The Glossy Podcast

Sam Edelman co-founder Libby Edelman is a step ahead when it comes to knowing what shoe trends are going to take off. “It’s our job to come up with what's happening in fashion,” Edelman said on the latest episode of the Glossy Podcast. “So every time we design a product, it’s got to [reflect] a trend that’s going to hit the following year.” Trendspotting is a skill she’s perfected over the last 40 years at Esprit Shoes, and co-founder of Sam & Libby and Sam Edelman footwear brands, along with her husband, Sam Edelman. The latter brand launched in 2004 and is now sold at retailers including Shopbop and Nordstrom, as well as through its own e-commerce site and 13 stores. But that’s not to say that it’s easy to get a leg up on the industry’s direction. The reason: "It's hard to move fast in the footwear industry,” Edelman said. “There are a lot of components. You have to own the right leather, you have to buy it, it all takes time.… It’s 180-plus days to take [a style] from an idea to a store.” Luckily for Sam Edelman, it was able to expedite its processes to get in on the pandemic-hot slipper trend. “There was this big resurgence of slippers, with nobody going out of the house,” Edelman said. “It was [a style] we’d never done before, so we had to jump on it.” Edelman discussed the brand’s other mid-pandemic moves, including its marketing expansion to catalogs and its new bid for higher-end shoppers.

Erin Carpenter, Nude Barre founder and CEO, quite literally walked a mile in “pink ballet shoes” and “beige tights,” and felt the pain of finding hosiery in the right shade. It's a struggle that has been experienced before by current customers of Nude Barre, which offers hosiery and underwear in 12 complexion-matching shades. “I’m sure you see this in the market where you go to stores: You ask for something in nude, and usually they bring you options that are beige. I’m not beige,” said Carpenter, who is a former professional dancer and actress, on the most recent episode of the Glossy Podcast. “What I would have to do, and many other artists would have to do, is dye their tights and undergarments to match their skin on a weekly basis to be in uniform.” People of color and white dancers alike have long complained about the lack of hosiery options and the fact that most are “[a] strange shade of beige,” said Carpenter. That led her to start Nude Barre. The demand for diversity in the industry has not yet died down. “There was a petition out about a year ago for the bigger brands like Danskin to make more pointe shoes and ballet shoes in different skin tones,” said Carpenter. “Thousands of people signed this, including dancers, so there’s been a big push for this from consumers,” she said. Carpenter specifically honed in on the intimates category, with a focus on items like bras and stockings. Nude Barre was not exempt from the shift in consumer desires, as a result of the pandemic. “Our customer is at home, and she wants comfortable underwear,” said Carpenter. “So we wanted to give her options other than just our seamless thong.” In turn, the brand launched a bikini panty, a girl short (a female-empowering twist on the classic “boy short”) and face masks. While Nude Barre is carried in retail and dance stores, most of its sales are direct-to-consumer. “We really love [that], because we get to control the narrative of how we want to talk to our customers,” said Carpenter. “We get to have those intimate and deeper conversations around standing up against colorism and fighting against it in this category and in this industry.” Carpenter’s passion to bring diversity to the dance apparel industry is exemplified by her own financial investment into the company. “One of our challenges was that, when we would sell out of inventory, we’d have to scrape up enough money to fulfill that,” said Carpenter, who initially launched Nude Barre with $3,000 of her savings. Over a decade later, Nude Barre has accumulated stable investors. However, acquiring financial support didn’t come without roadblocks, as she approached “a lot of people that didn’t understand the problem that I was solving,” said Carpenter. “They didn’t quite understand the impact and the importance of changing this narrative of beige being the standard of beauty and why that matters.” Eventually, this problem was solved when Serena Williams, who started off as a customer in 2018, became an investor of Nude Barre in 2019. "It helped get other investors to believe in what we were doing and to validate the business,” said Carpenter. With the rise of intimates brands like Kim Kardashian-owned Skims, and the push for inclusivity and diversity in the intimates and lingerie space, Carpenter asserts it is a multi-billion-dollar industry. “Growth for the company definitely means more categories,” such as bodysuits, she said. But when looking for more partners, Carpenter ensures that Nude Barre will remain committed to pushing back against investors who may be “excluding certain pieces of the equation” in their focus, in terms of both sizing and skin-tone inclusivity.

In the age of Covid-19, Ministry of Supply is a work-from-homer's go-to brand for comfortable yet professional clothing. While the concept of wearing sweatpants to a work meeting may be new, the lovechild of workwear and athleisure came into fruition in 2012, at a time when “performance materials,” such as moisture-wicking fabrics, first started to explode among the athletic wear industry. “We designed an entire line of machine-washable, four-way-stretch suiting and clothing for the office and commute,” said Gihan Amarasiriwardena, Ministry of Supply president, on the latest Glossy Podcast. Amarasiriwardena co-founded the tech-focused apparel company with fellow MIT graduate Aman Advani in 2012. “What's been interesting is that, in the past year -- while people are not wearing dress shirts nearly as much as they used to, nor are they wearing suits -- this idea of the importance of comfort has been elevated. Our days are so integrated, both in terms of where we are and what we have to do. Our clothes should be designed to do that.” As the pandemic shifted the American workplace from the office to the couch, the demand for even more comfort called for a corresponding adaptation to the current “work-leisure” apparel sold by Ministry of Supply. According to Amarasiriwardena, when sitting down, one’s waist expands by 5-7% -- a fact that was made undeniably apparent by the couch-to-bed pipeline facilitated by working from home. In response, Ministry of Supply found that, rather than starting from scratch, “It was about tweaking our products,” said Amarasiriwardena. “We've always been using performance, functional fabrics that are soft and stretchy, and machine washable. So it was about adjusting the silhouette.” Just as many offices closed down as a result of the pandemic, Ministry of Supply closed its six stores across the country, with plans to reopen only the Boston store. This doesn’t mark the end of customer interaction, however, as the company has begun offering live chats and video chats with customers. As for the return to a normal state, Amarasiriwardena expects rebounds to happen in “waves” within the next few months as customers start returning to the office. And in addition to focusing on recovery, Ministry of Supply is focused on “being a leader in this new category of work-leisure.”

