In a way, Old Jewish Men brought me back to Judaism. I first came across it when I saw Liana Satenstein post an Instagram story promoting a “Speed Schmoozing” event. Knowing she’d be there, along with the chance to engage in one of my favorite activities—meeting new people—I decided to buy a ticket. On the day of the event, I had no idea what to wear, so I threw on an Alaïa skater dress that I’d bought and resold about three times. After seeing a picture of myself in it recently, I thought, "Maybe I should buy it again?" But that’s beside the point.

At the event, I met Rabbi Matt Green, who would eventually become the rabbi I converted with, and the rest is history. I’ve since attended several OJM events, including one that was even covered by The New York Times. (Unfortunately, that was also the party where my vintage white leather Dior gloves were tragically ruined by cotton candy.) What I’ve noticed at these gatherings is a lively mix: a gaggle of old-timers, some of whom have been featured on the OJM account, and a wave of younger Jewish folks seeking new ways to connect—not just with people their own age or slightly older, but with their faith as well as the broader community, Jewish and non-Jewish alike.

When I sat down with Noah Rinsky, I shared a shorter version of this story. Over the course of our conversation, I learned so much about the Old Jewish Men universe and its quirky cast of characters: Dave, whose wife emailed Noah because she thought her husband needed something to do; Aaron, who responded to a Craigslist ad in 2021 and has stuck around ever since; and the latest addition, Bob, known for his love of Hermès ties.

Noah started the account in 2015 under the name dadaroundthehouse, chronicling the antics of his father. Later, the account evolved into Old Jewish Men, and it has since grown into a thriving business. Along with social media, they now have a website selling clever merchandise that reflects the humor of the account—and recently, they’ve added a book to the mix.

The Old Jewish Men’s Guide to Eating, Sleeping, and Futzing Around is a comprehensive handbook, written by Noah and illustrated by Dick Carroll, that humorously covers everything you need to know to consider yourself an OJM. I had the pleasure of chatting with Noah about the book and more, and where better to do it than over bagels (or in Noah’s case, a bialy) at the counter of Zabar’s?

Jalil Johnson (00:00): So, thank you so much, Noah, for joining me. Can you introduce yourself and tell everyone who you are, what you're doing, and what you do?

Noah Rinsky (00:08): Why I'm here?

JJ (00:09): And why you're here?

NR (00:11): My name's Noah Rinsky. I am the curator of an Instagram account called Old Jewish Men, and I wrote a book called The Old Jewish Men's Guide to Eating, Sleeping, and Futzing Around.

JJ (00:24): Yes.

NR (00:25): So, Jalil was nice enough to have me on his podcast to chat about the book and probably ask me other questions.

JJ (00:32): Yes, I'm very excited. I'm just taking out the book right now. It was really a fun read. It was really fun. And I think...

NR (00:40): You read it straight through?

JJ (00:41): I did.

NR (00:41): Wow.

JJ (00:42): I kind of...

NR (00:43): Sure. I mean, if you read it straight through, great. But it's a toilet book.

JJ (00:49): There are a lot of lessons in there. There's a lot that I want to talk about with the book, but I guess the natural start would be to ask you about Old Jewish Men. I kind of know about where it is, but just to give a synopsis to everyone that might not know Old Jewish Men and where the origins of it are.

NR (01:07): Wait, what's that?

JJ (01:08): I guess to give context to people that are not necessarily familiar with Old Jewish Men, what made you start it? When did it start?

NR (01:17): Oh, the account and stuff? Yeah, sure. So, the origin is, I was visiting my parents in the great state of Israel, Tel Aviv. I'm not Israeli—my parents retired there about 12 years ago. Anyway, my dad was trying to get some exercise and was downstairs in our basement kicking this cardboard box. I just started recording him and thought it was funny, so I made an account called Dad Around the House. I posted the video of him kicking the box, and a couple of other things—him napping and stuff. These were the early days of Instagram, but I still had people being like, "Whoa, what is this?"

(02:10): When I got back to New York, I was living on the Lower East Side with my brother on East Broadway. I just changed the account to Old Jewish Men because that seemed to be what people were thirsty for—not just my dad, but guys like my dad. I was living at that point in the epicenter of Old Jewish Men country in lower Manhattan. Yes. I would have to ask somebody who still lives there if it really still exists like it did, like the old Jewish men in that neighborhood, East River people. It's the other side of Dime Square.

JJ (02:48): Yeah. Yes. Is there still a high population of Jewish people there?

NR (02:54): Yeah, if they didn't die out. It was a really old community even when I was there. We were going to shul and stuff, and yeah, it was a really elderly community.

JJ (03:05): Were you born and raised in New York?

NR (03:06): I'm not, actually. I was raised in Colorado.

JJ (03:09): Really?

NR (03:09): Yeah.

JJ (03:10): Colorado. When did you move to New York?

NR (03:12): 2011.

JJ (03:14): What made you want to move to New York?

NR (03:16): A series of mistakes, I'd say.

JJ (03:19): Do you want to talk about those mistakes?

NR (03:21): No, I don't have any big plans to move here or anything. My brother was already living here. He invited me to come share this studio apartment with him, and I didn’t have a whole lot else going on, so I moved here kind of on a whim. I’d seen a lot of—well, we don’t have to keep talking about Woody Allen movies. I’d seen enough Woody Allen to want to move to New York or be intrigued by it.

JJ (03:47): What do you think are the qualities of an old Jewish man? I guess this naturally leads into the book, because I think the book lays out a more analytical way. But just the heavy hitters—five points—what are the qualities you need to be an old Jewish man?

NR (04:09): Well, nothing's ever good enough, except what you're saying in that moment. You’ve got to know how to tell a story, and you don't really care. It's not even that you don't care who's listening; you're going to tell the story no matter what. I think being an old Jewish man means you don’t even care enough to try to read the room. What’s the point? You’ve got something to say. Old Jewish men are going to interrupt you, talk over you. If they don’t think you're listening, they're just going to talk louder. They're not going to change course. They don’t negotiate—it’s their way or the highway. They prioritize comfort. Comfort is a huge, huge thing. I think comfort is something that really powers that... definitely powers me. But you're always kind of fighting against comfort too, because my dad used to say, "Make the decision absent of fear. Do the thing you’re going to do. Try not to let fear enter the calculation." Dave, the guy that's kind of the mascot of Old Jewish Men...

JJ (05:21): Yes. How did you meet Dave?

NR (05:22): Dave? His wife actually emailed me. We were doing a lot of stuff in the New York Post, and I think Dave’s wife saw it, caught wind of it, and she emailed me and said, "My husband just sits around all day watching baseball. You should get him involved." Take my husband, essentially. But Dave... he's very zen. It's weird. Then he'll say stuff to me. I was hanging out with Eli the other day, our intern, and he said to us, "I usually don't fall asleep until three in the morning. I'm always worried." I said, "Worried about what? It doesn't seem like you worry about anything." But I think he’s just sort of—everyone's got their things, anyways.

JJ (06:12): Are you worried about anything?

NR (06:14): Everything.

JJ (06:14): Everything.

NR (06:15): Everything.

JJ (06:16): What are you excited about? Let’s make it positive. What are you excited about?

NR (06:19): Well, the other thing about old Jewish men is the hypochondria. Which is classic. You're not an old Jewish man unless you're a hypochondriac.

JJ (06:29): That’s very true.

NR (06:31): Or at least, not even hypochondria—you just have to get off on talking about it. It’s like a pills-on-the-table sort of mentality.

JJ (06:38): Yes.

NR (06:39): You put your pills on the table and let people know what's wrong with you.

JJ (06:41): Yes.

NR (06:42): And you don't care about talking about the kidney stone that you passed 20 minutes ago or whatever.

JJ (06:47): Well, that's funny you said that. I was talking to Larry Schlossman, who was a guest on Lunch Break, and I talked about Judaism. What I really love about it is that there is that acknowledgement of the reality of life. It’s not afraid of the bittersweetness of life. And I think that’s very much that "pills-on-the-table" vibe—like, why hide it? This is what's happening in real life, and we're going to talk about it. And I think that also fights against the fear in a way.

NR (07:19): Yeah, I think that's true.

JJ (07:21): Yes.

NR (07:22): And there’s really... there's that chapter in the book about the archetype that’s "possibly Gentile."

JJ (07:28): Yes.

NR (07:29): And to me, it's such a gentile characteristic to pretend like this isn't happening.

JJ (07:34): You’re like, a W.A.S.P.?

NR (07:35): If you’re not discussing the thing that’s happening, you’re not really living. I think... why are we both sitting here pretending that you’re not 400 pounds? You know what I mean?

JJ (07:47): I’m currently not 400 pounds.

NR (07:52): Why is this not a thing? You know what I mean? I think that old Jewish men are willing... it’s like Kramer in Seinfeld. He’d be like, "Well, your nose is crazy." Remember that? Or whatever. Jerry was dating some woman or something...

JJ (08:05): I’ve only actually seen a handful of episodes.

NR (08:07): Oh, really?

JJ (08:07): Yes.

NR (08:08): Well, I mean, Kramer’s not really Jewish in the show. I mean, I don’t know. It’s hard. I don’t know. He’s not Jewish in the show, but he is.

JJ (08:14): I feel like everything is coded like that. Question mark, maybe? I don’t know. I think this is a perfect way to start talking about the book. The first thought that came to mind when I looked at the book or read it was The Preppy Handbook, and so I’m wondering...

NR (08:31): Never heard of it.

JJ (08:33): Really? Are you joking?

NR (08:34): I’m joking.

JJ (08:38): My question was, were you kind of thinking of that when you were putting together the book?

NR (08:42): I had to run next to it. The Preppy Handbook was something that I thought about a lot, and I had it on the table a lot of times when I was writing.

JJ (08:52): How’d you find it? They’re really hard to find.

NR (08:54): They’re very hard to find. At first, I just had PDFs of it, and then my publisher found an old copy. It’s out of print. We share the same publisher, actually.

JJ (09:04): I was going to ask if it was the same publisher, also because there was a whole line of... you probably know this... after the Preppy Handbook, there was The Yuppie Handbook, which I have and I love. But this is now adding to that legacy, which is really exciting.

NR (09:23): Yeah. I don’t know who did it better. I don’t know. Lisa Birnbach... I don’t know what she’s going to say.

JJ (09:32): I don’t know. Did she get a copy?

NR (09:34): Yeah, I sent her one email. I didn’t hear anything back. Maybe I should email her again.

JJ (09:39): Yeah, email her again. What’s the deal? But no, it’s a really exciting book, and the way that it’s broken up is interesting. Part of it gives archetypes for types of old Jewish men. So, you have the Tough Guy, the Possible Gentile, and my personal favorite, the Soft West Coast.

NR (09:59): Yeah, Soft West Coast.

JJ (10:00): Yeah, Soft West Coast. My favorite. I love his outfit. So, you have that in there. Then you also have chapters that kind of give you the rundown of how to be an old Jewish man. So, where did these ideas and archetypes come from? I think it’s, what, eight archetypes? Or seven?

NR (10:15): I think there’s 10. I think there might be 10. I think eight or 10, yeah.

JJ (10:19): And how did you come up with these archetypes?

NR (10:22): I had a long... how did I come up with them? I came up with a long list and had to whittle it down.

JJ (10:29): There were more?

NR (10:30): Oh, I had a lot more. Yeah. I was asking a lot of my friends about their fathers. "How would you categorize your dad?" There were weird ones because I was also thinking about my own dad and how he kind of falls into this. And obviously, these are just archetypes, but Dick Carroll, the guy who cartooned everything in the book and cartooned the archetypes, kind of made me realize that a lot of these archetypes do come down to what they’re wearing in a lot of ways.

JJ (11:09): I wanted to talk about the fashion.

NR (11:10): And it is hard to think about... for example, my friend Eddie—I was trying to categorize his dad, and he was just saying, "Well, my dad’s like a sweet old Jewish man." It’s like, well, that’s not really exactly a category in itself. It’s somewhere between "Possibly Gentile" and maybe "Schlub" or something, you know what I mean?

JJ (11:36): Yes.

NR (11:37): And it’s just... there’s not enough really to hang onto. There’s nowhere to hang your hat on that.

JJ (11:45): I was going to say, the thing that stuck out to me with those archetypes is how they were dressed. It was so important. And to your point too, you can’t have that archetype without the costume, in a sense.

NR (11:58): Yeah.

JJ (11:58): And so my question to you is, how did you piece together these outfits? Essentially, you styled these people out. How did you go about styling them? Who were you looking for? I guess you were talking to your dad, your friends' dads, and getting pictures of your friends’ dads, but what else were you doing to really build out these outfits?

NR (12:17): Yeah, I think a lot of it honestly came from literally years of me going back and forth with Dick Carroll, exchanging pictures of old Jewish men without any knowledge that we’d be working on this book. It was just something we did for fun, and kind of always doing the little labels that we do now. Like, okay, this guy, he’s got a mustard stain there, he’s got his glasses stuffed in his pocket, he’s got this, he’s got that. He’s either upright or hunched. What does this say about him? He’s wearing these shoes. And we would always be like, geographically, we identified them by neighborhood, and the neighborhood signals certain things about what type of guy they are. And then once we started talking about the book, we already had so much of a back and forth and all this presumed knowledge of who these guys were that it wasn’t that hard, and Dick got it right away.

JJ (13:09): Oh, amazing.

NR (13:09): I mean, it was very... it was actually seamless.

JJ (13:13): Oh, fantastic.

NR (13:13): I basically gave him the list. We probably met up once or twice, talked about it. Dick doesn’t use the phone at all, so he only uses Instagram messages, which is extremely annoying.

JJ (13:24): Really? I actually am into that. I love just communicating through that.

NR (13:29): I think the reason why Dick does that, in my opinion, is because he likes the colors of the avatars. He likes being the avatar, and on the phone, he’s not that—he’s just some guy, and he knows that.

JJ (13:44): Yes, I do it because I don’t save people’s phone numbers.

NR (13:50): It’s a good way to organize. Instagram’s a way to organize.

JJ (13:53): Such a good way. But I know some people don’t like it. I love it.

NR (13:57): I’m not into it, really. I’d rather talk on the phone. I’m always trying to get Dick on the phone. I did it once when we were talking money.

JJ (14:06): Yes. Oh, that’s a phone conversation. But it’s a really fantastic book. I just love it. The other thing I also noticed is, in terms of the designer belt, a lot of Hermes. What was it about?

NR (14:22): On the Tough Guys? Which one?

JJ (14:23): This one right here. The Tough Guy has Hermes. But what is it about the brands—the brands that you picked out—and what’s significant about those brands to the identity of the Jewish men? There’s not only Hermes, there’s the Gucci shoe, there’s the collared future. What do you think the sign of those brands means?

NR (14:50): Those are decisions, actually. I think that specific Hermes belt was a decision that Dick made. Yes. And I think that those guys—the first Hermes belt that you just pointed out—I think Dick was taking from the Tough Jews archetype, which is kind of the Uncut Gems, three generations before the Adam Sandler character, his grandfather or whatever, his great-grandfather—how they dressed. And I think he was just kind of like a walker on the Diamond District. You’re probably going to see a lot of Hermes belts, Hermes ties. My friend Bob, he’s 75, I was hanging out with him yesterday, and he was talking about his Hermes tie.

JJ (15:34): Oh, I love that. What kind of tie does he have?

NR (15:36): I can show you a picture if you want.

JJ (16:00): That’s amazing!

NR (16:00): Yeah, he’s got great taste.

JJ (16:04): So his name is Bob?

NR (16:05): His name is Bob, yeah. Out of all the Jewish men, he’s one of my favorites. I love how he dresses.

JJ (16:10): He’s a fashion guy?

NR (16:11): Yeah, he’s a big fashion guy.

JJ (16:13): Okay, so I should also ask, how did your gang of Old Jewish Men come together?

NR (16:18): Yeah, Bob is kind of the newest addition, actually. I met him at shul.

JJ (16:24): What shul do you go to?

NR (16:25): I don’t go very often. It’s an Orthodox shul in Park Slope that I go to once in a while.

JJ (16:35): Yes.

NR (16:36): I probably go four times a year.

JJ (16:37): Yes.

NR (16:39): And Bob was there one time, and another friend of mine was there, and I said to my friend, "Who is that guy?" And he said, "Oh, that’s Bob. Do you want to talk to him?" And I said, "Yeah, I’d love to talk to him." So I started talking to Bob, and it’s a very weird thing trying to tell people, "Hey, I’ve got this gang, this stable of Old Jewish Men. We go around town and film gags or whatever. Do you want to be part of it?" Because one, you’re basically saying to them, "Hey, you’re old. I noticed you’re old." Two, you’re also asking if they’re unemployed or have free time to do this crazy stuff. It’s a hard thing to say. So, I needed my friend to kind of go over to him and be like, "Hey, Noah does this thing. It’s something that people kind of know about, and he’s interested in you." So, he did that, and he set up a date for us, and we all met at the 24-hour Donut Diner on Seventh Avenue.

JJ (17:27): Oh, I’ve never been.

NR (17:28): It’s a great place. Great donuts. And Bob, we were sitting there, and I go, "Bob, is it okay if I record you?" And he goes, "Why do you think I’m here?"

JJ (17:43): He was ready.

NR (17:44): He was ready.

JJ (17:46): All your gang of Old Jewish Men, they love the camera.

NR (17:46): They love it. They absolutely love it. Aaron lives in Midwood. I met him—he’s the only one in that crew that I met on Craigslist.

JJ (17:57): Wait, did you put a Craigslist ad out?

NR (17:59): Yeah, I did. Years ago, in 2021, Brian, my business partner, and I put this ad out. We did a casting call on Craigslist, and the first crew was probably eight to ten guys. We made a movie called OGM Capital with these guys. Then, once the word kind of got out, we picked up new guys like Dave, and we kind of whittled it down from there. Some of the guys were just too young to really be involved.

JJ (18:31): Yes.

NR (18:31): There’s a guy, John—I don’t know if John Ortner is listening to this—but he was good, just too young.

JJ (18:38): Because as we were talking, your criteria is that you must be 70 or older, right?

NR (18:43): Yeah, they really can’t be younger than 70. It just doesn’t work.

JJ (18:49): I feel you. I did think 65 was a good benchmark, but I hear your point. 70 is solid.

NR (18:56): You don’t know anything when you’re 65. You’re still a young man at 65.

JJ (18:57): You know nothing about the world! Okay, so that is what kind of went into your gang.

NR (19:05): Yeah.

JJ (19:05): Are you accepting new members into your gang?

NR (19:07): Always considering, yeah.

JJ (19:09): Always considering?

NR (19:09): Well, the thing is, we work with... I’ll still go. Aaron, for example, has a lot of friends that we work into different projects. The crew of those three guys—that’s the core group. We have a lot of other guys around it. I’ve got Aaron’s friend Tommy, who I’ll call, and different guys from the senior center that we did like the Candy Salad video.

JJ (19:33): Yes.

NR (19:34): I don’t know if you saw that video?

JJ (19:35): Yeah, I did. I saw the shirt for it. It’s great.

NR (19:39): And so, if we need more guys, we can always get more guys, basically.

JJ (19:44): Okay. And how involved were they with the book?

NR (19:46): Oh, I interviewed Dave and Aaron extensively.

JJ (19:53): And so, with their interviews, did they inform all the chapters about the qualifications?

NR (20:01): I interviewed Dave extensively about some baseball history, Ebbetts Field, and Sandy Koufax. Just listening to Dave tell these stories... I worked those into the book. I really don’t know anything about baseball. I’m more into basketball and football.

JJ (20:16): Yes.

NR (20:17): I’m into the Mets now, but I can’t say that I know baseball. I didn’t grow up being into it. So, I’ve been kind of playing catch-up. And Aaron, I talked to him a lot about the chapters on shul.

JJ (20:36): Yes.

NR (20:36):He’s a very religious Jew, so I talked to him a lot about shul.

JJ (20:40):So he helped you give the shul types?

NR (20:44): Yeah. I was asking him questions—how he sees it. If he sees it one way, then in some ways, that can’t be wrong. You know what I mean? Have you ever seen somebody turn down Hagbah or something like that? You know what Hagbah is?

JJ (21:02): No, what is it?

NR (21:03): Hagbah is when you lift up the Torah. It’s supposed to be an honor, but if you drop it, then everyone has to fast. If you drop the Torah, everyone fasts for a day. You’re supposed to fast for something crazy like 40 days.

JJ (21:17): Oh, wow!

NR (21:28): Aaron and I had a lot of discussions like that. I don’t go to shul enough to be an expert on this stuff.

JJ (21:39): Okay. One of the other chapters I really loved, and part of the reason why I chose Zabar’s—not only because it’s an iconic place but...

NR (21:49): That’s my least favorite word, by the way.

JJ (21:51): Iconic?

NR (21:51): Yeah.

JJ (21:52): Tell me more.

NR (21:55): Every time I hear it now, I just think that we’ve all gotten to this place where it’s such a good word, but we’re addicted to using it, and we’re too lazy to find an alternative. So we’re just stuck with that word.

JJ (22:09): I would agree. I think it’s overused, oversaturated in the vernacular. Okay, so let’s find a different word for iconic.

NR (22:17): Classic.

JJ (22:18): A classic.

NR (22:18): A staple. But neither of those are as good as iconic because iconic is a great word. That’s the thing.

JJ (22:24): Yes.

NR (22:25): But it’s kind of been soiled by overuse. Who do we blame?

JJ (22:28): The overuse?

NR (22:30): Vogue? I don’t know.

JJ (22:34): You’re going to get in hot water with your wife. Okay, I will fill in the blank with a different word other than iconic or staple. No, I love this. It’s a good argument. I think the same thing about "love," actually. I think we overuse the word love where it feels watered down. I remember in college I was that student who asked, “Is there a different word for love? Did the ancient Greeks have different words?” Actually, the ancient Greeks did have all these different levels of love. But none of those words made it into the vernacular.

NR (23:28): Yeah, I mean, the difficult part is describing love. That’s what every jazz song and poem is about, I guess. But yeah, the word love itself is kind of...

JJ (23:49):People throw it around.

NR (23:50):Yeah, exactly. But we don’t have to talk about love.

JJ (23:50):No.

NR (23:55):But it’s funny, too. Most songs, when you think about it, are about love.

JJ (23:54):Which I find so interesting because there are so many ways to talk about love and relationships. We just don’t have a variety of words for it. But that’s beside the point. We’re at Zabar’s, and part of the reason I picked it was because of its status. It’s an amazing place. I remember coming here during my first year in New York. This was one of my “must-visit” stops, and I had a lox bagel—it was really delicious. You also have a chapter in the book dedicated to the deli landscape. It’s kind of like a chart. So, what does Zabar’s mean to you?

NR (24:38):What does Zabar’s mean to me? Let me think...

JJ (24:47):What’s your first experience with Zabar’s?

NR (24:48):Well, actually, I’m attached to Zabar’s because—though I don’t know how he feels about me—but Willie Zabar, the grandson, is a good friend of mine. I’m not even trying to name-drop Willie or anything. Willie’s one of these guys who’s always contributed a lot to Old Jewish Men. So much so that he went to Detroit with me to film and do the behind-the-scenes work for our movie Sauna Dreams. And I really respected Willie for being dedicated enough to the spirit of Old Jewish Men to want to do that. I’ve met his brothers, his grandfather, and his great-great uncle, and I’ve got a lot of respect for what they’ve built. I mean, what a business!

JJ (25:50):An institution.

NR (25:51):Yeah.

JJ (25:51):Maybe “institution” is a better word than “iconic.”

NR (25:56):Yeah, it’s a real institution. It really is. I think it’s a great sign when a place can do so many things wrong and still be loved. Zabar’s can mess up—they can be a Jewish deli that serves bacon, they can have high prices, they can gouge you—and people will still look at them like they’re the great Jewish deli. You know what I mean? So maybe it’s not about what they’re doing right. Look at all the stuff they’re doing wrong, and yet we still go there.

JJ (26:33):We should talk about what we ordered.

NR (26:40):I’m kind of off bagels right now. I’m ordering bialys.

JJ (26:44):Yes, which you talk about in the book, too.

NR (26:45):Yeah, yeah. I talk about bialys. Bagels wear me out now. I’m too old for bagels—I have to take a nap after. But I got a bialy with lox and cream cheese, the works, and I ate it much faster than you because it’s a much smaller sandwich.

JJ (26:58):Yes.

NR (26:59):And it’s funny because I’m usually a really fast eater, but I was savoring it.

NR (27:03):Yeah, I eat very fast. I was also really hungry coming here.

JJ (27:07):I was too, and I still took my time to eat.

NR (27:10):Yeah, I wolfed it down.

JJ (27:11):Yes. I got my usual, which is an everything bagel.

NR (27:15):Toasted or untoasted?

JJ (27:15):Toasted. I have done something blasphemous in the past, though—I’ve scooped out the bagel.

NR (27:23):Yeah, that is blasphemy.

JJ (27:25):But it kind of feels better.

NR (27:27):Why do you do that? Is that for calories?

JJ (27:31):Well, I don’t do it for the calories, but I think, to your point, a bagel has a lot of bread. Scooping out the inside takes out a lot of that excess. So, it almost feels like the meeting of a bagel and a bialy because it gives you the amount of bread as a bialy but still has the sensation of a bagel.

NR (27:52):Yeah, you’re fooling yourself into thinking that, but I get it.

JJ (27:55):That’s my rationale for scooping out a bagel. I didn’t do that today, but the last few times I ordered bagels, I’ve been scooping them out.

NR (28:06):It’s funny—my issue with that is, if someone handed me a scooped-out bagel, I’d eat it all day. But I could never order it.

JJ (28:16):Would you feel embarrassed?

NR (28:17):I’d feel like an idiot. It’s like asking the cashier at Duane Reade to give you a bottle of laxatives or something—it’s just embarrassing. That’s why I couldn’t do it.

JJ (28:31):It’s not in the book either, right? I don’t remember seeing it.

NR (28:35):Scoop? No, I didn’t put that in the book.

JJ (28:35):But you didn’t shame it, either. You don’t shame it.

NR (28:41):I don’t shame it, no. I probably just forgot. Also, it goes unsaid—you’d never do that. If a guy did that...

JJ (28:53):I feel terrible now.

NR (28:53):No, I’m just saying if one of these old guys did that. But that’s the other thing—it’s so strange what some of these guys eat at delis, what their favorite orders are. You’d never believe it.

JJ (29:07):What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen?

NR (29:09):The craziest thing that they do all the time is, you go to a deli, and I’m always paying—sorry, I shouldn’t say that. Dave sometimes pays, too. But you go there, and Bob sometimes will just say, “All I want is a plain toasted bagel and a Diet Coke.” And that means: cut the bagel, toast it, put nothing on it, and hand him just a plain toasted bagel. That’s it. It’s basically like a prison meal.

JJ (29:38):And a Diet Coke?

NR (29:39):And a Diet Coke.

JJ (29:39):Which is, I think, the worst Coke in the world.

NR (29:41):He loves it. This guy lives on Diet Coke and cigarettes.

JJ (29:49):And plain bagels?

NR (29:50):Plain toasted bagels. Or, if the bagel’s fresh, he won’t even have it toasted. Dave, every time—plain bagel, toasted, cream cheese. Aaron, same thing. They don’t like lox.

JJ (30:06):Really? Something so quintessentially Jewish.

NR (30:09):I think Dave feels ridiculous paying that much for lox.

JJ (30:18):Because it’s really expensive.

NR (30:09):His family probably buys their lox at Costco, and you can’t rationalize paying for it at a deli if you can get it at home. I totally get it.

JJ (30:26):I feel that. I usually go for a lox bagel, but I decided to keep it simple today.

NR (30:25):Yeah, sometimes simple is good.

JJ (30:26):So, another thing I found really interesting in the book is that while it’s New York-focused, it’s actually more international. There’s a great section where you’re charting restaurants in Detroit, London, and Paris. How did you get that intel? Did you have to travel?

NR (30:50):I got the Detroit info when we went there for the movie. A lot of those places I asked people about when we were there. For London, I interviewed a couple of friends of mine, like David—what’s his last name? I can’t remember—but I interviewed him, and he gave me a list of places. I didn’t know anything about London.

JJ (31:21):And LA?

NR (31:21):LA I knew more. I put Courage in there because I love their bagels and I’m friends with them. It was nice for them to let us do an event there. Formosa—I used to go to the new Formosa Cafe; I never went to the old one. I also interviewed people from Miami, Boca, and New York. A lot of these places are from my friend Alex Trout, who’s another great future Old Jewish Man. He works on the obits desk at The Times. He’s the guy who would tell you that Old Jewish Men live many lives.

JJ (32:02):Tell me more.

NR (32:03):So, even today... what was the name of the guy who had the obit in the newsletter design? Manfred Kirchheimer. He was a film director who struggled his entire career, and then in 2018, 2022, he made four movies based on footage from the ‘70s and ‘80s. And in his last decade of life is when he shined the brightest. These guys just keep going, you know what I mean? They don’t hang it up. They’re powered by ambition.

NR (32:44):And his obit came out, I think, last week, and my guy was saying T-Trot wrote it. The point is that in his last decade of life is when he basically shined the brightest. And these guys, they just keep going. You know what I mean? They don’t just hang it up. They’re powered by ambition.

JJ (33:04):How long did it take to write the book?

NR (33:07):Robert Caro, by the way—I'm definitely not a Caro completist at all—but just what I know about him and his work ethic, he’s definitely a Mount Rushmore guy for me.

JJ (33:16):Okay, you’ve added a fifth person to your Mount Rushmore! But how long did it take to write the book?

NR (33:23):The book? Well, the first draft… they over-ordered. They asked me for 70,000 words, but only needed 45,000. That took me about six months from beginning to end. In total, it was a two-year project.

JJ (33:39):Oh wow, it’s been a two-year project?

NR (33:40):Yeah.

JJ (33:41):So you’ve been interviewing people for two years. How many people do you think you’ve interviewed?

NR (33:44):How many old guys did I interview for the book? About 40, maybe. Yeah, something like that.

JJ (33:56):Did you get to talk to Larry David?

NR (33:57):What’s that?

JJ (33:58):Did you reach out to Larry David?

NR (34:01):No, I never reached out to Larry David.

JJ (34:02):Did you try?

NR (34:04):I didn’t try, but a friend of mine gave me his cell phone number, and I was going to call him, but I decided against it.

JJ (34:12):Why?

NR (34:15):I just thought... he doesn’t want to talk to me.

JJ (34:20):What happened to facing your fears?

NR (34:21):Yeah... well, you’re right. I should have.

JJ (34:26):Do you still have his number?

NR (34:28):I do. I still have his number.

JJ (34:29):I think you should call him. Why not?

NR (34:34):I was going to call him to ask him to blurb the book, hoping he would say, “I don’t blurb books,” and use that as a blurb.

JJ (34:40):Yes.

NR (34:41):But you’re right. You’re really right. I should have called him. I did call Robert Caro, though.

JJ (34:47):Oh, how did that go?

NR (34:48):His wife answered the phone. It was 9:30 on a Wednesday morning. I called their house, and I got the voicemail first. I left a message like, “Hi, it’s Noah Rinsky. I’m calling about The Old Jewish Men’s Guide to Eating, Sleeping, and Futzing Around. I was hoping to talk to Bob.” Then she picked up, and it was his wife, Ina. I said, “Hi, Ina, it’s Noah Rinsky. I’m calling about The Old Jewish Men’s Guide to Eating, Sleeping, and Futzing Around.” She said, “You want to talk to Bob?” I said, “Yeah, put him on.” Then Bob came on the line, and I said, “Hello, Bob. It’s Noah Rinsky. I’m calling about The Old Jewish Men’s Guide to Eating, Sleeping, and Futzing Around,” and he said, “Do we know each other?” I told him, “We have a lot of mutual friends,” and he goes, “What do you want from me?” I said, “I was hoping you could blurb my book.” And he said, “I don’t blurb books,” and hung up.

JJ (35:35):Wait, is that one of the blurbs?

NR (35:36):We were going to use it, but we didn’t.

JJ (35:38):Wait, I feel like I saw the blurb list. There were some really great ones. Your wife had a great one. She said something like, “Master of this generation’s Dead Sea Scrolls.” That’s pretty high praise.

NR (36:00):That’s high up there. She also has a really good sidebar in the book about baldness.

JJ (36:04):Yes, which I really loved. I’m an advocate for bald men. My boyfriend’s bald.

NR (36:11):Oh yeah? How old is he?

