The Glossy Podcast

Re/Done co-founder Sean Barron never set out to launch a sustainable denim brand. “We thought it was a project,” versus a company, he said on the latest episode of the Glossy Podcast. His business partner, Jamie Mazur, “had this idea of taking Levi's apart and making jeans that fit girls,” Barron said. “It took nine months for us to make that work. Then we built a website.” On the brand’s launch date in 2014, after Bella Hadid hyped the brand in an Instagram post, the first pairs of Re/Done denim sold out in 12 minutes at midnight and attracted a 1,200-person waitlist. “Vogue and every kind of media covered it,” said Barron. “It was like, ‘Oh, maybe we have something here.’”Now, Re/Done is the biggest purchaser of vintage Levi's worldwide. To date, it’s upcycled 120,000 pairs of Levi's. The company’s ongoing partnership with Levi’s is key to its success among millennial shoppers, said Barron. “What resonates and [works] to build a community in the millennial space are [styles] with scarcity, exclusivity and storytelling. And those three [characteristics] actually live inside of one pair of Levi's,” said Barrron. “If you have a vintage pair, they're very exclusive. They're one of one. And they're scarce because there's not an infinite amount. And each jean really tells a story. Maybe a trucker bought it and then he gave it to his girlfriend, and she gave it to Goodwill. There are all these storytelling moments that, even if you don't know them, you know they exist.”Barron also discussed Re/Done's growing direct-to-consumer business, its "big" physical retail plans and its three-part collaboration strategy.

Despite having 400,000-plus followers on Instagram, Patrick Janelle (@aguynamedpatrick) doesn’t call himself an influencer. “I've never fully identified with the term, because it means a lot of things, and influence itself could mean a lot of things. And the way by which people influence others can come about in many different ways,” Janelle said on the Glossy Podcast. “So using the term strictly to define somebody who has a large social media following never felt totally apt to me.”Instead, he’ll use “content creator” or “lifestyle Instagrammer.” The latter is fitting, considering Janelle’s wide range of partners, which include fashion brands, liquor brands and airline companies, to name a few. Recent posts marked "#ad" feature Club Monaco and Ferragamo. In late 2014, Janelle started growing his Instagram following, which is now equally split between men and women, usually in the “upper millennial” age bracket. In January of 2020, he launched his own influencer agency, Untitled Secret, to provide other creatives with the type of “creative business opportunities” that his manager had given him, he said. Among talent he’s signed to date are fashion influencer Rocky Barnes (2.1 million Instagram followers) and "skinfluencer" Sean Garrette (79,000). In October, he was named chairman of the American Influencer Council, which is focused on sustaining the integrity and viability of the influencer marketing industry.According to Janelle, 2020 spawned new opportunities for him and all influencers. “There's no better place to be than in this space, when it comes to being able to activate the marketing dollars and opportunities that actually do exist,” he said. “While it's been very challenging and really difficult, the growth that we've seen as an industry has actually been quite significant.”

J.J. Martin, founder and creative director of Milan-based fashion and home goods brand La DoubleJ, didn’t take the traditional path to launching her company. And now, six years in, she’s determined to run it her own way. “I started this company selling vintage clothing and vintage jewelry online,” she said on the Glossy Podcast. Prior, she had spent 15 years as a journalist, writing for publications including Harper's Bazaar, the Wall Street Journal and Wallpaper Magazine. “At the time, Italy was really starting to feel the crunch from Asia and the competition there. A lot of [Italian] factories were closing, mills were closing, and it kind of became my pursuit to sort of cheerlead for Milan, cheerlead for Italians. So we started doing a lot of co-branding [with suppliers] -- for example, working with a 120-year-old silk factory [to make styles] and then calling [the factory] out on little hang tags.”Since, the results have proven popular -- even during the pandemic. According to Martin, La DoubleJ saw record sales on its site in January, and in the last year, its e-commerce sales have grown “by leaps and bounds.”La DoubleJ has yet to invest in its own physical stores, but it has linked with select wholesale partners. They don’t include “generic, bigger stores” with outdated approaches to marketing brands, Martin said.“[Those retailers] are just like, ‘We’re going to have a cocktail party in our store to drive people to the sales floor. But, who wants to go into a store for a cocktail party? Nobody wants to do that; that is very 1999. It is time to rethink the entire retail experience.”Martin discussed her own approach to marketing, which is more personal and, uniquely for a fashion brand, promotes mental health.