Marketplaces were among the big retail winners of the past year, and Farfetch was no exception. “We performed really well, as an overall company,” said Kelly Kowal, chief platform officer at Farfetch, on the latest episode of the Glossy Podcast. In its first-quarter earnings, released on May 13, Farfetch reported a 46% year-over-year revenue increase, to $485 million. “Nobody ever wants to capitalize off of a pandemic, but one thing that we were really excited about, and something that we really championed on the marketplace side, was keeping our boutique [partners]online and able to trade. And then on the platform side, we saw an increase in new clients and in new technology being adopted. We were really fortunate to be able to have both sides of our business firing on all cylinders.” And that’s despite the fact that new competitors, including The Yes and Amazon’s Luxury Stores, entered the market. What’s more, some luxury brands remained hellbent on keeping to their own sales channels. “What we find sometimes is that customer demands are way ahead of what retailers can do,” Kowal said. “But we spend a lot of our time thinking about what we call ‘the now, the next and the future.’ Keeping our eye on that has allowed us to scale at pace. Innovation is at the heart of our platform.” Focused on what’s next is Sandrine Deveaux, Farfetch’s evp of Future Retail, and her team. “We know only one out of 10 [new technologies] will work, and sometimes one out of 100,” she said. “But because we are a tech company and we can take those risks, and we have this investment in the backend to support our vision, we are the best place within the industry to [explore] them.”

Often worn by influential women including Michelle Obama on the red carpet, 12-year-old fashion brand Sachin & Babi is best known for its eveningwear. But luckily, prior to the pandemic and the mass cancelation of formal events, founders and married couple Sachin and Babi Ahluwalia had started to expand their product focus. “For the last three years, we've been looking at the business to see how we can make it a little bit more 'all things occasion,' [for] day or evening,” Babi Ahluwalia said on the latest episode of the Glossy Podcast. “We made a deliberate attempt at [around] the start of 2019 to showcase how you could wear certain pieces of clothing during the day. [So] that gradual shift had started. And the pandemic helped us to push it a little further, faster.” Now, Sachin & Babi customers can shop styles from linen shorts to peasant blouses. What also changed during the pandemic was the brand’s sales-channel split, moving from 60% wholesale to 60% DTC e-commerce sales. “It's [all] such a shift at the moment, and every month is a different game,” said Babi Ahluwalia. “So here we are, weathering the storm of fashion.” In addition, she spoke about the dwindling importance of fashion week, as it stands; the future of formalwear; and the way she and Sachin Ahluwalia were able to get a second fashion company, The Good Kloth Company, off the ground mid-pandemic.

Vanterra Capital was better positioned than many businesses going into 2020. “The pandemic just pushed us to double down on our thesis,” said Steven Himmel, partner at Vanterra Capital, on the latest Glossy Podcast. “Everything that we were focused on before is even more relevant today.” With its venture-specific fund, launched about two-and-a-half years ago, Vanterra invests in mission-driven consumer companies, which on the fashion side include Naadam. “A big focus for us is what we call the ESY [Investing]: [companies that are] better for the environment, better for society and better for you,” he said. And those businesses are set to especially resonate in the post-pandemic world: “As the media cycle scales down the Covid conversation, we believe it's going to scale up the conversations around better-for-the-environment initiatives... It will [create] more of a 360[-degree] awareness around: How are you living? That’s in terms of: What are you eating? How are you treating your body? How are you treating your mind?” Himmel broke down how that shift will impact Vanterra's future investments in fashion and beauty brands.

Heading up a startup, as opposed to a large corporation, has its pros and cons, said Mickey Drexler, the former CEO and chairman of J.Crew Group and CEO of Gap Inc. Today, Drexler is the executive chairman of Alex Mill. The fashion brand was founded in 2012 by his son, Alex Drexler, and Somsack Sikhounmuong, who formerly led design at Madewell. "When I started Old Navy, I had the bank of Gap to fund it… Then I started Madewell, which I owned the name of and sold to J.Crew, and [it was] the same thing: I had the bank of J.Crew,” Drexler said on the latest Glossy Podcast. “But with this business, there are no big banks. There's my bank and my son's bank; we don't have any investors other than us. And it's much more difficult.” Still, he said, “I love it. Because you're involved in every decision. You're looking at everything in detail. And you're micromanaging like crazy, which I like to do.” Rather than investors, Alex Mill has an "unofficial" board of directors, largely made up of people who work in the industry. “Understanding the fashion business is a rarity if you're not in it,” he said. While Alex Mill is not yet profitable, Drexler said business is “seven times what it was two and a half years ago.” And, he said, the company is getting ready to “step on the gas,” in terms of accelerating its growth. That includes linking with a marketing agency; adding to the company’s one store, in NYC’s SoHo; getting inventory right and continuing to sell at full price. “If we weren't direct-to-consumer, the goods we sell would all be marked down somewhere,” he said. “The most successful department store today is TJ Maxx.”

