Mother's Day Weekend

is classic proof that the American dream is alive. And well, here's your host of always in Fashion, Mark Weber.

and make sure in her own way. Well, I don't recall her ever telling me what to do. I always knew what to do. There was no question what the right thing was. She was a mother. She was stucking out for me. School never a question. I had to be in school, I had to be on time, whatever it had to do, I was going to school. My mother made it clear, more so than my dad. My mother made it clear, I'm going to college. Whether I liked it or not, I didn't know. You know, I

was a kid growing up in the city projects. I had no idea what to do with my life. But I know I was going to college. I also knew that alcohol was not a part of my life. Noah, drugs. It was made clear. The basics were what we were all about. My mother always said I could work, but she made it clear that the money you earned from working is for you, not for me. You need to work. And perhaps the best story I could tell about my mom and my dad, but pretty much my mother the bookkeeper,

had to do with purchasing a car. I wanted my own car. I was young. Now I'm in college. I needed to get around. I wanted to meet girls. I wanted a cool car and I wanted to get a car. My parents made it clear that they needed their car and that they couldn't afford to buy me a car. So if I wanted to buy a car, they were willing to lend me money as long as I agreed to pay the money back and installments every week. And as luck would have it, I turned out and I

bought a car. At that time. It was not a lot of money today, but it was enough that every week, for twenty four weeks, I had to give my parents one hundred dollars. My mom did a chart, a bookkeeping shot, and she put it in front of me, listed all twenty four months, and each month I made a payment that she deducted the one hundred dollars from that payment. And I learned the value of money, and I learned how important was to settle your debts. More importantly, it

drove me crazy that I owed money. I didn't like the feeling of owing money. I didn't like the feeling that every week I had to go to work, if nothing else, to pay off a loan. To this day, all these years later, I am debt free. I believe in paying off everything, house cards, whatever it is, I do not have debt. I would mention credit cards because I think anybody who takes a loan on a credit card is insane. Somebody mentioned the interest is thirty six percent.

You get a credit card, you pay it off every month. It is insane to have credit card debt. And I learned this from my parents. But as time went on, I have to admit, for some reason, even though I had great parents, even though I was a mama's boy and I always loved my Mohami should always talk to me and always make sure I was okay, I didn't have many questions. I seem to have figured out most things in my life on my own until I met Susie,

the girl who became my wife. Mommy, Susie Jesse's mother, Jesse, my lawyer, my co host, and my son Jesse. It's Mother's Day Weekend. You were always a mama's boy. Actually, it was always very clear to me that you love mommy more than me. I love both of you equally, but.

about whatever's bothering them. And I did about everything. And she always had this way of making me feel safe, feeling special. She had a way of literally turning my day upside down always.

that young. But what did we know? I knew nothing. Me. I was like a guy that fell out of a tree. I knew as how to smile and how to convince Mommy to go out with me and date me and eventually married. But Mommy was the architect of our family. And it all became clear to me when we first got it going out, because she respected her parents in a way I had never seen before on anyone, let alone a girl you go out with. I mean, I could have said she loved to parents, and we all

love our parents, or were supposed to. But she was different. When her parents talk, she was actually listening. And no, Mommy was beautiful, she carried herself with grace. But that respect she had for her parents is what changed my feelings towards her. It's something I never came to grips with and I never saw someone like that. And there was no hiding anything from her parents. She had no secrets. When her parents talked, she listened. My favorite story, well,

the great stories of respect. I hadn't met her parents for the first month, and after a month we were Mommy and I were like words and music. We were really connected, and she said it's time to meet my parents. I said, really, She says, yeah, it's time to meet my parents. Do I have to? And she stopped and he looked at me, so are you serious? Of course you have to meet my parents. I'm going out with you either like me, you don't. You want to go out with me, you don't, but you have to meet

my parents. I went to meet the parents, and it was funny because in those days I was known as the prints of the Projects. I look cool. I behaved like a cool guy, except I made my mistakes. I remember I had the most beautiful European brogue shoes, you know, the kind with the perforated fronts and laces. The only problem with and they were orange, so they looked great with tan pants and they look very special. White v Nex sweater, white well light blue shirt under the v

