On the 35th episode of the Loose Threads Podcast, a show about the intersection of consumer, retail and commerce, I talk with Brian Berger, a co-founder of Mack Weldon, a company reinventing men's basics with a modern shopping experience and technical fabrics. Although there is a lot of activity in the basics space right now, most of it is incremental. Mack Weldon wanted to rebuild the entire shopping experience, as well as the materials that men rely on every day. Brian and I had a great talk a...
Aug 31, 2017•38 min
On the 34th episode of the Loose Threads Podcast, a show about the intersection of consumer, retail and commerce, I talk with James Ingram, the CEO of Splashlight, a company at the forefront of ecommerce photography and video. Every time someone goes shopping, they’re looking at dozens of images. Some have models in them, some are just product shots, and others are from people in the wild all over social media. Someone has to produce these images, and given the increasing speed of the industry, ...
Aug 24, 2017•38 min
On the 33rd episode of the Loose Threads Podcast, a show about the intersection of consumer, retail and commerce, I talk with Nik Bando, a co-founder of Bogeybox Golf Club, a company that helps golfers modernize their style. For many, golf apparel is one of the sleepiest verticals in the industry, known for the baggiest clothing and the blandest aesthetics. But there is a new crop of golfers coming up that want to maintain their style to seamlessly both on and off the green. This is where Bogeyb...
Aug 17, 2017•36 min
On the 32nd episode of the Loose Threads Podcast, a show about the intersection of consumer, retail and commerce, I talk with Nadia Boujarwah, a co-founder of Dia&Co, a company built with an exacting focus on serving the plus size market, which remains one of the largest growth opportunities in apparel today. Nadia founded the company as plus-size shopper herself, as few players were taking the category seriously and delivering the experience that its shoppers wanted and deserved. Dia&Co...
Aug 10, 2017•39 min
On the 31st episode of the Loose Threads Podcast, a show about the intersection of consumer, retail and commerce, I talk with Evan Fript, a co-founder of Paul Evans, a brand bringing the best luxury Italian footwear for men to the states at a contemporary price point. Evan founded the company after questioning why luxury footwear was so expensive. This sent him down a rabbit hole as he tried to reverse engineer high quality footwear at a more affordable price. Evan and I had a good talk about th...
Aug 03, 2017•36 min
On the 30th episode of the Loose Threads Podcast, a show about the intersection of consumer, retail and commerce, I talk with Lona Alia, the founder of Style Lend, a company pioneering peer to peer fashion rentals. Many people know of Rent The Runway, the industry’s biggest rental company, which allows shoppers to rent clothing instead of buying it. Style Lend is a more decentralized version, where the company holds no inventory and takes advantage of the clothing people have in their closets. T...
Jul 27, 2017•36 min
On the 29th episode of the Loose Threads Podcast, a show about the intersection of consumer, retail and commerce, I talk with Jannett Martinez, the CEO of Loomia, a company building the components and experience to make our clothing smart. Most clothing today is dumb, meaning it’s nothing more than fabric on our bodies. But Loomia is inventing a litany of technologies, conductive inks, and sensors that bring heating, lighting and touch to everyday apparel. There’s a lot of noise in the wearable ...
Jul 20, 2017•39 min
On the 28th episode of the Loose Threads Podcast, a show about the intersection of consumer, retail and commerce, I talk with Dave Kahng, the founder of Davek, a luxury utility brand focused on making the best umbrellas in the world. Dave had been mesmerized by the mechanics of umbrellas almost a decade before starting Davek, as he designed, built and rebuilt them in every conceivable way. Dave and I had a great talk about the founding story behind Davek, the emergence of luxury utility companie...
Jul 13, 2017•34 min
On the 27th episode of the Loose Threads Podcast, a show about the intersection of consumer, retail and commerce, I talk with Carrie Hammer, the founder of her namesake brand and the movement Role Models Not Runway Models. Carrie has been working to create clothes for women in the workplace, while changing the expectations and dynamics of fashion runway shows and women’s beauty more broadly. Carrie and I had a great talk about the founding story behind both her brand and runway movement, how she...
Jul 06, 2017•41 min
On the 26th episode of the Loose Threads Podcast, a show about the intersection of fashion, technology and commerce, I talk with Alana Branston, a co-founder of Bulletin, a company known as the WeWork for retail that gives brands flexible options for showcasing their products. As legacy retail continues to struggle in the U.S., Bulletin is taking this space and repurposing it. Alana and her team believe that retail is far from dead, but it's fundamentally changing, and everyone from brand to lan...