When Paige Mycoskie launched 15-year-old fashion brand Aviator Nation, she was looking to solve her own pain point. “I was most excited to wear vintage clothing -- stuff that was made in the ’70s and early ’80s. And so I found myself looking for clothes at flea markets and thrift stores. But it’s not easy to find good T-shirts from the ’70s,” she said on the latest Glossy Podcast. “I’d spend a whole day looking for one T-shirt. Then it dawned on me: ‘Why don’t I learn how to make this?’ So I started sewing clothes for myself and I taught myself how to screenprint within a couple of weeks.” That led to a buyer from Fred Segal placing a hefty order, solely based on the shirt that was on Mycoskie’s back. And the brand took off from there. In the last year, with staying home being the norm, the level of comfort that comes with wearing a vintage-inspired T-shirt has been in demand. Brands have been adjusting their product offerings accordingly, which has meant new competition for Aviator Nation. But Mycoskie isn’t concerned: “Now that athleisure is such a big deal, people are [OK with wearing] a tracksuit or a sweatsuit pretty much anywhere they go,” she said. “It obviously works to my benefit -- but it’s definitely what we’ve been doing since day one. The L.A.-based company now has 13 brand stores, and 90% of its sales are direct-to-consumer. Mycoskie said more stores are on the way. “When my friends ask me about business, one of the things I always say is to just go for it,” she said. “Don’t waste too much time on the details; just put it out there.”

When Karla Welch and Clea O’Hana launched fashion styling app Wishi in 2019, the idea was to democratize the fashion styling experience, which is usually reserved for celebs. “Karla’s dream was to bring styling to everyone,” O’Hana said, on the latest Glossy Podcast. “It’s a great partnership -- because I had the technology and the business idea, but I didn’t have the styling or the fashion part of it…[Together] we’re replicating the relationship that she has with her clients, online.” Welch has 20 years of experience as a stylist; her clients to date have included Justin Bieber, Tracee Ellis Ross and Karlie Kloss, among others. Meanwhile, O’Hana’s background is in business and finance, though she’s worked in merchandising for fashion companies including Net-a-Porter and Belstaff. In February, Wishi secured a partnership with Farfetch, granting the retailer's high-spend loyalty members access to Wishi’s styling services. (Typically, clients pay Wishi $40 to be styled in two looks and $90 for five looks -- stylists are not paid on commission.) Thus far, the partnership has revealed some interesting data points. For one, customers who take advantage of the service are returning fewer items. “When you're shopping for yourself, and you don't have the eye or the confidence, or you're not sure [about] the fit, you overbuy, and then you send things back,” said Welch. “It’s a huge waste environmentally, and it's really damaging to a lot of businesses.” Wishi is getting the word out about its services via its Style Council of stylists, who promote their bookings. It also invests in digital marketing and Google search. “[However] people are looking for this service now; there's really a lot of demand,” said O’Hana. “We don't have any problem marketing it.”

When Carolyn Murphy started modeling, she didn’t have a long-term plan. But thirty years later, her career is still going strong. “I didn't develop a business sense … until much, much later [in my career] -- probably until after I gave birth to my daughter,” she said on the latest Glossy Podcast. “And it was like, ‘Oh! I'm a mom, and I've got to get it together.’ This year, Murphy is celebrating 20 years as the face of Estee Lauder, making her the longest-reigning spokesmodel in the industry. Among her latest jobs was walking in the Michael Kors 40th anniversary runway show, for fall 2021, which played out online last week. “There's a lot of dialogue around what's going to happen to fashion week [after] Covid, and there are adaptations that have taken place -- it's been more about filming,” she said. “But I hope that actual fashion week does come back. Because, no matter what, connection is so important; we're all stronger and happier together.” Murphy’s career took off in the mid-’90s, when she landed a French Vogue cover, followed by a Prada campaign shot by David Sims. Soon after, she booked an American Vogue cover with models Shalom Harlow and Amber Valletta. “Then I started working with [photographer] Steven Meisel, and it just all took off,” she said. She’s since found smart ways to build on her modeling career: She’s collaborated on products with Shinola and has a new collab with Mother Denim that’s getting set to roll out. Also coming soon is “an online journalistic magazine of sorts,” which she’s calling “Mama Murphy’s,” for the time being. Plus she’s working on two books, including a fiction novel. “I never really want it to be about me,” she said. “I always want to pay it forward; I want to do things that have purpose and meaning.”

The team behind 120-year-old Saucony is no stranger to the competition in the running shoe market. But within the last year, as former gym rats took up running and more brands entered the space, they’ve been stepping up their game. "The running boom is real,” Anne Cavassa, president of Saucony, said on the latest Glossy Podcast. “So we're making sure that we're connecting and engaging with consumers where they're at -- whether that's around what shoes they need, what their training should look like, what their diet should look like. When it comes to [anything] around the running lifestyle, we've been working on it from a communication perspective and from an inspirational perspective.” At the same time, the brand has continued to roll out innovative launches, including its “most eco-friendly shoe ever,” the Jazz Court RFG sneaker, in March. According to Cavassa, being one of 12 brands under the Wolverine Worldwide umbrella enabled Saucony to be “nimble and agile,” which was required throughout last year. Access to its “back-of-house systems and resources” proved invaluable, as did learnings from fellow WW brands, including Keds and Sperry. “We were able to [compare] what was working and what wasn’t, and … to communicate on how to [best] respond during the crisis,” she said.