JJ (36:14):He’s 38 this year.

NR (36:14):Okay.

JJ (36:15):So, a reasonable age to be bald. He’s been bald since 30. He’s been bald for a while.

NR (36:23):Is he totally shaved, or is he just receding?

JJ (36:27):He has hair, but there’s a complete bald spot. He’s not going to like that I’m saying this, but it’s the truth. He has hair that he has to cut, but there’s definitely a bald spot.

NR (36:38):If you could compare his haircut to any famous person, what would it be? Does he have the Costanza?

JJ (36:47):No, Okay. Do you know that guy who was in those Bourne movies? Jason…. This guy

NR (36:55):Oh, Statham, yeah. I mean, that’s probably the most attractive living bald man.

JJ (37:00):Yeah, that would be his hair.

NR (37:07):You’re doing well, then. You’re doing good.

JJ (37:07):Yes. So it took you about two years to write the book and you interviewed around 40 people?

NR (37:14):Yeah, I’d say so. I interviewed all my friends’ parents, my own father, my mom—I talked a little bit about what it’s like being married to an old Jewish man. I also interviewed my wife’s father, and really, anyone I could.

JJ (37:33):Have you always wanted to be an author?

NR (37:35):I’ve always wanted to be a fiction writer. That’s always been the dream.

JJ (37:40):Yes.

NR (37:41):Fiction, and also screenwriting. But I’ve always been more into fiction. That’s where my heart is.

JJ (37:48):Is there going to be a sequel to The Old Jewish Men’s Guide? I mean, this hasn’t even come out yet, but you can pre-order the book now. Do you foresee a second guide? What about The Old Jewish Men’s Wife Guide?

NR (38:01):Why not? I don’t think I’m the right person to write it, but there could definitely be that book.

JJ (38:06):You could oversee it.

NR (38:08):I could oversee it. I would happily consult on that book.

JJ (38:11):Yes.

NR (38:12):I already turned in a proposal for a new book, and I will say that Fran Lebowitz is a central figure in it.

JJ (38:21):Have you gotten to talk to her?

NR (38:22):Not for this book, no. I’ve never spoken to her.

JJ (38:27):I think she’s an honorary Old Jewish Man.

NR (38:29):Yeah, we inducted her. She was inducted.

JJ (38:34):Did you send her merch?

NR (38:36):I’ve never sent her merch. I should. I think she’d get a kick out of it.

JJ (38:40):Do you think she’d wear it?

NR (38:41):I don’t think she’d wear it, but I think she’d look at it, say, “That’s funny,” and give it to someone else.

JJ (38:49):Which is kind of a high honor.

NR (38:50):Yeah.

JJ (38:53):That’s pretty good.

NR (38:53):She’d at least chuckle at it, and that’s fine by me.

JJ (38:54):No, it’s amazing.

NR (38:55):It’s fine by me.

JJ (38:56):So, this has been really amazing. I wrap up my interviews and podcasts with four questions. The first one is, you, my guest, get to ask me a question.

NR (39:09):Okay. What was the thing that drew you most to Judaism?

JJ (39:19):Wow. Okay, that’s a good one. So, I was raised Christian.

NR (39:24):And where were you raised, by the way?

JJ (39:26):Virginia.

NR (39:28):Where’d you go to school?

JJ (39:30):College? NYU, which is also maybe where I converted to Judaism. There’s a large Jewish population here, so this seemed like the ideal place to explore it. But anyways, I was raised Christian, and I’m queer, so I was raised to believe that I would go to hell. That just didn’t make sense to me. Then Orange is the New Black had a storyline about one of the characters converting to Judaism, and they talked about how in Judaism, there’s no hell to put you in. I thought, “This sounds amazing.” So when I came to New York, my first Shabbat, I went to the Jewish Center at NYU. I didn’t know anything that was going on, but it felt right. I just love the feeling that there’s purpose—not saying there isn’t in Christianity or any other religion—but I love how in Judaism, there’s a ritual for everything, a prayer for everything. It just felt right.

NR (40:34):It’s all feeling.

JJ (40:34):Yes, it’s all feeling. It was a seven-year journey, and your wife was a part of it, actually.

NR (40:58):She came to the mikvah?

JJ (41:00):Yes.

NR (41:01):Wow, I remember that.

JJ (41:02):Yes, I have to thank your little family. They’ve played such a significant role in my life. Actually, Liana wrote that Vogue piece about me that kind of started a lot. It was because of your event where I…

NR (41:20):Oh, it was from that event?

JJ (41:24):No, she wrote it before that event. But your event is what got me back into my Judaism.

NR (41:27):I remember meeting you at that event. I had never met you before.

JJ (41:31):Yes, and now we’re here.

NR (41:33):That was two years ago, right?

JJ (41:35):I think so.

NR (41:36):It was a summer event, right?

JJ (41:37):Yes.

NR (41:38):It was like speed schmoozing.

JJ (41:40):Yes, yes. I wore an Alaia dress.

NR (41:44):I don’t know what that is, but nice.

JJ (41:47):That’s a very important designer. Ask your wife—it’s a very important designer.

NR (41:49):Alaia?

JJ (41:51):Yes.

NR (41:52):How do you spell that?

JJ (41:54):A-L-A-I-A. I think he was also Jewish.

NR (41:56):Okay.

JJ (41:57):Azzedine Alaia. Ask your wife.

NR (42:00):I’ll ask her.

JJ (42:02):Okay, so that’s my question answered. Now for my final three questions—all related to culture. Don’t be scared—they’re open to interpretation. Since my newsletter is called Consider Yourself Cultured, these questions focus on culture. The first question is: Who is the most cultured person you know?

NR (42:21):How do you define cultured? Is it being well-read? Is it having decorum in everyday life? Is it someone who corrects you when you don’t know something? Someone who keeps up with the latest trends? How do you define it?

JJ (42:43):It’s all of that and everything in between. These questions are open to how my guests interpret culture.

NR (42:53):Okay, the most cultured person I know... my friend Susie, I guess. She seems to know everything that’s happening now, for better or for worse—probably because she’s a journalist. I guess all my friends who are journalists seem to be quite cultured. My friend Alex Trout—he’s probably not the most current with what’s happening right now, but he knows what came before. He works on the obituaries desk at The New York Times. He can do the most citations while making a point, using historic references to carve his argument. It makes you feel like you need to catch up and read a little more. So, yeah, someone like that. These New York Times guys really know their stuff.

JJ (44:01):I would hope! I would expect it!

NR (44:02):Yeah, there’s a reason why they work there.

JJ (44:39):What is your latest cultural obsession?

NR (44:49):Latest cultural obsession? Can you give me an example?

JJ (44:56):Okay, so for instance, mine right now are those at-home machines where you can work out on a treadmill while watching TikToks or shows. I’m obsessed with them.

NR (45:12):Got it, something like that... Well, I was talking to Liana about this—she just got a pair of those shoes with the toes, you know, the ones that simulate being barefoot.

JJ (45:26):The five-finger shoes?

NR (45:28):Yeah, those. I started running with her probably a year ago, and it makes sense to me to get shoes like that for running—or even wearing shoes like that daily, to simulate being barefoot. I don’t have a pair yet, but I’ve read about them enough to know I’m interested. I wouldn’t say I’m obsessed, though. Another thing I’ve been into lately is watches. A couple of years ago, I bought a bunch of old Tag Heuer watches on eBay—probably seven of them—but most of them have water damage. Except for the one I’m wearing now. And they’re diving watches, so I feel like I really got taken for a ride on eBay. But I want to buy more of them! I don’t know why.

JJ (46:27):More of the ones that are water-damaged?

NR (46:28):Yeah, I like them. I just want to have more of the different colors. I like that they kind of look like children’s watches.

JJ (46:35):Does yours look like a children’s watch?

NR (46:37):Yeah, it looks like a little toy watch.

JJ (46:42):Do you have a metal preference, or are you open to any?

NR (46:44):I like silver a lot.

JJ (46:50):Would you do gold?

NR (46:50):I would do gold. I have a gold one—two, actually. One of them is all gold. And speaking of gold, we’re going to start making gold jewelry.

JJ (47:00):Really?

NR (47:01):Yeah, we are.

JJ (47:03):Like real gold? Fine jewelry?

NR (47:06):Yes, real gold. We’re working on it right now.

JJ (47:11):That’s kind of amazing.

NR (47:12):Yeah.

JJ (47:15):Everyone’s doing jewelry right now. I’m doing a jewelry thing as well.

NR (47:18):What are you doing?

JJ (47:19):I’m coming out with a jewelry line.

NR (47:20):Wow.

JJ (47:21):Yeah.

NR (47:23):What kind of stuff are you doing?

JJ (47:23):I can show you after.

NR (47:24):Okay, sure.

JJ (47:26):I’ll just have to have you sign an NDA.

NR (47:28):Sure.

JJ (47:31):I don’t think we would design the same thing.

NR (47:33):I don’t think so either.

JJ (47:36):But that’s such an interesting pivot—jewelry.

NR (47:39):Yeah.

JJ (47:40):Why jewelry for you right now?

NR (47:45):Well, it goes well with the stuff we’re already selling. When you see it, you’ll know why we’re doing it.

JJ (47:50):Okay.

NR (47:52):It’s specific. It’s a specific lane. It’s not just about making necklaces for the sake of it.

JJ (47:59):Yes.

NR (48:00):But we’re getting into that, and we’re going to be doing more cut-and-sew stuff as well.

JJ (48:04):Yes. You’re really great—I looked on your website today. There’s a lot of cool merch. Who designs your merch?

NR (48:10):My friend Brian—well, my business partner Brian. He designs most of the pieces.

JJ (48:12):Does he design the slogans, too, or do you co-design?

NR (48:19):Well, he has the actual design skills.

JJ (48:21):Yes.

NR (48:22):So, we ideate together, and then he works his magic. Actually, our intern, young Eli, has kind of taken the reins for our newest line that we’ll be putting out in the fall.

JJ (48:41):What’s the new line about? Can I get a preview?

NR (48:44):It has something to do with American sporting, but Eli is kind of relieving Brian from carrying such a heavy load with the designing. He’s been helping us a lot.

JJ (48:57):I wanted to ask you something. You’re obviously riffing off established houses, most notably... can I even say it, or will that cause legal problems? I guess it’s known...

NR (49:13):Who are you talking about?

JJ (49:14):Ralph Lauren.

NR (49:15):Oh yeah. Never heard of him.

JJ (49:20):How do you all deal with that? Have Ralph Lauren’s people ever contacted you about the designs?

NR (49:28):Thank God, no. If anyone from his legal department is listening to this, please don’t show him.

JJ (49:35):We have to admit, though—he’s a genius. It’s kind of amazing that the most American brand was created by a Jewish man. That’s pretty fantastic.

NR (49:50):Yeah.

JJ (49:53):You can’t separate the two, which is a really special thing. Does that make sense?

NR (50:01):Definitely. I mean, also by a guy who never went to design school, didn’t know how to design, didn’t know how to sew—he was just a guy who could weave these stories.

JJ (50:15):I think that’s what’s special. He has an eye, and the way he thinks about things is very American. It’s an American brand, and it’s such an American way to design clothes—to think of it as something cinematic, a universe. I think that’s the thing about being American. I was a history minor, and my specialty was American history, and I think the beautiful thing about America is that it was a homeland for so many different cultures coming together. So this idea that Yiddish is part of the common American vernacular is amazing, and it speaks to that meshing of identities. Does that make sense?

NR (51:08):Yeah. Just to add to what you’re saying, it’s like not only is Yiddish part of our daily vernacular, but it’s almost seen as a form of being cultured and educated, when really, it’s a language of peasants.

JJ (51:32):Isn’t that fantastic? Isn’t that amazing?

NR (51:35):That is amazing.

JJ (51:35):Okay, so the last question I have for you is: What should everyone watch, listen to, and read to consider themselves cultured?

NR (51:46):Once you’re done with The Old Jewish Men’s Guide to Eating, Sleeping, and Futzing Around, I’d say... I’m rereading some George Orwell right now, and I’m really enjoying it. So, that’s the first thing that comes to mind. You said listen to?

JJ (51:57):Yes.

NR (51:58):You always have to listen to Oscar Peterson if you want to feel that swing. And for what to watch... I just went to see Le Cercle Rouge at Film Forum the other night—they’re doing a Melville retrospective. His movies are very cool. If you like moody black-and-white, jazzy films with strong-jawed French protagonists who carry guns and rob banks, it’s perfect.

JJ (52:38):What could be better?

NR (52:39):Exactly, what could be better?

JJ (52:41):Well, thank you, Noah. This was amazing.

NR (52:43):Thanks, Jalil. Thanks for having me.

I may earn some commission if you make a purchase through one of the links above.

Follow me on Instagram here!

During my first season at Saks, Vogue released an article titled “Fashion Week’s Coolest Street Style Stars are Behind-the-Scenes.” That piece marked the first time I laid eyes on Daphne Seybold. Although I had previously met her virtually while interning at V Magazine, and even made several trips to the Comme des Garçons office for pickups and drop-offs, I never managed to catch a glimpse of her in person. But there she was in the Vogue article, wearing what I can only assume was one of her many Comme des Garçons pieces. With one hand tucked casually in her pocket and the other tousling her hair, she exuded a serene aura, no doubt influenced by her idyllic surroundings.

One line from the piece that truly captivated me was her description of her signature style: "Katherine Hepburn à la Comme des Garçons. Oversized, layered, and easy, with vintage jewels from my mama, and always a flat: slippers, brogues, or creepers." The phrase 'Katherine Hepburn à la Comme des Garçons' immediately captivated me—how could I resist? I rarely use this word, but in this case, it's the only one that fits: chic. So, when I had the opportunity to sit down with Daphne to discuss her current role at Sky High Farm Universe and her 14-year tenure at Comme des Garçons, I knew I would walk away feeling even more inspired and enriched.

After leaving CDG in 2022, Daphne transitioned to Sky High Farm Universe as their Co-CEO and also serves as co-founder and CMO. In our conversation, we delved into her remarkable career at CDG, including the all-important question: what does one wear when meeting Rei Kawakubo for the first time? And perhaps even more critically, how does one leave a lasting impression.

As is my usual style, I won’t delve too deeply into my guest’s background here—I encourage you, dear reader, to listen to the episode or read the transcript for the full experience. Sky High Farm’s mission is incredibly close to my heart, and I find Daphne to be so intelligent and insightful that it would be a disservice not to make this episode accessible to as many people as possible. (After listening to this episode, I highly recommend going back to my conversation with Danielle DuBois of Sakara Life, where we also explore important topics about the food landscape.)

On a side note, as i mentioned yesterday I’ve extended the discount promotion through tomorrow. So if you enjoy listening to or reading these full-length interviews and don’t want to miss a single moment, consider becoming a paid subscriber.

One more thing before we dive into Daphne’s episode: Sky High Farm Universe just launched their F/W '24 collection, co-created with Jen Brill of Homme Girls, and they’ve also released an all-purpose tallow balm that is simply divine! I’ve been obsessively rubbing it into my hands, and it’s an absolute must-have.

Jalil Johnson (00:00:00): Alrighty. Daphne, would you please introduce yourself and what you do?

Daphne Seybold (00:00:07): Okay. I'm Daphne Seybold. I am the co-founder, co-CEO, and the CMO. We're a startup called Sky High Farm Universe, which is a brand that we built to generate advocacy and revenue for the food equity work of the nonprofit Sky High Farm, which is a farm that's based in the Hudson Valley.

JJ (00:00:29): Amazing. So the first time I met you—and we didn't even really meet, it was over email—was when I was still assisting in the styling world, and you were at Comme. So it was probably when I was assisting Scott Shapiro when he was at V Magazine. That was my first encounter with you, and I think the first time I actually got to meet you in person was via Sidney Munch, who I used to work with as well when she was in the styling world as well. And so it's been really amazing to see the growth of Sky High Farm; it has been really fantastic. And so before we get into Sky High Farm and what you're doing right now, I would just love to know where you came from, what brought you here, and what were you doing before Sky High Farm?

DS (00:01:16): So I consider myself to have a pretty intersectional identity. I was born in Canada, grew up in Hong Kong, was educated at British schools in Hong Kong, then went to UCLA for undergrad, and then eventually moved to New York because it was always my dream. Just having lived in all of these different places, it's really informed, I think, not only my identity but hopefully my ability to empathize with people of all different stripes wherever I go. I want to be in places that are densely populated, surrounded by people that are different from me, but also eat different food, look different, dress differently. And so eventually, when I moved to New York, which was, I think, 2005, I thought I wanted to be a fashion journalist. At the time, I was really inspired by Cathy Horn, and I just loved the sort of frankness of her delivery. I thought, okay, maybe I should—I had an English degree—and I was like, maybe I should try to get my start out there. So I moved.

JJ (00:02:31): Were you writing when you were in school? Were you writing fashion critiques or...?

DS (00:02:35): No, I was just reading. And most of our friends and peers in fashion, I devoured magazines. And growing up in Hong Kong, it wasn't always clear what would get imported, but also you’d get the latest issue of Vogue or Self Service or whatever months and months later. They'd come out when the next issue was hitting over here in Europe. So I really kind of clung to what I saw in those issues, and they really kind of informed me of what the industry could look like or what kind of role I could have in it. When I came out here, I decided that in order to convincingly write about fashion, I needed to go to school to learn how clothes were made. And so I did a degree at Parsons—a Fashion Design degree—just to understand construction and hopefully some of the history. And during that time I interned like crazy. I think my first internship was at Mayle, which is Jane Mayle's brand, but I also interned at Alexander McQueen. I did a wholesale internship there, I did a knitwear internship at TSE, I did a brief internship at V Magazine, and I interned at Comme des Garçons.

(00:04:05): I made it sort of my business to try to understand every facet of the industry because I don't really think you can figure out what you don't want to do without having actually tried it. So it's funny because a lot of those experiences were formative, and they ended up bleeding over into the job that I would take on at CDG, which at the time I sort of landed there as an intern in the press department, and it was only a press department of one in the U.S. We were still communicating with faxes. It was crazy.

JJ (00:04:37): Oh, in 2005 or what year?

DS (00:04:40): 2007.

Shop my At Present Edit

JJ (00:04:44): Wow. But I think that's another interesting thing too, in terms of during the internships and terms are very important. And it's also funny that you interned at V because I was at V as well, but when you were interning, were you also working another job, or how were you able to intern? Because I think that's another thing people often think about. I have questions about, it's like, okay, you're interning. And especially, I think pre-2000—I don't know when the lawsuit happened—a lot of interns weren't paid. You’re just really just unpaid labor.

DS (00:05:18): That all happened, that stuff at Harper's Bazaar and elsewhere, happened when I was at CDG. And I'd been there for a long time. It's interesting because I actually interned while I was at school because I knew immediately when I graduated that I had to get a job because I was Canadian. And so I really kind of hustled and did as much as I could and then very quickly realized that it was actually going to be much harder than I had expected. And I remember this acutely. I was sitting in Parsons at their computer lab, and I applied to Vanity Fair thinking, okay, now's the time for me to really start building those journalistic credits. And I ended up getting an email from the then fashion director, Alexis Bryan Morgan, and she calls me in, she's like, listen, I know you applied for an internship, but you could in theory become our new fashion assistant. I was so excited I even contemplated dropping out of Parsons to do that. I was like, when is this going to drop in my lap? I knew how competitive it was. Those jobs open up only when someone actively decides to leave.

(00:06:37): No joke. The first question I was asked when I sat down was, you are a Canadian citizen, right? An American citizen? And I was like, actually, I'm not.

JJ (00:06:48): Oh no.

DS (00:06:49): And it's no knock on them, but I realized right then that despite being qualified, there was a bit of an uphill battle then. So I really spent a lot of time trying to prove my worth in these internships so that they could then hopefully take the leap on someone who I sort of had to prove that there was more value add than just a person that already lived and worked here.

JJ (00:07:16): Because they would've had to pay for you to...

DS (00:07:21): They would have to sponsor me.

JJ (00:07:23): Sponsor you. That's what—so Vanity Fair, so I'm guessing it didn't happen?

DS (00:07:28): No. So I finished my degree, and then I went to intern at CDG, and my predecessor left, and they said to me—and I remember I'd been kind of interning there for an extended period of time—they said, do you want her job? Which they referred to everyone as the head of. So I went from being an intern to being the head of the US PR effort very quickly.

JJ (00:07:54): Wait, that's because of the size of the team at the very, yeah.

DS (00:07:57): They're headquartered in Tokyo, headquarters in Paris, but Europe was very much a satellite, and so they only had one person doing the entire US market.

JJ (00:08:10): Wow. And then also too, so going back briefly when you were in Hong Kong and you were getting those Vogues, was Comme one of those brands you were always like—was Comme already kind of in your perspective of fashion? What drew you to Comme initially for the internship?

DS (00:08:30): I mean, I knew it through going to the department stores out there, but they didn't have a Comme store yet. I knew the breadth of Japanese design, but I hadn't had an opportunity to fully engage with it. And back then I couldn't afford it. I was in high school, and things like designer vintage—it was all very different then. Not nearly as easily accessible. I was really kind of reliant on going to the department stores to look around. But over time, I continued to follow the brand and understand that what makes them unique is their approach to fashion, which has always just naturally bucked the status quo. They never do anything for the sake of doing it. They didn't believe in diffusion lines; they believed that every collection that they put out had a reason to exist. And I was really always interested in beauty as a social movement, beauty as a sense of identity, beauty as self-expression.

(00:09:42): And I remember my interview—I showed up wearing, at the time I was wearing a Vena Cava blouse and a pair of very nondescript wool pants. I was wearing heels. And then I also wore a McQueen scarf that I had gotten on my internship when I was there. And it definitely stuck out. But over time, when your eye adjusts, whatever you had trepidation about and sort of understanding that you only dress for yourself was very important to me. My husband still sort of laughs to this day. I have a lot of jackets in the closet with three arms or that you have to wear inside out or backwards. It's funny; my eye normalized to that pretty quickly. And I realized there were people out there who were actively inspired to think differently about how they could self-express, and that was always really interesting.

JJ (00:10:40): It's beautiful. And I think that's also—that is the beauty of fashion really. I think fashion at its best makes a person think and change their perspective or change their opinion on something and really get excited about getting up and putting on that coat with three arms.

DS (00:11:02): I mean, it's funny. I used to—this was back when the office was in Starrett-Lehigh, and I would—at the time, my husband was studying at Columbia. I would take the 1, 2, 3 down in my Comme couture, and then I would trudge out from Eighth Avenue all the way out to where Starrett-Lehigh is, which is 11th Ave, through the snow. And I would pack boxes all day. I mean, I had so many samples I had to send out, so I'd be in my Comme, literally just like—and it was kind of funny in hindsight, but I loved everything that the company stood for, that Rei and Adrian had built, what they stood for. And because I got such direct exposure to them, I was like, there's no other place in the world where I would get to talk to them directly at the age of 20, whatever. And then on top of that, the way that they sort of thought was a lot about—a lot of the people that came up through the company had been at the company for a while and really had absorbed the DNA, and they really entrusted young people to do the work of more senior people at other companies. And I just felt like it was a constant challenge. I was of course very much afraid of failing, but at the end of the day, it's a very self-selecting person that chooses to work there.

JJ (00:12:27): Well, also, I am kind of dying to know, and I hope this is not vapid...what do you wear to meet Rei? What did you wear to meet Rei for the first time?

DS (00:12:41): Oh my gosh. I'm trying to remember.

JJ (00:12:44): I feel like that's very daunting.

DS (00:12:46): Well, you know why it's hard for me to remember? Because I tripped.

JJ (00:12:52): No!

DS (00:12:53): On the stairs up to her office, the very first time I met her in person. We'd already corresponded over email by then, but, you know, I was in Paris for my first set of shows. I amble up the staircase and tripped right in front of her, and she was very sweet. She actually started speaking to me in Japanese; she'd forgotten that I was Chinese. I'm pretty sure I was wearing all black, and my wardrobe was minimal at that point. I'd started—pretty sure I was wearing Comme Comme, which is what she wears every day, which is all the kind of codes of CDG distilled into everyday wearables. But yeah, that's what sticks out in my head because I 100% embarrassed myself.

JJ (00:13:40): You gave a lasting impression.

DS (00:13:42): I mean, they didn't get rid of me.

JJ (00:13:45): And then, okay, you were at CDG as the head of PR for how many years?

DS (00:13:52): So my entire journey there was about 14 years and seven months. When I started at CDG, there was no Dover yet. Dover came in 2013, but by then I had already—it was kind of ironic. The nature of doing PR was such that I actually got to talk to all of my inspirations. I was on shoots because we would bring the clothes to set ourselves. I was on set with, or I organized stories with, Cathy Horn. I was shooting with Craig McDean, and I was with Karl Templar. I was with Mario Sorrenti. It was just like, Grace Coddington—all these people that I would never dream of having contact with, who I later became very familiar with, and many of them have supported me through this period too, like Phyllis Posnick, who's the legendary sittings editor at Vogue. She created all those iconic images with Irving Penn.

JJ (00:14:52): Like with the bee and all those things.

DS (00:14:53): Yeah, exactly. Some of the most arresting images.

JJ (00:14:58): Yes, I'm getting chills actually.

DS (00:15:00): I worked with her. And then a few months ago, we did a shoot for our first beauty product with Tata Harper. Oh my God. So just that there's so much goodwill that kind of followed. And I felt very privileged in that job because I realized pretty quickly that not only were they entrusting the world to me, but I got to talk to all of the experts in the industry. Even though I was scared shitless, you have to push back on Grace or push back on someone. It's not a great feeling.

JJ (00:15:27): It must be terrible.

DS (00:15:27): But I learned also—the brand like CDG, where we really were careful about the brand image and thoughtful about it—I tried to really approach those conversations with a sense of transparency about our goals rather than playing all of these strategic cards. I was like, okay, I'm 20-something years old.

(00:15:46): All I can do is be honest about what we're trying to accomplish and see if they're willing to support us. And it turns out in life that tact has worked pretty well. I'm not a hardliner. I can't walk into a room and be like, I want this, and walk out. And I think that's also a reaction to how in the old days, a lot of the fashion industry was run. It was like one figurehead, I'm going to prescribe the rule of law, and everyone has to live by it. Now, I feel like we live in a society that's much more flat and more voices can come to the table. So anyway, I was in the head of PR job at CDG, doing all the shows, doing every kind of whatever, launch, all the press release writing, all the send-outs, all the show prep, all of everything. And then Dover Street opened in 2013, and they trusted me enough to let that fall under my remit as well. So then I sort of became very well-situated actually to manage the PR work for so many emerging brands...

JJ (00:16:53): I was going to just say...

DS (00:16:53): ...in the store.

JJ (00:16:54): When I think of Dover, I think about the vast amount of emerging brands that they've helped really start in a sense. And that's pretty amazing that you were getting that first experience with them too.

DS (00:17:06): Oh, a hundred percent. I mean, I remember Simone. Simone and I are around the same age; we're friends. Craig Green—I remember when I walked into the show in Paris, and he would be there. And at the time he was with Barbara Anii at Drk or Dark. I've never known if it's... but really it was the early days. Melitta Baumeister, Marine Serre—I got Marine Serre her first piece in the New York Times. Just I sort of saw myself as an agent on behalf of all of these young brands that needed support and visibility. I got a piece for Idea Books in the New York Times. They were Idea Books back then. They've become Idea now. But this idea that through the credibility of CDG and Dover Street, we could lend our apparatus to supporting so many up-and-coming designers was amazing.

JJ (00:18:02): It's really fantastic. I think I talk to so many people about this. We're in a very interesting retail landscape, and especially emerging brands are so important. And we're going to talk about the brand that you're with right now too. Sky High Farm, which I still see—it's a small brand—I still see it in that emerging category. They're really important. I think they lay the foundation for the industry. They set the trend, whatever they may be, they set, I think, the initiatives for where we're going. So I think about sustainability, I think about investing in initiatives such as food sovereignty. I think those are all important things that we all collectively will have to start thinking about and we should be thinking about. But I want to talk to you about what made you take the step from the world of CDG—which I mean Sky High Farm is still in that world—but go to a different company. Going into a small brand.

DS (00:19:03): So towards the end of my tenure at CDG and Dover Street, which frankly I feel is the biggest gift I could ever have had as a career. Dover Street sat at the center of something where you could convene all this energy and power. And I think that's what really got carried through to Sky High Farm, which is really how we got our start. And at the time, I think it was 2018-19, I met Dan. He had already founded the farm, gosh, in 2012, and had been doing that food equity work for that long. But he wanted to make some products that he could sell in a retail space that bore the brand's—not the brand, sorry, it was under the umbrella of the farm—but could bear the farm's icon and be a physical object that someone could interact with and learn more about the farm through. So we met through Marissa Jartcky.

(00:20:07): Dan and I began working on a project with my then Vice President, James Gilchrist, and Matty Friedman, who you know, and it was really about utilizing the time—it was vintage clothing, much like you're wearing now, that we could customize and use to uplift not only Sky High Farm but other food equity partners that the farm had. So we organized a talk around a vintage collection for these customized goods and also some jarred products, did it in New York and in LA. We hauled a tractor into Dover Street Market LA. And then the pandemic struck. And Dan and I at that point shared friends in common but had not ever formally met and then really interacted extensively. And he invited me to be on the founding board of the farm, which at the time was myself, John Gray of Ghetto Gastro, Josh Barfield, who's now stepped off the board and is the co-executive director of the farm. And that's slowly expanded to include many wonderful people that work in the communities that we serve as well as some other experts. But we were in dialogue and the pandemic hit. It was really hard. Everyone was losing the shirts off of their backs. I realized people were really hurting. We would be trying to move goods to keep the store going and had a job to fulfill; it employed all these people. And I just felt like there was such an urgent river of need, and I'd become more attuned obviously, to food sovereignty work at that point. So that happened. And then BLM...

JJ (00:22:13): What was the moment that turned your eye to that? Because I feel like you've always—from before you even got to New York—you always had attention to community. So was food poverty something that—when was the exact moment that you became aware of it?

DS (00:22:34): I mean, honestly, when I moved to the States, I had come from a homogenous society and gone to a school that was very diverse. But also people's relationship to food back then, or over there, was very different, right? Food wasn't expensive. You could go to a wet market and buy your fish, fresh fish. It wasn't like the kinds of New York prices you're seeing. And it was actually only after I moved to the States and was at a big public school for college. And I really sort of credit UCLA with this. I mean in hindsight, sometimes I'm not sure I should have gone there, but I realized that watching a public school at work and the dynamics within it—it was essentially a small city. It was 50,000 people. There was so much unrest. People were always protesting something. And of course, California has a relationship to agriculture, right?

(00:23:28): So I sort of understood a little bit about it then but was really becoming immersed in the dynamics of living in the States: inequity, the way the makeup of the States poses this tremendous chasm between the widening gap between the very wealthy and the impoverished. And so when Dan invited me to be on the board in that sort of immersion, it really kind of—something I became really kind of—not infatuated with it, but I saw a pathway to participate. Whereas before, even though I'd always wanted to volunteer—it was something that me and my friends would be like, oh yeah, when we have time, we're going to do this on the weekend. But at that point we were working 60, 70 hour work weeks and it was a lot. There was no free time. My identity was so wrapped up in my work, and this really allowed me to see that there was a world of need, but also that there was a pathway or an avenue by which I could play a very small role in it. And so around about just following those really sort of pivotal social justice movements—BLM, which is still with us obviously, API—I said, gosh, I don't think I can do the status quo anymore. And there's nothing about CDG that's rote. But I needed to step out of that cycle a little bit.

(00:25:01): It was a hard choice because they're my family.

JJ (00:25:04): You've been there for so long. You really, in a sense, grew up there.

DS (00:25:08): I grew up there. I spent all my formative years there. I married my husband during those years, had my first baby while I was there. It is a part of my makeup now. And I think what really informs a lot of my approach to what we're building, but I remember just sort of thinking, I have agency, I was like, I'm the age I am now, and this is as good as it's going to get. I'm not going to wake up tomorrow and be like, oh, I've now metamorphosed into another person. This is it. And I kind of have to trust what I know and the relationships that I've garnered, the friendships that I've made, the little wisdom that I think I have. That's it. I got to make something with that. And Dan and I sort of realized that there was a world in which we could start a brand because the farm had these wonderful icons. We'd already seen the power of those icons to interact with people within the public sphere. They're uplifting; they're playful. When you look at it—I mean, the shirt that you're wearing doesn't even have the name on it, but it's so recognizable.