Nex sweat. I show up for the parents house. I sit down and you know, talking to the father, and I put my cross my legs and put my foot up, and none be knownst to me. I had a hole in the bottom of my souls. I couldn't afford to replace them, or I didn't think I needed to, so I was kept a piece of cardboard there so that I wouldn't bet step on the floor and get nail

on my foot. That would help. But I put my foot up and the cardboard had moved, and my father in law was looking at the bottom of my foot through my shoes, and I found out that about later. The point being we went out, I met the parents, so I was very polite. They seemed to like me. And when Mommy and I, Susie and I are getting to the front door, they walk us out of our house and the father says to me, Joe, he says, Mark brings Susie back by eleven o'clock. I looked at sure,

and I'm laughing to myself. Eleven o'clock with this guy nuts. So I'm opening the door. We walk out and I, you know, next to Susie and I lean over and it's say, eleven o'clock. What are your father kidding? When I come back at eleven o'clock, so I was walking down the road, you know. I walked down the stairs of the house to the car and I looked to opened the door for Sissy and she's not there. I didn't know what happened. Where is she? I turned around and she's still by the door in the front of

her house. I said, what's going on? So I had to walk back to the front of the house. She's standing on the doorway and she said to me, if my father says, I'm coming back at eleven o'clock. You're bringing me back at eleven o'clock. And it was then and there that I realized she was special, a woman who respect her family, would respect anything, and she was the architect of everything we did. She brought our family together. She knew what to do. I didn't when we would

have kids. Her decision, how many kids we would have, her decision, how would we behave, how we behave as a family, her decisions. She clearly taught me what mattered in life, what we should care about, how to be a father. I'll never forget. I was a successful guy young and you guys, Jesse, you and your brother were playing sports, basketball, baseball, sokka, karate, and you know. I was working, but I had all the reasons in the

world not to be around. I got home one night for dinner, Susy says to me, I need to talk to you. I said, okay, is it serious? She says, I think so. I said what She said, are you having success? I said, yeah, we're doing great. She said, what good is success if you're not with your children when they need you? And I was quiet. She said, I expect you to be at all their games. I expect you to be there. Otherwise, what a success money, You'll have to be with your children. So she taught

me right away. That changed my life. Now, I won't say it was every game during the week, but I tried. I didn't miss much the weekends. I was always there and during the week. She was right, what's the sense of being a big shot if you're not with your family. By the way, that's a great point.

a father of how the family should behave. Susie was very, very elegant, composed, confident. Her parents taught her how to behave and how to feel good about yourself, and that's self confidence came always I always think of the song that saved the last day for me? Have I talked to you about this Dresley now by the Drifters? Soho You can dance and go and carry on till the

night is young. You can have your fun, but don't forget who's taking you home and who in your heart is gonna be Oh darling, save the last dance for me. That song. Every time I think of Mommy, I think of that song when it comes to business, because any function we ever went to, she was my wife. She was the better half. She was smart, she was elegant, She grew up around a family that was in her own businesses. She had the sense about everything. And I would show up an event, the two of us would

say hello to a few people. We would part our ways. She would work the room, I would work the room. We go our separate ways, but we knew that we'd be coming back together for the last dance. And it was such a powerful partner to have in business, who would look the part, act a part, be charming, and be able to do whatever she needed to do for our careers. Together at any event we ever went to, Mommy was extraordinary and perhaps the best story that I can tell how to do at my worst moment of

my career. She and I began together at PVH. She was my wife. I started working. She was my partner. She was able to dvise me. She was always level headed. My wife never went up and down. She was level headed. You've heard me talk of time to time that the way to behave in business is like an eagle through a snowstorm. Whatever happens, no matter how high the winds are, no matter what the challenge is, just fly level, don't let it affect you. Make the right decisions based on

common sense and logic. That's who she was. And the worst moment in my life was getting fired. I got fired for van Usen, and not just as a clerk, but as CEO. It was a public firing. It was going to be one of the most embarrassing situations in my life. Let alone ruined my life. I had worked my entire career there as a clerk, I became the president, I became a board member and CEO, and I got

fired because basically the board didn't want me. It wasn't associated with not performing because the day I got let go, oh, they took up the earnings estimate on Wall Street. A week later, when the SEC did a filing on my firing, they said it clearly, I'll get the terms of my contract and then some because there was no wrongdoing. It just wasn't the guy they wanted. Now. Did I hate them for it? Absolutely? Was I angry for it? Yes?

