For Charles Gorra, whose company Rebag has bought and sold luxury handbags since 2014, the competition isn't Hermès or Louis Vuitton. "We like to say we don't compete against this or that company, but we compete against idleness," Gorra said on the Glossy Podcast. His estimate is that nine out of 10 "luxury owners" have never sold those items and that most of his customers (on the selling end) are doing so for the first time. It helps that Rebag buys such pieces upfront, in its nine physical loc...
Mar 25, 2020•35 min
Jewelry company Gorjana is growing, self-funded and profitable, but its founders insist that it was a slow and tricky road. "No home runs here," Gorjana Reidel said on the Glossy Podcast. She and her husband, Jason Griffin Reidel, first sold their jewelry in small boutiques before partnering with Nordstrom in 2014. "We were kind of the pioneers of the category that you see so many people getting into now, of gold, delicate, layering jewelry," Griffin Reidel said. Early on, Nordstrom partnered wi...
Mar 18, 2020•41 min
For our final episode of Glossy Trend Watch: Influencer Edition, senior technology reporter Katie Richards sits down with Danielle Bernstein of We Wore What. Danielle is a fashion blogger turned clothing designer, brand founder, author and entrepreneur. When she got started as an influencer, payment schemes were a bit arbitrary. "There weren't any set fees for posting on a blog, taking photos for a brand," Bernstein said. "We sort of went off of what modeling agencies traditionally did for model...
Mar 13, 2020•20 min
Amanda Uprichard's namesake fashion company has quickly reshaped its supply line to work in a world living with the coronavirus. "Now, we make maybe 90% of our stuff here because of the virus," Uprichard said about her New York operation. Previously, half of the line's manufacturing was based in China. "Anyone that's in manufacturing, you're just affected by the supply chain," she added. "But I do believe China will be completely normal in another month." For Uprichard, making things out of New ...
Mar 11, 2020•42 min
Over the next few weeks, we’re bringing you bonus episodes of the Glossy Podcast. Glossy Trend Watch: Influencer Edition features interviews with some of the most prominent fashion influencers on how they’ve used their success and social media followings to launch major brands. Our guests made the leap from interacting with existing brands online to creating some of their own. For our second episode, Glossy senior technology reporter Katie Richards sits down with Moti Ankari, a menswear blogger ...
Mar 06, 2020•29 min
Rent the Runway, but for jewelry. That was the animating idea behind Switch, the company that buys and rents out jewelry for $29 a month. "Ultimately, jewelry is a very different product from apparel, for rental," Kadisha Cohn said on the Glossy Podcast. "It's a perfect product for rental. You don't really feel like it's ever been worn before. We sanitize it, we polish it, we kind of bring that shine and make it feel like it's new -- and oftentimes, it is new," Kadisha Cohn said. Switch also aut...
Mar 04, 2020•34 min
Over the next few weeks, we’re bringing you bonus episodes of the Glossy Podcast. Glossy Trend Watch: Influencer Edition features interviews with some of the most prominent fashion influencers on how they’ve used their success and social media followings to launch major brands. Our guests made the leap from interacting with existing brands online to creating some of their own. For our first episode, Glossy senior technology reporter Katie Richards sits down with Julia Engel, who leveraged her fa...
Feb 28, 2020•28 min
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 ...
Feb 26, 2020•40 min
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 y...
Feb 19, 2020•42 min
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 Curren...
Feb 12, 2020•39 min
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.
Feb 10, 2020•34 min
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 impac...
Feb 05, 2020•38 min
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 r...
Jan 29, 2020•36 min
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-comme...
Jan 22, 2020•38 min
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...
Jan 15, 2020•41 min
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 obviou...
Jan 08, 2020•39 min
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 Pod...
Dec 18, 2019•36 min
Dec 13, 2019•31 min
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 co...
Dec 11, 2019•37 min
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 ou...
Dec 04, 2019•35 min
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, becau...
Nov 27, 2019•38 min
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 S...
Nov 20, 2019•35 min
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 Eto...
Nov 13, 2019•35 min
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 --...
Nov 06, 2019•35 min
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...
Oct 30, 2019•36 min
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. "Swimwea...
Oct 23, 2019•34 min
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...
Oct 16, 2019•32 min
Don't tell Drake, but bling doesn't always have to be so pricy. BaubleBar has raised millions from investors confident in its business model of delivering stylish earrings, necklaces, and rings at affordable prices. The company sells its products online, and in over 17 countries via 200 retailers -- some of which, like Target, the company teamed up with to create exclusive lines. "We had been doing our research on the market and felt that there was a huge opportunity at a lower price point than ...
Oct 09, 2019•42 min
Prior to taking the lead at Schutz International, Marina Larroude was vp and fashion director at Barneys New York, a role she took on after holding fashion director roles at Teen Vogue and Style.com. For this week's episode of the Glossy Podcast, Larroude joins Jill Manoff to talk about her multiple career changes within the world of fashion, the untapped market for good, affordable boots, and the reason brands should consider bucking the usual wholesale purchasing timeline.
Oct 02, 2019•33 min
In this week’s episode of the Glossy Podcast, Jill Manoff sits down with Tommy Ton to discuss his transition from street style photographer to artistic director of fashion brand Deveaux, the evolution of men's style and the importance of inclusivity on the runway.
Sep 25, 2019•36 min