JJ (00:26:28): I would love to talk about this too. So for the viewers is a strawberry sitting on top of the moon. And so where did this idea, this iconography, come from?

DS (00:26:40): Well, that really preceded me. So in the years where the farm was operating, Dan worked with the illustrator, Joana Avillez, who's still a very good friend of ours, to create these icons. And there's a whole host of characters, and they're all things that come off of a farm. But it's kind of funny because a lot of people think the moon is a banana, which could be the case. But I have this sort of acute memory: Jake Gyllenhaal was wearing a pair of our sneakers, and I think the stylist—I don't know who it is at the moment, I know who used to take care of him before—but she clearly put these sneakers on him, and he's sitting at a press event, and I forget who was sitting next to him. It was a pretty renowned actor, but he was like, dude, what's up with your shoes? And he's like, well, it's a strawberry and a banana. And then I realized the icons have a capacity to transcend. They're funny. They're cute. They're youth- and adult-appropriate. There's just something in them that is just engaging.

JJ (00:27:46): I think the colors too. I feel like red is such a warm color, and I feel like so many people—red and yellow—they just feel very calming. And I think that's also when I think about the farm, I think about the farm and the brand.

Shop My Fall Wishlist

(00:28:03): This approachability to everyone. I think that's what this icon brings to me. It's like to your point, it isn't specific to an age group. It isn't specific to a specific person. It's digestible for everyone. And I think the farm's approach to the farm and the brand, there's something for everyone, which is quite beautiful. And I think something else that's sticking out to me—and this came to me when I went to the festival, which I want to talk about with you as well—it's like the brand and it's truly operating like a farm. There's a whole host of pieces there. It's truly...

DS (00:28:44): Inputs,

JJ (00:28:44): Inputs. They're truly a community. And that is one of the first words that comes to mind when I think about Sky High Farm is community. And it's beautiful because I think—we were talking off the podcast—but I think fashion sometimes can be very insular. It can be very elitist. And I would say to you, really, that has fostered such community, which feels really refreshing and beautiful and it feels new, especially in the fashion space. Beautiful.

DS: So nice of you.

JJ: Of course, of course. And I think there are so many people that are supporting Sky High Farm, and their support, they're there for you, they're there for the brand, which is really amazing. And what goes into building a community?

DS (00:29:34): I think it's a purpose that has to sort of transcend all of our differences. And I just want to preface all of this by saying I'm one of a team of people that makes all of this happen. I really can't take credit for all of it at all because I realize it's a very spirited group of individuals, including yourself, that have decided to make a change in their work life to support something that's new and unknown. So I kind of see us all as kind of this renegade crew that's building something from scratch that has no known outcome.

(00:30:18): But to the point about community, coming from a place that had a very strong identity and sense of community, it seemed obvious to me that that would be a big part of why I would go anywhere is that I would be able to foster something that would join what maybe seem like very different spheres of the world together. And in doing so, could actually broaden the community. And so much of the stated aim of the brand now is to basically coalesce the average customer who cares about these issues but may not be able to write a million-dollar check, may not be able to volunteer—I couldn't back in those days with corporate entities—asking them to participate with their dollars, looking at participants in an industry as a whole and saying, okay, every one of these different sectors or groups of people can be in dialogue with food equity work.

(00:31:15): We just have to create the bridge. And I think that has really kind of served us because everyone understands the urgency that we should all be feeling around the state of the world, right? Climate change is fully upon us. The hardship that faces so many farmers is a story that needs to be told more. But also the way that the farm approaches community, and I just want to be clear that they are separate entities, and I'll explain why, but the farm centers its work around the communities it serves. So instead of being prescriptive about what the Ecuadorian community should eat, it instead says, what should we grow that they want? And that dialogue is sort of essential to informing the choices they make about what to grow and what to give away. It's also about giving the best and most nutritious food to people that have been deprived of it.

(00:32:15): Many of them help grow it, but they actually can't afford what they grow. And these farmers that we're connected with, they don't benefit from the subsidies that the big agro-industrial complex benefits from. So it's really about empowering the next generation of farmers, right? Regenerative farmers and food system advocates through a model for a nonprofit. Now, I don't know how much you know about the difficulty of running a nonprofit, but you have traditional revenue streams, right? Donations and grants, but those are very much contingent on a wealthy donor's willingness to write you a check of a certain amount of money and that they're willing to do it continuously, right? Because most organizations need this funding to continue their work over time. But oftentimes also when you get grants, there are lots of institutional interests attached to those dollars. So the idea of creating a separate entity that could storytell, that could create vessels for this work regardless of the type of product, but that could also just raise as much money as possible through consumption that people were already engaged in seemed like a way forward.

(00:33:28): And in looking at other brand examples that exist out there, you have something like Red, which was Bono’s AIDS and HIV nonprofit. They're still very much active. I think they've generated something like 750 million to date. And then a company like Newman's Own, which is the most ubiquitous salad dressing and popcorn and pizza in the States, they're a hundred percent of profits to charity. They've raised $600 million. I mean, the fact that people don't know this kind of tells you there's something to be said for being able to communicate right to the center of culture to where people feel like they want to be engaged. And if we can package it, which I feel like we're learning how to do in a way that feels like not only we're creating excellent products that are desirable, but people actively can be like, oh, I'm buying this because it's a great alternative to my other hand cream. But it also does something so much greater.

JJ (00:34:32): Which I think you're hitting it right on the head about culture because there are a host of things I want to talk to in the realm of culture. One is we're right now eating at Thai Diner, and it's fantastic. We got the same meal, correct? Which is the second time in the history of this podcast has happened except you got a chicken version and I got the mushroom. But something really special happened where I picked this place sometime in terms of the restaurant, it's kind of a back and forth of who picks. I picked this restaurant because I knew last year there was a partnership with Thai Diner and Sky High Farm when you all were developing a drink. Yes. And I would love to hear about how did that come around?

DS (00:35:17): So even before we had a clothing line, Dan and I were conceiving of a beverage. It just seemed obvious that we should do something in f&b, but all things, and especially for two people that never set out to make a brand—a clothing brand, at the very least—we learned the process from scratch. And we were very fortunate to have linked up with a fellow named Andrea Schneider at FedUp Foods. And his company is a company that was born out of a desire to rethink the beverage system because that's also very broken. I think that's something that I would say to everyone on this podcast is just that now that we straddle so many industries, you see that they're all dealing with their own systemic issues. And so we learned from scratch how to make a product. We conceived of something that we thought was delicious, a sparkling water flavored with honey.

(00:36:16): We love the idea of using honey because honey is great for people to understand the pollinator story and the ecosystem of the farm, but people also understand the plight of the honeybee, which is a very real one. And so we brought that to market, and I'm friends with the owners of Erewhon Market, which of course is a very beloved grocery store.

JJ (00:36:39): I've yet to go.

DS (00:36:40): Oh, you must. And we essentially launched the drink there. They were very generous with us and also some merchandise to accompany it. And I was really interested in this idea of cross-pollinating—having a beverage, but then also doing clothing with them, thinking about the lifestyle that you could create out of these types of more responsibly produced goods. The drink was a great success. We got so many people contacting us. We were putting it into industry events. And I put it on pause recently because I want to make it shelf-stable right now.

(00:37:18): It's a pre- and probiotic drink, so it has to be refrigerated. It has a lot of fiber. We wanted to work to tweak the formulation so that it could have a great shelf life. But what Thai Diner did for us, which gave me a tremendous amount of confidence, was I emailed Ann, the owner, and I was like, would you be interested in carrying this here? She immediately wrote back and said yes. Ann basically was like, we'll take the product in and we'll give you all of the profits from its sales. And I was like, wow, what an act of generosity.

(00:38:13): The margins in beverage, in food in general, are so low; for her to do that was really remarkable. And I realized that in some ways, restaurant owners and the people that work in the service industry and hospitality industries, their connection to the land is very real because they’re dependent on the products that come from it. And so the plight of the farmer is equally as prescient to them as an issue, as many other things that we're dealing with. And so seeing that we could transcend this fashion as a space and apply this model broadly was very attractive.

JJ (00:38:48): And it was a delicious drink. I can't wait for it to come back. And what made you pick Thai Diner specifically? Is this your...?

DS (00:38:59): I had met Anne through friends but have always just loved the vibe. When you come in this restaurant, the food is incredibly cosmopolitan but very well made. And it's always full when I come in. And I feel like there's so few restaurants in New York now that are price-accessible but also make great food that is dependable. And we have a lot of shared friends in common, so it seemed like a great starting point. But yeah, we sent it here. We sent it to Attaboy, which I don't know if you're familiar with them, but they're these two really, really esteemed. It's a chef and his wife. And his wife is my friend, Elliot Park. And JP, they own Atomics, which is one of the best or most highly rated Michelin star Korean restaurants.

JJ (00:39:51): Oh, I think I have heard of this.

DS (00:39:53): Yes. And they have a whole restaurant group now, so they've got Naro at Rockefeller Center. And they were very supportive too. They're like, we'll put this on the menu. And I was like, wow, really? Their food is amazing. And then the other group that I called was Four Horsemen, because I'm very good friends with Christina Topsøe and her husband James Murphy. They're part owners of Four Horsemen. And I also am very good friends with Amanda. I'm forgetting her last name now. She's going to kill me, but she's not. Well, I just think of her as Mandy in my mind, Amanda McMillan. She was once in PR at PR Consulting and then went on to basically become, I think the general manager for Four Horsemen. So I was like, do you think you could put this on the menu? And she's like, yeah, send it over. Let's see what it tastes like. And just that generosity and everyone's sort of willingness to just take the drink without really knowing if it was vetted or good was kind of inspiring.

JJ (00:40:54): It was. And then something else that we have right here too, which is, again, not a fashion-based product, but I think this again speaks to the ecosystem of everything, is a balm. And I got to try it at the festival this summer. And what made you all want to design a balm?

DS (00:41:16): Well, first of all, we just embarked on a partnership, a collaboration with Tata Harper, who for me, even long before I knew her, I was a tremendous fan of what she'd built. And there was something very sort of convincing about a partnership between two farms. She is the leader in clean beauty. She has a very devoted and loyal following, and she's just like a wonderful human being, as is her whole team. And we saw that there was appetite for something like this from us, but also all of these raw materials come from the environment. They come from the earth, they come from animals, they come from wherever. And so the idea for the balm—maybe I would've waited a little longer to put it into the market—but was essentially came out of conversations we had with the farmers at the time. I'd also met this amazing group called Shellworks based out of the UK.

(00:42:14): They had developed this amazing material called Vivomer, which is basically a plastic substance. It has no plastic in it, but essentially is created by microbes. It's a protein that's extruded from microbes when they're fed, and when it hardens, it behaves like plastic. But not only is it zero plastic, but it also fully decomposes in your home. Wow. So the idea of using a container like that, that was already illustrative of the sort of cyclical circular movement of the earth and the seasons and the soil, was really intriguing. But the idea for this balm, which I'll share with everyone, is a tallow-based balm, which for those of you that aren't familiar with it, is beef fat. Was this idea really that there's an ingredient that exists in a world that's highly efficacious and has been used for centuries. It really kind of tries to illustrate that there are amazing raw materials in the world that might be deemed waste, but that we really see as a co-product, something that comes out of the food system that has tremendous value. Tallow is packed with vitamins. It mimics the natural lipids in your skin, provides a really nice moisture barrier. It's an antioxidant, everything. And the thought that it could illustrate not only that there are these waste products that can be converted to something different, but also that we could potentially successfully create another revenue stream for farmers. Because most of the cattle that they send to the places where the meat is convert, the animal's converted to meat is wasted. 60% of the carcass is wasted.

JJ (00:44:07): Oh, that's terrible. So this is a fantastic way to your point. This is all creating a place for those byproducts to go. And then there are 2 scents, I guess you would call them. Yes. So there's tomato leaf and...

DS (00:44:23): Meadow.

JJ (00:44:24): Meadow. What made you all decide between a tomato? What made you all pick these?

DS (00:44:30): Well, I think we obviously wanted to ground the scents in things that felt familiar, but also specific to the scent experience on the farm.

JJ (00:44:39): And I'm—for the listeners, our readers—I am putting it on right now.

DS (00:44:44): Yeah, rub it into your hand and see how you like the way it absorbs. But essentially, tomato was inspired by when you're harvesting a garden, the smell that comes out of that bounty. We were thinking a lot about tomato stems and leaves, which is such a unique smell that we all know. And then Meadow is really about—it's inspired by upstate New York meadows that are kind of dewy and marine, but also have tremendous sort of earthy smells. So I'm curious, I think you prefer the tomato leaf, right?

JJ (00:45:20): I think both smell amazing. I am a big tomato part. I love tomato. I hope it's tomato in anything. Me too. So I have kind of a bias for anything tomato.

DS (00:45:29): Yeah, me too.

JJ (00:45:30): But no, it feels amazing. I am very particular about hand products, and I told this to you too when I tried this Tata Harper, your collaboration with Tata Harper, fantastic hand cream. I like something that has, I feel like, a bit of weight to it. I really despise very liquidy, thin moisturizers. It just does nothing for me. And I think this is, it's great. It's not greasy. It has that nice weight to it. I love it.

DS (00:45:58): No residue, no white cast, nothing. You wouldn't know. Oftentimes what I do is I put it on people's hands and then I tell them it's fat. And they're like, oh, where can I buy this? I got into an Uber the other day, and the Uber driver, I'm not even joking, or she was a Lyft driver, she wouldn't let me get out of the car until I told her where she could buy it and when it was because the scent was so fragrant. And I think it really kind of, like the aromatherapy, which is something Tata is really known for, was important to us. But I'm not a person that can do heavy fragrance. So it had to be sort of subtle and not feel too chemical. But I think that the cream, in some ways, it's so much the embodiment of what we do to support regenerative farming. It's a product that's conceived with the land in mind. It uses the resources from the land that the land naturally produces as part of whatever that cycle of life is. It's not about extracting more from the land than the land can provide, which is where we find ourselves in the current climate. We're basically extracting more from the earth than we put into it. And I wanted to, with Dan, with the team, turn that relationship to products on its head.

JJ (00:47:18): That's amazing. And then too, when will this product be live?

DS (00:47:23): Well, we're looking to launch at the beginning of September. So after Labor Day weekend, we want to make it really price affordable, whereas the Tata cream is a little bit more expensive. That retails for $50. But everyone should know that Tata Harper is donating a hundred percent of all of her profits from the cream to the farm. So that's fantastic. So the price is a little elevated there, but this particular product, I think, will retail for $38, and it will last a very long time. You just need a little bit; a little goes a really long way, and you...

JJ (00:47:55): Can put it on your whole body.

DS (00:47:56): I put it everywhere.

JJ (00:47:59): And then something else you were telling me too off, will this be available? So by the time this is released, but Barney's is coming back for a brief moment.

DS (00:48:10): Yes, yes. We plan to sell our tallow there. Barney's, through the sort of continuing generosity of Julie Gilhart and Simon Doonan and the entire team at Hourglass Cosmetics, they will be hosting a multi-week Pop-up in Soho. Sky High Farm Universe is really sort of privileged to appear alongside many of the brands that Julie helped discover. But Barney's is an identity that has such equity. So the opportunity to show alongside some of our friends Proenza Schouler, Thom Browne, they're all going to be there. And we get to have a platform that not only celebrates the clothing we produce—I think our next collection is co-creatively directed with Jen Brill of Homme Girls, who's a very longtime friend of Dan's, and a friend of mine now too. And we're going to essentially have tallow hot off of the presses there at the store. That'll be...

JJ (00:49:13): That'll be fantastic. Oh my gosh, I can't wait to, I mean, it's going to be amazing. Iconic moment.

DS (00:49:17): I hope so. I hope so. I hope that everybody tries it and loves it. And the festival was actually a very important moment for us to see if the concept had legs, because I didn't know if anyone would be willing to adopt a fat-based product. Never mind that it's used for... People use it for all kinds of biofuel for cooking. It's been used for time immemorial, but with this specific purpose, it's a relatively new thing in modern culture.

JJ (00:49:47): Yes, and then I would love to talk about the festival too, because how... Well, the Picnic? Picnic, picnic festival.

DS (00:49:52): Picnic festival.

JJ (00:49:53): And how did that come alive? Because that was also amazing that there's so many people there. It was beautiful to see again, community. It was a beautiful community there. And so what birthed that idea?

DS (00:50:06): Yeah, so the farm—and I'd love to just take a second to describe the work that it does. It's a nonprofit, again, it was founded almost 12 years ago or more than 12 years ago now by Dan and a group of co-founding team. From day one, they've donated a hundred percent of all of their regeneratively grown produce and pasture-fed livestock to marginalized communities. Over time, the organization in acknowledging that it can't feed everybody, has also undertaken this sort of mantle of helping to create equity in the food system and modeling that change. So we now write grants. This year we're writing $350,000 worth of grants to regenerative farmers, many of whom are BIPOC and unseen by the system that benefits from all the subsidies that Big Ag does.

(00:51:02): They're people that are doing this work and actively stewarding change and fostering healthy eating habits in their communities, but are unseen. And in some cases, they exist in opposition to their governments. We also do a paid fellowship onsite, which is a nine-month program, which is very intensive. Six months are spent on the land over the course of the growing season. The next three months are spent on a research project. But the idea really is that people that are interested in jobs in the food system, whether it be in farming or within the actual work of farming itself like that, they can garner the hands-on experience that you actually need in order to have those kinds of jobs. Farming is the most laborious, most skilled labor. Every time I listen to our vegetable farmer talk about what goes into growing and all of the planning, I, I'm amazed she's an engineer and a scientist in one.

(00:52:04): But if you think about what that kind of work is, it's not well paid. It's not acknowledged in the same way as other very high specialty industries or work. And so the idea there is to really arm people with the skills they need so they could find those jobs after the fellowship. Then we also do educational programming for youth. Many of the youths that are in the communities we serve, the farm actually is in the process of transitioning onto a much bigger property. It's 40 acres right now, and the property that it's moving on to is 560 acres. So it's almost like a small town.

JJ (00:52:45): And how far is the farm moving from where the farm is right now? How far is it moving to this new farm? What's the distance?

DS (00:52:53): It's down the street. Oh, down the street, which is pretty amazing. But the idea there is that they can really expand their capacity as it relates to the urgent food donation work they do, but with everything else too, and how that land can be used and stewarded, that's a longer process. But of course, it's important that we begin raising awareness around the work that we're doing as well as funds. So the festival was really sort of our first large-scale fundraiser for the farm. Whereas everything else had been small fundraising dinners. This was really meant to be the opposite of—it's like the anti-gala, not just a bunch of very well-to-do people who know each other, but rather really about bringing all of these people that we serve into dialogue with everybody else. And what was really kind of remarkable is in the same way that the brand is sort of set out to do this through products, we were able to bring together an amazing group of performers.

(00:53:55): It was a one-day event in Hudson Valley: the Roots, Moses Sumney, Kelsey Lu, Michaël Brun dj’ed. And then we had Devon Tuscher, who was a prima ballerina at American Ballet Theater performed. But tickets were sold on a sliding scale. Some people in the community came for free. I think we'd allotted 250 tickets out of the 700 for free. And then the rest of the ticket prices range from $250 to $25,000. We were able to bring in a host of amazing fashion companies as donors. Actually, they weren't just fashion companies. We had Chanel, Gagosian, Levi's, Birkenstock, the North Face, Jansport, Nike. We brought in Luna Luna, which is that fair that's opened up on the West coast. Tata Harper was there, was there. So it was really just a collection of our friends and family that really kind of came together to help underwrite the project. And the brand had this amazing sort of merchandise booth where we sold goods, really trying to connect all the dots and using this sort of moment of gathering through music to enliven people's spirits and gather everyone. And then through the merchandise, to raise some additional funds.

JJ (00:55:16): It was really fitting that it was upstate too. I feel like it not only is a problem up there, but I think there's something about that land. I mean, Woodstock is—I don't know how far Woodstock was, but Woodstock happened upstate. It was a very magical moment that day. I think there was something about a lot of people from the city coming to the land and getting to see all the greenery. There was a nature walk that Nike put on that was quite beautiful. And the trail guides told us about the different plants. And there are particular plants—I can't remember the name of them—that you can bite into if you are stung by a bee. But no, it's beautiful to see the land. And I also think it taught to appreciate the land that we're on because we only have one earth. And I think, again, a big part of Sky High Farm, the brand, and the farm is to remind us about the importance of where we live, the importance of the land. It was a beautiful moment.

DS (00:56:19): I think there are few more beautiful outdoor performance venues than Kaatsbaan, which is in Tivoli, New York. And to be able to share in this moment with everyone outdoors—it was pretty idyllic.

JJ (00:56:37): I had lobster rolls.

DS (00:56:40): Lobster rolls. I mean, it's interesting. A lot of all the beverages were donated, so we had water donated, we had Moet donate, but all of the food vendors, we invited them to come in and there was no charge. They just sold their goods so that they could make some money. We wanted to give them the opportunity to generate some.

JJ (00:57:09): Is this going to be yearly?

DS (00:57:12): Maybe not yearly, maybe biannual. It's a lot of work.

JJ (00:57:15): I like a biannual. I feel like there's something—it really builds momentum to the... I like it biannual.

DS (00:57:21): Yes. Hopefully people won't forget what it is by then.

(00:57:23): No, you couldn't forget. So this has been really amazing, and we're kind of nearing the end of our time together. I feel so motivated, not if I feel even more motivated now to get out there and spread the message. And also, I think food sovereignty is so important. I grew up in a very small town. I grew up with a working-class background. And so food always, I have a weird relationship with food. And so I think as I gotten older, I am contextualizing food and also the importance of what it does to our bodies. Yes. Also, making sure that people, no matter—food should not be a privilege in a sense. Everyone should have access to...

DS (00:58:13): That's exactly right.

JJ (00:58:14): ...good food, whole food, those kind of things. And I think what you all are doing is so important and it's making changes, and that's...

DS (00:58:23): Really important. Thank you. Well, having someone like you model in our campaign with Cass Bird and styled by Samira Nasar was amazing, but I might just close on saying the brand has raised in two and a half years a million dollars for this work. And to see that this germ of an idea is bearing fruit, but has almost—it has so many directions to go in and expand into—is very exciting. So yeah, watch this space.

JJ (00:58:56): You're going to make another million, more millions. More million. So to wrap up each, we have four questions. So the first question is, do you have any questions for me? This is a very new, new segment I'm doing that was unintentionally given to me, but I thought this was actually kind of brilliant, because I think the purpose of this is for it to feel like a conversation. And I just want everyone to feel relaxed. And I think oftentimes when you're getting interviewed, the interviewee never gets to ask a question. So I'm giving the power back to you all to interviewees. Do you have any questions for me?

DS (01:00:04): I do. I mean, I feel like you are in the midst of forging a new chapter in your life, which I told you at the top of the interview that I just have such admiration for the way you move through the world and what you've built through your own identity and sense of self. And even when I was a young fashion person, which I was at some point, I always felt like I was pretty faceless. And I didn't know where. I'd argue that this job has allowed me to really come to the table as myself. And I see you and I think, wow, what you've been able to accomplish in terms of your own identity and representing your values and your interests and also just having such amazing style is wonderful. And I guess, what does it mean to sort of transition through these different identities in this sort of new chapter?

JJ (01:01:02): That's a very good question. I only know how to be myself. And I think that clothing has always been a vehicle for me to express who I am, even when I didn't really know fully who I was.

DS (01:01:23): Is it a character that you're assuming when you do it, some of your looks have proper characters?

JJ (01:01:29): I think the act of putting on clothes as a performance—I mean, RuPaul always has a phrase that...what is the phrase? It's like life is a drag. Or

(01:01:41): I will find the quote and put in there. But basically, we're all putting on a performance. And you have to have a costume of what that is. And the real test, though, is will you let the costume be the whole thing, or will you shine through that costume? And so I think something for me is everything I put on my body is genuinely something that I'm invested in and I want. I'm not dressing for another person's idea of what it means to be cool or what is considered trendy. I'm purely dressing for my own happiness. And I think that that's what comes, I hope that's what comes through in how I dress, is that I am trying to find joy in myself first in performing.

DS (01:02:27): That seems smart and right.

JJ (01:02:31): Because I think so many people go through life concerned about what other people think, which is—that's how we're taught. Also, we're supposed to think about others as we go through life, but it's really a challenge to put yourself first.

DS (01:02:48): Yeah, it really is. That's beautiful.

JJ (01:02:54): That was a good question. Now I have three questions for you to wrap this up. Okay. So the first question out of the three, who is the most cultured person?

DS (01:03:08): It's a really, really hard question to answer because I feel like there's a lot of people to reach for. But the person that I want to talk about is someone who I think is deeply cultured is—he goes by the name of Nav. I don't want to butcher his first name, but I think it's Nav. And he's someone I met this past May, right after the festival in Copenhagen. I was there to speak on a panel with him on the subject of how the consumer can play a role in affecting change as it relates to the climate. And we were in this sort of small panel, and he had built a company called The Washing Machine Project, and he's a former engineer that was working at Dyson. And he tired of creating really nice vacuums for wealthy people and was like, I think on a trip he came to see that there are so many women and children or girls that are spending time in developing countries washing clothes.

(01:04:21): So he's based in the UK. He's now traveled all over Africa, India, and they have some partners here in the US too, but they're sponsored by Whirlpool. And what he's done over, I think, five years is to create a washing machine that can be assembled by hand. It's almost like an Ikea-style thing where you can assemble it on location, and it's like a manual crank that you have to turn, and the clothes get washed inside. It obviously minimizes the amount of water you use as compared to what we use, but it completely allows anybody who's washing clothes to cut their wash time down from sometimes as much as 20 hours a week to 15 minutes a day.

JJ (01:05:09): Wow.

DS (01:05:10): So you can really kind of—what you do in terms of not only empowering people with their time or giving them their time back, but the physical hardship, the skin irritation, the soreness in your joints from spending all day washing, but also the ability to make money—you could wash other people's clothes—is really kind of remarkable to me. And when I think of culture, I think of somebody that has a degree of fluidity that can step into different spaces,

(01:05:46): Has garnered a sense of empathy and relatability to all kinds of people. And I see that Nav travels to the world in a way where he's, almost all the places he visits is imprinted on him, and he's motivated by those exchanges and experiences. So he's the person that comes to mind.

JJ (01:06:10): I have to look up his name. This sounds really,

DS (01:06:13): He's incredible.

JJ (01:06:14): And is there a way to donate to his...?

DS (01:06:17): Yeah. Yeah. So you just look up the washing machine project. He's actually coming to town soon. It'd be cool to introduce you—is the time of the conference that happens in September, mid-September. Fantastic. Yeah, he's wonderful. That's amazing.

JJ (01:06:34): That's great. Okay. Wow, that's an amazing person. That's cultured. What is your latest cultural obsession?

DS (01:06:47): Cultural obsession.

(01:06:53): Now that I'm in the beauty space—or sort of—I'm really into K-Beauty, which has always been around, but little known fact, Korea is the second biggest in terms of our traffic to our website. And in terms of the support outside of the organic influencers that we get in the US, all of our biggest supporters come out of Korea. So new jeans, Jenny, Ruby, Jane, they all buy the stuff. We don't know that they've bought it. They just buy it and wear it. And I'm just so fascinated by their evolution as a people in style. They're so outgoing; they really get the aesthetic. They also love the transformation in the beauty process. So I love that. What was the other cultural question?

JJ (01:07:49): Oh, then the last one is a three-parter.

DS (01:07:51): Oh my gosh. Okay.

JJ (01:07:52): So basically it's watch, everyone read, watch, and listen to consider themselves cultured.

DS (01:08:01): Okay. Wow. These are going to be a little different from what you might normally think of, I suppose. So the book that I would pull for—I was going to give you an academic text,

JJ (01:08:12): You can do that. You can give two, you give as many as you want.

DS (01:08:14): Many as you want. Okay, I'm going to do it. So I'm actually reading a textbook of essays by an ecological economist called Herman Daly.

JJ (01:08:26): From what time period?

DS (01:08:28): So he wrote this in the eighties and nineties, I believe, this particular book. He's written several books, but he talks a lot about a steady-state economy, which is something that I really have become attracted to in a world where we're kind of juggling the tension between consumption and waste. What he posits is that the earth as a biosphere is a finite space with limited resources, and the economy is like a subsystem that grows within the sphere. And it's not really possible—the economy has got to stop growing at some point when it's used up all of the resources and can't continue to scale at the rate that it's been growing. So, so much of what he tries to address in the book is this concept of what it would mean to have a steady-state economy. And by implication, what that means for the inequity between rich and poor. And it all sort dovetails with conversation around who should pay for the pollution that's brought and who actually pays the price in farming. We talk a lot about externalities.

(01:09:41): When you think of a drink manufacturer, anybody that's making anything for raw materials in order to sell goods at a rock-bottom price, someone else somewhere in the production line is paying the price. And so this idea of who pays is a big one to me. And who are we trying to benefit in our choices. The other book I was going to say is The Overstory by Richard Powers, which is a beautiful book that is a series of vignettes by different people in different places over the course of time that talks about nature's constancy amidst the sort of turmoil and peaks and valleys of our everyday life, which it's a really beautiful collection of stories.

JJ (01:10:23): Oh, I want to read both of them.

DS (01:10:23): Now that you're moving up to Hudson Valley, you should read. And then to watch. I'm trying to think of something recently that I've watched. I watched, okay.

(01:10:38): My best friend is a filmmaker, and she does a lot of shorts, and she's working on her first feature film. She co-wrote a film with her then-partner called Civic. And Civic has gone on to become really sort of lauded, especially in the New Yorker where the film critic a year later went back and decided to write a full-fledged review of it. But it's a short that is told from the perspective of a car, and you're sitting in the backseat of the car—whoever it is is sitting in the backseat of the car—and they're witnessing a conversation that's had between the driver and the passenger. And I won't spoil it, but they drive to a number of different places, many of which have significance in this returning person's life. And it's against the backdrop of Los Angeles. And so you see this gradual shift in the scenery and the landscape. Some of the shots are vast where you can see the sky and palm trees and others are parked at a bodega. And I thought it's really hard to do this as a short, but to capture the totality and the range of human life and the sort of degrees of it in one short film was really amazing. So Civic,

(01:12:02): So it's Nicole Otero and Dwayne LeBlanc.

JJ (01:12:06): Like LeBlanc, like...?

DS (01:12:09): L-E-B-L-A-N-C.

JJ (01:12:10): Oh, I mean, what's the guy's name from friends?

DS (01:12:13): Matt LeBlanc? Yes. Yeah. Same spelling I think.

JJ (01:12:16): Are they related?

DS (01:12:17): No, no. Dwayne is African American. I mean, not that I know of.

JJ (01:12:26): I'll tell a different story. That's all. Okay. Then what should everyone listen to?

DS (01:12:31): Listen to? I don't know if this will be polarizing, but I listen a lot to Pivot, which is a podcast between...

JJ (01:12:39): I love Pivot.

DS (01:12:40): Yeah, Pivot. And I also listen to Scott Galloway's podcast, which is called Prof G. And that is really—he's an entrepreneur multiple times over, but he sort of speaks plainly about the struggles about what it means to start a company from scratch. But I think he also shares a lot of the same values around some of the systemic inequities we're trying to fight. And I don't know, I haven't really heard a plain-speaking podcaster outside from you in a long time. And then the other one that I love is Ezra Klein, who I just am always like, I sit through the whole hour and listen intently to everything he says. Sometimes I'll listen to it twice.

JJ (01:13:25): Those are fantastic. I love both. I love Pivot. Pivot's amazing. Basically, I do the Daily, then I do Pivot. Okay. Which is...that's a very jam-packed...

DS (01:13:39): That's a lot of information to squeeze in.

JJ (01:13:42): But no, I think Scott Galloway has such, to your point too, a very...

DS (01:13:47): It's a very incisive point of view.

JJ (01:13:49): Yes, and doesn't beat around the bush. It's tell it how it is. And he doesn't care if it rubs you the wrong way, which I think is perfect. I think so many people are editing themselves. They want, but I think sometimes we need that hard truth.

DS (01:14:03): Well, and I think it's very easy to feel lost in what is a really cacophonous, noisy world, and it's hard to decide if you should even care about what's happening in the markets or these, and I do think he's good at distilling what's happening on a macro level and being able to conceive of how that could affect your daily life or break down complex concepts around Bitcoin and crypto and the car industry. I just think as a citizen of the world, it's like you kind of have to understand all of the inputs, even if what you're focused on is so totally different, which for me is the case. But I like to understand all of the dynamics that are in play at any given time.

