TheIndustry.fashion & TheIndustry.beauty Podcast

London landlord Shaftesbury, whose 16-acre estate covers much of Seven Dials, Soho, Carnaby, Fitzrovia and China Town, takes pride in curating its prime location neighbourhoods ensuring each has a distinct community feel with an array of international brands, independent brands, pop-up shops and other engaging experiences.

Another key aim for Shaftesbury is to promote a sustainable future for retail and it has just unveiled its Net Zero pledge for 2030. Many of the brands on the Shaftesbury estate hold similar values and a number have successfully put themselves through the rigorous B Corp certification scheme gaining independent affirmation of their sustainable credentials.

We talk to two such brands on today’s special edition of our In Detail podcast. Joanna Dai of Dai gave up a promising career in finance to launch her fashion brand focusing on sustainable and comfortable clothing and careerwear for women. Having experimented with pop-up stores the brand has signed its first longer-term lease with Shaftesbury on a store in Seven Dials.

Meanwhile Finisterre is an outdoor brand established in the epicentre of Britain’s surf culture in Cornwall. Its founder Tom Kay also has a short term career in finance before heading to the coast to establish his sustainably focused brand, which now has a number of stores across the UK, including one in Seven Dials. Like Dai, Finisterre is also B Corp certified.

In this special edition of our IN DETAIL podcast, Tom and Joanna talk to Lauretta Roberts, Editor in chief of TheIndustry.fashion about the stories behind their brands, their approach to bricks and mortar retail and why Seven Dials works for them. They also discuss the importance of partnering with a supportive and similarly minded landlord and why they wanted to be part of a vibrant and diverse retail community. 

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Back in the 2000s, the UK fashion market was the birthplace of some of the most innovative and trailblazing businesses in fashion e-commerce, now 20 years later it is leading another industry revolution – fashion rental. 

Just before the pandemic hit, a number of start-ups were born offering a conscious consumer a whole new way of enjoying fashion that had nothing to do with buying and owning it. Renting clothes is nothing new of course, but in the past it had largely been confined to wedding and occasion-wear. 

Now, thanks to businesses like Rotaro, consumers can rent items for everyday wear to complement their core wardrobes and can use the process as a way to experiment with their personal style and discover new brands that may go on to buy into.

Rotaro was founded by a young team of entrepreneurs, including Georgie Hyatt, Charlie Knowles and Brooke Andrews.

Georgie previously worked for global trend authority WGSN where she consulted with some of the world’s leading fashion and retail brands, while Brooke previously worked for publishing giant Conde Nast and before that had set up and sold a tech business.

The pair talk to Lauretta Roberts, Editor in chief of TheIndustry.fashion about what it was that inspired them to establish Rotaro, how its business model, which focuses on working directly with brands, and its obsession with data sets it apart from other rental businesses on the market.

They explain how the insight they gain from their renters helps brands to adapt their collections and create more desirable and more durable garments, how they have experimented with physical retail and how they see the rental market evolving in the future.

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Shira Feuer is the Chief Marketing Officer at makeup and skincare brand Trinny London. 

Founded in 2017 by Trinny Woodall, Trinny London aims to make consumers all over the world rethink their makeup and skincare routines. 

The company has seen tremendous growth, generating millions of sales by developing accessible and innovative products. Portable and stackable, the entirely cream-based makeup range uses only the highest quality ingredients and pigments. 

As CMO of the brand, Shira has utilised her skills that she built whilst at brand giants Burberry and The Walt Disney Company, to navigate the business through one of the beauty industry’s most uncertain times. 

In this episode of the ‘In Conversation’ podcast, Shira speaks to Tom Shearsmith, News Editor & Senior Writer at TheIndustry.fashion, what made her jump from Mickey Mouse to Trinny Woodall, how the business has expanded its range to include skincare, the marketing strategy behind a gradual product drop, how Trinny Tribes drive the business and what the future holds for Trinny London.

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Laney Crowell is the Founder of US-based clean beauty brand Saie. 

Launched just three months before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Saie has carved out a space in the beauty industry with its strong brand positioning that combines clean formulations and fashionable packaging. 

The company has also gained fame with its unconventional product launches - in one notable example, Laney’s 99-year-old grandmother made her modelling debut as the face of the brand. 

Laney started her career at Elle and Lucky Magazine, later becoming the Executive Director of Digital Communications at Estée Lauder, where she launched the beauty giant’s social media channels and influencer marketing strategy. 