Was I bitter for it? Yes? Was I said, Yes, all of those things is part of the effort when you get fired. But the truth was, I knew the board has a sacred duty to manage the CEO and the company they are in acting and the interests of the shareholders. And if they made a decision that they didn't want me there, it's their decision to make and I had to respect it. And yes, I was unhappy,

but I had to respect it. But what frightened me more than anything else was having to tell Susie the idea of me sitting down with my wife, who all of these years we've been together, who she's looked up to me as a business guy who had achieved incredible heights from where I began. She saw me from the beginning walking around like John Travolta and not knowing anything about the complexities of business, or how to behave, or how to dress or how to speak for that matter,

all those things we're talking about. Packaging yourself is as important as the products you package. I was a good looking guy who knew how to smile. That's all I had. Mommy and I together built this career. Now I have to tell her I was fired. So I call her up during the day and I said, I don't want to meet you said, what do you mean, It's just I kind of meet you. I want to talk to you. What's wrong, moke, I said, let's just meet It's nothing.

So I meet her in a restaur and I sit down with her, and you know, I was obviously shaken. I didn't want to tell her this, and I was very depressed. And I said, Sue, I have some very bad news to tell you. And she looked at me and now her face changed. She was nervous, she was worried. And I'm sitting across the table from her, and I said, Cusia, I have terrible news. And she's waiting and I said, look, I got fired. I would tell you in a manner

of seconds. She reached across the table. My demune wife, Susie in a manner of seconds punches me in the arm. I can still remember how much it hurts. I can still remember the black and blue mark, and I remember more importantly what she said. She said, I thought it was something important. You scared me. This was a woman who knew right from raw, who understood what was important in life, and on Mother's Day, can't help but think

about Susie back in a moment always in fashion. As one of the world's most celebrated fashion designers, Carl Lagafeld was renowned for his aspirational and cutting edge approach to style. His unique vision of Parisian shit comes to America through car Lagofeld Paris. He has women's collections, men's collections, ready to wear, accessory, shoes and bags. The fashion house Carlagofeld also offers a range of watches I wear in premium fragrances.

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think you're going to be very happy. And ladies, those of you the shopping for the guys in your lives, take a look. I think they'll be very happy with your choices. Isaac for men, welcome back to it. Always in fashion.

women I work with in business. In fact, when I started coming up, when I first started working, I worked for a guy. It was brilliant assistant designer. He kept moving up and before I moved up, I was working in the children's division, the boy's division, and I was given a new boss one day, a woman. Her name was Darlene Johnston. She was trained at rob Roy, which was one of the big children's companies in the world at the time, but more importantly in Ralph Lauren, and

she knew knitwear like no one you ever saw. She knew everything about the weights of the fabric, the yarn sizes, how to manage all the machinery, how to design it, cut it, style it. And I learned from her, and I have to tell you I got a brilliant education from her, and that's how I started actually to be perfectly frank in my company venues. And at the time, I believe I was the first guy who ever worked for a woman in that company. And from there on

everything changed. The women accelerated during my course at van Us and I work with two young ladies who both of them I would say are probably five feet tall stature, but in capability where they were incredible, Helen Katz and Island Combatis. One was dresshirts Eileen, and the other was sports for Helen. And those two young ladies who I work with over the course of time, helped make PVH brilliant and I was incredibly lucky and aware of what

they were able to do. As time went on, I met a woman named Kathy Bremberg who was an operations genius. I met another operation's genius, all women, financial people, Pam Koton, the treasurer of the company. All women. But perhaps the most important story of all of them was before I became a board member, I was head of marketing for the company, head of merchandise, had a bunch of big titles.