According to NPD, sales of high heels were down more than 70% in 2020. But Sarah Flint was an exception to the rule. “Heels are pumps were still our top-selling category,” said Sarah Flint, founder and creative director of her namesake brand, on the latest Glossy Podcast. “There is not a real explanation for that, other than maybe women buy with their hearts more than their heads sometimes.”Even so, the brand rounded out its products in 2020 with more pandemic-friendly categories, including silk scarves, stationary and house shoes. In March, it also grew its executive team, with the appointment of Mary Beech, formerly CMO of Kate Spade. “As we scaled, while I was great with the big ideas and being scrappy, there were really a lot of processes that needed to be put into place -- not my strong suit,” Flint said, of the hire.As for Beech, “I was looking for a brand that was responding to all the changes in consumer behavior that I was seeing," she said. "Honestly, I thought that meant leaving fashion. And then I met Sarah, who looks at where the hockey puck is going. She definitely is always questioning the status quo… I've been at some of the best lifestyle brands out there, and I saw that Sarah has what it takes to be the next great American lifestyle brand. So I thought, 'I have to be there, small or not.'"

Because Drest is centered on bringing together notoriously slow-to-evolve luxury fashion brands and innovative gaming technology, it would seem that founder and co-CEO Lucy Yeomans has her work cut out for her.But with more than 20 years of experience working with luxury fashion brands, she knows how to speak their language.“I thought it was going to be much, much tougher than it was [to get brands to sign on to the platform],” Yeomans said on the Glossy Podcast. Among clinchers was the high level of engagement among Drest users -- spending 17 minutes to create a look on the app is normal, she said. Drest’s elevated look and feel were also factors.“[Brands] understood that the environment we created was completely luxurious and respected, that [it followed] all the codes of luxury, and that it was an amazing place to talk about their DNA in a very, very different way,” she said.Formerly editor-in-chief of Porter magazine and British Harper's Bazaar, Yeomans has also had to get acclimated to the fast-paced gaming world since launching Drest in October 2019: “I'm used to being somewhere where you develop an app and you move on, and you come back to it maybe three years later,” she said. “In gaming, we are changing the product every two weeks.”She also discussed Drest’s expansion to beauty and fine jewelry, and shopping’s omnichannel future.

Workwear was different when CEO Sarah LaFleur launched M.M.LaFleur, her fashion brand targeting working women.“Dresses were the majority of our business [in 2013],” she said on the Glossy Podcast. “We didn’t even have pants until 2016.”But now that working from home has become the norm, the brand has fully embraced casual wear. “The Power Casual category [that includes joggers, hoodies and tees] was probably 15-20% of our business going into 2020. But Covid hit, and -- boom. It's now over 50%,” she said.Tackling change is a growing trend for the brand. In late February, it will introduce M.M. Second Act, a peer-to-peer resale program that’s been on the backburner for years.“I always saw M.M.'s purpose in the clothing world as being not just about selling, but also about showing women how to wear it. And actually teaching women how to take care of their clothing. The final piece in clothing's journey is retiring that piece, if you're not wearing it,” said LaFleur. “It wasn't until recently, when the technology really caught up with this brand value, that we've been able to lean into [resale].”LaFleur also discussed how Slack is fueling the brand's community and why now is the time to redefine the workwear dress code.