She left her position at Estée Lauder to follow her passion for clean beauty and wellness, and started the editorial platform and consulting agency The Moment, which in turn inspired her to launch Saie. 

In this week’s episode Laney and News and Features Writer at TheIndustry.fashion Camilla Rydzek discuss the benefits of chatting with your target audience directly, how sports taught Laney the resilience she needed to build the business, and why she decided to swap zoom meetings with a pizza party.

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Founded out of Los Angeles by two Swedish branding experts, then based in London, with no experience in making product and inspired by French style icons of the 1970s, FRAME doesn’t appear to make any sense at all on paper. And yet, from the moment it arrived, the denim market was shaken up for good. And for the better. 

10 years ago, at a time when it felt like the last thing the world needed was another denim brand, FRAME arrived with a minimalist design (indeed at the start it was just one pair of the perfect blue skinny jeans), pared back to the point of non-existent branding and chic black & white imagery. Suddenly all the brightly coloured, overtly-branded, highly embellished, ripped, patterned, distressed (you name it) denim on the market felt all wrong. 

So how did they do it? Not even its Co-founder and Chief Creative Officer Erik Torstensson (who set up FRAME with his friend Jens Grede) says he really knows. But here’s the thing, Erik is a creative risk-taker with impeccable taste. He knows good product and he knows how to market it. He’s the kind of brand founder who instinctively knows what the market wants before the market knows it wants it. 

Before launching Frame, Erik was a brand builder par excellence and worked with the likes of H&M at one end of the market to LVMH at the other. He is one of the best-connected individuals in fashion and often calls upon his friends in the industry and related markets to collaborate on projects for Frame, which has now grown into a fully-fledged ready to wear brand for both men and women. Denim, of course (and in particular that skinny jean), remains at its core.

In this episode of the In Conversation podcast Erik talks to Lauretta Roberts, Editor in chief of TheIndustry.fashion, about how the brand has always retained clean design as part of its DNA but is now intensely focused on clean manufacturing too having recently launched a new line of denim that uses virtually no water all in its manufacturing process.

Great customer experience is also key and, as well as maintaining and enviable wholesale channel, Frame has been developing its own stores (with two arriving in London this year) and a new online platform to present the full Frame vision.  

Editor’s note: Before we start a word of warning, no matter how many pairs of jeans you already own (and my personal collection of Frame jeans extends well into double figures) by the end of this podcast, you will probably want to buy more. And yes, you can still buy skinnies, they’re not going anywhere.  

Listen via Apple, Spotify and onsite.

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Welcome to ‘Agility amid Uncertainty’ our latest podcast in partnership with international logistics company Advanced Supply Chain Group.  In this series we will explore how six leading fashion retailers are managing their businesses in the face of some of the greatest disruption the world has experienced in a lifetime. 

In the wake of the pandemic, retailers are grappling with challenges across their supply chains affecting stock availability and impacting customer experience and of course profit margins.

The long-anticipated “new normal” has been revealed and what it looks like is continued disruption and unpredictability on both the demand and supply side, meaning retailers need to be more innovative, more creative and more agile than ever before.

For data and tips on how to manage demand, enhance sales and understand shifting consumer behaviour, we have also produced an in-depth study of 2,000 British fashion shoppers – Reshopping: returns, refunds and respending – which can be downloaded here. 

These podcasts are designed to inspire and motivate fashion retailers across the sector. It is possible to be successful in the face of such challenges and the retailers we have chosen are proof of that. 

In this, the first episode in this podcast series, Lauretta Roberts Editor in chief of TheIndustry.fashion talks to Hilary Palmer, Retail Director of one of fashion’s pandemic success stories, Mint Velvet. 

Mint Velvet is a company born in a period of great disruption having been founded during the financial crisis of 2009 by a group of women who had previously held major roles on the British high street. They had spotted very early the opportunity to create a brand for women who had grown out of fast fashion and who were looking for something that delivered luxurious effortless fashion that nodded to trends in a relaxed way.

The business fared well during the pandemic as it’s more relaxed clothing found favour with consumers who were working from home and now, as the world emerges from the pandemic, its flexible fashion offering (which can be dressed up or down or styled to work whatever the season) continues to drive strong sales.

As such it is expanding its store footprint and has just replatformed its website to provide an enhanced customer experience. 

Hilary tells us how the business’s strong service ethos has been crucial to its success from ensuring an elevated in-store experience, to over-delivering on customer expectations when it comes to online deliveries and returns. She also explains why managing stock and staying agile has helped drive the business forward.

