The Glossy Podcast

Clare Vivier’s designer handbag brand, Clare V., was direct-to-consumer before anyone was using the term “direct-to-consumer.” Over the past 10 years, Clare V. has expanded its line of handbags and accessories to include apparel. She joined the Glossy Podcast to discuss evolving as a designer-founder over the past 10 years, marketing in a department store versus Instagram, and keeping up with the pace of the industry.

Direct-to-consumer jewelry brand Aurate isn’t online-only, it’s channel agnostic. The brand, launched in 2014 as an e-commerce site, now has four brick-and-mortar stores and plans to open more on the West Coast this year. While online is still the main channel, for Aurate, the important thing is that no matter where it sells, it stays in control of the transaction. Bouchra Ezzahraoui, cofounder of Aurate, joined the Glossy Podcast to discuss bootstrapping her business, reacting quickly to customer responses and accommodating the way people shop for jewelry today.

Bluemercury founder Marla Beck built an anti–department store beauty and skin-care shopping experience 20 years ago. Now, Bluemercury has joined Macy’s to offer its democratizing shopping and spa services to department store customers. Beck joined the Glossy Podcast to discuss how beauty has evolved in the Instagram era, who wins when customers are in charge and how product innovation is changing the industry.

J.Crew Group-owned Madewell is often pegged as the namesake brand’s younger, hipper sister (although president Libby Wadle refutes the notion that Madewell is millennial-geared). As J.Crew scrambles to revitalize stalled sales growth, Madewell’s story couldn’t be more different. Wadle joined the Glossy Podcast to discuss how a brand in the J.Crew umbrella stays nimble, what the brand identity is, and how customer feedback and data feeds into that process.

The Real Real, an online marketplace for authentic luxury consignment, is growing and retail stores are their big next step. But over the years, they have also been pitted as a competition to luxury brands and had a difficult relationship with them. Rati Levesque, chief merchant, says she's seeing the dynamic shift as they're starting to drive traffic back into luxury stores. Levesque explores their relationship with brands, similarity to departmental stores and more on this podcast.

During her time running the DKNY PR Girl Twitter account, Aliza Licht was only asked to delete one tweet. Licht worked on the PR and communications team at DKNY when the company began putting together initial Facebook and Twitter strategies. Social media marketing strategies have only become more complex since then, but the brand-as-relatable-friend voice has held strong. After leaving DKNY, Licht wrote a book titled “Leave Your Mark,” and she currently serves as the evp of brand marketing at Alice + Olivia. She discusses the evolution of authenticity in social media, branding and storytelling, and Amazon vs. wholesale.

With Caraa, Aaron Luo is looking to prove aesthetic isn't everything. Luo joined the Glossy Podcast to discuss why his brand didn’t raise any VC funding, how he chooses brand partnerships and why he decided to test selling products on Amazon.

When Eileen Fisher started her namesake brand in 1984, it wasn’t the plan from the outset that the label would eventually become synonymous with sustainability in the fashion industry. Her goal was simply to do a better job of making clothing that would outlast everything else in her customers’ closets. The Eileen Fisher approach to sustainability has since evolved to focus on reducing waste through a circular recycling program, a line of “remade” Eileen Fisher items designed from damaged or stained pieces from past collections, and an emphasis on storytelling and education. Now the head of a certified B-Corp organization, Fisher joined the Glossy Podcast to share how the brand’s manufacturing partners, customers and competition have changed.

After working as a makeup artist for 25 years, Kirsten Kjaer Weis was tired of rejecting and moving on from different luxury beauty products because the synthetics in them, she believed, caused allergic reactions. She founded her brand, Kjaer Weis, in 2010 on the premise that an all natural beauty brand could also perform like a luxury beauty brand. Kjaer Weis joined the Glossy Podcast to discuss the evolution of the green beauty industry, balancing organic and luxury, and the definition of natural beauty.