The Glossy Podcast

Over the next few weeks, we’re bringing you bonus episodes of the Glossy Podcast.

Glossy Trend Watch: Influencer Edition features interviews with some of the most prominent fashion influencers on how they’ve used their success and social media followings to launch major brands. Our guests made the leap from interacting with existing brands online to creating some of their own.

For our second episode, Glossy senior technology reporter Katie Richards sits down with Moti Ankari, a menswear blogger who co-founded footwear brand Ankari Floruss with fellow blogger Marcel Floruss.

"I was actually one of the first wave of male influencers," Ankari said. "Nine years ago, there were like five of us out there." Tellingly, the word "influencer" didn't exist to describe someone making a living off of their social media connections -- the word got its own entry on Dictionary.com in 2016.

Ankari talks about learning the ins and outs of designing footwear and how to leverage his social following to drive sales.

Rent the Runway, but for jewelry. That was the animating idea behind Switch, the company that buys and rents out jewelry for $29 a month.

"Ultimately, jewelry is a very different product from apparel, for rental," Kadisha Cohn said on the Glossy Podcast.

"It's a perfect product for rental. You don't really feel like it's ever been worn before. We sanitize it, we polish it, we kind of bring that shine and make it feel like it's new -- and oftentimes, it is new," Kadisha Cohn said.

Switch also authenticates the jewelry in its collection, which includes thousands of styles. ("We have Chanel, Hermès, Dior, real diamonds and gold," Kadisha Cohn said, also listing Sophie Ratner, Mateo and Do Not Disturb.) Some of Switch's items are one of a kind, and none are valued under $100. Their average value is about $700, which is basically the cost of being a Switch member for two years.

"In two years, to have an endless rotation of jewelry instead of just purchasing one piece -- that, probably, after two years you'd be sick of -- is a really good value for our customers," Kadisha Cohn said.

Switch buys jewelry from the public, for either cash, membership credit or credit to be spent toward purchasing an item outright. "If you fall in love with something, you may want to end up buying that," Kadisha Cohn said.

Kadisha Cohn talked about what goes into jewelry authentication, what to make of wear and tear, and why her career leap into gems was unexpected.

Over the next few weeks, we’re bringing you bonus episodes of the Glossy Podcast.

Glossy Trend Watch: Influencer Edition features interviews with some of the most prominent fashion influencers on how they’ve used their success and social media followings to launch major brands. Our guests made the leap from interacting with existing brands online to creating some of their own.

For our first episode, Glossy senior technology reporter Katie Richards sits down with Julia Engel, who leveraged her fashion and lifestyle blog Gal Meets Glam to build the Gal Meets Glam Collection, a fashion brand focused on timeless, classic pieces including dresses, coats and sweaters.

On the first episode of our limited series, Engel talks about transitioning from blogger to brand founder, learning the ins and outs of the apparel industry and finding the right wholesale partners.

Despite sharing a name with a popular music streaming platform, Pandora -- the jewelry company -- never had a problem with name recognition.

Charisse Hughes, the company's CMO for the Americas, put the company's name recognition at 90%. "People know Pandora," Hughes said on the Glossy Podcast.

However, that hasn't meant that people are buying from the brand. The company lost more than a quarter of its market value in 2017, followed by another 61% in 2018.

Hughes attributed the decline to a lack of innovation in the brand's aesthetic and not using consumer data to react to shoppers' wishes. But the company has made changes, bringing on a new CEO last year, striking partnerships with the likes of Millie Bobby Brown to appeal to younger consumers and overhauling its stores with engraving stations and a popular items section.

"There's no silver bullet to get us back to where we need to be," Hughes said.

Hughes talked about the company's iconic charm bracelet (which is turning 20 this year), Pandora's take on experiential retail and partnering with Disney.

Birdies co-founder Bianca Gates started her company as a side hustle while working at Facebook, but it took a two-month sabbatical to realize she ought to dedicate herself to the shoe company full-time.

"We saw the impact of me jumping in and helping out more," Gates said on the Glossy Podcast. "We started to look at different data points. There were sales, editors were talking about us, celebrities wearing us, people wanting to invest, and I thought: 'I guess this is kind of that moment where you just take that leap of faith.'"

Birdies launched in 2015 and has since raised $10 million in funding, opened a brick-and-mortar store in San Francisco and expanded its original product line -- slipper-like shoes chic enough for a party host -- to include tougher-soled shoes that can be worn about town.