I become president of the company. I become a member of the board, and I remember that I always struggled with what a van Usen was, and I started getting confused because van Usen we made women's wear. At this time, we had a big women's were business in our outlet stores. We made men's pants, men's sports where a lot of different items, even men's baiting sits. We had licensees and made belts and small leather goods, pajamas, underwear. We had

everything in van Using. And here I am responsible for creating the marketing for the company and the advertising, and I was always struggling, should I make pictures that have all these products in it? We had eyewear. Should I do spend money on eyewear? What is van Using? You could call it a lifestyle brand, but everybody calls themselves a lifestyle brand. I was struggling how to make venues in distinctive Now. Over the course of time, there was

a lot of shirt advertising. Seymour Philips, the son of the founder back in the day, created advertising in baseball parks around the country and made venues and what it was a big national brand. There was a woman in our company. Her name was a Stelle Ellis. I've talked about her often, maybe even recently, and she was on the board. She was the marketing spokesman on the board. She was one of those women who grew up in

New York City. By the time I met her, she was in her early eighties, sharpest attack, and had a point of view, and she gravitated towards me because I was younger. I had a point of view. I wasn't afraid to give it. I had a creative bent. She was creative. So we always talked before and after the board meetings. And one day I walked into the meeting and we were there alone. I said, I need your help. So what do you need more? I said, I'm struggling. I'm about to do a major campaign on van Usen.

We have a lot of money that we want to spend on the brand, and I'm not sure what does the van use it. And I'll never forget I've I've told the story. She put her head down for a minute, looked back up at me and smiled and she said, mark van Usen the shirts for men. I looked at her and I said, that's so simple and brilliant, but does it cover everything? Says it doesn't have it. Shirts for Men is what we are, how people know us.

We're the best in the industry, one of the most recognized brands in the world, and you have a right to have all those other brands and all those other products around. Don't worry about it. And I went on a tear creating all kinds of advertising of shirts and faces, and it was one of the most proudest moments the company ever had. The advertising we created was brilliant, so Shirts for Men and I really really always enjoyed working

with her. As I moved to LVMH, and I spent most of my time focusing on Donna, Karen and the company. While they gave me all the titles chairman and CEO of elvmanche Well, I was just member of the executive committee in Paris. While I oversaw the Thomas Pink Shirt Company. My responsibility was take the Donna Aaron company that only I Madge spent six hundred and fifty million dollars six forty five to be exact, that they never made money on it and turned into a profitable entity. And I

focused on that. And I get to LVMH and I meet Donna who's a whirling dervish, brilliant, you know, million miles an hour, and I can come back to her in a moment. But I met my first dkmy meeting in because it was my first day, they arranged a meeting in the boardroom with my new group of executives, all of my direct reports, including Judy Lougo, my assistant, Kathy Volker, Jennifer Morris, the heads of licensing, Jackie Bowser, the head of marketing, Patty Cohen, the head of PRN Marketing,

and of course Donna Karen. There was also Tricia Calber, the head of Finance and chief operating officer, as well as Mary Wong, the head of decayn Y Sportswear, Carol Kerner, the head of Donna Karen Collection. And I'm sitting in the boardroom and I said, hi, boys and girls, and I look around and said, oh, I'm the only board The whole place was all women, and their direct reports was all women. So I was in with the Amazons.

I was with the most powerful women in the world, all these capable people, every one of them was a woman. And in speaking with them and having this first meeting, I realized how lucky I was, and it was something that made very clear to me how important women were in our industry. Any question I had with finance, Tricia had the answer. Anything I needed to know about how Bloomingdale's thought, Mary would have the answer. Anything I needed

to know about women's collection, Carol had the answer. And I worked with women my entire career and it was really extraordinary experience. Now, I've always had a philosophy that I want to work with people that I struggled to be value added. Think about what that means. That means that the smarter they were, the more capable they were, the better I would like it, and I would find

a way to fit in and be productive. And it was tough with this group because they knew a lot about a lot of things, and I wanted to make an impression, and I did. My contribution to the group came down to I understood corporate life, and I understood what ELV Maje was accounting for and what they needed. While this was one of the great brands in the world, they weren't getting a return. And the reason they weren't getting a turn is for whatever reason, the former CEOs,

who were all very capable, one was a lawyer. One was from Sacks if they have anyone was from Georgia Romani. They never ran an American or apparel company, an accessory company and licensing company that had a collection component. They were all familiar with the collection, the very expensive thing, but they didn't understand the mass peal of the dkm