More than 100-years-old, Moscot's Lower East Side store is decidedly a New York institution. And worldwide, the eyewear company has 15 retail locations. But that's not to suggest that physical retail is the company's sole focus. "We started our transition [to go] fully into digital several years ago," Zack Moscot, a fifth-generation Moscot and the company's chief design officer, said on the latest Glossy Podcast. "So when the pandemic hit, we were able to pivot and really step on the gas when we needed to." Along with the company's direct-to-consumer sales channels, it has wholesale distribution in Europe, retail partners in Asia and "selective distribution" through retailers in the U.S. "We partner with those that help tell our story, and understand who and what we are, and don't view us as just another eyewear brand," said Dr. Harvey Moscot, a fourth-generation Moscot (Zack's father) and the company's CEO. The company's history is a key differentiator, said Zack Moscot. "Very few businesses, especially in America, make it to the fifth generation and keep it in the family," he said. And the company is just as selective about where it sets up its own shops. "We get offered opportunities in malls. We just never felt like we could really portray ourselves in a mall environment," said Dr. Harvey Moscot. "Where we have the opportunity to select a location that feels right for the brand, that reminds us of the Lower East Side in New York City -- which happened in London, which happened in Amsterdam -- those are the areas that we seek. It's those kind of creative epicenters."

Arezzo & Co. CEO Alexandre Birman is prepared to handle a rough 2021. “The first half of the year will be very challenging,” he said on the latest episode of the Glossy Podcast. “It's not going to be easy. And who is going to survive is not the strongest, but the most adaptable. So we have to be very prepared to adapt.” The company managed just fine in 2020, emerging relatively unscathed though big changes were necessary. Those adjustments, including putting its 6,000 store employees to work as digital sales associates, set it up for a strong start to 2021. Though 80% of its stores are now closed due to pandemic-related restrictions -- they’re largely located in the company’s home base of Brazil, where the vaccine has been much less widely distributed -- it finished March with 70% of the revenue it earned in March of 2019. “That's decent," said Birman. "It’s going to be a gradual rebound." Brazil-based Arezzo & Co. owns six shoe brands and the distribution license for Vans in Brazil. In the fourth quarter of 2019, it expanded its focus to clothing by acquiring apparel group Reserva Group and 75% of online luxury resale platform Troc. Birman discussed the company’s investment strategy, as well as its future plans for physical retail and expansion in the states.

Athleta chief product officer Jana Henning described 2020 as both “a blockbuster year” and “a rollercoaster.” The company managed to do $1 billion in sales, even with amid pandemic-driven obstacles. “I credit our success last year to listening to our teams and listening to our customer,” Henning said on the latest episode of the Glossy Podcast. “We really put them at the center of everything we do, and that's been good for business.” Responding to that feedback meant quickly entering new product categories, including sleepwear and masks, and offering more sizes. As of January 2021, Athleta offers sizes 1X-3X in 70% of its styles. The company also leaned into styles that were selling, resulting in a record year for leggings. Henning, who’s been with Gap Inc. since 2010, said Athleta was well positioned going into the pandemic due, in part, to its brand values. “They really resonate with our customers and what's happening in the zeitgeist right now,” she said. “Athleta is a B Corp, we are committed to empowering women and girls to really reach their limitless potential, and we are committed to inclusivity by design -- really thinking about how we can invite as many different women and girls into the brand as possible.” This year, the company plans to open 20-30 stores, and it’s projecting $2 billion in annual sales by 2023.

When sisters Kendall and Libby Glazer launched Stoney Clover Lane in 2009, Kendall was 17 and Libby was 15. “The brand you know today is not the brand that started Stoney Clover Lane,” said Kendall Glazer on the latest episode of the Glossy Podcast. “It started as beaded bracelets. It was a hobby. But we always kind of had this business mindset. We took something that so many other girls were doing and went through the motions of turning it into a business.” Today, Stoney Clover Lane is known for customizable lifestyle accessories, from makeup pouches to duffel bags. It has around 100 employees and is getting set to launch its fifth and sixth stores. Despite travel being put on hold, negating hot sales moments for the brand like spring break, Stoney Clover Lane had a successful 2020, with 200% sales growth. Glazer owed the strong sales, in part, to the brand’s strong community. “They've always been engaged,” said Glazer. “And in the last year, we did more to engage them, with crowdsourcing and just making ourselves more accessible.” Glazer also discussed Stoney Clover Lane’s 2021 plans, including collaborations and its retail expansion.

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.