Gates talked about that critical moment mid-sabbatical, her evolving leadership style and the reason the startup rush for unicorn status is like the housing crisis.

In a 35-minute conversation, James Miller brought up the concepts of speed and the need to keep up repeatedly.

"If you stand still for too long, then you're just going to fall behind," he said on this week's Glossy Podcast.

Miller would know about those things. He's the CEO of the Collected Group and just took on the added role of chief creative officer last week. That puts him in charge of the design as well as the business side of the clothing company's three brands: Joie, Equipment and Current/Elliott.

Still, the group plays within the industry's established timelines: "We do 12 deliveries a year for each brand, and they're sold in seasons," Miller said. It was late January, and he was fresh from reviewing some of the deliveries that would go out this fall.

Where the Collected Group does innovate is in its gender-fluid clothing, its emphasis on email marketing over social media and its sustainable practices that extend even to the clothes' labelling.

This week, we bring you a bonus, New York Fashion Week Edition of the Glossy Podcast, featuring Christine Currence, the president and owner of Badgley Mischka. Glossy Podcast host Jill Manoff sits down with Currence to discuss working with Rent the Runway, collaborating with a game app and making big adjustments this season, as Oscar Sunday overlapped with fashion week.

Sali Christeson has worked in industries from banking to big tech, but one thing has remained consistent about her day-to-day work life: "I've always been frustrated with shopping for workwear," she said on the Glossy Podcast.

Christeson found the same pain point among her friends, which was further confirmed by a study she stumbled on in 2015. The study's authors measured "the impact of what someone wears on their bottom line over [their] lifetime," Christeson said, meaning that your look impacts your salary and job level. "It ends up being a 20% to 40% difference on your personal income. That was the catalyst for me. I read that, and I was like, 'OK, see ya, corporate world!'"

Argent, the women's workwear company she went on to found, has offices in San Francisco and New York, and sells direct-to-consumer items ranging from blazers and pants to dresses.

Since launch, the company has raised more than $4 million in Seed funding (with a Series A coming toward the end of the year, Christeson said), and has been worn by the likes of Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris, Arianna Huffington, Gloria Steinem, Awkwafina and Amy Poehler.

Christeson talked about the benefits of boot-strapping her business, the shifting consumer expectations brought about by Amazon and the joy of pockets.

Whatever the challenges of Mel Peralta's job, he has an honest customer keeping him on track.

"Kids don't lie to you," Peralta said on the Glossy Podcast. "They'll let you know if they think your stuff is whack or your stuff is dope."

Peralta is head of the new Foot Locker-owned brand incubator known as Greenhouse, which partners with both established labels in the sneaker game -- like Fila and K-Swiss -- and up-and-comers who might create the youth market's next cult product. Accordingly, the retailer changed its mission statement last year, saying it aimed "to inspire and empower youth culture."

In Peralta's words, "Project Greenhouse is Foot Locker's incubator to find what's next." The company wants to do that by being involved with designs from square one. "Because we are a product creation hub -- and we're not just launching other people's things -- we have to be involved with every single project at the very beginning," Peralta said.

The incubator's products are mostly sold via its own app, but they've also been sold at Foot Locker events, at boutiques and, one time, at a restaurant in Paris.

Peralta talked about his longtime love for footwear, the passion of the sneakerhead community and the SpongeBob-branded shoe that's all the rage with kids.

Michael Stars wants to strike a balance between evolution and tradition.

"You could call it quote-unquote sustainable, because my stuff doesn't get thrown away," said Suzanne Lerner, the company's co-founder and president, on the Glossy Podcast. "It doesn't end up in the landfill after that season that it was so trendy."

As evergreen as its styles are, Michael Stars' revenue model is quickly changing.

"Fifty percent of our business is specialty stores," Lerner said. "About 20% is our own e-commerce site, and the balance -- 30% -- is a mix of other [retailers'] e-commerce sites and subscription boxes," she said.

Next, the company is looking to rebuild the brick-and-mortar retail network that it "successfully" pulled away from, Lerner said, starting with pop-ups.

On the podcast, she talked about how the company has embraced direct-to-consumer model, how she met her husband-slash-business partner and why, when it comes to the company's political engagement, "We've got to be out there speaking."