JJ (01:14:46): I think those were all fantastic answers. Well, thank you so much.

DS (01:14:49): Thanks for having me.

I may earn some commission if you make a purchase through one of the links above.

Follow me on Instagram here!

Long-time readers know that I've been working with At Present since May and that I was named their Stylist in Residence back in June! It has been an absolute joy working with the team, but more than that, it’s been a real pleasure getting to know them personally. I’ve learned so much—not just about the world of jewelry, but also about the art of creating something meaningful as a team. I’m thrilled about a special project we've been working on, which will debut soon. I’ll share more details during fashion week, so be sure to stay tuned!

As a bit of a teaser for what's to come, I had the opportunity to sit down with Marc Bridge, the founder of At Present, to talk all things jewelry! As you'll discover in our interview, jewelry truly runs in his veins; it's something he lives and breathes. His passion for the industry is evident in the way he discusses what’s exciting him in the market and what keeps him motivated in this business.

We enjoyed a delightful light summer lunch at Le Gratin (I had a refreshing summer salad with a side of fries, and Marc had a fantastic chicken dish with a few vegetables to complement it.), Chef Daniel Boulud’s Bouchon Lyonnais (for those curious, a “Bouchon Lyonnais” is a type of restaurant unique to Lyon) located on the ground floor of The Beekman Hotel. If you follow me on Instagram (and if you don’t, you’re missing out!), you might remember me mentioning Le Gratin in my most recent Q&A as one of my favorite spots in the city, especially for its perfect atmosphere for a bit of gossip. The restaurant was buzzing with energy that day, but thankfully, Marc and I found a quiet corner. I’m especially happy to report that the audio quality is great (hooray!); you’ll still hear some clinks and chatter, but overall, it sounds pretty crisp. I hope you all enjoy this episode, and don’t forget to check out my August Edit for At Present!

Jalil Johnson (00:00:00): Let's begin. Please introduce yourself to the audience—who you are and all that jazz.

Marc Bridge (00:00:05): Yeah, my name is Marc Bridge. I am the founder of At Present. We are a marketplace for extraordinary jewelry, and we like to think of ourselves as matchmakers between the best jewelry artists in the world and people who are looking for unique things to celebrate where they are in their personal journeys.

JJ (00:00:29): Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for joining me on Lunch Break. I am really excited to talk to you. We've had dinner before and exchanged emails and whatnot, but it's been quite an honor to be a part of the At Present family. This is the first big gig that I've been working on since leaving Saks. It has been such a pleasure to be a part of this, and it's taught me a lot about jewelry, so I'm excited to talk about jewelry with you, of course, and to teach the audience about it.

MB (00:00:57): Few things are better to talk about than that.

JJ (00:00:59): The best thing to talk about. So I know that you come from a jewelry family, so how about you just tell us about your family and where you come from in that background?

MB (00:01:09): Yeah, geographically, I come from Seattle, which has been home to me and my family for about 115 or 120 years. That's a long time. And particularly out at the end of the world in Seattle, which is, in so many ways, such a new place and has transformed so many times in just the last couple of decades. My great-great-grandfather was a watchmaker who was originally from Poland and came to the United States in Altoona, Pennsylvania, in the late 19th century. He then followed the railroad out to the end of the line and ended up in Seattle in 1912. This was really a frontier town—this was the aftermath of the Klondike Gold Rush and pretty much the end of civilization. He set up a little watch shop on First Avenue in downtown Seattle in 1912. And so began a five-generation family jewelry business that I spent the first 35 years of my life working in and around.

MB (00:02:22): And that business was very much the classic family jewelry business. We sold engagement rings and diamond earrings, Rolex watches, and Mikimoto pearls. I spent all of my summers and school holidays—and I think anytime my parents wanted to get me out of the house—on the floor of the jewelry store, which in the 1920s moved four blocks up the hill to the corner of Fourth and Pike, where it was until, I dunno, about a year and a half ago. Some of my earliest memories are of being thrown out onto the sales floor in an oversized suit. Nobody told me it was strange for a 14-year-old to be selling engagement rings and expensive watches, so there I was.

JJ (00:03:16): In a big suit. Well, I mean, I have several questions about the clothing. First, who was the suit made by? Were you rocking a huge Armani-esque suit?

MB (00:03:26): I think this was probably...

JJ (00:03:28): What year was this?

MB (00:03:29): So, if I was 14, this was the mid-nineties, probably right after my bar mitzvah.

JJ (00:03:38): What was your bar mitzvah theme?

MB (00:03:40): My bar mitzvah theme? All I remember from the theme was that we had pop-a-shots, like the game where you play with the little basketball hoop.

JJ (00:03:51): Oh, like an arcade?

MB (00:03:52): Yeah, exactly.

JJ (00:03:53): Fantastic.

MB (00:03:55): But I was thinking about that in terms of clothes because, for whatever reason, my mom was morally opposed to children dressing like adults, which is sort of funny when you get to the later part of this story. But for her, the bar mitzvah was the moment when you could get your first suit. I don't know why—maybe because I saw my dad getting dressed in a suit and tie every morning—I wanted a sport coat, and my mom was like, "Nope, that is something you get at your bar mitzvah." So I got my first blue blazer for the Friday night ceremony and my first green suit—it was sort of an olive color—and I even remember the woven tie that I wore for the Saturday morning service.

JJ (00:04:42): That's quite a bold fashion choice—a green suit.

MB (00:04:46): I don't remember. I assume that was not something that I picked at that point.

JJ (00:04:51): Did your mom say that you needed to be in a green suit?

MB (00:04:52): I imagine I was just sort of handed this when we went to the store. "This is what you're wearing."

JJ (00:04:59): Oh, fantastic. Okay, a green suit. I love that. So...

MB (00:05:02): I don't know. By the time I was working in the store, did I still have the green suit? Maybe. But where...

JJ (00:05:07): Where is that green suit now? That's the...

MB (00:05:09): Somewhere deep in the archives. It's going to be in the Marc Bridge Memorial Museum someday. My mother has tried for years to get rid of all of the things, and I don't know where she is in that process of purging, but I think the green suit has probably gone on to greener pastures by now.

JJ (00:05:27): I hope it's still alive and well.

MB (00:05:28): I hope somebody's enjoying it. I hope there are generations of bar mitzvah boys who have worn that same drag ball of a suit.

JJ (00:05:35): It's a rite of passage. It was a suit of passage.

MB (00:05:37): Exactly. So I'm trying to remember... I remember that the first thing I got really excited to buy, I found a Hugo Boss Blazer on sale. There was a Barneys store in Seattle at the time.

JJ (00:05:54): RIP.

MB (00:05:55): Yeah, of blessed memory. And to go in there and find something that was probably 70% off or something at the time was still way beyond what any 14-, 15-, or 16-year-old should be wearing. But I thought that was pretty cool.

JJ (00:06:13): That's a big moment. Yeah. So at 14, you're in your big suit, your big green suit. Where do you go from there?

MB (00:06:21): Where do I go from there in terms of the jewelry business?

JJ (00:06:23): Yes, in the business.

MB (00:06:25): So I spent from 14 through, I mean, really through 25, 26, sort of working in between school, graduated from high school in Seattle, went off to college in St. Louis, went to graduate school in London, spent a couple of years in London, which was fabulous. I came home and went to law school, all to do the same thing I would have done had I dropped out of high school, which was to go into the family jewelry business. And so I joined in a full-time capacity after I passed the bar in 2009 and then spent a decade as the minister without portfolio in a family jewelry business.

JJ (00:07:10): Oh, I like that—a minister without portfolio. And so what made you feel like that?

MB (00:07:14): Because you do all of the things that either no one knows how to do or is willing to do. And so they go, "All right, we have this problem. Who do we have to solve it? Give it to Marc." "Okay, here's this other thing. Here's this thing that we should be doing." So I was corporate secretary and corporate counsel and head of visual merchandising and head of marketing and head of e-commerce and store construction and real estate and legal and all of these bizarre things, some of which I had qualifications for, others of which I had absolutely no business doing. They throw you in, and you go, "Alright, now you're going to figure it out." So that's those sort of sink-or-swim moments, and I had a lot of fun with it.

JJ (00:08:03): Then there was a moment, though, when you kind of took a step back, correct? From the business, and you went out on your own, right? Or not went out and started At Present, but you took a step back to think about what you wanted to do.

MB (00:08:15): Yeah. Well, the thought had always been that my sister and I would run that business when our father retired. And he came to us one day and said, "Alright, it's time." The family actually sold the business during that period to Warren Buffett, to Berkshire Hathaway. And so it was a family business in some ways, and in other ways, it was not. And Dad said, "Alright, put your business plan together. We're going to go to Omaha to see Uncle Warren and effectuate this transition plan that we've been talking about for three and a half decades." And I had been thinking about this for a long time and spending a lot of time looking at the world and the market and where I thought the opportunities were.

MB (00:09:04): Then I was evaluating, "Alright, do you take this existing model, this existing enterprise, and try to pursue some of these new opportunities? Or is it an opportunity to start something new?" Ultimately, I decided, both for the opportunity and for the challenge that I wanted for myself, that I think it's more fun to start something new. It's hard to take a big, existing ship with a lot of momentum and find new things and move it in a different direction. I kept seeing all of these things that I loved in the world—all of these amazing artists, all of these beautiful pieces—and it never worked with those in our hundred mall-based jewelry stores, where you have to cater to a very broad audience. In the legacy business, we sold all the foundational elements that people should have. We sold diamond stud earrings and Rolex submariners—the building blocks of a collection. I think about it a little bit like the...

JJ (00:10:16): Oh, thank you.

MB (00:10:16): It actually looks very pretty.

JJ (00:10:18): Oh, delicious. Oh, yes, thank you. Yeah.

MB (00:10:26): Beautiful. Thank you so much.

MB (00:10:30): Think about it like buying a pair of 501s and a great t-shirt. You should absolutely have those things. Those are foundational, and they will be evergreen. And then you want something fun to layer on top of it—something that is expressive of your style. It was very hard to find those things, and that was really the birth of At Present. It was this idea of, "Could we find the most exciting, the most interesting emerging and artistic jewelry designers, and could we be that matchmaker between them and the people who are like, 'Okay, show me something different. Show me something cool. Show me something that marks this moment in my life.'"

JJ (00:11:17): Which is exciting. I think, and we've talked about this before too, and I've talked about this with other people and other jewelry designers. Right now, this present moment, it feels like jewelry is super exciting. Not to say that it has not always been, but at this particular moment, jewelry feels so novel, so important. I think especially in this very chaotic time, it feels even more important in a way. And I think At Present, even the name itself, is such a beautiful sentiment. You said that you want to be a matchmaker for people to great jewelry, but you also want to celebrate these people in their present. So, can you talk to me about why you think, at this very moment, jewelry is so important? I mean, I think that’s...

MB (00:12:00): Preaching to the choir here, yeah.

JJ (00:12:02): But tell me about that. And then also, I mean, I think it's important also to talk through the name At Present. It's such an impactful story, and I think it's really important.

MB (00:12:11): Yeah, no, I think that's exactly right. It's really sort of playing off of that idea of what was missing in the world. The traditional business was built on these prescribed occasions, and it was generally a major advertising campaign telling a man, "You need to buy this shiny object for your female partner for these reasons. If you want to celebrate Valentine's Day, if you want to get married, if you want to celebrate a round-number birthday or anniversary, we have this particular thing for you." And there's something uniquely powerful about those gifts of love, and that is the foundation of the jewelry business. But it fundamentally misses just how powerful these objects are because it says you have to wait for impossibly perfect life moments, and you have to wait to be worthy of somebody else giving them to you.

MB (00:13:18): And I think both of those things are both anachronistic and kind of problematic, and they miss an opportunity for self-expression. And I think that's where you start talking about things that are really fun. So much of what you saw in the world was based on trying to sell somebody something to give. So do I really know what she's going to like? Well, I can't go wrong with this. If you're buying something for yourself, you get to lean really hard into the things that you love. And so the notion of At Present is about celebrating right now. It's a little bit of taking the idea of "A diamond is forever," which is sort of this old-world concept, and flipping it on its head. These things are enduring, but that's actually not the point. The point is not that this needs to be worthy of all time; it needs to be worthy of today. And today's the only place that we get to live. So, celebrate that.

JJ (00:14:22): Like I said, I think jewelry is so exciting and really important right now. But I think let's get even more micro about it, maybe. What are the specific things that you're seeing in the jewelry market? I know you were in Vegas; it looked amazing. What is really exciting you right now? What should everyone be keeping their eyes on and shopping for? That's the most important thing. What should people buy?

MB (00:14:46): Exactly. Let's get down to brass tacks here. We are excited about color. Maybe it's summer, maybe it's all the creativity that we're seeing, but I just like things that make me happy. So, bright colors. We're here in New York because we're doing a launch tonight with Fry Powers, one of our newest partners, who just has this bright, happy, and very contemporary and expressive view of the world. I think that's something we've seen a lot of. We've seen a lot of people playing with cool materials; we've seen a lot of things in blown glass that have done really well for us. You did a shoot with this very cool fish ring from Lizzie Fortunato that was like the runaway hit of the summer. Blown glass pieces from Keane, these really cool fruits from Notte, have done great for us in the last six months. It's just like these little bits of "Ah, okay."

JJ (00:15:54): Yeah, it just feels like, it seems from what you're saying, that the jewelry that's really popular right now has a sense of character. It's a little novel, which is really important. I think it's really interesting. And then let's even go a step further in terms of the jewelry. If I were trying to build out my collection right now, can you tell me what are the five pieces that you think everyone should have? Like, base level, I want to get into jewelry. I don't know where to start. These are the five things. Maybe let's do three.

MB (00:16:27): Five seems daunting. We'll start with three and see where we end up. I think that having a statement necklace is really foundational. Here is something that you can play with in a lot of different ways. We've seen layering continue to be a very strong trend, but it is, "Alright, here is my base piece, and here are the things that I'm dressing up or down around it." So having something strong as a base there. We see that fun, multiple ear piercings, people love doing different things, creating really cool stacks continues to be really, really strong. So, are there some of those elements that you're going to want to wear and never take off? I think people like both the really durable pieces but also like, "Alright, here's something that's fun. Here's something that's colorful." Rainbows are doing really well in earrings. So, I think an awesome necklace, an ear stack, and then, I dunno, I've been very excited about bracelets recently.

JJ (00:17:43): Oh yeah, I love a bracelet. I just got an amazing bracelet that I'm very excited about.

MB (00:17:44): From whom? Do you have it on right now?

JJ (00:17:51): Yeah, so this is a piece from James Banks.

JJ (00:17:53): For the audience, I'm taking a picture. It's really nice. It's really nice and sturdy.

MB (00:17:56): So, James Banks is a partnership between our friends Adam Shulman and Heidi Fink Nasher. Adam is here in New York, and Heidi...

JJ (00:18:06): It's very nice. Wave for the...

MB (00:18:09): ...is in Northern California. Everything that they do has some degree of movement or some degree of function. They do locks. This is a version they call "the vault," and it's actually made in part by a locksmith. You can see that there's actually a key element to it.

JJ (00:18:32): Wow. Okay, beautiful.

MB (00:18:35): So, as you put it on, you spin that, and that's the lock.

JJ (00:18:39): Which leads me to the next question: Should you take off your jewelry, or can you wear it in the shower? Can you sleep in it? Can you go in the ocean? What are your jewelry recommendations for taking care of your jewelry?

MB (00:18:54): I think it depends on what it is. Something that is gold and diamonds is very durable, so that's something you can wear all the time. If it's comfortable to sleep in it, by all means. You might want to clean it every once in a while if you're showering in it, but there's no reason you couldn't. There are some materials that you should be more cautious about. If you start talking about softer stones, if you're talking about opals, if you're talking about emeralds, if you're talking about things that are not as durable, those are things that you probably shouldn't be in the hot tub with or jumping in the ocean with.

JJ (00:19:37): Also, this is more of a selfish question, so I wear...

MB (00:19:44): It's your lunch; you can ask whatever you like.

JJ (00:19:45): I can do it. If this is my thing, I can do whatever I want.

MB (00:19:47): The benefit of having your own show.

JJ (00:19:49): Yes. So, my birthstone is a pearl. I feel like everyone... for the audience, my birthday's in June, so my birthstone is a pearl, and I always wear a pearl on this pendant. Should I be taking off this necklace every day because of the pearl?

MB (00:20:09): A pearl is definitely a piece that you want to be more careful with.

JJ (00:20:13): Yikes!

MB (00:20:14): So it depends on what you're doing. If you're rock climbing, you probably don't want it smacking against the wall. Is there any problem sleeping with it? No, the pearl came from the ocean originally, so I wouldn't be as concerned about that going in the water. But...

JJ (00:20:34): Oh, so showering with it is fine?

MB (00:20:38): If you're talking about water, it's fine. The things that you want to worry about are the other things—the soaps and the shampoos and all of those things could be problematic for your pearl. I think they often say with pearls, it's the first thing that comes off and the last thing that goes on. Hairspray is not something that you want to get on your pearl.

MB (00:21:00): So I would be a little bit more careful with your pearl. It's probably not the answer that you're looking for.

JJ (00:21:05): No. Oh, that's good for me.

MB (00:21:08): But you decide if this is the patina that you want. "I want this to be..." I think that's also part of the notion of our ethos—these are things that are meant to be lived in. One of the things that's been problematic about the way in which jewelry has been made so precious is that it's like, "Oh no, no, that's just something for fancy occasions." And people keep it in the safe, keep it in the drawer, and then have nowhere to wear it. It breaks my heart because these are pieces that are meant to be lived in. I'm a firm believer that a piece of jewelry is the least valuable at the moment when you buy it. It is through the life that it has living with you that it really achieves its value.

JJ (00:21:55): That's an amazing sentiment. I agree. I totally agree with you. The sentiment that jewelry should be bought to be lived in, but I'd never thought of it as it doesn't gain its value until you start living in it, which I think is a beautiful thing to think about. It gives more life to the piece, which is really special. I think it makes it even more personal. I think that's the other beautiful thing about jewelry. I mean, I love clothes; I adore clothes. But there does feel like there's something a bit more personal about jewelry and more timeless because you're not going to toss it away with the changing winds of trends and whatnot. I'm guessing you feel the same way.

MB (00:22:44): Yes. People often ask me, "Should I invest in jewelry? Is jewelry a good investment?" And I have to ask them, "What do you mean by investment?" If you mean, "Is this something that is going to provide you with an enormous amount of joy and satisfaction and gratitude and appreciation?" I can't think of anything that is a higher-yielding investment. If it's a question of, "Can I resell this to somebody at some point?" I have no idea. I have no idea what the price of gold is going to do. I have no idea what the price of diamonds is going to do. But I have 100% confidence that something you wear as part of your life will be more valuable to you and to the people in your life at some point down the line, without question.

JJ (00:23:37): I have another somewhat selfish question, but I think this is also really interesting. Could you explain how value is attached to a diamond or the price of gold? How do they determine that pricing? Or is this a secret?

MB (00:23:56): No, I mean, I think it's supply and demand, right? This is the foundation of any price. I went to graduate school in economics, so these sorts of questions about "What is something worth?" are really, really interesting to me. It's this balance between how many of these things exist in the world, how hard it is to get more of them, and how many people want it and at what rate they value it. There are lots of things that are very rare that have absolutely no value because nobody cares.

JJ (00:24:35): Like what?

MB (00:24:36): Oh, I dunno. I'm sure you could find all sorts of, "Here is a particular mineral; here's a particular gemstone that is found in one place in the world, and there are only six of them, but it's not very attractive. Nobody's ever done anything with it." So, like, okay, take it or leave it. Where the magic happens is where there is something that is limited and people go, "Oh, this is actually very cool; I want this." So it is subject to the vagaries of the market. Diamonds are an interesting example. In the natural diamond world, these are things that developed in the earth over hundreds of millions or billions of years and are found in places where they are very difficult to extract. So there's a limited supply of diamonds that you can find at a prevailing market price. Then you have everything that's happening in the lab-grown diamond market, which has completely changed the value equation because you can effectively print these in a factory.

MB (00:25:50): I'm kind of fascinated at the moment by the question of, "Are these the same thing?" You would think it's an objective question, but it's actually not. "Is it the same thing?" Well, objectively, it is the same material—this is carbon, it's crystallized carbon, and it has a very similar or identical atomic structure. It was made over a very short period of time in a warehouse using a lot of electricity. Here's something that is chemically identical that was made in the earth, spit out by a volcano, and extracted with great care and attention. Are those the same thing? I don't know.

JJ (00:26:42): There are so many... It's really interesting you say that because I think lab-grown is such a growing industry. There are so many brands popping up that are solely focusing on lab-grown.

MB (00:26:54): You can do lots of really cool things when all of a sudden it's not thousands of dollars for a carat of diamonds. It's actually an opening for great creative expression.

JJ (00:27:06): Are the lab-grown diamonds affecting the price of natural diamonds?

MB (00:27:11): The answer seems to be that nobody really knows. There has been an enormous amount of market share taken by lab-grown diamonds. But the primary trend in the market has been that the price... We're talking about, "Alright, what is the value of something?" and that being the product of supply and demand. Demand has gone up for lab-grown diamonds, but the supply has gone up enormously more. So if you look at the price of lab-grown diamonds over the course of the last 10 years, it's dropped by a factor of 90 or 95%.

MB (00:27:50): So therein lies that investment question. "Is that a good investment?" If you bought a diamond to propose to somebody that you love, the value of that diamond is very strong. If you were trying to go out and sell that diamond today, well, you're probably not going to get what you paid for it if it's a lab-grown diamond. So, a good investment or a bad investment? I have bought a lot of jewelry in my life for myself, for my wife, and for lots of people in my life. I've never sold anything. I don't have any...

JJ (00:28:19): You've kept it all. How do you store it all? Do you have loads of jewelry? How do you store all that jewelry?

MB (00:28:25): The vault that Scrooge McDuck was swimming around in.

JJ (00:28:29): You just have that in your basement.

MB (00:28:30): That's very similar. That's where my children and my dog play. I dunno.

JJ (00:28:35): Wow. Also, I guess...

MB (00:28:37): The point being that I have no idea what the market value is for that. If I think about my personal balance sheet, that is not a monetary asset. If I think about my emotional balance sheet, it's a very strong asset. These are pieces of great value. Just thinking about all the things I'm wearing... My grandfather recently gave me some cufflinks.

MB (00:29:03): And these are... So, my grandfather, in the seventies and eighties, was a very strong believer that men should wear diamonds.

JJ (00:29:13): That's so, I feel, counterculture, especially in the seventies.

MB (00:29:17): Totally. And he was particularly of the belief that if you are going to sell diamonds, you should wear diamonds. He's still happily alive, but he doesn't get dressed up anymore. He doesn't put on a suit and tie, he doesn't wear a tuxedo anymore.

JJ (00:29:34): Even though you're wearing a suit right now.

MB (00:29:35): I do, but he doesn't. And I wear suits a lot less often than I used to. But he gave me this beautiful set of cufflinks and matching tuxedo studs, and he goes, "Would you wear these?" I said, "Absolutely, I would wear these." I have no idea what he paid for it; I have no idea what the price of gold or the price of diamonds was at that point, but I know that this is something that he wore while he was building his jewelry business. So as I build a jewelry business, that's very powerful for me.

JJ (00:30:08): And then, also, what watch are you wearing? I feel like you talked about watches because your family started in watches. I feel like we have to also mention what watch you're wearing.

MB (00:30:16): So I love watches, and I actually wrote a dissertation on the history of Swiss watchmaking.

JJ (00:30:22): Is it available for everyone to read?

MB (00:30:24): I can send it to you if you would like to share it.

JJ (00:30:26): I would love to.

MB (00:30:27): It's actually a really interesting story, which is not what you asked, but I'll give you the synopsis of it. Watches, particularly high-end Swiss mechanical watches, are objectively inferior to every other means of timekeeping.

JJ (00:30:46): How so?

MB (00:30:46): So we're talking about objective versus subjective value. We have iPhones sitting on the table here that tell far better time than my watch.

JJ (00:31:00): Oh, really?

MB (00:31:01): Yes, by orders of magnitude. Timekeeping is fascinating. You're getting an unsolicited thesis today on the history of timekeeping, but that is what you're going to get. In order to keep time, all you need is something to happen at a constant rate. If you think about it, sundials kept time because the sun rises and sets at a constant rate, so we can organize our day around that. Traditional watchmaking was about using all these moving parts and gears and springs to tell time. The fun thing about this is a mechanical watch I'm holding up—this is my Patek Nautilus, which was my 30th birthday present to myself.

MB (00:31:55): You can see the... Oh wow, that's really fun. The gold thing that's spinning around there is called the rotor. This is an automatic mechanical watch, meaning that it is winding a spring, and the spring gets let out. You can see there's a little wheel there that's oscillating, and that lets out that spring at a constant rate. That's what turns it into the keeping of time. For centuries, this was the process of timekeeping. You had lots of people working in lots of little workshops, most famously in Switzerland, right? In France, in England, and in all the more industrialized countries, and in the United States, trying to find better ways of measuring time that way. Then, starting in the 1950s and 1960s, they used quartz crystals oscillating and little microcomputers to be able to count how often the quartz crystal was oscillating. It was orders of magnitude more accurate than these mechanical pieces.

MB (00:33:05): So my research was about how this should have destroyed traditional watchmaking. These things were bought because they were accurate. Someone created a more accurate way of doing this, rendering this completely obsolete, except they stuck around. What they represent is not the accuracy of timekeeping; it's a piece of jewelry. Someone once described it as a piece of jewelry that has a functional alibi. "I need to wear this because it tells me the time." There's a clock on the wall, two clocks on our phones, and a clock on my computer when I'm sitting at my desk, but "Yeah, this is what I really need in order to tell time."

MB (00:33:51): What it turned out is there's something more interesting at play here, which is that these are pieces of art, these are pieces of craftsmanship, these are things that tell a story about who I am, about who I want to be, about what community I want to be a member of, about my appreciation for a long craft history. My obsession with mechanical watches very much comes out of that.

JJ (00:34:19): Well, I'm so excited to definitely read this dissertation.

MB (00:34:21): I will send it to you. Let me know what you think.

JJ (00:34:24): So when it comes to clothing, besides jewelry, what are you looking towards? What are you shopping for? You have a very nice collection of pieces I'm putting together.

MB (00:34:37): I like things that... It's similar to jewelry. I like things that have a story. I don't know the makers in clothing the same way that I know the makers of jewelry. When I buy jewelry, I buy it from people I know and whose worldview I'm sympathetic with. Whether it's Adam Shulman with my bracelet or these rings, which are both made by my friend Lauren Detelli, who's this extraordinary goldsmith in Hermosa Beach, California. I just like their outlook on the world. I think the same thing is true when I'm thinking about clothing, accessories, or shoes, which is another kind of black hole of...

JJ (00:35:22): Are you a big shoe person?

MB (00:35:23): I love shoes.

JJ (00:35:24): Oh, what shoes are you wearing right now?

MB (00:35:26): I am wearing some Alden Cordovan.

JJ (00:35:29): Oh, fantastic. And they're a nice black, right?

MB (00:35:33): Yeah, they're kind of sort of... there's a maroon or something. There's some color that they get very excited about.

JJ (00:35:43): I see you're also not wearing socks. Have you seen the big debate about socks versus no socks?

MB (00:35:50): Yeah. And I don't know, generationally you and I might be on different ends of the spectrum on this. I saw this was the great, in this world full of division. This is the key division in culture now is...

JJ (00:36:01): So I'm guessing you're a no-socks person.

MB (00:36:03): I'm a no-socks person during the summer, and maybe it's because I live in Seattle, where most of the time you have to be bundled up. I definitely had a sock era, like...

JJ (00:36:17): The crazy funky socks.

MB (00:36:18): Yeah, I was in London during the Paul Smith stripe sock era. I have a drawer full of Paul Smith stripe socks, which still, again, are things that make you happy and have color. But if there's an opportunity for me to wear loafers when it's 90 degrees outside without socks, I take great delight in that.

JJ (00:36:41): This may surprise you, but I actually prefer no socks.

MB (00:36:46): But you're a sandal person, right?

JJ (00:36:47): I love a sandal, but even with a loafer or... It also depends on the outfit. Somack, who I interviewed too, who is the creative director of Alex Mill, we talked about socks as well because he used to be the assistant to the sock designer back at J. Crew when he first started. Which I didn't even know that was a...

MB (00:37:09): Great title. I know.

JJ (00:37:10): I'm like, these titles are kind of fantastic, but we were talking about socks, like...

MB (00:37:16): George Costanza, right?

JJ (00:37:17): Yeah, it's like who came up with it? The sock really can make or break an outfit because if you're wearing a pattern sock, which I'm not a big fan of, it has to be a solid color, but it can really elevate or really take down the outfit. It's a really high-stakes choice to make or break an outfit. So if possible, I can get away with no socks. I love no socks and not those little socks that are no-show. I don't like those.

MB (00:37:52): They don't work very well. The concept is intriguing, but I have never found those. And I'm like, yes, I feel better wearing these.

JJ (00:37:58): They always fall off your foot. You should just not wear socks. Okay.

MB (00:38:03): And I read somewhere recently, it was funny, I was thinking about this and I said, "What is the story?" Everybody's like, "It's going to be bad for your shoe." And somewhere I read—and I have no idea if this is true—that if you have something that's made out of a nice leather, the leather will breathe. The real problem is if you are sweating in something that is not real quality. Whatever, I have no idea if that's true, but I like that as a story. And that's my justification for continuing to buy nice shoes.

JJ (00:38:30): I love that. I am going to carry on that.

MB (00:38:34): Stories are better when you don't know whether they have any veracity to them.

JJ (00:38:38): So outside of the fashion of jewelry, what else? What is your perfect day outside of the responsibilities of running a business and shopping? Because it seems like...

MB (00:38:50): Shopping is the most important. That is the most important responsibility.

JJ (00:38:52): Shopping...

MB (00:38:54): Somewhere in there, I do attempt to spend time and take care of my children.

JJ (00:39:00): How many kids do you have?

MB (00:39:02): I have two kids. I have an 8-year-old son and a 4-year-old daughter. They're utterly delightful and very amusing. But my perfect day... I have a perhaps unnatural love for really long plane flights.

JJ (00:39:23): Really?

MB (00:39:23): Yes.

JJ (00:39:24): Have you gone to Australia?

MB (00:39:26): I have never been to Australia. I have been to Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, but I have never been to Australia.

JJ (00:39:34): So what's the longest flight? Is it to China, I'm guessing?

MB (00:39:37): So I went at the beginning of this year to the Middle East and I flew from Seattle to Dubai. It's 14 and a half hours. My perfect day is getting on a very long flight with a very large stack of periodicals. I love magazines, I love newspapers, and if I could sit on a plane for 14, 18 hours and just be totally isolated from the world—the incursion of wifi onto airplanes has sort of ruined my perfect day because it used to be that you weren't even taunted or tempted to check in and look at email and see if there's something on Slack. There was nothing that I could do other than sit here and read my giant stack of magazines. But that's my happy place.

JJ (00:40:31): A plane. What is your preferred plane? Because I'm slowly getting into... I went to an astrologer, random fact, I went to an astrologer for the first time this year, which was very scary because of how I grew up—very religious and it was a big taboo. So the astrologer told me that in my chart she saw moving and she saw travel, which so far it's happening. There is travel happening. So what's your preferred flight? But also, do you have any travel secrets? What's the Marc 101 of flying?

MB (00:41:10): This is, I dunno, maybe embarrassing to admit, but one of my great passions is travel planning and particularly travel planning using airline and credit card miles. I spend a disproportionate amount of time trying to find great deals to go somewhere. I would take a trip just because I found a great ticket using airline miles to go somewhere. So I plan lots of trips, the vast majority of which I never take.

JJ (00:41:45): What do you mean?

MB (00:41:46): Different people have different outlets for stress and relaxation. Planning travel, for whatever reason, is one of my things I love.

JJ (00:41:55): So do you book everything, or do you just plan?

MB (00:41:59): Sometimes I book them, and then they just never go. Yeah, they'll cancel it.

JJ (00:42:02): Okay, alright. Do you ever just give it away to someone? Like, "Hey, I just planned this. I don't feel like going. Do you want to go?"