Pangaia is nothing short of sensation. When the start-up launched a pop-up at Selfridges in Oxford Street last Spring, huge queues snaked around the store as shoppers, emerging from a long and tough lockdown, waited patiently to get their hands on one of their super bright sweatshirts and joggers.

The sustainable values and optimistic colour palette struck a chord with a customer looking for style that combined optimism and purpose in pandemic-ravaged world.

However, what’s interesting, is that Pangaia isn’t really a fashion brand in the traditional sense, and it doesn’t just produce brightly coloured sweats (its clothing takes in a range of jersey products and denim). 

Founded in the UK in 2018, Pangaia is a materials science company with a vision to unite scientists, designers, producers and brands and retailer in the pursuit of a more sustainable future for fashion. Its clothing is a manifestation of what’s possible when all these communities come together to create desirable, ethical and sustainable product.

In this episode of the In Conversation podcast in partnership with Klarna for Business, Lauretta Roberts, Editor in Chief of TheIndustry.fashion speaks to Christine Goulay who has been nothing short of a trailblazer in the realm of sustainable fashion. Christine is now the Global Director of Science B2B at Pangaia and part of her role is to encourage other brands to collaborate with Pangaia through the white-labelling of their know-how to corporate gifting.

Her career in sustainable fashion dates back to 2006 when she began working with Edun Apparel, the ethical clothing company founded by Ali and Bono Hewson. Until April of last year she was head of sustainable innovation at luxury conglomerate Kering and she sits on various advisory boards. 

She tells us what drew her to Pangaia, what it does that is so special and how transparency and collaboration, combined with science and creativity, will lead to a better future for our industry.


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Céline Talabaza is the CEO of luxury skincare brand Noble Panacea. 

With a wealth of experience in the beauty industry, Celine was hand selected by the brand’s Founder and Noble Prize-Winning Chemist, Sir Fraser Stoddart, to lead the launch of the brand in 2019. 

Noble Panacea was developed using unique skincare technology which aims to protect and preserve active ingredients in products. 

Celine speaks to Sophie Smith, News & Features Writer at the TheIndustry.fashion, about her experience and achievements in beauty so far, her ambitions as CEO of Noble Panacea and the brand’s unique chemistry and technological approach to skincare.

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Terry Betts is one of the best known faces in the British menswear market having held senior buying roles for some of industry’s most iconic retailers including Harvey Nichols and Selfridges. He was also part of the founding team for the then ground-breaking online menswear retailer Mr Porter, the brother site of Net-A-Porter.

Six and a half years ago he made the bold move of leaving a plum job at Selfridges to join a fledgling clothes discovery platform, called Thread, where he is now its Director of Buying & Business Development.

Thread combines human stylists and a unique algorithm to provide a personalised shopping service stocking styles from the high street through to designer brands, and has recently branched into womenswear.

This episode of TheIndustry.fashion’s In Conversation podcast is hosted by Lauretta Roberts, Editor in chief of TheIndustry.fashion, who met Terry when they were both students at the University of London’s Goldsmiths’ College in the early 1990s.  She remembers him being probably the best dressed man on campus (and certainly the only one she ever saw wearing Thierry Mugler tailoring and Dirk Bikkembergs boots) it was clear even then that he had fashion in his blood and he was already working part time in a celebrated independent boutique.

Terry tells Lauretta what it was that sparked his love for the industry at such a young age, how he has helped shape the menswear offer for some of the industry’s best known retailers and supported the careers of some its best known designers. He also tells her what it was that drew him to Thread and he enjoys helping other men feel more confident in their style and themselves.

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Bridget Healy and Alice Sagnier are the Co-founders of EverySkin, the UK-based aesthetics and skincare business. They founded the business out of a mutual love for the laser hair removal and facial industry, recognising that most clinics in the UK often present a very cold location and gendered pricing and products. 

Alice came from the world of Fortnum and Mason, where she headed up the iconic retailers Head of Strategy & Insight. Bridget’s background was in consultancy and investment, before managing laser hair removal clinics in both Australia and the UK. 

Following the launch of their sixth London clinic in under 12 months, the dynamic duo show no sign of slowing down, with new locations and treatments already being considered. 

Healy and Sagnier speak to Tom Shearsmith, News Editor & Senior Writer at TheIndustry.fashion, about how forming a business together was always going to happen, how the UK market responds to laser hair removal and how EverySkin’s non-gendered approach is helping LGBTQ+ individuals feel comfortable and accepted.

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