The Glossy Podcast

For new designers entering the fashion industry today, knowing and understanding the fundamentals of running a business is deemed just as important as having the skills to design. Tim Coppens joins the podcast to discuss why creativity is most important.

Dia&Co, the online styling service for plus-size women, was born out of a personal need of its co-founder Nadia Boujarwah. In just two years, the company — which began in 2014 — has secured four rounds of capital investment and has grown to employ more than 200 people. Boujarwah discussed the most challenging aspects, and why the most important element is improving the shopping experience for women.

Phil Picardi is at the forefront of a new era for Teen Vogue—one that tackles the importance of masturbation, the personal stories of Native American women and the implications of congressional elections, as well as what Kendall Jenner just wore while out in L.A.

For Jennifer Hyman, the journey is just beginning. The CEO of Rent the Runway, the darling fashion-tech company that rents designer clothing to women at low prices, said that her mission is to have every woman in the world paying for a subscription to fashion. 

Glossier has grown astronomically since its launch in 2014 as a skincare brand born out of Emily Weiss’s beauty blog, Into the Gloss.

The brand has expanded to include more product categories from its initial offering of moisturizer, balm and face masks. Now the company carries a line of serums, lipsticks, eyebrow gel, a lightweight foundation, and a highlighter stick. With each new product launch, Glossier cements its position in the cool girls' beauty arsenal, with minimalist packaging and signature millennial pink hue.

The democratization of fashion is being led not only by the information to which technology is giving us access, but also by the designers who are approaching the industry with a different mindset.

Becca McCharen, the founder and designer of the New York-based label Chromat, considers herself to be an industry outsider. Growing up, she didn’t realize that being a designer could be a real job. She went to school for architecture, not fashion. Her introduction to the industry was through Susie Lau’s blog, Style Bubble.

Let’s get it straight: Birchbox is not a sampling company.

That may surprise you: The New York-based beauty firm is perhaps best known for its beautiful boxes of makeup samples that get delivered to customers every month. But Katia Beauchamp, co-founder of Birchbox, is adamant that it’s about much more than that.

The customer is king. Except when it comes to fashion, according to The New York Times' fashion director and chief fashion critic, Vanessa Friedman.

The fashion industry is in the midst of upheaval. Consumers are demanding to get their hands on products as soon as they see them. Luxury designers from Burberry, Tommy Hilfiger, and Alexander Wang, to name a few, have responded by shifting their production schedules, or some elements within it, to offer see-now-buy-now straight off the runway.

There may be no figure as connected in the world of fashion as that of the PR person. In an industry where a lot of marketing dollars flow exclusively toward PR, PR agencies operate in some ways as the nexus of the attention.

On this week’s podcast, Rachna Shah, managing director of KCD, one of the best-known PR, fashion and production firms in the industry, joins us to discuss the shifting role of PR and how the rise in digital outlets has changed the industry.

The pressure on the fashion industry is increasing: The advent of new production and show cycles and a more complicated logistics operation is affecting not only the retailers and the brands, but the designers themselves. On this week’s Glossy Podcast, Tanya Taylor, designer of her eponymous women’s line, joined us to discuss how she is adapting to an industry in the throes of change.