MB (00:42:09): I should at some point. It's harder to rebook because you asked for all the details on this. To change the name on it is actually not easy.

JJ (00:42:16): Oh, really?

MB (00:42:17): What you're saying is maybe I should just start booking trips in your name.

JJ (00:42:20): That would fulfill the prophecy of the astrologer.

MB (00:42:23): We need to make sure that the astrologer gets paid off here.

JJ (00:42:25): Yes, yes, yes.

MB (00:42:27): No, I mean, I have been really fortunate to travel to a lot of different places, and I like walking around. So, what is the rest of the perfect day? Take the long flight. I get somewhere, preferably a big city, and I have no plans other than walking out the front door and seeing what I find along the way. That's one of the reasons I love New York. You never know what you're going to find when you're walking down the street. I love Tokyo. I love that, both as a city and so many cool things about Japanese culture. My guess is that you would probably find great satisfaction in that.

JJ (00:43:09): After I had my astrology reading, I also got a tarot reading.

MB (00:43:13): And how similar were they?

JJ (00:43:15): They were pretty similar. My astrology one, I was more like, "This is what I want to talk about." It was three big things. We only had an hour. The tarot reading was much longer, and I was just like, "Tell me what you see in the cards." And she told me not to go to Tokyo because I'll never come back. And I was like, I don't know. Is that...

MB (00:43:34): And is that a good thing or a bad thing? If you find goodness, then...

JJ (00:43:40): I was like, that kind of sounds fantastic. Great shopping. I've heard fantastic things about the shopping, the subcultures. My boyfriend's mother used to travel a lot for work as well, and every time we get on the topic of travel, she's always like, "Jalil, you have to go to Tokyo," because of everything you said. It's like the people take everything to the next level. There's such a, I guess it's curation. Yeah, because there's an appreciation for it. It's like there's such a level of appreciation for it that is beautiful to see.

MB (00:44:14): And there's a definition or sort of a commitment to craft that I think is different than in a lot of other places. Have you ever seen the documentary "Jiro Dreams of Sushi"?

JJ (00:44:28): No.

MB (00:44:29): You haven't seen this? This is one of the greats. If you are a fan of commitment to a craft, this is the story of—I think he's still alive—this guy's name is Jiro Ono, who has a very small sushi counter in the subway station in Ginza. This was the first sushi restaurant in the world to receive three Michelin stars. This is someone who has spent their entire life perfecting a singular craft. This documentary, which came out 10 or 15 years ago, does such a beautiful job of demonstrating what it means to be this committed to doing a particular thing. I don't generally like sweeping cultural generalizations, but that seems to be more prominent in Japanese culture than in a lot of other cultures—a sort of commitment to, "This is the thing that I do, and I'm going to keep incrementally improving on it for every day of my life." You just see a lot of those kinds of things.

JJ (00:45:40): It's amazing. Well, this has been such a fascinating conversation. I feel like I learned a lot about jewelry. I hope everyone else learned a lot about jewelry. And, of course, since this is "Consider Yourself Cultured," we have three questions.

MB (00:45:54): Before we get to that, you offered that I can ask you questions.

JJ (00:45:56): Okay. Yes.

MB (00:45:57): You asked a really interesting question about basically why jewelry matters. I feel like I am in Seattle, surrounded by a lot of very practical tech people who are like, "Alright, these are the things that we do that are based on reason." They go, "What you are doing is gratuitous. It is superficial." Clearly, I don't believe that, insofar as I have dedicated my life to it. But why does what we do matter?

JJ (00:46:40): That's a great question.

JJ (00:46:46): I think, actually, yes, there is a frivolity to all of this—the clothing, everything. There is a frivolousness to it; there isn't a true necessity to it. But that doesn't mean it doesn't matter. I think it matters because, specifically if I think about jewelry, I think jewelry can carry such a history. When I think about jewelry, I think of heirlooms, and the idea of an heirloom is to pass something down, to keep the family alive, to keep a memory alive. I think that is very important; I think it's priceless. You can't put a price on things like that. Also, I think it's expression. You talked about the man in the gray flannel suit, which Thom Browne has so wonderfully subverted. It's fighting against conformity. I think especially in this day and age right now, where I think about what's happening in the world, there is this push for people to conform to an idea, to conform to a look.

JJ (00:47:49): I think that jewelry, fashion, and all these elements, at their best, fight against that. Because without individuality—and, of course, you can debate what that means and whatever—but without individuality, where do we progress in a culture? We don't move the needle forward if we're all looking and dressing and thinking the same thing. In order for change to happen, which is the root of fashion and the root of jewelry, there is a change built into it. You have to have individuality. I think that's where fashion and all these things come into play. Yes, there is a frivolous element to it because you need clothes, of course, to survive. But in the reality of this...

MB (00:48:37): Probably not the clothes that we're talking about.

JJ (00:48:39): This is...

MB (00:48:40): It's not primarily shielding us from the elements.

JJ (00:48:42): No. In fact, I am exposing myself to the elements in what I'm wearing right now. But it makes me happy. I am also wearing it because it's a small designer, Henry Zankov. I think what he's doing is really important, and he has such a storied history. So to wear his piece, it's to show that to the world and everything like that. And I'm wearing Fry Powers. I'm wearing this beautiful heart ring.

MB (00:49:04): Love that ring. Yeah, it's a...

JJ (00:49:05): It's a cocktail ring, which I feel is very vintage, which I love—vintage. I think that's also really important to bring to the present. It's full of color, and it just is really happy. It just makes me really happy. And that's, I think, also the important thing about life. I think that clothing, I think jewelry, there's happiness. Why would you buy something if there's a note of sadness? These are things to make us happy, not necessarily to forget or not think about what's happening in the world, but to the point of At Present, to celebrate where we are right now. And that is my answer.

MB (00:49:48): That's great.

JJ (00:49:50): I think I did a lot of circles, but at the root of it, these things are important because they help us get through the day.

MB (00:49:58): It's so interesting. We launched At Present in the summer of 2020, and we were building this during chapter one of COVID. When this started, we were cooking this up just as the whole world fell apart. We asked, "Is this the thing that we should be working on right now?" from a couple of perspectives. One, there are bigger and more important problems in the world. And two, when the world falls apart, what do people stop buying? These sorts of discretionary items. We looked at it and said, "We still think that in the long run, this is the kind of thing that people want to buy, and this is the way in which they're going to shop." So we proceeded—maybe we went a little bit slower. And then a funny thing happened: it was the best time in the world to be in the jewelry business because nobody had anything else to spend money on.

MB (00:51:03): They were looking for doses of joy. They weren't traveling, they weren't going out to eat, they weren't getting dressed most of the time. But your entire world consisted of a Zoom rectangle, and having an awesome pair of earrings was just a little bit of solace in the midst of a world that felt totally chaotic and horrible. We saw extraordinary success right out of the gate because we were offering these little packages of joy. In those moments when checking to see whether you got a package was the most exciting activity of the day, we were the bringers of goodness.

JJ (00:51:44): Yes, those packages... I mean, I love shopping, but during COVID, I shopped more than I've ever shopped before, and it's amazing. Do you have any other questions before...

MB (00:51:58): No, no, you have...

JJ (00:51:59): That's the one question.

MB (00:52:03): ...but I like your answer a lot.

JJ (00:52:05): Oh, thank you. Thank you. So I have three final questions to wrap up that I ask everyone to wrap up every interview. The first one is, who is the most cultured person?

MB (00:52:20): The question I should have asked you is what does it mean to be cultured? Because it's such an interesting concept, but do I have to answer your question before I ask my follow-up?

JJ (00:52:30): I'll tell you right now because then that might help you. I think that's also the point of the newsletter. I think culture can mean something different to different people. I don't want my definition of culture to inform other people. I hope that what people get out of the newsletter and this podcast is that they leave with something they didn't know or with a different perspective. So I will let you determine what your idea of culture is to inform your answers.

MB (00:53:10): I think the most cultured person that I know has to be my grandmother. We grew up next door to my grandparents, and their house was in between our house and the bus stop. I spent pretty much every afternoon growing up with my grandmother. My grandmother is this brilliant, polymathic person who has such a broad frame of reference on everything. She is a philosopher and a theologian and loves collecting art. She introduced me to the world of ideas and manifested a curiosity and enthusiasm about curiosity that I think has been one of the animating elements of my life. So many of my frames of reference just come from her. She is 92 years old, still sharp as a whip, and has a depth and appreciation and love of the world unlike anybody that I have ever met. So I think that's beautiful. That's a definition of culture that I would hope to emulate in my life.

JJ (00:54:34): I think it's amazing. The next question is, what is your latest cultural obsession?

MB (00:54:42): When we watch TV, we watch a lot of bad TV.

JJ (00:54:47): Define bad TV.

MB (00:54:48): Well, I guess there's bad TV, and then there's really bad TV. I can't do any of the reality shows. So if that's its own category of special, that's... I can't do that. But we just finished the most recent season of Outer Banks, which I think is really silly and really enjoyed that. The other thing that I just watched that I loved recently—do you know the comedian John Mulaney?

JJ (00:55:21): Yes, love him.

MB (00:55:22): He did this unbelievably bizarre show on Netflix. There were six episodes of this at the beginning of May called "Everybody's in L.A."

JJ (00:55:25): Yes, yes.

MB (00:55:27): Have you seen this?

JJ (00:55:28): I have not seen it, but I've heard people have raved about it.

MB (00:55:30): You're just watching this, and it's just pure absurdism, and it's absolutely brilliant. I haven't seen anything in a long time that gave me so much amusement as watching this variety show of chaos that he masterminded.

JJ (00:55:42): That's amazing. And then the last question—and I'll also add that to my list because you're not the first person that's recommended it, so I need to watch it now. The last question is a three-parter: What should everyone read, watch, and listen to in order to consider themselves cultured?

MB (00:56:02): The "read" part is challenging for me because for much of my life, I have been a news junkie. To the point about my happy place being with a stack of magazines and newspapers, if I had my happy thing, if I had six daily newspapers that I could read in physical form, I would love that. I think that's probably part of being cultured, which is being involved in the culture. Honestly, I've just found everything going on in the world to be very oppressive. I have a hard time emotionally handling all of the inputs that once were very interesting and very central to my world. I will say that I actually think that is a key part of being an engaged member of the polity. It breaks my heart because that's just something that I can't do with the degree of fervor that I would like to be able to.

JJ (00:57:10): So is that going to be your "read"? Is your read still the newspaper, even though...?

MB (00:57:15): Yeah.

JJ (00:57:15): Okay. So any particular newspaper or just any newspaper?

MB (00:57:22): I have a certain love of all things British, so I actually still get the Financial Times in paper form at home. I think I'm the last person in the world that still gets the salmon-colored paper.

JJ (00:57:37): It's a beautiful color.

MB (00:57:38): It's a great color. To sit with the weekend FT—if I have two hours on a Saturday, if I'm not on an 18-hour flight—if I can make a cup of tea and sit and read the weekend FT from cover to cover, I can feel like I am globally cultured after that.

JJ (00:57:55): Oh, fantastic. So reading the Financial Times, I do adore it. It's very elevated. And then what should everyone watch?

MB (00:58:08): I would recommend that John Mulaney show as something to watch. Does that make you generally cultured? I don't know.

JJ (00:58:14): It seems like it's a part of culture.

MB (00:58:16): It's a part of culture. I don't know if there's anything on a higher level that is emblematic of culture at the moment.

JJ (00:58:27): I think that's perfect. And then what should everyone listen to?

MB (00:58:30): I am a big fan of podcasts. Some of my best friends are the hosts of a show called "Acquired," which is...

JJ (00:58:39): Oh, yes. This is an amazing show. Everyone talked about... the Hermes episode. Everyone. Yes.

MB (00:58:44): Yes. So Ben and David are very dear friends, and I think that they have done just this masterful job of storytelling. They had a great feature on the front of the Wall Street Journal maybe a month or two ago. But if people haven't listened to "Acquired," I would strongly endorse that. I also love Ezra Klein for popular events or things going on in the world. He's a New York Times columnist and has a New York Times podcast. I feel like I'm smarter every time I listen to him.

JJ (00:59:20): Yes, I would concur. I adore both of those answers. I listen to both of them. So I'm...

MB (00:59:29): We have convinced each other that we are both cultured. At least we got that.

JJ (00:59:32): I'm the most cultured. Well, no. Well, thank you so much, Marc, for being a part of this. I'm very excited. I hope everyone shops the array, shops everything. This was really informative, and I really appreciate it.

MB (00:59:44): And just to say at the end, what a joy it's been to work with you and how much fun it is to see somebody who is doing something with uniqueness and singularity of vision and voice. I just feel so grateful that we had the opportunity to find you and work with you. I'm just so delighted to see all the fun things that you create and put out into the world because you're amazing.

JJ (01:00:09): Oh, Marc. Well, thank you. The feeling's mutual. The feeling's mutual. Well, that is all. Thank you so much.

MB (01:00:14): Thank you for lunch.

I may earn some commission if you make a purchase through one of the links above.

Follow me on Instagram here!

Hello! In today’s episode of Lunch Break, my podcast where I chat with fascinating and stylish individuals over lunch, we've got another exciting conversation for you. As a paying subscriber, you’ll have access to the full interview along with today’s complete newsletter. To ensure you never miss a moment of Lunch Break, consider upgrading to a paid subscription. This not only unlocks full-length episodes but also gives you access to exclusive letters and the entire newsletter archive.

I had the pleasure of sitting down with Danielle DuBoise, co-founder of Sakara Life, which she started with her friend Whitney Tingle back in 2011. Before our interview, I had the privilege of trying out their meal delivery service. It’s a treat to have someone else do the cooking, but what really stood out to me was how the meals made me feel—this might sound odd—but I didn’t feel bad. We all know food is essential, but for many of us, eating can sometimes feel more like a burden. Danielle and Whitney’s goal with Sakara Life is to remove the guilt associated with eating. Instead of focusing on cutting portion sizes, they emphasize the quality of ingredients, ensuring every meal is packed with healthy, whole foods. Beyond just meals, they offer a variety of supplements, and they've recently introduced a Fiber Powder (which I absolutely love!) to address what Danielle calls a “fiber epidemic.”

It was a pleasure to sit down with Danielle over a meal to discuss her journey, the launch of the fiber supplement, and more!

You can find Danielle DuBoise here and you can check out Sakara Life here.

Hello! Welcome to the free preview of today’s episode of Lunch Break. If you're a paying subscriber, you should have received an additional email with the full episode. To ensure you never miss a moment of Lunch Break, consider becoming a paid subscriber. This not only grants you access to full-length episodes but also provides additional letters and full access to my entire newsletter archive.

Today's episode of Lunch Break features the talented designer Kate Hundley. I first met Kate while I was still at Saks, and I have made it a priority to follow her latest collections ever since. She is part of a new wave of designers making a significant impact in the industry, and I am thrilled to see where her journey takes her next. Rather than giving a lengthy introduction, I'll just say this: if you're looking for a new cape, the perfect dress for a gala, or a new bag, Kate’s pre-order is still open!

I've accumulated a considerable number of interviews, so instead of releasing them every other week, I'll be sharing them with you weekly from now on!

And if you have a moment, please take this survey. Your feedback helps me improve the newsletter and podcast for all of you. Now, let's dive into today's episode.

You can find Kate Hundley here and her website here.

Jalil Johnson: Hi.

Kate Hundley: Hi.

JJ: Could you please introduce yourself and who you are?

KH: I am Kate Hundley. I am a designer and I have my own collection, Kate Hundley.

JJ: Oh, fantastic. We are at... I am going to butcher how to say this.

KH: Me too, probably. It's okay.

JJ: Kate, how about you try?

KH: I'll give it a shot, and then please tell me when I'm wrong. Café Sabarsky at the... Someone told me it's Neue Galerie.

JJ:

I always thought it was The Neue (no͞o).

KH: Me too. And then I got the, "Well actually, if you want to say it like..." So, either.

JJ: Either, okay.

KH: All right.

JJ: I'm not going to attempt to say it, but it's beautiful. It's a beautiful...

KH: It's incredible.

JJ: ... wood-

JJ: Oh, hi. That was me, thank you.

Wait Staff : No, thank you.

JJ: Thank you. Such a beautiful setting. There is a table full of desserts. It's really gorgeous.

KH: Yeah.

JJ: Usually, sometimes what happens when I'm having guests on, I sometimes pick the restaurant or sometimes the guest picks the restaurant. In this case, you decided on the restaurant.

KH: Yes.

JJ: I'm very curious, what was it about this restaurant that...

KH: Total voyeuristic interest of, we've walked past a hundred times, it looks so beautiful. It's a really special place. Like going to The Met, you are escaping on your way out and you walk past it and one day you're like, "Oh, we got to go there." And we just never make it. So, here we are with you.

JJ: I'm so excited. Well, thank you for having me.

KH: Yeah.

JJ: You're a designer. I'll also tell the audience how we first met, because there's also been a transition from when I first met you to now, in terms of your collection. When I first met you, it was The Beekman Hotel.

KH: Yeah.

JJ: I think it was 2022.

KH: I think so.

JJ: The collection was very... It made me think of Nudie suits.

KH: Yeah. That was very much part of that season, yeah.

JJ: It was very rhinestone-cowboy, which we love.

KH: Yes.

JJ: But now it's taken on a very cosmopolitan look and feel.

KH: Yeah.

JJ: My first question is, (A.) What made you want to start this brand? And then I definitely want to talk about also this transition and where you see the progression of the brand going.

KH: Yeah.

JJ: My first question is, (A.) What made you want to start this brand? And then I definitely want to talk about also this transition and where you see the progression of the brand going.

KH: Sure. My background is in a bit of both apparel and accessories. I went to SCAD, Savannah College of Art and Design, and did fashion, started doing accessories, and then built more of an interest as time went on. As soon as I left, I interned at Zac Posen for a summer, which was incredible.

JJ: Amazing.

KH: And to see that level of workmanship, I got to work in the atelier, I was working with the pattern maker, it was insane. Working with the sample makers was such a good experience. And then I got more into accessories and I went to Coach. So, I had these balanced ends of what the industry can be. Going from the atelier, the super high level of craft to a bit more commercial but a bit more real in terms of what people are wearing and getting that leather experience.

But interestingly, we still had an atelier in the building, we had a workshop, so you still got to be hands-on with these people who've been making stuff for decades, who are passionate about getting the thickness of the leather just right, getting a stitch just right. It's a really special, unique experience to have in New York. And there's less of that now, but it definitely influenced wanting to create that in the future, keeping those kinds of crafts alive, keeping those jobs and those people's livelihoods alive, and the practice of doing that hands-on here.

I was at Coach for a few years and then I went over to Ralph Lauren, also doing bags. And at some point, I just really missed beautiful clothes, honestly, selfishly. And I love making things, so I started making things on my own time, making what I wanted, what I felt like was missing. That's where the collection has started.

But then, to your point of evolving from the Nudie stuff, it became a bit more of wearing the collection myself out in the world, what am I actually reaching for? And I love that crazy stuff as almost that special, one piece, but then it gets a bit tricky to wear it in real life.

JJ: Yeah.

KH: An interesting evolution. I think that stuff will come back at some point in little drips, but maybe not so full on.

JJ: Are you originally from the South?

KH: Yeah, I'm from Memphis originally.

JJ: Oh, amaz......

KH: But we moved around and I lost the accent. I kind of wish I still had it. When I talk to my mom on the phone, it comes back.

JJ: Oh, yeah. I-

KH: It's buried in there, somewhere.

JJ: It just needs a family member to bring it out of you.

KH: Yeah, some drinks.

JJ: Some of that too. I'm from the south. I'm from Virginia.

KH: Yes.

JJ: And I feel like I have done a great job of not having an accent.

KH: Oh, my gosh.

JJ: But in your same vein, when I talk to family, it comes out.

KH: Yes.

JJ: Which is quite amazing.

KH: Yeah.

JJ: From there you're now designing a collection.

KH: Yes.

JJ: Especially in the time that we're in, how does it feel to be putting pieces in the world?

KH: It's exciting, it's terrifying, but it's really gratifying.

JJ: What's terrifying you?

KH: Oh, my God. Department stores are in flux. Everyone's like, "Are we on fire?" The world, global war, there's so many things. But I think at the end of the day, we're all seeking beauty and seeking things that make us feel more like ourselves, and how to project what we want for our lives and our future on ourselves every day into the world.

JJ: My question to that is, as a young, emerging designer, do you still feel that the department stores are important to your growth? Where does that feel?

KH: It's important in terms of discovery, especially when... You meet people in New York and you find people to support you in this space, but stepping out of New York, I think it's still a great way for people to find you. I'm hoping that we are headed towards something that's a bit more cultivated and personal for the clients to find things. We're missing that point of view.

When I first moved to New York, Barneys was it. And you knew that if you went there, you were going to find something so interesting and so new, and you might learn something about yourself from it, of like, "Oh, my God. I can't believe I love this. Why do I like this?" It could send you on a discovery. But I haven't felt that way at the minute. There are some smaller stores that are doing that, which is really exciting. Like ESSX, I feel is doing that.

JJ: Yeah, for sure. With the Barneys of it all, I feel like I have to ask you, what was your first buy at Barneys? What was the first thing you bought?

KH: Oh, my gosh. I bought this Yves Saint Laurent ring. I love a big cocktail ring.

JJ: Oh, I love a cocktail ring.

KH: I think that's the Tennessee of it all, potentially. My mom used to sell antique jewelry.

JJ: Oh, man.

KH: She would drag me to all these flea markets and estate sales and just dig through piles of treasure. I have a little soft spot for a dirty flea market and some jewelry.

JJ: You design jewelry, right? Have you designed?

KH: A little bit. We've made some pieces for seasons, but I haven't really looked at making it for real for people to buy. But I want to, absolutely.

JJ: Oh, that's amazing. I'm so into jewelry right now.

KH: Yes, and you have excellent taste in jewelry.

JJ: Oh, thank you. Thank you. I try. I am obsessed with jewelry. It's my favorite thing right now. Because I feel like it can add such character to an outfit.

KH: Yes, and it becomes this little trail of where you've been...

JJ: Yes.

KH: ... of the things that you've collected at some point. Did that mean something? It's a gift. It becomes a little history.

JJ: Going back to the collections, I would love to talk about the last collection that you did. It was really beautiful and as always-

KH: Thank you.

JJ: ... an inspiration. It was really fantastic. What's the inspiration behind that? Also, as a designer with inspiration at your... Where do you go? I mean, you don't have to gatekeep where you're going.

KH: I'm definitely a homebody, so the starting point is typically Pinterest, and then we go to the Met or we go to the gallery.

JJ: That's amazing. Was that the inspiration for the last collection? What-

KH: This last collection, Peggy Guggenheim was the starting point.

……………………

JJ: Yes. I should have asked this question at the top of the podcast, but there is this question that I am taking from Plum Sykes. You might already know it, but it's a fantastic question. And the question is, what is your first experience with clothing?

KH: The first one I remember, my mom used to make everything. She's really brilliant at it. She used to make clothes for me. I was, I think it must've been four or five, I was tiny, obsessed with purple for some reason.

JJ: Really?

KH: Don't know why. Everything had to be purple.

JJ: Barney?

KH: I was obsessed. Lavender, for some reason, which is not something I pick up now but, I was obsessed. And she was like, "Fine, I'll give you some purple." I literally made a year's worth of clothing in lavender cotton, and I was just purple for two years. It was wild.

JJ: Oh, that's fantastic.

KH: Yeah.

JJ: Are there photos of the lavender year?

KH: Probably. We'll have to find them. The lavender period of my life.

JJ: The lavender period. That's so fantastic. Also, I heard, and maybe you can even tell me if this is true, back when I was at Saks, there was a person that hated purple because they said that purple does not sell well.

KH: I don't know.

JJ: Is that true?

KH: I don't think it is, but I think it's not consistent. I think there's just one of those weird, little, cultural coming-together points where everyone's suddenly ready for it in its moment, but it filters back away.

JJ: It's very hit or miss.

KH: Mm-hmm.

JJ: I think purple is actually a very hard color to get right.

KH: It is, yes. Because like you said, Barney purple, you have these connotations immediately. And if you see someone in that, you're like, "Oh, no."

JJ: It's either Barney purple, which just has more of a pinkish to it...

KH: Mm-hmm.

JJ: ... or grape purple. But it's Welch's grape, which is not... No one wants to be a Welch's grape.

KH: That doesn't even taste like grape, but it just tastes like purple.

JJ: Yeah. I am wondering who out there in the world loves grape?

KH: Someone must.

JJ: Also, this is going on a random tangent. As you probably know, I love a tangent.

KH: Please, yes.

JJ: I think the worst two artificial flavors: Grape and banana.

KH: Oh, my God. Banana, yes. I support you. That's a hill to die on. Banana-flavored things? Ugh.

JJ: Disgusting. It's-

KH: Disgusting.

JJ: Tastes like chalk in your mouth.

KH: Of all the science we've figured out in our lives, we still haven't nailed that one somehow.

JJ: Yeah.

KH: It's not high on the list, I'm sure, but ugh.

JJ: It's terrible.

KH: It's terrible.

JJ: Then, on top of this, what do you think are the top... This is-

KH: Valid, yeah.

JJ: Top artificial flavor?

KH: Basic, but red is generally a... I'm sure that's the most toxic one.

JJ: Oh, you're going for color, not even fruit.

KH: Yeah. Tastes like purple, tastes like red. But also... Let me think.

JJ: I feel like red can take on... They have a few different flavors.

KH: You know what's also often amiss, is mango-flavored things. I feel like that's a tricky one.

JJ: True, very true. That's tough. Another thing: Artificial watermelon...

KH: Oh.

JJ: ... I don't think tastes anything like watermelon.

KH: No, but it's not a bad taste.

JJ: No. I prefer artificial watermelon over actual watermelon.

KH: Fair, yeah.

JJ: It actually tastes nothing like watermelon.

KH: No, you're probably right.

JJ: Thank you, Kate. Thank you, but this is just not... What do I know?

KH: Yeah, I hear you.

JJ: The other sad thing about growing up early 2000s, and also maybe in a small town without... I think I had some artificial fruits...

KH: Everything.

JJ: ... flavors, before I had the actual fruit. I think I tasted-

KH: Yeah, possibly.

JJ: - artificial water...

KH: We were not buying mango in Memphis. You know what I mean?

JJ: Where does one even buy mango?

KH: I don't know.

JJ: Or cherries? I think I had-

KH: Cherry's pretty reliable.

JJ: Actually, I don't know. Cherry's my top artificial flavor. I will say, I ate artificial, cherry-flavored things for years, and I think I had my first actual cherry when I was eight.

KH: Oh, my gosh.

JJ: I was a little confused. I was like, this is not-

KH: You're like, this is a lot of work for something that I can just get out of...

………………………………

JJ: Do you believe in manifesting?

KH: You know, I didn't used to because I found it all very cheesy and very.....

JJ: It's very woo-woo.

KH: It's a bit woo-woo. If I just concentrate really hard and have the perfect image on my board... I don't necessarily believe in that.

JJ: So, no vision boards for you?

KH: I haven't made a vision board-

JJ: I haven't either.

KH: ... because I'm a bit psychotic about imagery and I would never find the right ones, so I'm just never going to go there.

JJ: It just seems like a lot of work-

KH: Yes.

JJ: ... not to shame people that do the vision board.

KH: No. It works for people, and that's fantastic. But, it's not on my list. I don't know. But I do find it really useful, just putting some specific thought on what you want and what your goal is and where you're going.

Because New York especially, but anywhere, you can get caught in all the stuff that you're doing. What am I actually working towards? What's the goal? What do I want say? What do I want to be? What do I want to feel like in two years? What's around me to make that happen? What do I need to be to make that happen?

JJ: There was this phrase... Actually, I remember a lot from growing up in the church... that is really powerful. I don't even know where in the Bible it is or even if it is in the Bible. The phrase is, "You speak life and death with your tongue."

KH: Ooh.

JJ: Isn't that good?

KH: Yes. Oh, my God. I started reading The Four Agreements.

JJ: The what?

KH: The Four Agreements.

JJ: What's The Four Agreements?

KH: It's this... Now I'm going to completely butcher it... whole tech theory of having a good life, basically, and the themes of that. There are four, obviously.

The first one is being impeccable with your word. The idea is that your word is so powerful that that could determine your relationships with other people, your relationship to yourself, how you feel about yourself. Treat others as you want to be treated, but the power that can come with things like that, of however you talk to yourself is what you then internalize and become and project.

You can absolutely make your life with your words.

JJ: You definitely can. You can write your story.

KH: Absolutely.

JJ: As Natasha...

KH: Oh, my God.

JJ: ... said...

KH: You make a circle sometimes that's just really...

JJ: I didn't know, it's unwritten.

KH: Prophet of our time.

JJ: I got to see her perform live at a fashion show.

KH: I heard that was so much fun.

JJ: This is going to sound terrible, but... You have to stay with me.

KH: Sure.

JJ: My least favorite thing is when there is an artist who... Love them, but they are only known for two, three songs. They perform a hit. They perform the one that everyone knows. And then instead of continuing to perform the songs everyone knows, they're like, "This is off my new album."

KH: Mm. They're pushing it and trying to move and... Oh.

JJ: Natasha did not do that. That's what I'm saying. She...

KH: She leaned in hard.

JJ: She played her hits.

KH: All right.

JJ: She did throw in one that no one knew, except the person that... The designer wanted her there. I guess they're best friends.

KH: Sure he is.

JJ: He was the one person that was like-

KH: "Yes, girl. Do it."

JJ: To the song that no one knew. But he should....

KH: That's great. All right.

JJ: But, I appreciate her for playing the hits.

KH: That's a realistic take on... Because her song was on that show, right?

JJ: Which show?

KH: There was a reality show.

JJ: The Hills.

KH: Reality show number one. Yeah, yes.

JJ: No.

KH: So, she had to take it and run.

JJ: Did you ever watch the movie Easy A?

KH: I love that movie.

JJ: It's one of my favorite movies.

KH: I love that movie.

JJ: It is so good.

KH: It is.

JJ: Did you know, actually, it was supposed to be a series of movies?

KH: Oh.

JJ: It was supposed to be a series of, I suppose, modern-day takes of classic books.

KH: Yeah.

JJ: Hers just-

KH: That's a good concept, yeah.

JJ: I don't know what ever happened. The next one was supposed to be Huckleberry Finn.

KH: Oh, my gosh.

JJ: I guess that's-

KH: That's a tricky one. Give it a shot. Who knows.

JJ: But hers was, of course, The Scarlet Letter. Which when I read it in high school, again, I was disappointed.

KH: Me too.

JJ: I will say, there was a witch in The Scarlet Letter that I live for.

KH: I have to go back and reread it.

JJ: She was the best thing out of that book. She was on a roof. She was yelling.

KH: Great.

JJ: Organized chaos. It was fantastic.

…………………………………….

JJ: Thank you. I think this really is interesting for the interview, the conversation. I'm going to ask you if you have any questions for me.

KH: Oh. What has been the most surprising part of your recent pivot and focusing more on this side of yourself?

JJ: Oh, that's a good question.

KH: Have you found you're more interested in parts of it than you expected? Are there challenges you weren't anticipating?

JJ: I think the number development, I have to pay attention to the numbers now, which is scary, but it's really important. It's been leading into that more. I think also in fashion, and the industry, and captial fashion, there's all this politics around appearances and what we can and cannot do to keep appearances. But I realized that those people are not paying the bills.

KH: True.

JJ: There are things that I have had to get over. I guess it's being too proud to do certain things.

KH: Yes.

JJ: Because at the end of the day it's like, what is being...

KH: I was listening to... I want to say it was Lauren Sherman's podcast, now that she's doing Puck. I don't remember who she was speaking to, but she was talking about this generational, and debating if it's a generational thing or if it's maybe a background thing, the differences between Millennials and Gen Z. And she was talking about the TikTok and influencer phenomenon, and the lack of shame that some people feel around get the bag, do the thing. There's not this feeling of shame in people who are in TikTok and maybe it's Gen Z.

She was like, "As a Millennial, I find a huge amount of shame on something like that, the risk of feeling like a sellout."

JJ: Yes.

KH: And I don't know if we're crossing that bridge, everyone as a culture, or if it's a time-period thing. I don't know. It's interesting to think about it that way.

JJ: I listened to that too. First off, I think generational things are for the most part malarkey. There are differences, of course. I hate when people are like, "All Gen Zs is like this."

KH: Right.

JJ: I'm just like, "I know several people older than me that are doing that."