Y Brandon how to make it profitable. And of course I knew that, and in order to get these things in place, I had to put in disciplines that would make it profitable and expense I remember the first day in meeting with them, when I started to ask what I thought were difficult questions, not intentionally, but they were questions that needed to be answered. Every answer I'd get from one of those people would be can I be

honest with you? I said, no, what I always do, No lie to me, and they would look at me like and laugh, And I said, the most important thing, I'm asking questions. You shouldn't be afraid to answer them the way you feel. I want your opinions. You're being paid for your pinons. I don't have to agree, but we need to get on board. And it was really bad for the first week till finally I said to my assistant Judy, empty out the jelly bean jar. I had a big I guess it was a trophy. Someone

went it was filled with jelly beans. Anybody came into my office conference room could have the jelly beans. And I emptied it out. And I said to the team we had a meeting. I said, from here on in, anybody who says to me, can I be honest with you, He's going to have to put a dollar in that bowl. I mean the dollar bowl filled up in like minutes. But we eliminated that habit, and we all agreed that in ordered us to be productive, we had to be honest with each other. Of course we did number one.

Number two we had to focus on money. We had to get the shareholders healthy image money. They had to make money. This is something was foreign to these people. Not that they were bad, because in Donna's world, the most important thing is build a brand and the money will flow. That's true. The more powerful you make the brand, the higher prices you could sell, the more goods you'll sell at regular price. It should work, but it didn't. You had to be focused on the margins. You had

to be focused on all those financial things. And I was adamant, and I refused to give in an inn an inch, and we changed the profile of the company who made a ton of money. And part of it doing was I made everyone vested in the company. I set up financial plans that if we hit everyone would not only get their bonuses, but special bonuses. I had career veteran Patty Khaneh's been thirty years with Donna. I'll

never forget. After the first l TIP long term incentive plan came out and she received her check, she came into my office with tears in her eyes and she said, first of all, when you said that we were going to do this, I never believed it. Number one. Number two, even if it was real, I never would believe we would collect what you promised. And number three, this is the most money myself or my associates I've ever made working here. We've always worked hard, but we've never participated

in the profit sharing. And I can't tell you how much I respect you and how much we all appreciate what you did. It was one of the great moments of my life because I delivered on what we promised. You focus on financials. If we make the return for lvmheal all benefit, and we did year after year after the year. One of my favorite stories had to do with intimate apparel, ladies underwear, men's under it, but particularly ladies underwear. When I was at Calvin Klein, we had

the most profitable women's underwear business in the world. It was huge, It was amazing and DK and why Donna Karen To this day, I'm sure Donna Karen's hosiery, you know, stockings and leggings and stuff, is one of their biggest business. It's an annuity every year to just keep making it and filling in it and make a ton of money. I get to the company, I said, I want to

meet the underwear people. Why because I went to Macy's and the Donna shop was in shadow, because Calvin Klein's shop was so big and so powerful that the lights from their shop were blocking out our shop because we were so small. And I went to meet the licensee with Kathy in with Jennifer Morris and Kathy Volga, and I said to them, listen, I came from the biggest underwear company in the world. We have to invest in this. This is so much money. Even though Donna Karon is

doing great. Deca't want should be big. It's not digging up. I went to the licensee. I said to the licensee, listen. I had an idea. I said, you know, we're not spending enough money. I'm building shops. I want you to take our business in Macy's and rebuild the shop. He said, I don't have money for that. I say, I'll tell you what we should do. Whether it's one year or two year. Let's take a hiatus on advertising underwear. I said, we're not spending enough to mean anything. They said, we

can't do that. We have to have it. I said, listen to me. You're spending a million dollars when we do a photo shoot for this category and this kind of models. You're spending quarter of a million dollars just on that, adding another one hundred thousand of the photographer. Then take with the money that's left after paying royalties and guarantees to the models or whatever, you got maybe half a million dollars. At the time, an advertising page

was fifty thousand dollars. So if the course of the year we would have ten pages over the cost of the year, that's one magazine a month. Even less. If you put two pages in Vogue. You're only going to have five insertions the whole year. I said, you're not spending enough money to be meaningful. So what I want you to do is authorize us to take that money and let's build shops with it. The guy said no. So I walked out and I said to Kathy and Jennifer,