Corianna and Brianna Dotson, better known as Coco and Breezy, have been playing by their own rules since launching the Coco & Breezy eyewear brand in 2009. “It was challenging for us when we first started [in the fashion industry] -- with nothing, like less than $1,000. We didn't go to college, and we had never been in a professional business setting. We say that we have our master's degree in trial and error,” Breezy said on the Glossy Podcast. Since, the sisters have grown the brand -- which counts celebrity fans including Lady Gaga and Nicki Minaj -- as well as careers as influencers, DJs and producers. In 2020, they collaborated with eyewear brand Zenni on a kids’ line and, in October, they were one of seven companies to be accepted into VC firm Andreessen Horowitz’Talent x Opportunity brand accelerator. The program grants them investment dollars, training and access to top mentors. “It's definitely a confidence builder,” said Coco, of participating in the program. “And we're learning so much.” In addition to career challenges and recent opportunities, Coco and Breezy discussed their DTC-wholesale balance, their TikTok plans and their rule to “be intentional” in the projects they undertake across the board.

Many of the fashion retailers who had plans to open brick-and-mortar stores in 2020 wish they could take it all back. Not so, for Duer co-founder Gary Lenett. "We just feel very, very fortunate to be in the position we are, given where most of the world is that," Lenett said on the Glossy Podcast. The activewear brand is cash flow positive, and plans to launch new product categories and 4-8 new stores in 2021. Beyond that, Lenett said, the company wants a foothold in the Asian market. The Canadian company was founded in 2013 and launched its first product on Kickstarter, a model that Lenett argues is inherently more sustainable. "You're not creating a bunch of inventory and then trying to create demand; you're gauging demand and then building the inventory to the demand." Duer was "basically doubling" its sales "every year for the last five years," according to Lenett, and it's ending 2020 with a 30% bump compared to last. It's now selling in 52 countries. The company made inroads with men's products that are both suitable for exercise and fit the part in an office setting. While first pitching his products, Lenett said, "my barriers were these retail buyers who kept saying to me, 'No, we don't want to do light and stretchy. That's not masculine.' And I'm going, 'No, I'm wearing it! It's actually a superior product.'"

Axel Arigato co-founders Albin Johansson and Max Svärdh have worked from the bottom-up, in the literal sense. "The footwear market -- that's where we saw the gap," Svärdh said on the Glossy Podcast. "How can a shoe cost this much? We couldn't understand that," Johansson added. But like many companies that start out with just one kind of product, shoes were just the entry point into a broader slate of products, which now include head-to-toe clothing items and a range of accessories. "This is where we'll create, hopefully, some brand awareness, and then we'll explore with other categories," Svärdh said about the founders' reasoning when launching the brand in 2014. Despite an ongoing pandemic, the Swedish company has opened two new stores in Germany in recent weeks, and has one in Dubai planned for the first quarter of 2021. Last month, private equity firm Eurazeo took a majority stake in the company, to the tune of a $66.1 million (56 million euro) investment. The United States is one massive market it could turn to next. Online sales from the U.S. make up close to 10% of the brand's digital total, Svärdh estimated.

Luxury shoe brand Tamara Mellon opened a store in Soho a month before lockdown. "Great timing," company CEO Jill Layfield joked on the Glossy Podcast. But one effort that's stood the test of time better than a brick-and-mortar shop is the company's truck: a shoe closet on wheels that greets customers at the Covid-conscious rate of one at a time. The 24-foot "TM Closet" has made stops in more than a dozen cities across the country. Tamara Mellon launched in 2016 as what Layfield describes as the only "true luxury designer footwear brand that's direct to-consumer," Since then, after a Series C last year, it has raised $87 million. DTC now accounts for an outsized portion of its revenue. Co-founder and namesake Tamara Mellon said the fashion industry, as a whole, has been overdue for a shakeup. "As Marc Andreessen said, 'Every business will eventually be eaten by digital,'" Mellon said. "I felt like the business model needed to change, and the way people talked and spoke to their customers needed to change. So that's how we came up with doing direct-to-consumer."

Running a fashion company is work enough, but Alice + Olivia CEO Stacey Bendet has also made 2020 a year of initiatives that serve -- and push -- the entire industry. In May, the Glossy 50 honoree rolled out Creatively, a job platform and networking app for creatives. "This is our gift to the Covid world," Bendet said on the Glossy Podcast. "It will always be free to creatives, because it's built for creatives," she said. But it will eventually be monetized by charging those posting jobs on the platform. In June, Bendet also co-created #ShareTheMicNow, starting by handing over her Instagram account (which has, at last check, 1 million followers) to a less represented voice for a day. "Like, 'I trust you, here's my password, here's my account, you speak your voice. Let us listen,'" Bendet said. Kourtney Kardashian, Gwyneth Paltrow and Diane von Furstenberg participated, as did dozens of prominent women who replicated the initiative in the U.K. in October, tthe country's Black History month.

CR Fashion Book president Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld doesn't usually go the easy route. In the spring, as the pandemic threatened to make this a bye year for the company's fashion show, he pitched another event organizer threatened by the pandemic (amfAR, a non-profit supporting HIV/AIDS research and prevention) on collaborating on a fully digital show. "We worked on it for about a month and a half. It was non-stop," Restoin Roitfeld said on the Glossy Podcast. "Everybody agreed to do a little runway very safely from their own house[s] or apartments, and to wear whatever they wanted to wear from their closet." Another feat in the face of serious inconvenience: launching a magazine in China. "It's not an easy place to launch a publication, with the political difficulties or censorship that you have to also face," Restoin Roitfeld said.