KH: Absolutely. I met people 10 and 15 years older than me who are very much at home on TikTok and acting exactly like a 24-year-old person, yeah.

JJ: But in terms of the sellout part, I'm reading this book about yuppies.

KH: Ooh.

JJ: I'm obsessed.

KH: I have to read that one. Yeah, yeah.

JJ: It's called Triumph of the Yuppies. Basically, it's asking the question of the baby boomer, who in the '60s were revolutionists, how come they pivoted to being a hardcore capitalist, and also refusing to leave positions of power? That's besides the point.

KH: Oh, my God. Go to Florida, chill out. It's fine. You'll be happy.

JJ: But the line that I just read in there, which made me think...... The question was, "Did they sell out or did they just grow up?" In some cases, yes, you're selling out. But I also think it's in some cases you grow up.

KH: Yeah.

JJ: Currently, you need money to live, and appearances can only get you so far.

KH: Right, yeah. There's truth to fake it until you make it, of reject the thing that you're attempting to be to make it happen.

JJ: Yes.

KH: That's real. I think a lot of it is just getting acquainted with reality sometimes and understanding that that's cute, but how are you paying your rent this month?

JJ: Yeah, that is a question. The other thing I've realized... And this was from quitting my job... Not quitting, I don't like that word. I left. Because I left on my own accord.

KH: Oh.

JJ: Just because something hasn't been done, doesn't mean that it's not possible.

KH: Absolutely. Yeah. Or there's not a different way to approach it. Fashion evolves all the time. The ways that we're doing the same things evolve all the time. The format that you are doing, the thing that people have always done, is changing and new and exciting. Who knows what's going to happen?

JJ: Yeah, exactly. I'm very interested to see where fashion goes in even the next year.

KH: Oh, yeah.

JJ: Because we're at an interesting crossroads with the old way of doing things in a new way. And there's an old guard that is actively, I don't think realizing what's happening, changing.

KH: Yeah.

JJ: Something that I love about Substack and love about this new way is I get to help brands.

KH: Right.

JJ: Like you were telling me before, you're able to see...

KH: Chat. You can absolutely see the connection. I can look at, on my end, the people who have found me because they already know and love you. That's a direct thing.

JJ: That that makes me feel happy.

KH: Yeah.

JJ: Because I think you all, the new guard of designers, are the future.

KH: I hope so. We're trying

JJ: Not hope. I know, I know.

KH: We're making it happen. I'll use that word.

JJ: You have to speak it into existence.

KH: Yes. We're going to be impeccable with our word.

JJ: You're the new guard.

KH: Thank you.

JJ: It's very important that you are here, and it's important for people to get to know about you.

KH: Thank you.

JJ: And sometimes I don't know if...

KH: It's hard to break through, and you...

JJ: It's really hard.

KH: There's all these things. When I was in school, I graduated in 2009. That was Proenza timeline, of you saw that story and thought that that was how it had to go, of you make this splashy collection, Barneys comes and discovers you and then makes it all happen. The reality in the background was, I'm sure, not nearly as much of a straight line, and obviously very difficult in what that was, because that's not how it happens anymore.

And what does that look like now? It's impossible to say and it's different for everyone and it's always changing. And maybe you don't need some giant department store to come and rescue you. Maybe you can try to find your own way, which is thorny and weird and scary.

JJ: It's scary.

KH: But, we....

JJ: It's very unknown.

KH: Yes.

JJ: That's the most scary thing.

KH: Of course.

JJ: There's a lot of unknown right now, especially with an election that we don't know what's going to happen. There's all these things that are very... The world...

KH: The world.

JJ: ... the environment, all these things. But a positive spin on it, the way that we push past those, the way that we do get better is with change, and a new group of people who are thinking about things differently.

KH: Yes. Let's do that.

JJ: With that, thank you so much for being on here.

KH: Thank you for having me. This was so fantastic.

JJ: To close up every interview, I ask my guests the three same questions. They're not scary, so I hope you're not scared. As my newsletter is called Consider Yourself Cultured-

KH: Yes.

JJ: ... who is the most cultured person you know?

KH: A friend of mine. I think my friend, Sid, is probably the most cultured person I know. And I'm sure it helps that he's not from the US. He's from India.

JJ: Oh, amazing.

KH: He's traveled so extensively and he's seen so many different places and kinds of people. I think it's mostly that he's got this apparent curiosity. He's always interested in a new experience and a new way of thinking. He's super interested in art. He's always looking for that new, exciting, stimulating, beautiful thing.

An I love people who can tell you some obscure furniture reference that you didn't know that you needed to go become obsessed with.

JJ: Like what? What did he tell you about?

KH: He's got a friend in Brooklyn that has these resin candlesticks.

JJ: Wow.

KH: Some weird, new... but it's a lot of that. When I was at Coach, our creative director was Reed Krakoff. I distinctively remember this turning point in my mind of how to approach fashion. I was like, "It's Coach. It's a very democratic kind of place." And he was talking about these Hermès... What was it? You know those canteens that you take camping, like a water bottle sort of thing?

JJ: Yes.

KH: But a very fancy, stainless steel version. They've done a gorgeous steel-plated-

JJ: It's beautiful.

KH: ... leather wrapped. It's beautiful. He instantly throws out that kind of reference and we're all like, "Oh, my God." And then this world opens up of the beauty that you can make out of the mundane. That conversation felt like a turning point of how you should be exploring the world of what you can say with what you do.

JJ: Yes, I totally agree. Random tangent-

KH: Yes, please.

JJ: ... before we get to the next...

KH: Uh-huh?

JJ: About Hermès, someone that I'm friends with was telling me that there is this department where they will make one-off things.

KH: Oh, yeah. Petit H.

JJ: Wait, what is it?

KH: Petit H.

JJ: Yes.

KH: Oh, my God. It's incredible.

JJ: Wait, have you heard the story about the prince that eats an apple every day, so he had Hermès make a case-

KH: Stop.

JJ: ... that would fit a single apple.

KH: I saw the apple case. I didn't know that was the story. Oh, my God. I love that.

JJ: Isn't that-

KH: That is the most incredible project collection. It's like the apex, as Hermès always is, of upcycling, of creativity, of randomness. It's incredible, the things that they do.

JJ: It's random. It's gorg.

KH: It's like a six-foot tall giraffe out of leather that obviously I need in my living room.

JJ: Of course.

KH: The idea that someone showed up to work and was like, "I've got all these beautiful scrap materials, what am I making out of this?" And was like, "Ah, a six-foot tall giraffe." Obviously.

JJ: No questions asked.

KH: Yeah. That's what I'm doing with my power today.

JJ: How did you meet your friend?

KH: At Ralph Lauren.

JJ: Amazing. It's amazing. What is your latest cultural obsession?

KH: Ooh. We just started watching this show called Bodkin.

JJ: What is it?

KH: Bodkin. B-O-D-K-I-N.

JJ: What?

KH: It's on Netflix.

JJ: What is it about?

KH: It's about this guy. Oh, my God. It ties all your worlds together. It's about this guy who's making a podcast. It's supposed to be a true crime podcast, which I also love. I love a thriller, a twisty story. He goes to this little town in Ireland, it's one of those quintessential tiny, isolated places, trying to solve this old murder. So, it dives into the weirdness of any tiny town and the characters, it's fascinating.

JJ: We should all get obsessed with the show?

KH: Yes.

JJ: And then the last question is a three-parter. What should everyone read, watch, and listen to, to consider themselves cultured?

KH: To consider yourself cultured? That's a lot of pressure. What should you read? I want to read more biographies. And I think that is a way to make yourself a bit more cultured, getting in someone else's head and someone else's perspective. I've been reading The Four Agreements, but I still love a total trash, twisty thriller. I started reading Lucy Foley. Have you seen these books?

JJ: I don't know who that is.

KH: I found one in an airport and now I'm obsessed with her. Every story is this glamorous party, basically, in some faraway, amazing place. All these people come, it's like a hotel, a group of friends, and they've all got these little secrets and then somebody dies, of course, because that's how that always works, and unwinding what happens and who everyone actually is.

JJ: Oh,I love.

KH: Yeah.

JJ: Amazing.

KH: Deep and dark.

JJ: That's what we should read.

KH: That's what you should read.

JJ: What should we watch?

KH: We've been digging back into Anthony Bourdain, old Anthony Bourdain.

JJ: Oh, wow. Wow. Yeah.

KH: It's still good. It's so good.

JJ: So good. And listen to?

KH: Have a Brat Summer. That. I've listened to a lot of her. But also, my husband is a painter and his mentor was a huge part of his life, and they always listened to Buena Vista Social Club when they were working. You have to listen to it. Have you heard them before?

JJ: No, I have not.

KH: It's this Cuban band. They got put together in the '90s to have a resurgence of traditional Cuban music. The flavor of it is so specific. And the vibe, you can just listen to that while you're working all day long. It's got that flow-state feeling to it. It's incredible.

JJ: Amazing.

KH: It makes you want to go out and find a tiny bar and dance.

JJ: Oh, I love to dance. Yeah, I think I do.

KH: I want to take a dance class...

JJ: Oh, that's...

KH: ... ballroom dancing, a nice dancing. But that would be...

JJ: They're really fun to do, actually.

KH: Yeah? Have you done one?

JJ: I did one. I did. I was about 12 and...

KH: Oh.

JJ: I know. It was so precious. It was for summer camp, actually.

KH: I love that.

JJ: We went to a ballroom class. They taught us a lot of different things. They taught us how to waltz. They taught us to tango.

KH: Wow.

JJ: And they taught us salsa.

KH: Wow. Oh, my gosh.

JJ: Yeah.

KH: 12-year-old Jalil salsa-ing, I love that.

JJ: The only thing I remember how to do is the waltz, because it's the simplest thing in the world.

KH: A square, right?

JJ: It's only a square. I can waltz like no one's business.

KH: Beautiful.

JJ: Everything else, I don't know. Kate, thank you so much for being on here. It's been amazing.

KH: Thank you so much. This was so much fun.

JJ: Thank you, it was fun.

I may earn some commission if you make a purchase through one of the links above.

Follow me on Instagram here!

Hello! Welcome to the free preview of today’s episode of Lunch Break. If you're a paying subscriber, you should have received an additional email with the full episode. To ensure you never miss a moment of Lunch Break, consider becoming a paid subscriber. This not only grants you access to full-length episodes but also provides additional letters and full access to my entire newsletter archive.

When it comes to men's fashion, Lawrence Schlossman is undeniably one of the leading voices. He co-hosts the podcast Throwing Fits with his partner-in-fits James Harris , which has become a significant part of the podcast zeitgeist and has transformed how many men think about fashion and how they dress.

I first discovered the duo during the pandemic when I had exhausted all my favorite music and rewatched my favorite shows to the nth degree, needing something new to fill the silence of lockdown. Initially, I was taken aback by their language and the somewhat crass way they discussed not only fashion but…well everything. However, despite that, their sincerity in appreciating the medium of fashion was evident. Throwing Fits is not the duo’s first venture into a fashion show. Back when they were both working for Complex, they achieved early success with Fashion Bros, which has the look and feel of an SNL skit. Needless to say, their humorous style is not new—it’s authentically them!

So, when I was coming up with the list of people I wanted to interview, Larry was at the top. We had attended an event together and shared similar feelings about the industry, which I thought would be interesting to discuss. I must admit, I do love a bit of chaotic energy from time to time as well!

We cover a lot of ground in this conversation. We talk about how we met at the J.Crew holiday party and how BFA did us quite dirty (if you scroll through the transcription, I have linked the photo). We discuss the state of fashion and my former workplace, Saks. I should mention that Saks provided me with probably the best education I could have received in fashion. I honestly think that if you’re interested in working in capital “F” fashion, a stint in the retail space is invaluable as it brings a real sense of reality to the whole situation.

Additionally, near the end of the podcast, there is some criticism in regards to my former workplace. I think it is important to say that whenever my former employer is brought up, it’s about the institution, not individuals.

Without further ado, here is my interview with the Jawn Legend himself at Gemma!

You can follow Larry on Instagram here and listen to Throwing Fits here.

*Disclaimer: Strong language is used in this episode.*

JJ: So to I guess set the stage for everyone too, the first time I met you was at the J. Crew holiday party.

LS: Oh, shit. I was fucking hammered.

JJ: Yes.

LS: The worst photo that has ever been taken of me ever was with you.

JJ: Yes. Which I was...

LS: And what's her name?

JJ: Tchesmeni.

LS: Right. Who knows my wife.

JJ: Yes.

LS: But yes. Yes, that was, what a bad first impression. I guess it's not so bad that we still like each other.

JJ: No, I thought it was fantastic.

LS: Dude, it's so bad.

JJ: I know.

LS: It became like a running joke on the podcast. And for, you probably don't know this, or maybe you do know this, it's a BFA image, right?

JJ: Yes. I know James bought it.

LS: James bought it and gifted it to me. And I think I had it for a while. And then I will admit that it was eventually thrown out.

JJ: That was my perspective, where is the photo?

LS: Well, yeah, it was in the tubing, whatever, the shipping tube, and it was just in my office. I just accumulate and accumulate. And then I think I was like, my wife probably had forced me to do some type of inventory or spring-cleaning, whatever. And I was like, what is this? And I pulled it out and I was just so viscerally appalled. I literally, not only am I with two beautiful people, melanin rich people, I look so drunk, and so pale, and so sloppy and disgusting, that I was like, it just needs to be destroyed. But I mean, it lives forever on the BFA website.

JJ: Yes.

LS: It's attached to my name.

JJ: Yes. Which I wonder if BFA on purpose, they take very bad... This sounds terrible, I probably should not be like...

LS: I mean, I don't give a fuck if you want to shit on BFA, go off.

JJ: Because I feel like there are several photos of me on there where I'm just like, why would they put this? I look terrible.

LS: Harsh lighting, a lot of these parties where it's dark. That was at the Odeon, right?

JJ: Yes.

LS: So it's like the flash is going to be flashing, and if you get caught in the cross-hairs, you could look like shit.

……………………………………………………….

LS: So the picture is destroyed. Confirmed.

JJ: It's destroyed.

LS: It's gone, dude.

JJ: Okay.

LS: I understand the idea of framing it as a bit and keeping it around. I'm so repulsed by it, and it's not even a thing where I think anyone who would see that picture would be repulsed.

JJ: Yeah. I...

LS: You guys look good, I just look like such dog shit.

JJ: In preparation for this, I went back through all those photos.

LS: There's like two of them, I think, and the worst one is the one that was gifted.

JJ: Yes. I think there was actually three, if I'm not mistaken.

LS: It's a lot lesser of evils thing, to be honest. None of them are good. I was banged up.

JJ: That was my first time meeting you in person, but I have been following you for a while.

LS: Thank you.

JJ: I discovered your podcast during the pandemic. The first one I listened to was your interview with Rachel Tashjian.

LS: Oh, of course. The prophet.

JJ: The prophet.

LS: Herself.

JJ: Loved it. And then, I just found it very funny.

LS: Thank you. That's my goal is to be, I think, entertaining and funny, first and foremost. I don't always... Or we, I should say, don't always succeed. But when someone is, if anyone was like, this was so thoughtful, or informative, or funny, or imaginative, or funny, or entertaining, I'll take funny and entertaining all day versus anything even remotely construed as serious or whatever.

JJ: Why I thought what was so refreshing about you and James's take is that I think everyone, with fashion is taking, people take it so serious. It's like, it's stuffy, it's stuffy, it's stuffy, but it's like hilarious. But I think it's sometimes ridiculous about things I have stressed over where it's like, before my job at Saks I was in styling world and stressing over, we didn't get look 21. It didn't come. Where is it? Where is it? In reality, it's just a skirt. It's just…..

LS: Yeah, no one really gives a shit.

JJ: But it's funny. It's actually terribly funny. But because of I think the structure around it with the capital F, everyone thinks it very, also, there's money involved, so whenever there's money involved. So needless to say, when I found your podcast, I thought it was extremely funny, entertaining, and I think you all have amazing guests.

LS: We try. We book everyone ourselves. There's no booking agent. I don't know if people think that there is, but we just do it all organically. Sometimes with someone like Rachel, it's like a friend, someone we know. And if it's like a celeb, sometimes that stuff is inbound, they have someone to promote. But I don't know if people, I don't think the average person or even the average podcast listener probably thinks about the process of booking talent.

JJ: I did actually.

LS: But it is just, we just do it ourselves. We just had on the guy West [Wilson} from Summer House. I don't know if you're a Bravo watcher.

JJ: I am, to a point.

LS: Right. Well, that's my favorite show on Bravo. But that was the thing where I'm like, oh, this dude is following Throwing Fits. I'm just going to DM him and be like, would you want to come on the podcast? I don't think he knew that there would, I think he assumed he was following some meme account, which a lot of, which is fine. I'll take, beggars can't be chooses if that's how people want to follow on social or why they would follow social on content. Yeah, but anyway, it's not a fun part of the job, the logistical bookings that you have to do, at least at our cadence basically every week. With that said, we do do it all ourselves.

JJ: So what goes into finding a person to bring onto the podcast?

LS: I just think we like a mix. There's always a certain type of guest that over indexes and does really well in terms of true just numbers and downloads. And that is always someone that professionally, in some capacity works in men's wear. To use a political thing or political term that's like playing to the base. That is what majority of our listeners want. With that said, I personally, as someone who has to do this job for a living, and I think I can speak for James, even though I will say, let me just say this whole interview, I'm speaking for myself individually. I don't want to talk to that kind of guy every fucking time. I already talk to those people enough as it is. So for me, I like a mix. And I'm personally somebody who has a variety of interests. I'm not saying that that makes me smart, or esoteric, or anything.

I'm just like, I like men's fashion, I like music, I love film. And if I can have an opportunity at television, whatever. I would not say the arts, and I'm not going to lie to your listeners. But for me, I just would like to talk to a variety of different people and again, hopefully have some type of entertaining conversation. Obviously some pods are better than others, but I usually... If I'm agreeing to a booking, it's like, okay, do I think this person is someone who I would like to talk to? That's really that simple. Which I think is a pretty foundational bar for the art of podcasting. But yeah, for me it's like, I like to joke and I'll talk to anybody. That's not true, there's certain people that we turn down. The one thing I'll say about booking that's always funny is that usually if somebody is pitching themselves, that's when you know they're not going to be good.

JJ: Oh, that's terrible.

LS: Yeah. Terrible is extreme, because sometimes. But if someone is pitching themselves, yikes.

…………………………………………

JJ: Anyway, so another thing, doing a pivot, so I was going through and doing my little research and reading articles about you. And you've had quite a lot of different paths.

LS: Sure.

JJ: And done a lot of different things. And so also you went to school originally for finance.

LS: I was a economics major at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

JJ: And you've had an interest in fashion, but I guess it is, what is it about fashion that drew so much to you? What is it about this vehicle...

LS: Well, it definitely changed, because the way I view it now, besides being my livelihood, and a hobby, and something that I have in common with so many of my closest friends. And it's something I choose to use to define myself as a person. But for better or for worse, I'm not going to lie I pretend that's not, I like to, and even now it's very much a part of my identity and self-expression. But honestly what got me into it back in the day was just via all the other interests that I had when I was younger, which have been a variety of things. Whether it was more traditional sports, like played soccer, I was a huge basketball fan growing up. So it's like I grew up during the era too of professional athletes like Shaq, and Alan Iverson, and Anthony Hardaway, and Tracy McGrady. Very cool guys now that I think are looked at as basically ushering in a new era of NBA players. Bringing personality, not just how they would normally play the game, but how they just kind of move, what we would call swag honestly in 2014.

So the kinda traditional stuff, I'm going to be long-winded here. And then as I got a little bit older and my taste kind of became less traditional. So I was super into punk music and in the tri state area where I grew up, there's a very.... group there was a very influential, what I would call a post punk scene with a bunch of bands, like Taking Back Sunday, or Brand New, and Thursday, and Glass Jaw. Anyway, so getting into music subcultures, music subculture, and then the subculture also of skateboarding. I was very bad at skateboarding myself. And I was in bands and I played bass guitar, but I had not a musical bone in my body. So the thing that I latched onto in terms of looking for acceptance and to understand these subcultures in these worlds better, so I could move through them, was like the uniforms and how people dress.

Uniforms may be the wrong word, because there's a lot of individuality in how people kind of play in the sandboxes of these subcultures. But I've talked about this before, but it's like you got to wear the right band tee, and you need to wear the right skate shoes, and you need to skate the right board from the right brand, and you need to buy by right sun belt and things like that. And that's when I started thinking a lot about how clothes can be used as kind of like foundational elements of a subculture that could be built upon then, and then your taste could be refined. But you got to look the part. And I guess you could basically say that I was a poser, but you're only a poser until you're not. Right? I think to some degree. So anyway, for me it was this search for authenticity within these worlds where I wanted to be accepted.

JJ: Yes.

LS: And a lot of that for me just started with how you kind of look, the first impression.

JJ: Which is interesting too, in the sense of bringing up subcultures. I think that fashion is suffering right now, because there's an absence...

LS: There's none.

JJ: There's no subculture.

LS: It's just about, dude, you could not be more correct. That is literally, we are in a dearth of, it's just about consumption.

JJ: Yes.

LS: See that's the thing, right? In skateboarding, it wasn't just about the shoes and the board, it's like what can you do on the board while wearing the shoes? And in any type of music subculture, it's not just about the T-shirt, but it's like how do you critically appreciate, or digest, dissect whatever the actual music that is being produced. And I'm not one of these, oh, nice shirt name three bands type guys. I don't give a fuck about that. But unfortunately in fashion and even really in men's wear, it's just like the hobby can't be the act of making a purchase.

JJ: Yes.

LS: Right?

JJ: It's about the learning, it's about the cultivating, it's about the taste making.

LS: Well and it's like, I mean, I guess there's part of me that's also like, well, can the subculture itself be men's wear? Because you could be nerdy about men's wear, and you can learn a lot about men's wear, and you can get into all the guy type under the hood shit. Where it's like, how is the suit made and how are the shoes cobbled? And let's throw watches in the mix and then it gets really complicated. So it's like I get this idea of...

JJ: You're saying that men's wear can be a subculture.

LS: I feel like it kind of is or can be, but at the same time, that's not what's happening with a lot of... Again, when you say fashion, you are right to make that blanket statement. I absolutely agree with what you're saying. But I'm just even saying, well, I do follow and care about the fashion industry, not just because I'd like to think that I'm a participant and because I just find it interesting. I'm mainly talking about men's wear from my lived experience and what I do for a living. And what I've done for almost probably 15 years. But yeah...

JJ: With that too. So bring back to an earlier point, we were talking and I was telling you about how I was leaving my job. And how part of the reason I was leaving is because I've learned a lot at Saks, but I wasn't feeling like I was getting what I wanted to get out of it, not to get out, but I wasn't even used in a sense. And I was like, why are they not using me? I'm so invested in this industry, in this thing. What's going on? And you kind of shared similar sense.

LS: Oh, yeah.

JJ: Even though we both said, there's still appreciation and love for...

LS: Oh, of course.

JJ: So what do you think is next? What do you think can help, where do we go from here? Where are we? Where do we go?

LS: I think we need more. I think people who are becoming fans of fashion, they're discovering it in a variety of different ways. Unfortunately, not unfortunately, I don't want to say that. The main way though is via thought leaders that continue down this train of thought, no pun intended, do not have a single thought in their head. So it's like if you are, it's funny because influencer culture that I remember fashion blogging, which is something that I did. I was writing more, my background was mainly media kind of adjacent when I came into the industry. I guess it kind of still is now. Podcasting is media to some degree.

But I remember that I used to look down as a snob, who had no reason to be a snob because I was no one with no pedigree, just a dream. That was sarcastic, but it was true. But there was these guys, people doing outfit stuff and they were called fashion bloggers. And I remember being like, it's like, okay, well you just wear clothes. Okay, maybe... You know about that stuff. But I'm like, there's no value being added here. I was writing about stuff, I was reviewing product or trying to have a critical lens about what was happening in menswear at the time. And it felt like we had moved away from that. And mainly, because a lot of that stuff transitioned in a different way to Instagram. But I kind of feel like now with what's happening on TikTok, I'm not going to just be the old man yells out cloud, but it's just like, I don't know.

The content that I think new fashion fans are seeing to me is not, and I don't want to just say that there's no thought-provoking content on that app, because there are great people that use that. But for me to be extremely long-winded and wrap this back, what you're saying is what we need is more people like you who are willing to put themselves out there and be a thought leader in critical and interesting, thoughtful ways that are based still in a sincere enthusiasm for getting dressed, personal style, and shopping. We love that. Yeah. I just think that, I don't know, a lot of it, lot of... Sorry. The funnel and portal to which people are discovering this stuff, whether it's any type of genderless fashion, whether it's men's wear, whether its women wear, whatever, it just feels so soulless and based around consumption, conspicuous or not. Because obviously quiet luxury was this huge fake, terrible trend that we seemingly just finally moved past, because also let's be real trends now lasts. I

JJ: I don't think trends exist.

LS: They're so, well, you're not wrong. Because can a trend be trend if it's a trend for one day? I don't know. Chicken before the egg bro.

………………………….

JJ: C'est la vie. So, to wrap up this...

LS: Oh, yeah. We've been all over the place. This was fun. That's why I was like, yeah, I'm going to come in. I'm not going to prepare nothing. It's going to be fun. We always have a good time. I'm like, I'm going to be a little chaotic.

JJ: I love this. I love chaos.

LS: What a better way to spend a Friday evening, not evening, late afternoon.

JJ: Yeah, I was very excited to do this.

LS: I was excited to be asked. I think I told you I was at Stoffa. I wouldn't expect that you would want me to... Well, I did owe you a favor, because I fucked you over.

JJ: Yeah. It's fine. But why do you think I wouldn't ask you?

LS: I don't know. I just feel like, maybe this is my imposter syndrome, but I'm like, dude, when I think of the kind of people that already fucking pay to hear me drone on and on and say dumb shit that he thinks is funny, or controversial, or put his foot in his mouth, that is typically a straight white man between the ages of 18 and 35. And I'm just flattered that someone of your taste level and your pedigree would want to have me tap in with, what we do call this?

JJ: So this is...

LS: Jalil Eats.

JJ: It's called Lunch Break.

LS: Lunch Break, with Jalil?

JJ: So it's called Lunch Break, a Supplement by Consider Yourself Cultured by Jalil.

LS: Whoa, you need an editor. Oh, you know what I wanted to mention before we wrap up?

JJ: Yes. This is, yes.

LS: I want to say this and maybe you'll cut this out. I don't know. This is actually going to be very complimentary, but I don't know if it might offend some people's feelings. Hurt some people's feelings and offend some people. My perception, so when you told me that you were leaving Saks, I wasn't surprised at all. Because here is the fucking problem, and this is coming from someone who, I never worked in, what would the term would you say? It's not retail, obviously, but you were...

JJ: It's still like retail, yeah.

LS: I don't want, because sometimes you say, when people are like, "Oh yeah, I work in retail." It's like, you're a shop boy. That's not what I'm implying, obviously I know you... But as someone who kind of experienced this in his own way, my own way in media. What I always perceived about you, and this is totally sincere, when you told me you left your job, I was like, I'm not surprised. There definitely was people that you worked with that Saks where like, this guy is not only just his own brand, but could be bigger than the brand. And when you see that happening, there's two ways to do this. One is you're smart and you're not a dummy, and you harness that power. And honestly, a lot of times I see it happen to a lot of our friends, they get gassed up by the employer where it's like new title fancy business card, but it's like, nah. No fucker, you got to pay for that. But it's not a two-way street. But either way, they're still smart enough to try to harness and exploit it, like any corporation, right? They're evil.

JJ: Right.

LS: Inherently. So I'm like, they didn't even think to fucking exploit this guy in the right way.

JJ: No.

LS: So guess what? Fuck off. Let me do my own thing. And that's why I told you I'm happy for you, I'm proud of you. Because I'm like, this dude is a star and doesn't need Saks, bro. Saks needs you. I'm being serious. But anyway, so when you're like, "I quit." I'm like, oh fucking, maybe there is a God. Jesus Christ.

JJ: No, it was definitely hard to do, because I also don't come from, so I don't come from family money. So I'm like doing is all on my own.

LS: Good.

JJ: So I felt like I had to stay at Saks because of the money.

LS: Was it also a dream of your be in the industry?

JJ: Yeah.

LS: That was always for me. I was like, oh my God. Dude, I interviewed a GQ like four times, dude.

JJ: I always want...

LS: I wanted to be....

JJ: I wanted to work at, I wanted work at….a magazine. I wanted to be in it. That was also before, coming from Virginia, I also didn't know how terrible the pay is.

LS: How old are you, if you don't mind me asking? I know you're never supposed to ask a lady their age, but...

JJ: No, it's fine. I tried at one point to hide my age...

LS: Oh wait, really?

JJ: Yes.

LS: You're that self-conscious.

JJ: No.

LS: Or you were, sorry that's a presumptuous...

JJ: No, I was trying...

LS: You don't have to say if you don't want to though. I was just trying to...

JJ: I will say I'm turning 25.

LS: Oh my, fucking baby. Wait, you were hiding it, because you thought people would think you were a child.

JJ: No, people already think I, no matter, even no matter if I told them I age or not, they assumed that I was, actually...

LS: They assumed you were young.

JJ: They assumed...

LS: Black don't crack.

JJ: Black doesn't crack. I've had people say like, "Oh, you're 30." And I'm like...

LS: Fuck off.

JJ: But no, I was trying to hide it, because I thought it'd be like fun mystery, like open the Wikipedia age.

LS: You just presume you're going to have a Wikipedia page. Honestly, you might dude.

JJ: I feel like everyone has, not everyone...

LS: What are you are you talking about? No way, dude. That's the greatest, to have, the Wikipedia page is the moment.

JJ: Yes. So I'm speaking, I'm manifesting...

LS: If anyone would like to make me a Wikipedia page or Jalil, just please do it. We would love that.

JJ: Please. Please.

LS: But can't make your own, that's embarrassing.

JJ: No, no, no. I couldn't do it. But my favorite thing is when I go to Wikipedia page and they have a question mark around...

LS: Oh, the...

JJ: And I'm like...

LS: The year he was born.

JJ: That's kind of gorge, that kind of fash.

LS: That's cool. I get what you're saying. It's very mysterious.

JJ: Yes.

LS: Because that's the most foundational piece of information about anyone, is how old they are.

JJ: Yes. But I also like a person that, I talk a lot, so nothing's a secret. Oh, things are secret. But I am very open.

LS: That's good.

JJ: Maybe to...

LS: A fault. Same bro. But I do think that transparency, I define it as transparency, I think is a admirable trait. And of course there are over-sharers. I mean, listen, we've all been there.

JJ: Yes.

LS: But no, what I will say is that what is funny to me is that that illusion of needing, so this is actually one positive of where fashion having blown up. Is a positive I think side effect is that, you don't need the institutions, even if they are benevolent and not evil, because we've been shitting a lot on whatever, whether it's magazines, or retailers, or the old guard, whatever, ivory tower, whatever you want to say. There's this illusion, and I think that's also the appeal for a lot of people of different generations. You're 25, I'm 37. But for me it was like I have to, oh my God, could I one day work at a GQ? And I worked at magazines and I worked at, actually I did work at Gilt, so I worked at a retail... That's when flash sales were all rage.

JJ: Saks bought Gilt. Were you there when Saks bought it?

LS: Was I there? I was there when we launched Park & Bond. We launched a Mr. Porter full price competitor, because we had a men's wear dream. I worked with Nick Wooster, Josh Peskowitz, Chris Wallace, Tyler Thoreson, Jonathan Evans. It was a true, and I'm sorry if I'm missing anyone... I might have a double espresso.

Restaurant Staff: Double espresso. And for you?

JJ: Actually I'll do the same.

LS: Oh, and then one thing that is sacrilegious... Can I have a side of, do you guys have skim milk?

Restaurant Staff: Yes.

LS: Can I get a side of skim milk?

Restaurant Staff: Cold milk or?

LS: Please. Thank you. Yeah, I drink my espresso like a fucking monster where I just like to top it off with some cold milk.

JJ: I feel like at the very...

LS: But I don't want to order any type of, I mean, I drink iced coffee for the most part, regardless of the season.

JJ: Really.

LS: In Italy, I won't do that, because it's like... You know all the rules about coffee in Italy too, right?

JJ: Yeah. They would like...

