its physical locations, where Fashionphile will buy them upfront. Trained Fashionphile employees verify the authenticity of the item before it's sold online, and the original owner gets a piece of the pie -- often a big one. A 70-30 split is common, with Fashionphile taking the smaller cut, Davis said. "But if the velocity of sale will be quick or if it's a super high-dollar item, or it's very popular, we'll give you much more," Davis said on this week's episode of the Glossy Podcast. Fashionphile limits its inventory to 51 luxury brands, many of which were once worried about resale tainting their brand image -- second-hand isn't exactly synonymous with luxury, after all. What's more, there's been concern from full-price retailers that the resale market will bite into

Plus-size models have made uncertain gains in advertising in recent years, though for Universal Standard co-founder Alexandra Waldman, the problem is also in how these models are often depicted. "I always looked at ads of these women in pattern-wrapped dresses and high heels and I thought: 'I don't understand where she's going,'" Waldman said on this week's episode of the Glossy Podcast. "'Where is she going with the bows and the things, and why does she have kittens on her T-shirt? She's obviously in her 30s.'" Universal Standard launched in 2015 to offer all of their items -- no kittens, thanks -- in sizes from 00 to 40. And though they've opened five stores all in the last several months, they've also made sure their website caters to women of all sizes, in a way they might not be used to. "That size 8 doesn't look anything like I'm going to look when I put on that dress," Waldman said. "So we thought 'why not photograph everything on every single size and then allow women, if they wanted to, to look at th

Lately, Naadam co-founder Matt Scanlan has been juggling leading three fashion brands -- on top of being CEO of his 6-year-old cashmere brand, he's the CEO of Thakoon and the interim CEO of Something Navy -- and making regular appearances on QVC. For someone who's easily distracted unless he has a lot of work in front of him, selling stuff on TV is a good outlet. "If you're an instant gratification person like I am, I don't think there's anything better than this," Scanlan said on the Glossy Podcast. It also plays into his strategy of selling Naadam's sustainable cashmere products across as many channels as possible. Beyond TV, "that means online, working with multi-brand retailers and having your own storefront or collaborating with others," Scanlan said. He plans to have eight brick-and-mortar Naadam stores by the end of 2020. Scanlan talked about the marketing value of sustainability, the draw to work with recent Glossy Podcast guest Thakoon Panichgul and the guerrilla marketing campaign that got attention

Before launching her lingerie brand Fleur du Mal, Jennifer Zuccarini had a stint at Victoria's Secret -- giving her an idea of what to avoid. "I think people just got tired of that one note of what sexy is," said Zuccarini on this week's episode of the Glossy Podcast. Launched in 2012, Fleur du Mal is applying all the strategies of a small brand looking to challenge a more established industry giant that's on the ropes, creating a lot of web content and tapping social media influencers to get consumers interested in the brand. Along the way, it's avoiding Victoria's Secret's pitfall by making and marketing products for customers of all body types.

Aurate sits somewhere between Fifth Avenue's legacy jewelers and the brands that take a cue from Etsy's aesthetic. At least, that's how the company's co-founder (and designer) Sophie Kahn describes it: "There was nothing really in the middle," she said on this week's episode of the Glossy Podcast. The direct-to-consumer company's products start around $50 and go up from there. Many customers have an eye for the higher-end stuff. "Something like the top 40% of our sales are generated by 10% of our customers," Kahn said. "I think that's a testament to [the fact that] once you feel our product, you kind of fall in love with it," she said. "We're going up against the big guys that have way more funding, way more everything. The only thing we have, hopefully, is the hearts of our women." On the Glossy Podcast, Kahn discussed her career path from Marc Jacobs to DTC fine jewelry, the company's use of crowdsourcing to steer product development and its plans for international expansion.

After 16 years at J. Crew, Somsack Sikhounmuong switched to a much smaller company to design clothes for Alex Mill. But he's remaining close to the Drexler family. "I always joke that he's my fairy god agent," said Sikhounmuong about Mickey Drexler, the former CEO of J. Crew Group. During a sabbatical after his work at J. Crew and Madewell, the J. Crew subsidiary that continues to outshine its parent company, Sikhounmuong got a phone call from Mickey Drexler: "I was in line at Whole Foods, because I wasn't working and I could be in line at Whole Foods in the afternoon," he said. Mickey asked him to meet with his son Alex Drexler about designing for Alex's company, Alex Mill, for which Mickey Drexler is both an investor and an advisor. On the Glossy Podcast, Sikhounmuong discussed his work for Alex Mill, which was founded in 2012 out of "a tiny store on Elizabeth Street." Sikhounmuong also talked about the difference between designing clothes for women versus men, the transition from a massive company to a sta

When Chris Bossola opened Blues Recycled Clothing in 1996, "all three TV stations came because they couldn't believe that we were selling vintage, used Levi's for $35. They thought it was crazy." Nearly 25 years later, what started with a 200 square foot store in Richmond, Virginia has become Need Supply, a retailer that makes most of its revenue online -- and sells much more than used jeans. On this week's Glossy Podcast, Bossola -- the multi-brand retailer's founder and CEO -- discusses Need Supply's plans for expansion, their acquisition of Totokaelo and why the DTC model is overrated.