Jun 29, 2017•36 min
On the 25th episode of the Loose Threads Podcast, a show about the intersection of fashion, technology and commerce, I talk with Yehua Yang, a co-founder of Pivotte, a brand creating performance apparel that women can wear in everyday life. Yehua started the brand after wanting the benefits of athletic fabrics found in yoga pants but in clothing that was more professional and work-ready. At the same time, brands were dabbling in this space by taking their men's clothes and making them in women's...
Jun 22, 2017•24 min
On the 24th episode of the Loose Threads Podcast, a show about the intersection of fashion, technology and commerce, I talk with Olivia Wright, the founder of Rallier, a brand inspired by modern uniform dressing with a social mission that aims to decrease gender inequality in schools. Olivia founded the brand after hearing about how the presence of school uniforms dramatically increased the chances girls would attend school. She went to business school and then launched the brand, starting with ...
Jun 15, 2017•27 min
On the 23rd episode of the Loose Threads Podcast, a show about the intersection of fashion, technology and commerce, I talk with Kevin Lavelle, the founder of Mizzen + Main, a company bringing performance fabrics to the workplace. Kevin founded Mizzen + Main after growing tired of the perils of cotton dress shirts. As he saw performance fabrics take off in the athletic space, he figured they could also take hold in the workplace and launched the company to fill this void. Kevin and I had a great...
Jun 08, 2017•50 min
On the 22nd episode of the Loose Threads Podcast, a show about the intersection of fashion, technology and commerce, I talk with Josh Udashkin, the founder of Raden, an emerging smart luggage company that marries the best of luggage, hardware and software into the ultimate toolkit for travel. Josh founded the company after he realized that there were few new and dominant entrants into the luggage space in almost 50 years, and bringing a younger and more modern perspective to the entrenched indus...
Jun 01, 2017•42 min
On the 21st episode of the Loose Threads Podcast, a show about the intersection of fashion, technology and commerce, I talk with Matt Scanlan, the founder of Naadam, a direct to consumer brand that is reinventing the cashmere supply chain. Matt started Naadam on a chance encounter in Mongolia, which led him down a rabbit hole of launching an NGO, then a cashmere yarn company, and finally the digitally-native business that Naadam is known for today. Naadam is one of the most vertically integrated...
May 25, 2017•56 min
On the 20th episode of the Loose Threads Podcast, a show about the intersection of fashion, technology and commerce, I talk with Giancarlo Paternoster, the founder of Giancarlo Studio Furniture, a workshop that is pushing wood to the absolute limit. Studio Furniture, like Couture in the fashion world, is the highest possible form of art. Pieces are made in small, if not entirely unique, quantities, and are comprised of the best materials. Giancarlo and I grew up together and he’s ascended to the...
May 18, 2017•58 min
On the 19th episode of the Loose Threads Podcast, a show about the intersection of fashion, technology and commerce, I talk with Rachel Shechtman, the founder of Story, a company that has the point of view of a magazine, that changes like a gallery and sells things like a store. Story is headquartered in a 2000 sqft store in Chelsea, Manhattan, and runs themed installations that change every few months. These installations feature everything from experiences to products to talks and events, acti...
May 10, 2017•48 min
On the 18th episode of the Loose Threads Podcast, a show about the intersection of fashion, technology and commerce, I talk with Andrew Lipovsky, the founder of Eponym, a company that designs, manufactures and sells eyewear for a range of fashion and apparel brands. Luxottica is the omnipresent name in the eyewear space, which many know from the now infamous 60 Minutes special on the company’s dominance. But Eponym set out to build a vertical eyewear license focused on brands that the big guy ig...
May 04, 2017•46 min
On the 17th episode of the Loose Threads Podcast, a show about the intersection of fashion, technology and commerce, I talk with Amanda Curtis, a co-founder of Nineteenth Amendment. Her company is leveling the playing field for independent designers by streamlining everything from production to infrastructure. Emerging designers are often at a disadvantage when it comes to funding their business, securing competitive pricing for production, and integrating technology to help scale. Luckily, this...
Apr 26, 2017•48 min
On the 16th episode of the Loose Threads Podcast, a show about the intersection of fashion, technology and commerce, I talk with Alexandra Wilkis Wilson, the founder of Fitz, a company that starts by helping people organize their closets. From there, it recommends new products and services and helps people donate and resell old clothing all while learning more and more about its customers. It became clear early on in our discussion that Fitz is one of the most direct to consumer companies ever. ...