LS: Well, it's like at a certain time of day, if you order a macchiato, you only get that before noon or whatever. And then anything after that, it's an espresso. It's like all the rules. And you don't want to look like an ugly American anyway.

JJ: Yes.

LS: But I digress. My thing that I love is that in this day and age, one thing that people like me and you can do, even though again we are two different generations, I'm going to geriatric millennial year a Gen Z, right?

JJ: Yes. But I don't feel like a... And that's beside the point.

LS: Right, right. Old soul, as we said.

JJ: Yes, yes, yes.

LS: You can make your own way and you do not need the endorsement, resources, co-sign, whatever from these institutions that for the most part I do think are in the business of exploitation and abuse of their very hardworking, devoted, and loyal employees. Whether it's retail, media, and this is in fucking any industry, forget about just fashion. But fashion, I think, where personalities are...

JJ: Well, that's what makes fashion. Fashion is partially all about the personalities. You don't remember a designer that didn't have a person...

LS: I don't know, man. I mean, there's a lot of, well no, I think I would disagree, because I think that some designers use the cult of personality to over compensate for a lack of talent.

JJ: Got it.

LS: And then there are people, I just recently, when Dries retired, I re-watched Dries documentary, and I mean talk about cerebral fucking genius. Or like Raf the same way, where it's like, and these guys, they all give great quotes, and great interviews, and are very insightful, when you can pin them down and get a quote. But those aren't your Karl Lagerfelds, right? Those aren't your John Gallianos or whoever. And then there are people like Lagerfeld and Galliano just use, again where it's like they're, the talent and the personality are also, people are just different, right?

JJ: Yes.

LS: But anyway, to bring it back to you.

JJ: Yes.

LS: Just to give you your flowers before we wrap up.

JJ: Thank you.

LS: Is that obviously, I just think you made the fucking smartest decision at the right time. Not that I wish I could go back in time, because everything I've done has led up to me having a career where I'm self employed and I can do something that is not only just rewarding, but honestly financially successful with a friend of mine, on our own terms. I'm so grateful for that, so I wouldn't change the journey. But if I could go back in time and when shit was not enjoyable for me at a bunch of different stages throughout my career, despite amazing stuff that I've done. I am a published author. Thank you so much. I would've told myself where it's like, you don't need these people. Believe in yourself. And I love that you figured it out, at least probably closer to a decade than not, than it took in terms of where I was in my life when I figured that out. Head to the curb, I guess what I'm trying to say.

JJ: Thank you.

LS: No, you're welcome. That's sincere too. I know I've been joking around a lot, that's sincere.

JJ: No, I...

LS: Totally came off that way.

JJ: No, it did not come off... No, I really...

LS: It didn't come off as sincere?

JJ: It came off as sincere. Yes, yes, yes.

LS: It didn't come off as toty, or suck uppy, or ass kissy.

JJ: No, no, no. No. I really appreciate that and it gives me, because I know I'm in my head, I'm just like, this feels like the right thing, but I'm scared.

LS: I need to give you some of my confidence, which is delusional levels of confidence. If I could take a little bit and fucking somehow give you an infusion.

JJ: Give me more delusion. I don't know if I need more delusion.

LS: Delusions of grandeur are good sometimes.

JJ: I don't know, because my delusion is basically shopping.

LS: Well, that's a financial addiction. That's a ….. even wealthy. Anyway.

JJ: Okay. So basically to officially wrap it up, I have three questions.

LS: Okay, let's go.

JJ: So the first question is, who is the most cultured person you know?

LS: The most cultured person I know.

JJ: Yes.

LS: Man, how do we even define culture?

JJ: This is a beautiful thing. I think culture can take on whatever definition you...

LS: The smartest person I know is my father. And I think that... Yeah, I'll say my dad. And that's not because he's the cool dad that put me on to cool stuff, but he's just so smart, and knowledgeable, and I go to him for a ton of life advice. And I had wonderful parents that I think raised me right. I was just having a conversation about this where I meet a lot of people, and this is definitely judgy, I'm not going to say it's not, but I'm like, I can tell if someone was raised right or raised wrong, not wrong. I'll go with my dad. Anyway, my thing is that the people, I still have to say, again to be self-deprecating, I people meet me are like, this guy's a psychopath. My parents are the most loving, wonderful, amazing people. Also, my mom, but my dad is very smart. And I think he is cultured, he knows a lot about...

LS: Oh, wow. Thank you so much.

JJ: Thank you.

LS: So when you say cultured, yeah, I mean I have so many cool friends that put me on to so much cool shit. I've had so many amazing mentors in my life, specifically in fashion, specifically in men's fashion. I could do a whole podcast about the people that have shaped me along my professional journey. But fuck all of them, shout out my dad. He's a smart mother fucker.

JJ: Fantastic. Okay. What is your latest cultural obsession?

LS: Ooh, my latest cultural obsession. Could it be...

JJ: Whatever you want?

LS: I quit smoking only to become completely addicted to flavored nicotine pouches.

JJ: Fantastic.

LS: So ZYN is the main brand in America, which is owned by Philip Morris. So it's all still big tobacco, it's all still evil. But it was the biggest beef I had with my wife, which is that I have as a very serious smoker since, for my entire adult life. I always would quit, or fake quit, restart, quit again, whatever. And I'm just replacing one addiction with another. But I've become obsessed, because there is a whole stupid hilarious bro culture around these in terms of puns. The New York Post just ran a whole thing where it's like, they call it's $5, because you buy them at a gas station for like whatever, five bucks. Not in New York, their like $7.25. But they curb your appetite, like nicotine is an appetite depressant. So they were calling it Ozempic. Or they give you ZYNergy, because like you take in the morning with a coffee, you're fucking jacked up. Anyway, so I'm obsessed with ZYN, which is the last time that anyone mentions ZYN on the extremely cumbersome, long name of whatever this project is again. But yeah, I've been trying all the flavors.

JJ: What's your favorite flavor?

LS: Peppermint.

JJ: Oh, that's a very easy...

LS: But there's a shortage right now because they're so popular. Also, it's really bad, I think some legislation is going to be enacted sooner rather than later, if it hasn't already been put forth by politicians that would rather police people's bodies than actually do anything of real value. The issue with this I think, is that because of the memes and because of how culture, because this is culture, but corny. You said, I was allowed to talk about it.

JJ: You got to pick this journey.

LS: Because children on Instagram are seeing these memes, obviously with kids vaping in school, you can get caught vaping. You can literally be the teacher's pet like yourself and have one of these hidden in your mouth. And you could be like a 12-year-old kid hopped up on nicotine.

JJ: Yes.

LS: I'm obsessed with these things. Trying all the flavors.

JJ: Yeah.

LS: But it helped me quit smoking and my wife could not be happier. I don't think she loves that these are now part of my life. But if you had, she had to choose, she's taking these all day over darts.

JJ: Okay. Yeah, anyway.

LS: Yeah. Am I supposed to give a better, like cooler answer? I talked about all my prestige horror movies that I'm watching, that was culture.

JJ: Well, we're going to get into more prestige, hopefully.

LS: Okay.

JJ: So the last question is, what should everyone watch, listen to, and read to consider themselves culture?

LS: Okay, great. So what should they watch? So actually one of my favorite directors, and maybe the most underrated director of all time, is William Friedkin, who died recently. He is most famous for directing The Exorcist (1973).

JJ: Yeah.

LS: He also directed a great movie called Sorcerer (1977), which is maybe the most underrated, spectacular movie of all time. So everyone should watch... Oh, he also did The French Connection (1971) . How could I forget.

JJ: Really good.

LS: He's incredible. And To Live and Die in L.A. Honestly, he's my favorite and I think objectively underrated director. There's a movie called Sorcerer that came out in theaters when Star Wars was in theaters and nobody fucking saw this movie, because Star Wars became the cultural phenomenon that we all fucking know. Which is almost like become anti culture, because it's so fucking...

JJ: Because it's so popular.

LS: Not even that, it's just fucking dog shit now. Well, spinoffs and how Disney has commodified it. So anyway, everyone should watch Sorcerer. It's on Criterion Collection right now. Everyone should have, dude, that's the thing with all these streaming services, by the way which I'm a subscriber to all of them, the best, and most crucial, and most prestige, is the Criterion Collection.

JJ: I became a subscriber.

LS: Oh my God, thank you for your service.

JJ: I feel so, I was like, what was I doing in my life?

LS: There's part of me that's always afraid that something will happen in the Criterion Collection, or even the streaming service will go away, because people don't care about good film anymore. Because film has become junk food, thanks to Marvel. Not to be on my Scorsese shit. But Sorcerer, honestly, well, it's incredible. It's on Criterion. I don't know if everyone will like it, but it's impossible for me to pick a favorite movie or even favorite movies, because I love them so much. But that's the one that I always recommend, and I'll take any opportunity to recommend that. And I'm not going to pretend that I read. With that said, which is funny, because my wife is... So the way that my wife and I, we break down our alone time, time apart, is she's a voracious reader and I am a psychotic consumer of cinema. So that's when we spend our time apart.

It's great to have a big enough apartment where you don't have to be locked into one room together where like, turn the TV down I'm trying to read or whatever. Or hey, pay attention, anyway. Yeah, I have a nice apartment. I'm like, what am I talking about? But with that said, I have read some really fantastic books in my lifetime. Some of my favorites are, this is a brail answer, but I think Kurt Vonnegut is one of the greatest minds.

JJ: Which one?

LS: So my favorite's Cat's Cradle.

JJ: That one's good.

LS: Because everyone reads Slaughterhouse-Five, which is fantastic. In school, it's a social studies book. Shout out social studies again for the second time. I don't know, people are familiar with Breakfast of Champions. I don't know there's a lot of great Vonnegut. My favorite's Cat's Cradle. Another thing that you read in school, Beowulf. There is a fantastic retelling from the perspective of Grendel, called Grendel by, I believe it's John Gardner, I think is the writer. That's a fantastic book. It's beautiful. Snobby Answer Can Be by Voltaire is hilarious and the greatest satire of all time. In terms of what I'm actually reading right now, the director, Michael Mann, who wrote and directed the movie Heat. There's a sequel Heat 2, which they're turning into a movie, that is a book.

I'm reading that novel right now. I'm reading a movie basically. And then with Furiosa, the Mad Max prequel that's in theaters right now. The previous movie with Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy called Mad Max Free Road, which is amazing. There's a fantastic oral history about the making of that movie that is really good. So those are two books about movies that I, well, one I'm taking with me on vacation. Finishing Heat 2 now. And the others I mentioned are my favorites of all time that I'm not going to pretend like I've read any of those super recently, but those are the smart guy answers.

JJ: Okay, and what should everyone listen to?

LS: They should listen to Throwing Fits, which is a podcast I do with my friend James Harris. In terms of music, on the way over I was listening to The Clash.

JJ: Yeah.

LS: Clash were fantastic. Oh, a great underrated band is a band called T. Rex. They're British glam rock band. Mainly the project of a guy named Marc Bolan, who some people will say actually invented glam rock and Bowie ripped him off. He died in a car accident way too young. They basically only have one song that people know, which is Bang a Gong Get It On. You've heard of that? Banga a gong, get it on. Glam rock from the seventies, it's fantastic. The record is called Electric Warrior. It is awesome. There's a second record called The Slider, that's really good. Yeah, he's just underrated and he was like a big celebrity in England. They never really made it big in America at all, and he died way too young. But he was super influential, amazing fits. You would actually love, Marc with a c Bolan, you should look it up.

JJ: Okay.

LS: Incredible inspo in terms of the fucking hand painted psychedelic Rolls Royce to top hats, and neckerchiefs, and just crazy fucking suits, and just a God. Really to the point where the argument that he invented this genre, that obviously then Bowie took to a whole another fucking galaxy, no pun intended, child, Ziggy Stardust. I think that music is underrated and underappreciated, much like a lot of this stuff that I usually drop when I'm trying to sound like cool and actually give someone a wreck, that's not a very obvious thing.

JJ: Yeah.

LS: Yeah, and then the Clash. The tagline for Throwing Fits is the only podcast that matters. And to wrap it up, that was stolen from The Clash, because the clash were popular, and political, and radical, and extremely talented. And they called themselves the only band that mattered, because quite frankly, at the time, that was a true statement in terms of music with a message, maybe the best to ever do it. So yeah, listen to The Clash.

JJ: All right. Well, Lawrence, this was amazing. Thank you so much.

LS: Thank you.

JJ: This was fantastic.

LS: I had a great time, which is all... You had a good time?

JJ: I had a fantastic time.

LS: That's all that matters.

I may earn some commission if you make a purchase through one of the links above.

Follow me on Instagram here!

Shop my Dora Maar closet here!

Welcome to Lunch Break, my exciting interview series where I chat with fascinating people over lunch!

Today's episode is available to everyone, but starting with the next episode of "Lunch Break," we'll return to our regular schedule. To ensure you don't miss a single moment, consider becoming a paid subscriber. I release new episodes of this series every other week, and our next guest is a true jawns enthusiast—you won't want to miss it! 😊

If you listened to last week’s episode of “Lunch Break” (and if you haven’t, what are you waiting for?!), you know that a few weekends ago, I had the honor of attending the US Olympic Gymnastic Trials in Minneapolis! The day after the trials and the team announcement, I had the pleasure of speaking with gold medalist and member of the Final Five, Laurie Hernandez. Talking to Laurie felt like chatting with an old friend, and I know we could have talked for hours (I also left the conversation fully obsessed with her mom!).

Here’s a little background on Laurie before we dive into the interview: Her breakthrough came in 2016 when she made the U.S. Olympic gymnastics team, known as the "Final Five." At the Rio de Janeiro Olympics, she won a gold medal in the team event and a silver medal on the balance beam. That same year, she competed on and won the 23rd season of “Dancing with the Stars,” further showcasing her versatility and talent. Laurie is now channeling that same energy into her studies at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University (NYU), my alma mater (Go Violets!)! She is also the author of the book “I Got This: To Gold and Beyond,” which details her journey to becoming an Olympic gold medalist, the role her family plays in her life, and her advocacy for mental health and body positivity, among other topics. It was truly an honor to speak with her about the gymnastics trials, her time at NYU, and Mamma Mia!

P.S: In the transcription below you will not only find pictures, but also links to items mentioned.

Jalil Johnson: So with Mamma Mia! ... I guess we're just going to get started. With Mamma Mia!, I watched it on the plane-

Laurie Hernandez: Well, yes.

JJ: I saw it on your Instagram that you did a rendition of one of the songs with a headstand. It was-

LH: Oh. Yeah.

JJ: Also, I have not seen Mamma Mia! in years, and I literally was crying on the plane.

LH: Oh. That movie. Every time I hear Meryl Streep sing “Slipping Through My Fingers,” immediately, the instinct to call my mom and be like, "Mom, I'm sorry. I don't mean to be grown up so fast." That movie makes me weep.

JJ: I didn't realize the impact of so many of the songs, and so it's a really fantastic movie.

LH: Yeah. I mean, it seems like a lot of fun, and it seems like everyone on set was having a good time. But when you actually listen to what's going on, even though the plot is ... There's a little bit of suspending your own belief for it, but that's also just theater and musicals in general.

JJ: Did you watch Mom Mamma Mia! 2?

LH: Heck yeah, I did.

JJ: I've never seen it. How was it?

LH: I personally loved it. I mean, Lily James was just phenomenal as young Meryl, but it just, I liked it. I liked it. I prefer the first one, but I did love the second one.

JJ: Was the second one more of like a campy, "We're just doing it for the fans."

LH: They're like, "We're going to give her some background story. We're going to give the trio a little bit of history. We'll see them as youngins," and I thought it was worth it.

JJ: Oh. Fantastic.

LH: Yeah.

JJ: Well, before we dive any further into the Mamma Mia! lore, could you please introduce yourself and tell everyone where we are?

LH: Heck yeah. Hello. My name is Laurie Hernandez. I am an Olympic gold medalist and part of the Final Five women's gymnastics team in Rio 2016. Currently, we are in Minneapolis and are at Mara.

JJ: Oh. Thanks. Fantastic. Well, I'm so excited to talk with you. Last night was amazing, wasn't it?

LH: Oh. Last night was just, it was thrilling, and in my head, the team that I had for Paris this year at the beginning of the week was just a complete shift come day two. But it also just goes to show the experience and the courage that it takes to show up as a team when you see your teammates getting injured and whatnot. To have a repeat team, to have four out of ... Well, at the time, the teams, it was a long story, but to have pretty much a repeat Tokyo team come on back and to hit the routines as best as they could ... Sure, there were some mistakes, but they showed up on the events that they needed to. It was really a thrilling launch.

JJ: It was an amazing ... That was my first time also seeing a gymnast perform in person.

LH: Oh my gosh. Yeah. Very different than TV.

JJ: Very different than TV, but also, so emotional. We were sitting down, and we were all kind of crying. No. We were literally crying, actually.

LH: Yeah. No. I was on air, and into my mic, I can hear my own sniffles for broadcasting. I was like oof.

JJ: So for the audience, could you just describe, what does this moment mean, and how do these gymnasts feel? You were in their shoes.

LH: I mean, each athlete has their own goals and aspirations for this coming games, but if we look at everyone's individual journey, we could start with Simone, recognizing her journey of not only dominating in 2016, but then also the competition that she had in Tokyo, having to pull out of team finals due to the twisties. Now, she gets to come back with those same teammates and almost have a bit of a redemption in a sense, not that she necessarily needs one, but I think a lot of her feel for coming back is that feeling of, "Let me go out there, and let me prove to myself what I can do." So that's a really fun energy and also someone who's the best in the world.

JJ: Also, somewhat, she's shepherding this new group.

LH: She is. Yeah.

JJ: She's like your mother.

LH: She is mother. She's mothering.

JJ: She's mother.

LH: She's serving mother. Absolutely. She is absolutely serving, and then we look at Suni Lee, who has been through two kidney issues, is currently in remission, has been working so hard, and just, at the end of the competition, sobbed into the mic, saying, "A year ago, I did not think this was going to happen for me."

JJ: I broke down, and yeah. It was really-

LH: Yeah. That was a lot. With Jordan Chiles being, already, teammates with Simone, I'm sure it feels really good to see someone that not only she looks up to, but she once again gets to be a part of that team with her. For Jade Carey, she had a really big mistake on individual vault finals. Not only is it exciting that she gets to go back and hopefully compete vault again, but as a part of Tokyo, she was invited onto Team USA as an individual specialist. This is her first time being a part of the team itself.

So now, she gets to go ahead, and compete, and hopefully get that team medal with the squad. I have full faith they'll be able to do that, and then Hezly Rivera, new, up and coming, 16 years old, from New Jersey. This is her first Olympic Games, first World Championships, because she'd be too young to compete anytime before this year. Oh. Thanks. I just got my little... ASMR my little oat milk latte.

JJ: We love all the sounds, as many sounds as you ...

LH: Thanks.

JJ: And so you were saying the newcomer on the block?

LH: Yeah.

JJ: From New Jersey.

LH: She's kind of like a little puppy coming in, and it's, especially when you have four athletes who have already been to either ... well, have already been to an Olympic Games and World Championships ... All of them have, except for Hezly. I do believe that they are the best ones to walk her through the experience and to let her know, "Yes. It's scary. We've all had our first times before, and the first time for anything can be scary." But if anything, Hezly Rivera's performances these last two competitions have just shown that she can show up when it counts, and that's huge for a 16-year-old.

JJ: It's amazing. It's like really, this new class of girls is really fantastic, like women.

LH:Yeah.

JJ: Do you get to go to Paris with them?

LH: I do get to go to Paris, not with them, but with NBC Sports and the broadcasting team. I'll be doing live coverage out there, which will be so much fun. They've never done live before. It's always been prime time. So everybody gets both. We get double the amount of gymnastics everyone gets to watch.

JJ: Oh. That's amazing. Well, I have two questions for Paris. The first question, selfishly, are you going to be doing any shopping?

LH: Absolutely. I'm not even sure where, but the goal is to just go out there and serve, as per usual.

JJ: Serve. Serve. Serve mother.

LH: Serve mother. Thank you.

JJ: Well, because you're also going, I think, during the best time, which is sales season, which-

LH: Oh. I didn't even realize. I've never been to Paris before. I was hoping to sneak in for a competition or two back in my day. Apparently, I'm retired now, whatever that means. Me, 24 years old, retired the same year as my father. That was so Draco Malfoy of me. Sorry. Anyways.

JJ: Are you a Slytherin?

LH: It depends who you ask. I think I'm Gryffindor, but some people were like, "Oh. You're Hufflepuff," and I was like, "You're a silly goose." But to each their own.

JJ: Do you feel like a Gryffindor?

LH: I do. I think, well, I have the word brave-

JJ: Did ever you ever take that test on-

LH: I did, and I got almost an equal amount for all of them, but Gryffindor was my highest.

JJ: Got it.

LH: So I have the word brave tattooed on me, which is a little bit millennial of me, even though I'm Gen Z. But that's very Gryffindor.

JJ: It is very Gryffindor. You're a leader. It makes sense.

LH: Yeah. Yeah. I also think there's a lot of bravery and courage, and I'm like, I'm scared all the time, but I still do scary things anyways. So that feels very-

JJ: It feels-

LH: ... feels very Potter of me.

JJ: So with Paris, you're going to try to find time to shop probably. Are you into shirting?

LH: Shirting? Oh my gosh. Don't tell me I'm uncultured. What's shirting?

JJ: Like a shirt, like a button-down shirt.

LH: Oh. Well, yes.

JJ: Yes.

LH: Well, yes.

JJ: Well, yes. Well, I've never been to Paris either, but this is the first place I'm going on my list, I'm going September, Charvet.

LH: Okay. I'm writing that down.

JJ: They make custom shirts. [the appropriate term to use here was made-to-measure, but c’est la vie.]

LH: Mom, if you wouldn't mind writing this. No. I'm kidding.

JJ: Charvet, and slippers. They're known for their shirting and their slippers.

LH: Okay. That's going to be a lot of fun. I wouldn't be shocked if I am in polos and whatnot, but I think one of the most exciting things-

JJ: They have polos, too.

LH: I feel like my style definitely leans towards sporty. I don't know if that has to do with me being a professional athlete for 15 years, but it definitely leans towards business sporty. I mean, I'm in slacks and a Nike shirt right now, which feels fun and very meta, if you will.

JJ: It kind of feels meta.

LH: I was like, if you told me I had to be in Divergent right now, I think I'd be totally fine.

JJ: Yes. Well, this leads me to the next question attached to Paris, is, what is your travel outfit? What are you? Are you business casual, sporty casual?

LH: Actually, you're kind of looking at it.

JJ: Okay. Well, describe....

LH: Swap trousers for joggers, but I've got some just Nike running sneakers. Because I feel like airport floors are so hard, and I already have arthritis, which is so fun and funky.

JJ: Yeah.

LH: Let's get that trending.

JJ: Everyone get arthritis.

LH: Everyone get arthritis. Kidding. Let's not romanticize arthritis, but let's make it cool. Because those who already have arthritis, at least you can have cool shoes with it.

JJ: Yes.

LH: So I got some nice running shoes, and then I'm wearing trousers right now. Because I've had a lot of press this morning before heading to the airport, but I do plan on swapping them for some just casual Nike joggers. I love when they cuff at the ankle, because I'm so short. So anything that shows a nice ankle makes me feel a little tall, even though I'm a whopping five one and a half. I'm doing my best. Then, I have a crop top, kind of curves where my ribs are.

JJ: It's a really nice ... It really defines.

LH: Yeah, and I feel like, I don't know, it just, it makes me feel really strong. It's cropped at the shoulders, as well. It's completely sleeveless, but it's a turtleneck.

JJ: It's décolletage.

LH: So I feel like things that show a little décolletage, a little collar, in a sense, because it cuts so high up over here, even though it is a turtleneck, yeah, I really like that. Anything that makes me feel like my posture has to be rod straight, that makes me feel really confident. So I feel like when I'm wearing sportswear, especially when I'm wearing Nike, I automatically have to sit up and start flexing, which ... I love knowing if I have to throw a punch, I will.

JJ: You're prepared.

LH: I'm strong enough. Yeah.

JJ: So Nike, how long have you been with Nike, and how did that relationship come about?

LH: Oh my goodness. I've been with Nike for quite a few years now, and I started off as a Nike athlete. Now, I'm part of their think tank initiative, where they just really want to listen to the voices of athletes, retired or not, which just felt really good. Because when you're in sport, it's like all the attention and the eyes are on you, and then, for me, being retired, there is this feeling of like, "Okay. Well, what do I do now?" It's been nice to be a part of the Nike family continuing in my journey outside of sport.

Whether that's speaking events or getting to talk on past experiences, I feel like I've gotten to get together with my cohort. They have a tier of cohorts. I think I'm number three, or not tier. But there's different times that everyone gets to coordinate, and just being able to not only connect with other athletes, but share our different experiences and things that we've either been insecure about, or, "Hey. When I'm wearing this, it doesn't really make me feel good in this part of my body, because I'm so short." Then, someone who's much taller might say, "Oh yeah. I have the same issue, but in a different location," and Nike's just there to listen and to listen to the athlete and just to the person. It's been really nice to be a part of that.

JJ: It's amazing. It truly does sound like it's a family.

LH: Yeah, and I'm like, "Oh. Yay. Just because I'm an athlete doesn't mean that I don't get to be a part of things." So that feels really good.

JJ: Yeah, and then, another thing that I found out was that we have something in common.

LH: Oh my gosh.

JJ: Well, you're currently-

LH: Go Violets.

JJ: Go Violets.

LH: I know it. I was like, "This energy, this energy."

JJ: Yeah.

LH: I'm sorry.

JJ: Well, do you know what school I went to? What school do you think I was in?

LH: I mean, it's giving Tisch, but I don't know.

JJ: Really?

LH: Yeah. I swear if you're about to say Stern, I'm so sorry, because-

JJ: Oh. No, no, no, no. They would not have let me into Stern.

LH: No. Oh. They would have.

JJ: I don't know. Would they? Wait. I will not slander Stern. They were-

LH: I will not slander Stern. We'll talk about it when we take our mics off.

JJ: That's a off ... But I went to Gallatin.

LH: Oh. Okay.

JJ: Which is basically Tisch.

LH: Yeah. That's-

JJ: We're in the same building.

LH: It was either Gallatin or CAS. I was like, "Yeah....

JJ: I started out in CAS. Well, I started in the liberal arts program, and I thought I wanted to go into journalism. Anderson Cooper-

(This is a piece I did for the university newspaper where I interviewed a group of guys that started a SnapChat group that went somewhat viral on campus. I would also like to mention that when it came to editing the video I was very adament about featuring Frank Sinatra’s “My Way.”)

LH: Which, that makes sense.

JJ: We're kind of doing this.

LH: Look at us.

JJ: I fulfilled-

LH: In the journalism.

JJ: Well, Anderson Cooper came to our class, and he was like, "Well, you don't need a degree to be a journalist." I was like, "Well, thank you, Anderson," because I-

LH: That's correct.

JJ: So I went to Gallatin, and I got to do whatever. So Tisch. Have you always wanted to go to NYU Tisch?

LH: So I didn't really realize that I had wanted to go to NYU. I knew at a really young age that I wanted to get into entertainment and acting, and I always was imitating people as a kid. I loved watching SNL. I loved animation and voice acting, and my parents are characters. Two Puerto Rican parents, please. There's a lot of energy going on in this house. I am the youngest of three.

JJ: Oh.

LH: The whole point is I want my parents' attention, and I'm funny.

JJ: You have to perform.

LH: I got it. So are my siblings, hilarious. No. My parents are great.

JJ: Are you the funniest?

LH: Yeah. Well, me and my brother.

JJ: You can be honest. Just say you're-

LH: My brother rivals, I suppose, but no. I think I can be really funny, but yeah.

JJ: Are you the Meryl Streep of your household?

LH: Yes. Whatever that means. Take what you will from that statement, whatever that ... Yes.

JJ: Lead actress, Oscar winner, mother.

LH: Oh my God. Well, that would ... I don't think I can get anywhere. One time I shook Meryl Streep's hand, and she was ... I think about it.

JJ: Really?

LH: I think about it often.

JJ: How was it? Was there-

LH: She is so nice.

JJ: Really?

LH: So nice. So funny. It was very crowded, and there was a lot happening. She was like, "You," and I was like, "Me."

JJ: She knew you.

LH: "You." So yeah. No. But everyone who's in my inner circle had already known that I wanted to get into entertainment in whatever aspect that looked like. So when I had auditioned to get into NYU and got into their Tisch program, a lot of people who didn't know me were really shocked by the gymnastics to acting pipeline. But people who knew me were like, "No. This is really exciting." Because we were just trying to figure out when this was going to happen, not if."

JJ: We got to wrap up soon, but I just want to say, how has it been at NYU? Then, I have three final questions.

LH: Heck yeah. It's been great at NYU. I'm, for the most part, a straight-A student. I have a B that's thrown in there from one of my movement classes, which-

JJ: Neither here nor there.

LH: It's fine. It's not like it's my job or anything, whatever. No. Actually, my notes for that made a lot of sense, but for the most part, have been straight A's. That's been shocking, because I was homeschooled from the-

JJ: Oh really?

LH: Yeah, from the third grade all the way up until I graduated high school. So it definitely was a bit of a culture shock to go in, and to be at classes in person, and to kind of train, or trade this rigorous gymnastics training for rigorous acting training. I really swapped one for the other. But now, I don't have to crunch my ankles on tumbling passes anymore, and I still get to perform.

JJ: Yes. You're performing with talent beyond compare. It's an amazing school.

LH: Yeah, and everyone around me has been so phenomenal. I've seen just such incredible art. I know that sounds so cheesy, but-

JJ: But no. It's truly ... Spike Lee is there, Anne Hathaway, the roster's-

LH: Yeah. You name it. The roster's crazy. Elizabeth Olsen. I mean, it was so exciting to be a part of my cohort for the last two years. Even though I'm four years older than some of my classmates, there has been some incredible talent. They've all been so kind and patient in knowing that this is new for me, too. So yeah. It's good.

JJ: I feel like we could talk about NYU. We will have to connect and share notes for sure.

LH: Yes. I would love to.

JJ: But so I have three final questions for you.

LH: Yes.

JJ: So my Substack is called Consider Yourself Cultured, so they-

LH: Mm-hmm. I'm so scared.

JJ: Don't be scared.

LH: I'm about to get canceled. It's fine.

JJ: No. You're not going to be canceled. It's going to be fantastic. So the three questions all deal with culture. So the first question is, who is the most cultured person you know?

LH: Who is the most cultured person I know? This is really specific, but dare I say, my mother. My mom, during this weekend, during Olympic trials, has been going out and enjoying the Minneapolis Pride Parade and brought back some flags for me. Because what can I say? Little fruit basket over here.

JJ: Yeah.

LH: So it's been really sweet, and she, even growing up religious and being in kind of a Christian, Catholic household, that was such an experience for me, personally. For her, she has held onto her faith, and just allowed so much room, and did not question me at all, was not, funny, she's a social worker, was not shocked or surprised when I told her just my preferences and my experiences, and was just so loving, supportive. Her being a woman of color and just giving me that breathing room to be a woman of color was just like ... I'd say that's a really cultured person.

JJ: That's very cultured.

LH: Yeah.

JJ: That's amazing.

LH: The other day, she said, "You're serving," and I was like, "That's culture, mom."

JJ: You made a mark. That's the culture.

LH: That's culture, so ...

JJ: That's fantastic.

LH: Yeah.

JJ: So the next question is, what is your latest cultural obsession?

LH: My latest cultural obsession? Oh my gosh. Now, I'm like, let me think about this. I don't like the fact that low-rise jeans are back, but I understand.

JJ: You understand.

LH: I understand. I understand, and I get it. Let me think. I mean, does TikTok count as a cultural obsession?

JJ: Yes.

LH: Because I do feel like the rise of social media, especially in Gen Z, has been like, it is trend after every single week. The only way that I can keep up with the world is by scrolling on TikTok, which is very telling. I don't recognize it, but-

JJ: Is there a specific thing on TikTok that you're obsessed with, like a specific ...

LH: Drew Afualo has been a really fun one to watch. I do feel like watching her just talk about men in general has been really funny. But at the end of the day, it's, for the most part, in jest, and I think it allows women and non-binary folk, those who identify, just to look at that and be like, "You know what? Wait a second. I do think we should start valuing ourselves more."

JJ: Yes.