I can't do business here anymore. I don't want them in our licensees. They said, but you know, I said, listen, guys, we worked well as a team. There are certain things that are important to you. There are certain things that important to me. We could do better. Find us a licensee who needs this. Our licensee was with Jacoll, great underwear maker. They were amazing, but they just weren't what we needed to do. We were tiny. Cavin was big.

So they found maiden Form and we signed a twenty five year deal with maiden Form with the CEO public company to do Donna Carna dk Y and they were desperate for it, and in order for us to give them twenty five years, we did a deal that was ten times richer than we had with more coal, and included in that was building shops and doing everything to build the brand and for maiden Form. We were the star on the top of the Christmas tree and we

built a strong business. But all the women that we work with, all the people there, I struggled to find a way to be valuated and I did. And the reason I struggled because they were great and I had a tremendous respect and I still do for women in retail. I worked with women in retail that were courageous. Here's a simple thing that most people don't know. If you're a manufacturer, you put a line together, you put your ideas down to whether it shoes, handbase, whatever, you make samples,

and you go out and sell it. If you sell a lot, you make a lot. If you don't sell a lot, you don't make a lot. You're not making a decision. You're going to retailers who have to stand up and buy it. They're the most courageous people in the world. If you're at Bloomingdale's and you come with Donna Karen shoes, they're the ones who step out and say, I want a thousand pair for all my stores. They

make the commitment. They're the ones religiously aggressive. Most of the buyers and people I met along the way and the women's dis industry put together were women and it was amazing to work with women. And not only that, when you stop and think about it, give me a break. You know. Men work, they go home, have their dinner and go to sleep. Women work, They have families, They go home, they have children, they have to feed, they have hundreds they have to take care of. They are

working more hours than we could ever work. Now, I don't want to make light of men, and you know I'm one of them. I committed myself to hard work and effort and think about the business all the time. But if you think about a women's life, it doesn't end six o'clock. She has families to manage and all these things. So I always had a great respect for women in business. Well, i'm on the subject of women

in business. Let's go back to LVMH. I'm meeting with LVMH Corporate in Paris and part of the yearly efforts of LVMH. This is a company that cares very deeply about their people, recognizes that there are people, they are associates.

Their workforce is what makes them special, and every year they want to make sure first things first, a tenant in business then I learned in my PVH days is when you have someone working for you that's really good, you need to promote them, obviously, but sometimes you have them in jobs that are really important and there are other opportunities that open up, but you don't want to give those people up because they're too important to your You're a part of the organization that might be in sales,

and now you have a job in merchant, you don't want to give them up. Well, in that day, our CEO came up with a policy at one point, and I stay with me when I became CEO that any job that opens up in the company, I don't care how important you are to the division you're in. If something opens up and it would be a promotion, we're going to give you an opportunity to the interviewed you for it, or give you that job. Because if you're going to end up holding people back, you're going to

eventually lose them. So your idea should be, rather than lose them to another company, lose them to yourself. You can't hold people back. And this was a tenet of LVMH as well, which I was proud to be a part of and excited to hear. LVMH had sixty thousand employers, I believe at the time, and they had policies in place and one of the most sophisticated HR teams globally

that I ever saw in my life. And there were constant updates and reviews on people, and the whole review process took a very long time, doing reviews, doing self evaluations, talking about where someone can or cannot be, what other opportunities in the company might be afford to those people. And it was a brilliant set of circumstances. And I'll

never forget. I am at this meeting in human resources, in the human resource part of my financial meetings and these strategic planning, and I had gone through the evaluations of all my direct reports, some of which you heard before, all of which were women. And the women that I work with either had lives that they established in the United States in New York, they owned their own homes, they owned their own businesses. You know, they had lives.