Kendra Scott insists she isn't kidding when she says she's thankful for 2008's Great Recession. "I honestly believe we would not be talking today if that recession hadn't happened, because it forced me to have to run my business differently," Scott said on the Glossy Podcast. Scott quickly pivoted the jewelry business to sell directly to consumers, as opposed to via wholesale only. Today, the brand has more than 100 stores nationwide. When the pandemic hit, she said, she felt like she'd been here before. "It was like my muscle memory came back." Scott joined the podcast to talk about the importance of charitable giving ("Since 2010, we've given over $30 million to women's and children's charities," she said), the human need for physical places like stores and the company's Texas origins, which give it an edge.

Fashion is a notoriously damaging industry for the environment. "It was clear to me that the industry was a solid 7-10 years behind a number of other major consumer industries like food and CPG -- in owning up to the problems, putting in place solutions and educating the consumer," Another Tomorrow CEO Vanessa Barboni Hallik said on the Glossy Podcast. Another Tomorrow is a certified B corp, making it for-profit, but with a clear set of social responsibilities. Its industry peers in that regard include Patagonia and Allbirds. Each of the company's garments include a QR code that can be scanned for "the customer to see the entire provenance journey," Barboni Hallik said, adding that most customers use the function.

7 For All Mankind is nearly synonymous with the top-shelf denim trend of the early 2000s. "Premium denim didn't exist [prior]; we really launched this category," company president Suzanne Silverstein said on the Glossy Podcast. Twenty years after its founding, the company is now doing a bit more reacting to established trends. The pandemic has put a premium on comfort above all, so the jeans maker is fast-tracking a few articles that focus on just that -- via an "elastic waist, forgiving fit," Silverstein said. One focus of 7 For All Mankind that has remained intact is sustainability. The denim industry has a notoriously wasteful reputation, which it's "probably earned," Silverstein conceded. Two-thousand gallons of water are typically required to create one pair of jeans. But by 2023, 7 For All Mankind expects that 80% of its products will clear certain scores by the Higg FEM standard. "The only thing that's really slowing us down, quite frankly, is our existing raw materials," Silverstein said. "All new materials we work with fit our criteria."

It took a pandemic for Daniella Kallmeyer to put more of her own voice in the self-named fashion brand she started in 2012. "I'm being more vocal about my personal experience and my political views," Kallmeyer said on the Glossy Podcast. "I've given some really raw interviews over the past couple of months, and I certainly have had people reach out to me and tell me how much they appreciate that." Taking a stand on social issues is a big part of what companies are expected to do now, she said. And for those that don't? "You could become irrelevant." Kallmeyer had projected "major growth" for the calendar year -- "January was our best month in business, to date," she said -- but then the pandemic hit. Since March, she has temporarily closed and reopened the company's newly opened physical store, and has launched a range of digital services for Kallmeyer customers.

As the CEO of digitally native menswear brand Bonobos, Micky Onvural has experienced both extreme challenges and lucky breaks in getting the brand through 2020. “We've always been predominantly e-commerce, so we didn't have the same catch-up game to play as other retailers did,” she said on the Glossy Podcast. “The biggest catch-up game we had to play was on the product side -- because we were ‘wear-to-work,’ but now we want to be ‘wear-everywhere.’” To swiftly transition the product, among other untimely elements of the business, the Bonobos team kicked its operations into high gear. As Onvural sees it, that expedited pace is set to define the company’s new normal. “We’ve all gotten used to the fact that change is normal -- and that we have to be very fleet-of-foot, and we need to be half a step ahead, if possible, of what's going on with the customer, the competition and the industry,” she said. “[Five month ago] we were innovating fast, and we've just gotten used to that new pace of working.” In addition to sharing how Bonobos plans to build on new learnings, products and initiatives, she discussed how the company is tackling the holiday season and why she believes, “There is always going to be a place for physical stores.”

Todd Snyder is a master of collaborations. “I've always looked at brands I want to work with, and they're almost all originators in their space,” Snyder said on the Glossy Podcast. “They’re authentic and real, and American -- and the first of their version.” Snyder launched his namesake brand in 2011, after stints as a lead designer at Ralph Lauren, Gap and J.Crew. The brand now averages 2-5 collaborations per year, which account for 50% of the business and vary in length: Its first, with Champion, is eight years running. Most recently, the brand linked with LL Bean on a fashion collection and a lodge in Kennebunkport, Maine on a room’s decor. “Part of our business plan is we look at: How do we expand our audience and also do things that are original, different?” he said. “I lean heavily into the design piece, just because I'm a designer by trade. It's not just, ‘Let's do some cool stuff, I want to slap my name on it.’ I really get into the weeds with the design team; that's the part I love.” The 30-year fashion industry veteran also discussed how his brand transitioned from wholesale to DTC, where it’s filling white space and why print is still alive.

Joe's Jeans is heavily invested in working with influencers. It's a relationship that has to make sense to work, said Jennifer Hawkins, the brand's svp of marketing and innovation. "It's not just plucking someone off a list and saying, 'Let's do a collaboration,'" Hawkins said on the Glossy Podcast. "It's finding people that you organically fit with from a product standpoint and working with them." Hawkins talked about why she's bullish on Instagram Checkout, why Joe's needs a TikTok strategy and what separates a Nordstrom shopper from an Amazon one.