When Jeff Abrams launched L.A.-based fashion brand Rails in 2008, he couldn’t have predicted the demand for comfortable clothes in 2020. The cashmere-like shirts that the line started with is now driving exceptional sales for the company.“We actually grew over the course of this year,” Abrams said on the Glossy Podcast. To date, Rails has generated over $500 million in retail sales and increased topline revenue and profitability every year since launch. “When Covid came around, we were top-of-mind for people; we [provided] a natural transition into the changing fashion environment.”Though sales of women’s button-downs drove nearly 100% of the business in its first 5-6 years, Rails has since slowly expanded to other categories that can serve as the “top-half” of denim, like T-shirts and “cozy” sweaters, said Abrams. More recently, it’s also introduced bottoms and dresses. It launched a men’s line in 2017.“It’s now very much a full lifestyle collection,” he said, noting that a denim line is set to launch in the fall.Abrams also discussed the brand’s expansion via international markets and physical retail.

Managing corporate responsibility for a global company with 160,000 employees can’t be easy, especially in 2021. But Karin Raguin, vp of talent management and corporate responsibility at LVMH North America, is rising to the challenge.“All of the past year has been about people and safety, and well-being … and values … and how we enable people to shape their professional paths in a very meaningful way,” said Raguin, on the Glossy Podcast. “My job has not changed over the past year, but it has been accelerated.” Raguin, who worked as a social worker before joining LVMH in 2007, said that 2020 marked a tipping point for LVMH, in terms of transparency. That was largely driven by the widespread social unrest following the killing of George Floyd. “There was an expectation [among] our employees and our customers for [us to provide] more direct communication about what we were doing. So, we were louder [about] our diversity and inclusion actions.” Other accelerations included ramping up efforts to ensure employees’ mental health. 

Erin and Sara Foster are used to being described as writers, producers, actors, entrepreneurs, maybe influencers -- but “fashion brand founders” is a new one.“I think it’s a combination of imposter syndrome and of, like, ‘Wait, pinch me, we have a fashion brand,’” said Sara Foster, upon being caught off-guard by her Glossy Podcast introduction.After a successful collaboration with Joe’s Jeans in 2020, the sisters launched their apparel brand, Favorite Daughter, through Joe’s founder Centric Brands on December 1. They’re now focused on taking it to the next level, starting with reaching shoppers beyond their Instagram follower base (which, combined, tops 1 million).“Right now, people are buying Favorite Daughter because of us. But we don't want that to continue for the long term,” said Erin Foster. “We want people to find Favorite Daughter and like it because they just like it -- and maybe they know that we're behind it, and maybe they don't.”After launching with a focus on women’s ready-to-wear and DTC online sales, the founders have been busy with expansion plans. They’re currently considering brand collaborations in the footwear and jewelry categories, as well as eying the kids’ clothing space and scouting locations for potential stores.“We know that we have to find ways to separate ourselves in this totally oversaturated market,” said Sara Foster.Along with strategies for differentiating, the founders also discussed their “privileged” path in fashion and the lessons they’ve learned from fellow female leaders.

In 2007, Michelle Wenke and Megan George set out to create the anti-Juicy Couture.“We wanted to be able to wear sweatsuits that catered to people like us, where they weren't so loud and bubble-gummy,’” Wenke said on the latest Glossy Podcast. “We wanted them to look a little more like streamlined and low-key, and not just [be about] hot colors and graphics and bedazzled everywhere. We were a lot younger, so we didn't really have this grandiose plan. We just were like, ‘Let's try it out.”In the 13 years since, their L.A.-based loungewear brand Monrow has been sold by more than 500 boutiques and department stores, including Neiman Marcus and Shopbop, and worn by celebrities from Oprah to Gwyneth Paltrow. Wenke and George discussed how they’ve self-funded Monrow, how they’ve differentiated in the newly crowded sweats market and how they’ve accommodated their new e-commerce shoppers, which grew from 30% of their customer base to 50% during the pandemic.