Many of them were single or had significant others, and some of them were married. I had children, They had their roots in New York. Before in preparation for this meeting that I was going to have in LVMH. I asked each of the individuals whether or not they would be movable, because a big part of elval image global is they move people all over the world. If you're in New York and there's a great opportunity happening in Paris or in London, you should be transportable if you

want to be. And I had these meetings with each of the individuals and Hey, Patty, would you be willing to move to Paris? You know, Mark, my life is here, my husband's here, our work is here. We love New York. I've been with Donna. This is where I belong, this is where I want to finish out my career. And I went one by one with all the different women, and pretty much across the board, every single one of them wanted to remain in New York. All of them

had different reasons. And I asked them, if there was an opportunity for you to be promoted to make more money, to go live in Paris, or go live in London or Rome or Antwerp or Hong Kong or Japan, do you want to live and move there? And the answer, pretty much across the board, if not exactly, was no, I'm New York born and bred. This is where I want to be. This is where I want to have my career. Thank you for asking. I'm thankful for lv IMAH that they would consider it, but I belong here.

Fast forward. Now I'm at the meeting with the head of HR who outlines the entirety of a plan that She was a brilliant woman, shot and tell, and I liked hering it along well with her. She just laid out the whole plan and said, now I'm going to leave you in the hands of I forgot his name, some French guy. And she left the meeting with the meeting started. So I'm looking through all the notes Mark in a French accent. I see you have some very

high rated women in your division. They're all getting better than average or exceptional. These are women that we could use in the organization. Let's talk about opportunities. And when I get into the conversation with him, I said, in preparation for this meeting, Shot whatever his name was, I said, none of my directports, none of my direct reports, want to move. They're all happy, and they're in New York

and there's silence in the room just like this. You mean to tell me if we have an opportunity for them in Paris, they wouldn't want to move to Paris and work in our corporate office here. I said no. He said, well, I don't believe that. How could that be? And I made them one of the great mistakes of my life that I loved. I paid a price for it in terms of good will. I said, they live

in the greatest city in the world. They all have significant others, they all have husbands, they all have routsia, they're happy in New York and they don't want to move even to Paris. And he goes, you didn't even focus on He goes right to You're saying New York is the greatest city in the world. And I said, m yeah, I thought that was Everyone knew that. He

got pissed at me. You have no idea, He says, I can't believe you say that to me, especially to us in Paris here, that's the greatest city of the world. What is Paris? Blah blah blah blah blah. I said, listen, can we get off of this. This is not about who has the greatest city in the world. You asked me. They have rootsia, they don't want to leave. They're powerful women. They deserve to have what they want. I've asked them, if it was promotable more money, do they want to

leave to the person. Every one of them said, no, that's what this is about. So having said all of that, I really will tell you that I have the highest regard. In my career, was surrounded by great women who've done great things for our country, for our industry, for our company, and for the all the people that were lucky enough to be around them. Happy Mother's Day to all of you,

and happy Ladies Day. Back in a moment, Always in Fashion spent a lifetime of my career building the van Usen Brand, and I am so pleased that they're back with us now talking about suits. Men were dressing up again and it's become cool to wear a suit. Suits can be won on multiple occasions in multiple ways. You could wear a suit formally to go out at night or to an event, wear a suit to the office

with or without a tie. If you look closely, now fashion trends, suits are being worn with turtlenecks or mark next. The choices are endless and every one of them looks right. You could really really look the part. I believe that packaging yourself is important does the products you package, and wearing a suit is one of those things that make men look their best. Venuesing invented a new idea. It's called the cool Flex suit. It's been engineered with stretch technology,

giving you the most comfortable fit and mobility. It's wrinkle resistant fabric, it's cool moisture wiki. It makes it perfect for all occasions. As we discussed just now, this new style of looking sharp while feeling cool and comfortable is amazing, and I'm so excited that the ven Using company is involved in this new technology and is embracing the whole idea of dressing up. Let's not forget Venues and made it's name with dress shirts. It's only proper that the