In Clearbanc president Michele Romanow's view, regular banks are pretty clueless. "Banks don't understand digital business," she said on the Glossy Podcast. "They understand if you're a restaurant with a pizza oven, and that if your business goes out of business, they can sell the pizza oven, as it has residual value." But they're less likely to accurately value inventory or to understand that a strong customer acquisition strategy -- if a DTC company has gotten there -- is a valuable asset in itself. Founded in 2015, Clearbanc provides funding for widespread companies -- each of which are typically bringing in at least $10,000 in monthly revenue -- for a flat fee. To date, it's invested $1 billion in more than 3,000 brands, including Public Goods, Nectar and Haus. By the numbers, these companies are more diverse than the ones venture capital typically underwrites. A year and half into the company's existence, "we had funded eight-times more women than the venture capital industry average, which I'm super proud of," Romanow said. "We've funded founders in all 50 states in America. In comparison, 80% of VC dollars last year went into four states in America: California, New York, Texas and Massachusetts." The company has invested heavily in DTC -- "right now is an incredible time for the DTC world," Romanow said -- but also on SaaS.

People may not be getting dressed and going out like they used to, but for Bombas, sales are up. The sock company is beating the target it set for itself back in January, before the pandemic kept people at home (where socks are a little more optional). "Sales are up," Bombas co-founder and chief brand officer Randy Goldberg said on the Glossy Podcast. "There's that response to comfort and a response to community. And people are looking for these little moments for themselves." Bombas was founded in 2013, starting with an Indiegogo campaign. For every pair sold, the company donates one to the homeless -- "but also people who are at risk and in need," Goldberg said, through a network of more than 3,500 "giving partners." "Those are anything from a small shelter in a small town to big organizations like the VA [Department of Veterans Affairs] and the Special Olympics. We're in all 50 states." Bombas has also recently moved into different categories, including cotton T-shirts. Goldberg talked about how Bombas aims to make the most comfortable socks around, how DTC strategies have changed in recent years and which of the brand's product categories isn't as hot as he thought it would be this year.

After a summer of virtual fashion showcases, Paris is going back to the real thing. Among the labels on the (outdoor) catwalk schedule for the upcoming Paris Fashion Week is Ami, the company founded in 2011 -- but which only got into womenswear in 2018. "I do this job, for nine years now, because of the show. The show is a magical moment. It's a rendezvous which is not replaceable," founder Alexandre Mattiussi said on the Glossy Podcast. The coronavirus hasn't slowed Mattiussi's roll much in general. The company hasn't had to lay anyone off, just opened a new store in South Korea (making for about 10 stores in total) and had strong sales for its latest spring/summer collection. "I don't want to scream it too loud, because I feel very grateful, but the business has been wonderful during this time," Mattiussi said. As a result, the company has had the resources to take on certain responsibilities, like supporting struggling wholesalers by maintaining longstanding partnerships and making its production more sustainable. "We all want [more sustainability]," Mattiussi said. "I just want to look at my face in the mirror every day when I wake up in a few years and say we've been part of it."

Maison de Mode CEO Hassan Pierre knows that if sustainable fashion doesn't look as good as everything else on the market, it's not going to make much of a positive impact on the environment. "I always say that if a shirt saves a thousand lives, but it's ugly, no one's going to buy it," Pierre said on the Glossy Podcast. "So we need, as a retailer, to make people dream and to really make people want to buy things -- not just because they're good, but also because they want to wear them." Maison de Mode launched in 2015 as a two-part business -- it's an online platform selling sustainable fashion from different labels (both off-the-rack and made-to-order) and a consulting firm, too. Maison de Mode makes a cut of every purchase on the marketplace side, and as a whole, the business grew 161% between March and April, Pierre said. Like every online retailer, Maison de Mode keeps an eye on purchasing data. During the pandemic, consumers have turned to many of the categories you'd imagine -- "anything that is really beautiful and cozy and comfortable," Pierre said -- but also an unexpected one: fine jewelry. "We would be out of touch if we were just selling ball gowns and high heels," Pierre said.

Ronny Kobo's self-named fashion line is nearly synonymous with "party dress," and there aren't many occasions for those these days. "Luckily, we have not seen a lot of canceled styles and canceled orders," Kobo said on the Glossy Podcast. But the brand is still pivoting to selling online, including for the swimwear line it will be launching in the spring. "Retail's going to change drastically in the next year. We're all going digital," Kobo said. "Even the local boutiques are going to need to figure out a way to communicate with their customer."

The pandemic has been hard on fashion brands -- but especially for Billy Reid, which hosts an annual arts festival in its hometown of Florence, Alabama that has become part of its identity. "I can't tell you how many texts I get per week from friends, going, 'What's up with Shindig this year?' And you have to let them down easy," Reid said on the Glossy Podcast. The menswear-first company is looking forward to doubling-down on the event next year, and Reid said he's just glad to see it surviving the economic downturn. Personnel cutbacks have leveled off, he said, and all of the company's 14 stores have opened, though traffic is down. "We believe that, eventually, it will come back," Reid said. "We're bullish on it." Womenswear makes up 20-25% of Billy Reid's sales and is only carried in its own stores.