LH: "I think this is something we should be paying attention to." It's all wrapped up in comedy, because that is just what makes it bite-sized for the audience to take in what's actually being said. So any comedians out there on TikTok who are tackling cultural issues with comedy, I love that. I love that.

JJ: Comedy is like the most important.

LH: The best way to breach me is comedy.

JJ: Comedy is like the most important art form there is.

LH: It is. I agree with that.

JJ: Without it, where are we?

LH: Where are we?

JJ: There is no culture. The last question I have is, what should everyone read, listen to, and watch to consider themselves cultured?

LH: Read So You Want to Talk About Race. I know that's really jamming in there, but that was a really important-

JJ: Who's that by?

LH: It is by ... Wait. Hold on. This is important. I want to pull it up. I want to make sure that I'm pronouncing her name correctly. Ijeoma Oluo. So You Want to Talk About Race, and it just, it talks about microaggression and the feelings of, "Okay. Well, this thing wasn't explicitly racist, but there's something in there that made me unsettled and uneasy." The author just talks about where that comes from and what that's like as a culture and as an experience in being people of color, but especially for Black people. What is that like, and how can we understand? I don't know. That book, everyone needs to read it. I don't care who you are. Read that damn book. Then, for podcast, Call Her Daddy.

JJ: Oh my gosh. I mean-

LH: Whiplash. I'm sorry. The book versus podcast. But Alex just really gets, whether it's Simone Biles, or it's entertainment, or it's ... It doesn't matter who it is. We get so many different insights for so many different people, and that's really exciting. Then, what was the last one?

JJ: Watch.

LH: Watch.

JJ: I feel like I have an answer for you.

LH: You have an answer for me?

JJ: Mamma Mia!

LH: Well, yes. Mamma Mia!, of course.

JJ: But you out-

LH: Mamma Mia! kind of feels like a given. I'm trying to think. I've recently been watching Bridgerton, so getting to that Regency era.

JJ: Oh. Yes. That's-

LH: Why not? I'm waiting for a little Latina to pop in there and then play Gasolina in violin, instrumental.

JJ: Maybe it'll be you, maybe, because you're kind entering into acting.

LH: Shonda Rhimes, call me. I'm in.

JJ: Yes. We're-

LH: Let me audition. I'm begging. I'm actually, I'm on my knees.

JJ: Well, thank you so much. This was amazing, and have a fantastic time in Paris.

LH: Thank you.

JJ: Please let me know what you're shopping.

LH: Thanks so much. Yeah. I'm going to have to get all your store recommendations.

I may earn some commission if you make a purchase through one of the links above.

Follow me on Instagram here!

Shop my Dora Maar closet here!

Welcome to Lunch Break, my exciting interview series where I chat with fascinating people over lunch!

Hello Dear Readers, for those in the USA, I hope you all enjoyed a wonderful day off, soaking up some sun and devouring some delicious food! Today’s letter is especially exciting because I had the opportunity to interview Olympic silver medalist Jordan Chiles just one day after she was named as a part of the the USA Women’s Olympic Artistic Gymnastics team heading to Paris! This was such a special opportunity, so this edition of Lunch Break will be available to everyone, as well as next week’s with Olympic gold medalist Laurie Hernandez!

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of joining Nike in Minneapolis for the USA Women’s Gymnastics Trials. Calling it thrilling feels like an understatement; it was exhilarating!!! Being in a stadium with over 16,000 enthusiastic fans cheering on these incredible athletes as they executed squat turns, leaps, twists, and other breathtaking feats was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience, I cannot thank the Nike team enough for including me in this experience (Thank you so much Lynne and Chloe!)! Witnessing these athletes, who have dedicated their lives to this moment, achieve their dreams was beyond inspiring and motivating . Additionally, I must highlight the remarkable diversity of this year’s women’s gymnastics team, which adds another layer of significance to their achievements.

When the team was announced (Simone Biles, Jordan Chiles, Suni Lee, Jade Carey, and Hezly Rivera), the athletes emerged wearing their stunning new jackets. These jackets were designed in collaboration with Nike and Sami Miro, a former competitive gymnast, making this a full-circle moment. The jackets pay homage to the Greek Goddess Nike—the goddess of victory. The jacket is cropped and rendered in white silk with strong shoulders. The coloring of the jacket calls to mind marble statues, while the shoulders and the Olympic emblem on the back evoke images of Nike’s wings. And hopefully, those wings will carry these incredible athletes to victory!

Shop my At Present array here!

Now, I am thrilled to share my interview with Jordan Chiles, one of the extraordinary athletes aiming for gold. This will be Chiles' second time competing in the Olympics, her first being the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Her performance was buoyant and energetic, and you could feel the electricity radiating from her even from a distance. I only had a few minutes to speak with her, but we managed to discuss her performance, the bespoke jackets, and of course Beyoncé.

Jalil Johnson: Hi.

Jordan Chiles: Hello.

JJ: Could you just start off by saying who you are and everything like that?

JC: Yes, I am Jordan Chiles. I am part of the Team USA Gymnastics Team, and I am a 2021 and now 2024 Olympian.

JJ: Fantastic. Well, we have to start off with last night. It was amazing. That was my first time seeing gymnasts perform in person, so it was such an honor to see you and the whole team perform. So just tell me how you're feeling about last night.

JC: Honestly, I'm still on a high, y'all. This has been a crazy ride. My journey has been crazy. I've had losses within my family, with my aunt and my grandpa, and injuries that have happened. So being able to finally be in this position to say I did it and I made it and I was able to put everything aside and just be me, that's how I felt last night.

Really, everything is just beyond words. This morning, I was like, "There's no way I'm going to Paris. There's just no way I'm going to Paris. I am representing Team USA in Paris." That's just crazy to say, so I'm really excited and can't wait to see how everything turns out.

JJ: And you're going to Paris your way, which is really amazing. And so of course, I think we have to talk about the fashion, because you're a fashion girl. And so let's start off with the jackets, the Sami Miro jackets, which are so special. As you probably know, this is the first time they've done a custom collaboration, and there's so much meaning behind the jacket. So just tell me: What were your first reaction to the jacket?

JC: Oh, my gosh. So they had told us. After we got told who was going to be on the team, they were like, "Okay, guys, you're going to go change into this outfit that we got you." And we were like, "Outfits? What do you mean?" We're not just going to walk out like, "Okay, it's fine by me."

The moment that we walked in and I saw the jacket, I didn't even see the pants or the shoes; I just saw the jacket. I screamed like I was two years old. I really was just in awe. I was just so impressed. Nike, they did they thing, and I get it. I get it 100%, because me being a Nike athlete and me being in fashion is the best thing. But man, that jacket, I could have slept in it, I kid you not. I wanted to take it with me that night, but I had to wait till today.

JJ: It was fantastic, and when I looked at the jacket, I saw so much in there, but of course, when my first thoughts came to Beyonce, it feels very of her, especially Renaissance. And so I was reading that you've declared that this is the I'm That Girl. That's your motto, mantra of the season. So can you just tell me: What is Beyonce to you? What does that mean to you? How does that help you show up in your performance?

JC: Well, obviously, Beyonce is a queen herself, and why wouldn't you want to look up to a queen? I feel like I'm a queen half the time. I wake up, and I'm like, "Woke up flawless, okay." But having somebody who has not only gone through a lot within her life, and you've seen it with the Renaissance tour, her shows, her going through a bunch of stuff within her family and all that stuff, it's really cool to really find out what it is that person has done to become who they are.

Because Beyonce, she's not just Beyonce. She made a name for herself, and that's something that my parents have always told me: "Try to make a name for yourself because it's only one you. You can try to be somebody else, but it's not going to be the exact same." So with knowing that she put effort in her life and all that stuff, I think it is something that really inspired me, and I just wanted to do the same thing.

So the motto, I'm That Girl, actually came from her song. I mean, if you listen to the lyrics, it makes a lot of sense and everything like that, but I don't use it in a cocky way. I use it in an inspirational way. It's an affirmation for a lot of people, and I feel like if you have that confirmation all the time, and you can just look at yourself in the mirror and be like, "Yes, I am that girl" then you can go into your life and go into everything that you're doing and feel confident as much as you can.

JJ: And I feel like I have to ask you. I won't ask you to name your favorite Beyonce era, because that's like choosing your favorite child, but can you give me your top three ranking of Beyonce eras?

JC: Oh, my gosh, Beyonce eras. It's hard to choose my Beyonce eras because she did R&B so good. She doing country so good. She did pop so good. She's a rapper. At this rate, Beyonce is just Beyonce, so I can't choose. But I think besides Lemonade, besides Beyonce, besides 4, besides all those albums, I think the biggest one that really caught my eye was Cowboy Carter, because you never knew that that was a side that she wanted to embrace.

And she is a country girl, and I think a lot of people take that for granted. She's from Houston. She's a Houston hottie, mixed with a cowgirl era in her. You got to let that girl be her at this rate, so Cowboy Carter definitely is an album that I'm just like, "Okay, she really changed the game and what music can be."

JJ: Well, I'm running out time, but I have to wrap up this with every question I always ask guest on my podcast. My newsletter is called Consider Yourself Cultured, so I have three kind of rapid-fire questions, all about culture. Don't worry.

JC: Okay, let's see. Okay, okay, okay.

JJ: Who is the most cultured person you know?

JC: Oh, I'm going to have to say Beyonce.

JJ: No explanation needed. Beyonce. What is your latest cultural obsession?

JC: Cultural obsession? Cultural obsession? I don't know.

JJ: Is there anything on TikTok?

JC: No, okay, I got it. I've been in this bow era, like the Coquette Bow era. Yeah, I've been in that era. Yes, I can say that.

JJ: Where are you getting your bows?

JC: I get my bows from Amazon, or if I see them in a store like PacSun or something like that. I got mine off of Nike, actually.

JJ: Oh, fantastic, Nike.

JC: Bows on Nike.

JJ: Oh, we love that. And the last question is: What should everyone read, watch, and listen to, to consider themselves cultured?

JC: Oh, you should watch BET. You should listen to, I think, any R&B artist or any female rapper. Sorry, I'm not coming at the men. The men are very cultured as well, but I feel like female rappers need to be recognized a little more. What was the third one?

JJ: Read.

JC: You should read affirmation books.

JJ: Do you have any recommendations for affirmation books?

JC: No, I really don't. I think honestly, every single time I go into Barnes & Noble or just a grocery store, I find just an affirmation book and kind of just read my life away.

JJ: Well, thank you so much, and congratulations, and then have a fantastic time in Paris.

JC: Thank you.

I may earn some commission if you make a purchase through one of the links above.

Follow me on Instagram here!

Shop my Dora Maar closet here!

Welcome to Lunch Break, my exciting interview series where I chat with fascinating people over lunch!

There have been some exciting developments, thanks to my discovery of new features on Substack! I'm thrilled to announce that everyone can now listen to the podcast (yes, we can officially call it a podcast now, haha!). Paid subscribers will enjoy the full interview, while free subscribers will receive a portion of it.

Additionally, I’ve taken steps to enhance your experience by providing a complete transcript of each interview. Within the transcript, you'll find embedded links and photos related to the discussion. Paid subscribers will gain access to even more exclusive links and photos! By popular demand, “Lunch Break” will now arrive in your inbox every other Thursday at noon, perfectly timed for your lunch break.

Now, enough with the logistics—let’s dive into today’s guest!

I won't dive too much into somsack sikhounmuong ‘s background, as we explore that in-depth in today’s episode. However, I will mention that he is currently the Creative Director of Alex Mill and previously served as the Chief Design Director at J.Crew, and when he is not at work he is at the ceramic studio, and when he’s not there you can find him working on his Substack "Somstack.”

Somsack is so eloquent and inquisitive, that at one point during the interview it felt as if we had switch roles of “interviewer” and “interviewee!” ( Oh, and I should mention that this interview took place on my last day at Saks, and paid subscribers will hear a bit more about that.) Somsack’s curiosity extends beyond his expertise, and I could have easily talked with him for hours but lunch breaks are only so long. Still, within that hour, I left feeling truly inspired.

I hope you all enjoy the episode. Please let me know your thoughts—the response to “Lunch Break” has been fantastic, and I want to ensure it remains the best it can be. Leave your comments and DM me with suggestions for improvement and guest recommendations.

(And if you or someone you know has audio expertise, please reach out—I have some questions, haha!)

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Jalil Johnson: Thank you so much, Somsack, for joining me. Are you ready to get started?

Somsack Sikhounmoung: I'm ready, yeah. I'm all ready. Yeah.

JJ :Thank you so much for joining me for lunch break.

SS:Of course.

JJ:So we're at il Buco.

SS:Yes.

JJ: Why are we at il Buco?

SS: I'm a huge fan of il Buco. I guess the main restaurant is on... Are we on Bond Street or Great Jones?

JJ: We're on Great Jones.

Shop my At Present array.

SS: Great Jones. So the original one is on Bond Street, and I just love going there. This is the sister one, and I just love how... I love the food, obviously. But I come here for lunch because it's just a little more casual, pop in, pop out, the dish or the menu is a little more concise and edited, which I always love.

JJ: Yeah.

SS: Yeah. So it's just great food, easy, casual, and quick.

JJ: Great. Well, I'm really excited to do this with you because one of your posts is all about food and then Rose [Anderson] has told me too, that you love to eat. So I was really anxious... Not anxious, that's the wrong word. But I was really excited to see where you picked, because I really trust your food picks.

So I'm going to say the way that I discovered you first was through Five Fits, which I will be joining you in that group. So Chris just shot me too.

SS: Oh, amazing.

JJ: And then from there Jenny [Olson] reached out to me about being a correspondent for Alex Mill and they told me about you, and then I get to meet you, at Jess Graves’ party to celebrate Alex Mill. And since then I've been looking at your Substack, it's really exciting. I want to talk about what made you want to get on there, but also just who you are, your interests, and how did you get here.

SS: Definitely.

JJ: So my first question, which I am taking from Plum Sykes, is what is your first experience with clothing? Wait, do you know this question?

SS: Did you just listen to her podcast with-

JJ: Lauren Sherman?

SS: Yeah.

JJ: Actually I was in person when she did the conversation with Liana Satenstein , and said it and I was like, "Oh, that's actually a fabulous question." She said this three times because she also said it in the podcast that Vogue does. Then she said it at Liana's, and then she said it at Lauren's. So this is the reoccurring... But it's such a good question.

SS: Oh, yeah. I'm a huge Plum fan. I was listening to Lauren's podcast with her, and I just told Lauren, I was like, "I can listen to Plum all day long." Just because she has so many crazy stories, and the way she tells them, the words she uses, I just love.

My first experience with clothes... I was born in Thailand and I immigrated to Canada when I was four, and I don't really remember clothes until I got to Canada. I do remember my mom telling me that when we got off the plane, it was April in Toronto, and April in Toronto, it was February.

JJ: Oh, that's terrible.

SS: So it was freezing. And we were coming from Thailand, so it was palm trees and beach and stuff like that. So I think I only had a T-shirt on, and that was it, because I had wet my diapers on the plane.

JJ: Oh, wow.

SS: Hi, how are you?

Waiter: Good. Can I grab you something to drink?

JJ: I'm fine with just water.

SS: Yeah.

JJ: And then I have to take a look at this menu.

SS: So we were sponsored by a group of church people in Oshawa, the little town that we came to. And so a lot of the clothes I had were given, they were hand-me-downs. So I remember there was this really great yellow T-shirt with Big Bird on it from Sesame Street and I just loved it so much. I had never seen anything... It was my first graphic tee, and I just loved the color of, it was a really buttery yellow, and it was big bird on a seesaw with the birds on the other side. And the funniest story is I still have it today.

JJ: Oh, fantastic.

SS: And it's in my bedroom on a teddy bear. It fits the teddy bear now. And so it just sits in my bedroom and I see it every morning. So it's just almost like a funny reminder of not where it came from, obviously, but how small I used to be, maybe, as a child.

Yeah, I still have it. I just loved it. I think it's probably one of those things I just kept. Every time we got rid of clothes, I just kept it.

JJ: And has that been with you with every place that you've lived?

SS: Yeah. Yeah. When I moved to New York, I took it with me. It was in my Parsons dorm, probably folded up, and everywhere. Yeah, it's always been with me on this teddy bear.

JJ: That's amazing. And then also in terms of the graphics, something else I find where you have a great tattoo collection. And do you think the graphics right there tie back to your love of tattoos, of also you have the Snoopy on your tote -

SS: Yeah. Yeah. I think that definitely has something to do with it. An attention to sort of the visual elements in design.

JJ: And did you study graphics at Parsons?

SS: Fashion design. Fashion design. But I remember too, just growing up, there was the revamp of Bazaar, Harper's Bazaar came out and it was Fabien Baron and the graphics on those pages, some of the layouts were just as beautiful as the photos. And I just remember seeing those. I was like, "Oh, wow." I've never seen a page that was just dedicated to a big 'H' or a big two. I think rarely were magazines, up until then... It was all photos, photos, photos and ads and all that stuff. But this was literally just one page, the header or if there was a title about the story, it would be a big 'S' or a big... To start off the story.

JJ: Yeah. And so what got you into fashion? So also, were you always interested in fashion when you were in Toronto, and what made you want to move to New York?

SS: I knew I wanted to do something artistic. I was always drawing, I was always sketching little doodles here and there and painting and all that stuff. But I also knew I didn't want to be in fine arts because I liked making money and surviving and eating and all that stuff. And I think fine arts just didn't... For some reason I knew that would be a little harder with fine arts. And I think with design, I didn't know it was going to be fashion design right away. I knew it was going to be something creative.

I was initially interested in architecture, but I knew that I liked having a problem to solve. I think with design, you're given a problem versus fine artists are put into a studio and you can do whatever you want. I knew that I wanted to, whether it be build a house or design a room or design a spoon that someone would use, but it had to be within these dimensions, and clothing was the same way. I was always interested in clothes. I didn't know I wanted to be a designer. My mom used to make us clothes. My grandma was a seamstress. She had a huge business. I was a huge fan of just watching them get dressed.

JJ: What were they always drawn to in terms of getting dressed?

SS: It was funny. It was more when they would go out on occasions and stuff. So they would bring out their traditional Thai outfits and put on the makeup and the earrings. It was very often the day-to-day was very basic, jeans and stuff. But when it was time to go to a wedding, I could sit there and watch them for hours and I would help them pick out stuff. So I think it was the transformation, maybe, that was the most fascinating to me. Like, "Wow. That's what you look like, mom, with your makeup?"

JJ: Yeah.

SS: When you go out, when you really give yourself a little attention. And then my sister was a huge influence too because she had always wanted to be in fashion design. And I remember the two of us as kids in the back of our classrooms, there would be old Vogue's that our teachers would bring in, to chop up, to cut and paste, to tear apart. We would flip through them and we wouldn't. We would take them, put them in our bags and take them home so we could read them. It just seemed too tragic to be destroying all these beautiful magazines in the back.

So we would take them home, we would read them, I would look at them. I remember just going through old Vogue's and just seeing Isaac Mizrahi or Marc Jacobs and Donna Karan. And every time I'd read their name, Parsons would be next to it. So I was like, "Oh, gosh. If you want to be a really great designer, I guess you have to go to Parsons."

And so when I finally got to the age of after high school, and applying to schools, I was like, "Maybe I do want to do a fashion design degree." I looked up Parsons. And a huge part of coming to Parsons was New York, because sometimes I think if Parsons was in just Cincinnati or anything, would I have wanted to go Parsons? I think it was the combination of Parsons and being in New York that really attracted me.

JJ: And you came here in '99, if I was not mistaken, right.

SS: '95.

JJ: ‘95.

SS: I graduated in '99.

JJ: Yes. Yeah. Okay. Same year I was born.

SS: That's great. Oh my gosh. Our intern the other day, I was like, "How old is your mom?" And he was like, "42." I was like, "Oh, wow. Okay. Your mom is younger than me by five years." Yeah.

JJ: And so how was New York in the nineties? Describe that.

SS: I think everyone who comes to New York, their first few years is always a huge experience. It was different than it is now, but I think the same probably amount of exhilaration that one felt then is probably equivalent to someone who just moved to New York now. I think back then it just seemed more... Without the internet, I think that's the big thing. Without the internet, we really had to figure out if we wanted to do something or go somewhere, we really had to research it or talk to people or go out and explore rather than just Googling something and, "Oh, five places come up. Let me pick."

Back then I remember when I first got here, I loved magazines, and so I was like, there must be some great magazine stores. So I opened up the Yellow Pages in a phone book, looked up magazine stores and had to travel across the city, Upper West Side. There was one on the Lower East Side and just go into each store and to look for things. So I think to me, it was more exciting. It was just a different level of excitement just because I had to really work and find what I wanted to find.

JJ: Now with that too, I'm just going to ask a stupid question, but is in your opinion New York better, then or now? Because I to add more to caveat, I've been here for seven years. I moved here for school and I also stayed here during the pandemic. So I've seen a New York pre-pandemic and post-pandemic, and the post-pandemic New York is totally different. It's almost more stressful in my opinion. And it has made me start thinking, "Is it the city that I wanted to move to?" And then I wonder, so you've been here since '95, so I just wonder, how do you feel? Do you feel like there's a big change or what?

SS: Yeah. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. I think even going to the East Village, I remember me and a bunch of friends wanted to go to East Village to some bar on Avenue A, and we had to take a taxi because we thought it was going to be too dangerous to walk through. So there was a level of mystery. There was a level of, I don't want to say danger, but it was just different. I think there was more angles of discovery, I think. Yeah, there was a different energy. I hear you about the pandemic thing too. I totally feel the same way. It's just the energy has changed.

JJ: What is it? That's the thing I'm trying to crack. It's like...

SS: There is a level of anxiety I feel now that I didn't feel before. I don't know. That's a good question.

JJ: We'll ruminate on that one.

SS: We'll figure it out.

JJ: Well then also, some more nineties questions. So in your opinion, where the best places to go out?

SS: There were really big clubs like Twilo and The Tunnel that we would go to. I remember we would set our alarms for three in the morning, wake up-

JJ: Three in the morning?

SS: Yes. Because we needed a disco nap and going any earlier than two in the morning was like, no one really went. So we would go. We'd get there at three. Obviously we were underage, but somehow we'd figured out how to get in. And then we would leave probably at seven in the morning or eight in the morning. And then sometimes go home and take a nap or go straight to the library at Parsons-

JJ: It was on a school night? No, this was-

SS: It was never on a school night. I wasn't that crazy. But it was probably on, let's say a Friday night or Saturday night and if I had to finish a project, we'd go straight to school the next day on a Sunday. And then there were small little places. I think in the East Village, Robots was a bar in the East Village that I loved. But it was the idea of these kids who were just trying to sneak into things and trying to find things and experience things that we were probably too young to... We shouldn't have been there. But it was fun to try and get inside.

JJ: And where do you like to go out now?

SS: I don't. Going out is probably dinner and that's it. And then dinner after 8:00 PM is probably something I don't want to do. It's just like... I know. I know. I just feel like I don't want to be that person but I am.

JJ: I feel you. I love a five o'clock dinner.

SS: Yes.

JJ: And going home at nine.

SS: And going home. And trying to get a reservation and you're later than six, it has been impossible in New York. It's just I don't have that energy to... I think I wrote in my recent Substack, the idea of having to set my alarm for midnight to make a reservation for 30 days ahead. I'm like, I don't have-

JJ: It's terrible.

SS: Yeah. Yeah. You want some of those?

JJ: Sure. I would love to. It's terrible. Well, perfect time thinking about this is lunch, it was such a big thing several years ago, not several years ago, like in the eighties. It's a part of New York and it's gone away. And so part of this newsletter is I'm posting that this reinvigorates, this

SS: Lunch culture.

JJ: Lunch culture. Because I think there's so many amazing places to experience at this time. And it fights against the culture of always being productive because I think with the onset of technology, we're always like, "I have to go back. I have to go back. I have to go back." And so this is a nice way to put the break in between your day.

SS: Yeah.

JJ: So from '99, you graduated and then you went to DVF, Diane von Furstenberg.

SS: I went to Diane von Furstenberg. It was my first job out of school. That was when she had her home shopping network line. So I worked on that with Diane. She lived upstairs and it was an open concept carriage house. And so we'd be on the second floor, she'd be on the third floor living. She'd come down in the morning with curlers in her hair. You'd see her before she left to go out at night. So we were part of her every day, which was very cool.

JJ: Yeah. Are you still in contact with her?

SS: I'm not, but it was interesting because you'd hear her watching the six o'clock news after she left the office. She'd walk upstairs and you can hear her living upstairs.

No, but she was great. She was great. She was smart, quick, had a beautiful eye. She had a crazy amount of clothes she would bring down. I remember she brought down a YSL couture, a couture piece. I've never seen a couture piece. I was used to Century 21 and Saks and stuff, but I'd never held a couture piece. She brought it down, she was like, "Take a look at this. Look at the construction." It was amazing. And it was the caliber of guests that would come through the house.

JJ: Yeah. Who was the most wow moment. Who was the person that really wowed you?

SS: Marisa Berenson, I think came in once.

JJ: That's good.

SS: And took a tour around the office and just looked at what we were working on. Yeah, it was amazing. It was New York, a level of New York that I had never thought I would ever experience. But yeah, I was-

JJ: And then how long did you stay at DVF?

SS: I was there for probably a year and a half, and then I left, and then I started freelancing, and random places. And I remember my college friend was at The Limited, she was freelancing, and I was there with her and a friend of hers was at J. Crew and there was an opening at J. Crew that they asked if she wanted. And she was like, "No, I'm happy here. Do you want it, Som?" I was like, "Sure. I don't have a full-time job. Let me take a look." And so I went in and that's when I first met Jenna and I interviewed with Jenna, and that's how my career at J. Crew started.

JJ: And then you were there from 2000?

SS: Yeah, probably 2001. I started as a freelancer. I remember during the interview she asked what I wanted to do because they only had an opening in men's and accessories, and I didn't have experience in either. She was like, "But you decide what you want." They were very open to you creating your own path there. And I said, "Why not accessories?" And so then I started off as an assistant accessories designer doing socks.

JJ: Yeah. Oh, wow.

SS: There was an assistant to the sock designer.

JJ: Wait, what goes into designing a sock?

SS: The colors, the patterns, the yarn, the stitches.

JJ: Yeah.

SS: Yeah. Not that much. But as an assistant designer, you're like, "Oh, yeah. Let me do socks. If you want socks, I'm going to give you socks."

JJ: All the socks.

SS: Ruffles and pointelle stitches and leopard prints. Yeah, I went crazy.

JJ: Oh, that's fantastic. I think socks are really... Okay. What are your favorite socks. Now I have to ask.

SS: I just wear Nike sports socks. I used to be a crazy fan of Paul Smith socks. Even KAPITAL from Japan. I just recently gave away a whole bag of them. I don't know. It's just the idea of a crazy sock these days for me means then I have to pick the shoe that goes with the pant and goes with the sock.

JJ: It's a whole thing.

SS: It's a whole thing.

JJ: So you would always go for the pattern over just like a plain-

SS: Yeah. Yeah. Or a fun color. There were these socks that I got in Rome, and they're these silk socks that supposedly-

JJ: The Pope wears.

SS: The Pope wears. So I have a bag of those that I probably only wore once, and they were bright red and they were fun, bright red with a pair of penny loafers and a pair of jeans.

…………………………………………………………

JJ: I'm so happy that you did this.

SS: Oh my gosh. Thank you. Lunch.

JJ: Lunch. To wrap up every interview, I ask all my guests the three same questions. So the first question is, who's the most cultured person you know?

SS: I'd say my sister. She works at Tory Burch.

JJ: I love Tory Burch.

SS: So she was a designer at Tory Burch. Also, I think to me, you can reference the movies that everyone's watching. You could send pictures of things that people have all been looking at. But she'll send weird things like jewelry designers or pictures of dresses or references of things that I've never ever seen before. And to me, that's the digging, the searching, when I've seen pictures of things or showing things to question what I think is cool, I love when that happens and she's always doing that. On top of always going to the ballet or the opera or movies, membership to the Park Avenue Armory. She's cultured in that way, but also on top of that, she's always underneath whatever's happening and just looking for things that are unexpected.

JJ: Fantastic. So what is your latest cultural obsession?

SS: I love going to house tours, but architectural tours.

JJ: Yeah.

SS: I was just in Chicago probably two weeks ago. I went to the Farnsworth House. I try to go to as many Frank Lloyd Wright houses-

JJ: Oh, yeah. I saw-

SS: As possible. It's like going to museum but it's different in that... I don't know. It's almost like a tour of design. Just things that people have thought about or problem solved, whether it be the windows or the way someone's figured out how to enter a house or how to hang a picture on the wall. They're just a different, really fun-

JJ: Have you been to the Frank Lloyd Wright house with the waterfall?

SS: Yeah. Yeah.

JJ: How is that?

SS: Incredible.

JJ: Oh, amazing.

SS: It's like a pilgrimage of sorts.

JJ: And it's going to fall down, right?

SS: I think all of these houses have to go through levels of renovation yearly. Things are cracking, and of course they're going to crack. But I mean, you're building a house on the edge of a waterfall, it's going to crack. Because they're really telling, even being so close to the water with the humidity and the way water will get into cement and kick things apart. But yeah, it's outside of Pittsburgh. You fly into Pittsburgh and you have to drive for maybe an hour into the woods, and then it's just amazing the way you walk down the path and then all of a sudden it's-

JJ: There.

SS: Yeah, hiding in the woods.

JJ: Oh, fantastic. I'm hoping to go to Pittsburgh because someone randomly, this is a tangent, but I was talking to someone about how cities are all the same, and they told me that Pittsburgh is like a city with its own look and feel. It doesn't look like any other city.

SS: I would agree with that.

JJ: Okay. Well, I have to go to Pittsburgh.

SS: Why?

JJ: No, I have to.

SS: Oh, you have to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I had a friend who just went too and she came back and she was like, "I want to move there." I was like, "Okay, that's a little much." But it's like.... Rose.

JJ: Yes.

SS: She wanted to move to Pittsburgh. It's old. It almost looks forgotten in strange way. It's industrial, but then it has all these really beautiful old buildings and it's quiet. But then it used to be this big, big industrial town. It's almost like it's been forgotten in some form, which I always love because I'm very romantic. Yeah, I loved it. I loved it. It has the Warhol Museum.

JJ: Yes.

SS: Where he's from. And flowing water.

JJ: Okay. And then the last question is, what should everyone read, watch, and listen to, to consider themselves cultured?

SS: I think what I'm reading a lot right now is the Puck.

JJ: Yes. I love Line Sheet.

SS: Yes. Line Sheet, Puck. The writing, Lauren's writing. I mean, I don't really read anything other than the fashion part.

JJ: Me too.

SS: Which I probably should. I mean, I subscribe and I'm just scrolling through all these other stories to get to Lauren. I'm like, "Maybe I should click on some of the other stories once in a while." The writing I just love and it's very conversational, which I love. It's the way that I talk about fashion and that's the way I want to be told about fashion. I don't want to read too much. It was reading and what else?

JJ: Watch.

SS: Watch. I DVR three shows. Top Chef, Jeopardy!, and maybe CBS This Morning. And maybe The French Open. If the tennis tournament is happening, those are probably the only shows I watch, so I'm not sure if I'm the best person. But CBS This Morning, I don't know if you're familiar with it, but it's probably the best show that no one watches.

JJ: Really? Why?

SS: Because it's on at nine in the morning on a Sunday and it just talks about the most normal things sometimes. They will profile people who are doing interesting things that no one really talks about or there will be a little bit of a news component to it. But I don't know, it's just been on forever. And I'll tune in. They'll do the profile like a movie star artist in a very quiet, slow way, which I appreciate.

JJ: Okay, so CBS This Morning.

SS: Yes.

JJ: And then what should everyone listen to?

SS: LCD Soundsystem.

JJ: L City Sounds System?

SS: LCD Soundsystem is my favorite band. I was just in Chicago last week again. I flew out to see them. I guess people called me an unoffical groupie. Yeah, so they really recently posted that they're going to be in LA in November. I've already started talking to friends like, "Who's going to fly in? We're going to go."

JJ: Did you buy the tickets?

SS: I don't buy the tickets before. I buy them the day of on StubHub or a resale site because then that just gives me a little flexibility in terms of what day do I feel like going, do I feel like going tonight? Maybe I'll go tomorrow rather than being held to it. But yeah, listen to LCD Sound System. It's great music.

JJ: Okay, perfect. I will. Well, thank you so much for being my guest.

SS: Thank you so much. This was so much fun. So much fun.