Apr 19, 2017•44 min
On the 15th episode of the Loose Threads Podcast, a show about the intersection of fashion, technology and commerce, I talk with Matt Orley, a co-founder of Orley, a knitwear brand based in New York City that Matt runs along with his wife Sam and his brother Alex. It’s less common for brands to start with knitwear, since it’s much harder to produce and often has a steeper learning curve than cut and sew garments. But Orley intentionally started this way, primarily because it allowed them to real...
Apr 13, 2017•49 min
On the 14th episode of the Loose Threads Podcast, a show about the intersection of fashion, technology and commerce, I talk with Seph Skerritt, the founder of Proper Cloth, a company using tons of data and technology to make customized men's apparel affordable and accessible. Proper Cloth is one of those companies that has both the technical and creative chops needed to thrive today. My talk with Seph focused on the attention to data and detail that makes Proper Cloth what it is and the journey ...
Apr 05, 2017•53 min
On the 13th episode of the Loose Threads Podcast, a show about the intersection of fashion, technology and commerce, I talk with Stephan Ango, a co-founder of Lumi. Stephan’s company is simplifying the process of designing and producing all sorts of packaging, with a focus on digitally native brands. Packaging is what I would consider a visible yet invisible industry. It something people see everywhere but often know very little about. Stephan and I had an awesome talk about everything from the ...
Mar 30, 2017•46 min
On the 12th episode of the Loose Threads Podcast, I talk with Steven Alan, the founder of his eponymous brand that started as a retail store in 1994 and grew into the international empire it is today. We had an awesome talk about how Steven got started; how he grew the brand over the last two decades, adding stores, a showroom and many different verticals along the way; how the his customers have evolved over time; how direct to consumer brands are changing the landscape; what is was like sellin...
Feb 02, 2017•42 min
On the 11th episode of the Loose Threads Podcast, I talk with Vishaal Melwani, CEO and co-founder of Combatant Gentlemen, about the brand's founding; how the team decided to build a suiting essentials brand meant to scale; how they incorporated technology into the company from the ground up; why they decided to vertically integrate to an extreme degree; how the brand approaches its own retail and relevant partnerships; how its products are priced affordably while still being produced ethnically;...
Jan 12, 2017•55 min
On the 10th episode of the Loose Threads Podcast, I talk with Garrett Leight, the founder of his eponymous optical brand. We had an awesome talk about the founding story of Garrett Leight; the path towards building a wholesale-first brand in a direct-to-consumer world; the process behind designing eye-ware; how the optical market has evolved; how the brand approached its initial distribution strategy; how the brand has stayed in tact as its scaled; the role retail plays for a wholesale-first bra...
Dec 15, 2016•47 min
On the 9th episode of the Loose Threads Podcast, I talk with Marc Bain, the fashion reporter at Quartz, about his path to covering the fashion industry, which included working for a fashion brand in New York; how he found his reporting beats and how the storylines often intersect; the similarities and differences between food and fashion; how the blockchain might impact the fashion industry; the current state of affairs in the fashion industry; how luxury brands will continue to scale globally; ...
Dec 01, 2016•40 min
On the 8th episode of the Loose Threads Podcast, I talk with Tull Price, the founder of FEIT. The episode covers the evolution of Tull's career that led him to start FEIT; why Tull is mostly interested in making the best products from the best materials over making money, bucking many trends that ushered in mass production and globalization; the process for building FEIT products and how it differs from a traditional footwear design process; why FEIT sells mostly direct to customers and the impo...
Nov 17, 2016•58 min
On the seventh episode of the Loose Threads Podcast, I talk with Abe Burmeister, one of the founders of Outlier, a New York label that set out to build the future of clothing. What started as a brand aimed as casual urbanists who used bicycles as their primary method of transportation has morphed into a highly experimental, technical and refined menswear label. We had a great talk about the founding story of Outlier; how the brand planted the seed selling online and grew the business from there;...
Sep 27, 2016•40 min
On the sixth episode of the Loose Threads Podcast, I talk with Chris Morton, the founder of Lyst, the fashion platform that acts as a shopping street on the internet. We talked about Chris' previous career as an investor; how Lyst was started and how it turned into the platform it is today; where the fashion industry is going; the underutilized value of returns and how brands can use them to incite more customer loyalty; where Amazon is taking over and brands should stay away; why he started Lys...
Aug 09, 2016•47 min