The direct-to-consumer brands that have sprung up in the last decade have promised to deliver quality at a better price by cutting out the middlemen: retailers. Italic wants to do the same, but is taking a different approach by working with multiple manufacturers that supply top brands. Its result is a lineup of quality products, without brand names or premium price tags. The company launched in 2018 with a different membership than the model it recently adopted -- the annual cost is now $100, which can quickly pay for itself in savings, according to founder and CEO Jeremy Cai. The company sells products ranging from leather jackets to handbags to cookware. For each one, Italic's site specifies which companies its manufacturer supplies (like Hugo Boss, Armani and Longchamp, in the case of backpacks). "Italic is actually a very easy math exercise to just do in your head: 'Hey, am I going to make my money back on $100, if I purchase one time?' And over 90% of the time, that is correct," Cai said on the Glossy Podcast. Cost-consciousness might not be the first value someone identifies with, but Cai says it's an evergreen one. "There are millions of Costco shoppers, there are millions of people who really love Spotify instead of purchasing music outright," Cai said. "The shopping mindset of, ‘I want to buy things that’ll be a great deal; I want to be smart about my purchases,’ accelerated our desire to actually go to market" with the new membership pricing.

To forecast the next fashion trends, Soludos founder Nick Brown looked to past crises. Before the 2008 crisis, "it was all about ornaments and stuff being very sexy and over-the-top," Brown said on the Glossy Podcast. "Then in 2010, it shifted toward minimalism and modernism." Brown wagered that fashion will stay on the minimalist side. But either way, shoes are a tough category. "In some of these customer surveys, and certainly in my own life, I'm only buying what I need to, and I'm not going out that much," Brown said. As a result, Soludos is focusing on fewer products and sustainable production. Product delivery has also evolved. Soludos' sales have moved online; 70% of its sales now come through its own website, Brown said. "We've all seen the numbers that, in two months, there's been 10 years' worth of e-commerce penetration," he said.

In fashion, the small businesses have suffered more than the big ones since March. But Commando founder Kerry O'Brien thinks that, for those boutiques that can survive a tortuous shutdown, the other side will be a lot brighter. "I think they're going to have a resurgence if they can make it through these times," she said. "Women are going to want to go to their local shop, and they're going to want to have a conversation with someone they know in a small setting." Boutiques were where Commando, which started off in the underwear category, got its start. It's still carried in more than 1,000 boutiques, as well as at major department stores. O'Brien launched the company in 2003, a few years after having quit her job at public relations giant Edelman the day after 9/11. The company has since grown, playing a role in the surge in popularity of bike shorts, according to O'Brien. Bella Hadid wore a pair by Commando at Paris Fashion Week in 2017. O'Brien thinks women shopping for clothes are now looking for two things: comfort and transparency about where the clothes came from. Commando manufactures its products in the United States and imports most fabrics from Europe. With the pandemic keeping retail foot traffic down, she's been spending most of her time at the company's home base in Burlington, Vermont. For a recent photo shoot, O'Brien said, "We used a local model. We can't bring in a New York City model, because they would have to quarantine."

The ongoing demand for LaQuan Smith's signature sexy designs is both a blessing and a curse, as he put it on the Glossy Podcast. "It was a very humbling experience, because I had to find alternative ways to still be able to produce these orders," Smith said. "Thankful they didn't get dropped, but also, damn, because I'm now in a compromised position: How do I get these done, how do I fulfill all these orders on time?" Smith pulled it off by having his cutters work from home while "packing and shipping from my living room," he said. To him, the fact that his designs are in demand despite a pandemic gives him further confidence in his self-named brand, which he said faced significant doubts when it debuted in 2013. But he said he's recently faced tokenism, whereby his achievements as a designer have been flattened by his grouping with other Black designers. "You can't group me with [someone] who just started designing three months ago on Instagram. That's not fair," Smith said, referring to the lists of Black designers to support, that have recently surfaced across media channels. "They're putting all these Black designers in one box. To me, this is not the way you do that. If you want to really celebrate designers of color, you do it the right way."

After a pandemic-caused delay, influencer Arielle Charnas' clothing company Something Navy finally relaunched last week as a direct-to-consumer brand, after selling exclusively as a Nordstrom collaboration. For her and interim CEO Matt Scanlan, it was worth the wait: Online, Something Navy grossed $1 million in just 30 minutes, according to Charnas and Scanlan. "The velocity and speed of sales totally broke our back end," Scanlan said on the Glossy Podcast. Charnas has a considerable Instagram following of 1.3 million to thank for the marketing push. In fact, Something Navy didn't spend a dollar on traditional marketing, Scanlan said. But a massive following can also come with scrutiny. Back in March, Charnas drew criticism for the way she handled a Covid-19 diagnosis -- withdrawing to a house outside of NYC, rather than staying home. "People wanted me to be more sensitive about what was going on in the world, and I should have been," Charnas said. Scanlan and Charnas talked about the lessons learned, the future of influencer culture and the new KPIs for a clothing company.

Putting on a digital fashion show isn't especially revolutionary. But Anifa Mvuemba, the founder of Hanifa, gave her Instagram Live show a novel twist: there weren't any models, whether digital or real. "This will be a great way to get everyone's attention," Mvuemba recalled thinking, on the Glossy Podcast. Her virtual runway was stalked by Hanifa dresses, moving of their own accord as if draped over moving ghosts. It was a painstaking endeavor of animation and design, but it paid off. Tens of thousands tuned in, according to Fast Company. "The sales, it was immediate -- probably the best month we've had since I started my company," Mvuemba said. The attention was big enough to push Mvuemba into a more significant public relations hire in the Hinton Group. Next, Mvuemba plans on turning heads again with technical feats (even though "we're still coming down from the high from the first one") and launching shapewear for women of color in the coming months.