With the recession in full swing, 2009 was a tough year to start a luxury brand, as Ledbury CEO and co-founder Paul Trible knows. But Ledbury bet on luxury, at a price range that invited both younger customers to step up their wardrobe, and older ones to save money, compared to what they were buying. "That's anywhere between $125 to $185," Trible said on the Glossy Podcast. "It's still expensive for folks, but what we saw very early on is we were pulling people down from Canali and Zegna and Eton, people who were spending usually $250 or $300 a shirt." Direct-to-consumer makes up 70% of Ledbury's sales, Trible said, with another 20% coming from wholesale. Brick-and-mortar stores -- of which the company has three -- fill in the rest of the revenue pie. On this week's Glossy Podcast, Trible spoke about quality manufacturing, a unique revenue-sharing model Ledbury started with its retailers and fact that the second button is what makes or breaks a shirt, just like Jerry Seinfeld said.

Cinq à Sept founder Jane Siskin prides herself on the fashion brand's ability to quickly respond to the stuff that sells. "We have a great 'fast-track program' where we can quickly build on the good styles," said Siskin. To do that, she and her team lean on sales data -- "We can see by store, we can see by color, we can even see by size if we want to," she said -- though the actual turnaround time depends on a few factors. Fabric is a big one. "If it's a repeat style, exactly as it was before -- a reorder in a fabric that we own -- it could be four to six weeks. If it's something new, there's a material change to it, add another couple weeks to it. And if we don't have the fabric, you're adding a month." On this week's Glossy Podcast, Siskin spoke about fashion, the branding boon that is having a French name (even if you're based in Los Angeles) and the reason why "you have to have your head in the sand if you don't think it's a scary time for retail."

This week's guest on the Glossy Podcast is Ben O’Meara, the head of marketing at Huckberry. Sure, it's a men's retailer, but Huckberry isn't just trying to sell stuff. It also wants to tell stories, including one about a merino T-shirt that can be worn for 72 hours without smelling all that bad by the end of it. "It's anti-microbial, you don't have to wash it, it doesn't stink... you can wear it for multiple days on end," O'Meara said. "So let's call it the 72-Hour Tee [we decided]. But if we're going to put that stamp on this product we better sure as hell make sure that we stand behind it. And if we're going to tell you you can wear it for three days -- [let's make sure] we've actually done that before." Ahead of an international flight, O'Meara threw on a shirt, before later stopping a stranger in Iceland to ask, "Can you smell my shirt?" Huckberry turns its travels and product tests into content for its email newsletter, which goes out to more than 1 million readers three times a week, O'Meara said. Some

In 2016, Victoria's Secret dropped out of the swimwear market, a business worth $500 million to the company. That same year, Melanie Travis founded Andie Co., the direct-to-consumer swimwear company allowing consumers order, try on and send back as many swimsuits as they'd like. Regardless of a massive brand bowing out from the sector, Travis said, "There's room for competition. This is not a winner-take-all market." Instead, it's a market worth billions of dollars per year and growing. "Swimwear is bigger than the men's shaving market, and God knows how many razor startups [there are]," Travis said. Travis was on the Glossy Podcast to talk about how the direct-to-consumer model has worked to consumers' advantage, how a new equity model is "quietly" growing among DTC entrepreneurs and how Andie managed to not pay rent for the past two-and-a-half years.

Phillip Lim's business is one of the last of its kind standing. "We're one of the few brands left in New York City with an in-house atelier. All the clothes are made in-house," he said, pointing to 3.1 Phillip Lim's new headquarters in Brookfield Place. Lim encourages interns to appreciate the rarity of seeing clothes go from drawing board to production line, all in one venue. "I'm like 'OK, you guys have the privilege of sitting in the real masterclass here. Really learn from this, because it's disappearing. Now everything is: 'Pop-up, startup. Where did it come from? It doesn't really matter, because we're going to market the shit out of things.' You can't trace it back. But if you come to visit us, you can trace everything back." On this week's Glossy Podcast, Lim talks about waste and sustainability in fashion, and why going fur-free doesn't mean sacrificing luxury.