suit business follows strongly in its way. You can find Vanues in cool Flex Men's stretch suits at jcpenny are online at jcpenny dot com. Guys, they're great, you should go look at them. Done. Karen began a Career is one of the finest, most successful, powerful women in the

fashion industry. She developed a collection aimed at the luxury market for women on the go, women who were powerful in their workplace, women who had lives that extended beyond the workplace, and her clothes went from day and tonight. An extraordinary collection. But the interesting thing Donna Karen had a young daughter, and she had friends, and they couldn't afford to buy the Donna Karon collection, and Donna invented dk NY Donna Aaron, New York. It's an offshoot of

the Donna Karen collection. The same concept a lifestyle brand. Now we talk about lifestyle brands, what does that really mean? Simply what they say, there are brands that follow you throughout your lifestyle. You get up in the morning, you start to get dressed Donna Karen decan why as intimate apparel, as hosiery, as all those products. You're getting dressed for work. You get accessorized shoes, handbags, and it takes you through the day. The remarkable thing about dk andy clothes for work,

they work into the evening. The dresses, the suit boots, the pants, the sweaters, the blouses. Extraordinary clothes at affordable prices that go from day in tonight. Part of your lifestyle is active. You have weekends, you have events, you participate in sports. Donna Karen's Casual Clothes did that under the DK and Y label, a vast array of casual sportswear that make women look great as they navigate their

busy lives. Whether you're going to soccer games for your children, or whether you're going out to the movies, whatever you want to do, dkn Y Jeans, DC and Y Sportswear is there for you. That's what a lifestyle brand is. And I need to mention DKY active Wear, which is extraordinary, the leggings, the sports bras, the sweats. You can wear DKY active Wear certainly in the gym, certainly when you're working out at home, and certainly if you want on

the street, because it's that well done. The quality of DK why is nothing short of exceptional. And why shouldn't it be because it was born from the idea of luxury made affordable for women of America. DK and Why a true lifestyle brand that takes you from day and tonight, from the week into the weekend. D can why you can find dcn Why and Macy's DKY dot com.

sad state. But it's a time to reflect on mothers appreciate it. I had a great mother who loved me. I was a MoMA's boy. The boys and MoMA's boys, they all love their mother's more than they love their father's. I have to admit it. My children, I know, love me, but not like they love their mommy. It's like, you know, I talk about this all the time. I think it's hysterical. For a lighter note, you know, I took the boys. You see all these professional athletes, okay, football players whatever.

The father's in the backyard. He's running around on the ground. He's teaching them how to throw the ball, catch the ball, tackle the boys, all the stuff. Then the guy wins the Super Bowl. He catches the past and he puts his hand up, he says, hey, Mom, Hi, Mom. And it's like me with the boys. No matter what I ever do, they found my wife to be exceptional. That's something I had to live with and the something I had to get used to, and I did because she

was great. And I've been fortunate enough to know a lot of great women and personally and professionally. And I hope you all do, and I hope you appreciate it. That life for women is even more complicated than men. They have to be the brains of the outfit. They have to manage the family. They have to help pay the bills. They have to take care of the children. They have to get them to everywhere they need to go. I'll tell you once I did a radio show and a demo long before I got on the radio, and

I talked about being missed the mom. That my wife's mom hurt her leg. She had to go to Florida help her. She broke her leg. I was alone with the kids for a week. It was the toughest job I ever had in my life, not including or notwithstanding the fact that I went shopping bought a couple of bottles of milk and I threw some stuff on it. The milk spilled all over the car. The car smelled from milk. I had two little guys. I had to feed them every day. It was during the summer. I

had to take them to the beach. I had to keep them clean. In the midst of all of this, one of the boys got the measles. I mean, I had a nightmare in my life. I couldn't handle how hard it was to be mister mom. So I salute you ladies tonight. I salute the mothers of America, I sayes, I salute the mothers of the world, because none of

us would be here without you. With that happy Mother's Day, and I hope you enjoyed always in fashion, taking a little life experience and a little cultural aside away from business and away from the hardcore, to talk about really what's important in life, our mom's good night.