Fashion & Founders The Podcast

Hello and welcome back to Fashion Founders the Podcast. My name is Victoria Smith and this week I'm joined with Natalie Shine, the host of the Big Silly Trivia Game. If you don't know what the Big Silly Trivia Game is, you are missing out. It is a 30 minute Wednesday night trivia for the girls all about pop culture. Natalie is the host, and she is incredible at it. The prizes are amazing...

In this episode you will hear behind the scenes from the panelists at EDGE NYFW. I hosted a pop up podcast studio for Fashion & Founders at EDGE and interviewed the panelists to recap the panels they were on and share some behind the scenes! Thank you to the hosts Manya co-founder of Threads of Tech, Mary Korlin-Downs founder of All Things Fashion Tech, and Colette Johnson founder of In Haus. ...

Hello and welcome back to Fashion and Founders The Podcast, this week I'm joined with Gab Waller, founder of Gab Waller Dot Com and Sourced By. Gab is a fashion sourcer, her team finds sold out pieces for clients and makes the impossible happen. She is now building a fashion tech business, SourcedBy, an AI powered search tool with StockX founding engineer, Scott Davis, as CTO.  She has so muc...

Hello and welcome back to Fashion and Founders the podcast. My name is Victoria Smith and this week I'm joined with Ellie and Brigitte, the founders of Zero.  I think of Zero as the Revolve for sustainable fashion where you can discover some of the coolest brands that you'll actually want to wear that you haven't already seen played out everywhere and also a way to explore your own...

Hello and welcome back to Fashion & Founders The Podcast. My name is Victoria Smith and this week I was joined with Anne Warren, the founder of Next Season. Next Season turns old, damaged, unwanted sweaters into one-of-a-kind knitwear, reducing textile waste. Anne used to work in tech as a product manager with a background in mechanical engineering and always had an interest in fashion so duri...

Hello and welcome back to Fashion & Founders The Podcast. My name is Victoria Smith, and this week I’m joined with Cleo Escarez the founder of Redyoos. She has created a way for pre-loved jewelry to be recycled into clean energy solutions. You just order a free mail in kit, fill it up with your preloved jewelry, and Redyoos takes care of the rest. Jewelry that can be melted down can be recycle...

Hello and welcome back to Fashion and Founders The podcast. My name is Victoria Smith and this week I'm joined with Claire Illmer, the Co-Founder and CEO of Future Reference. Claire's experience before founding Future Reference includes working at Google for five years, at YouTube in search and discovery, and at ThredUp in search and discovery as well. She is now building a fashion tech...

A big thank you to all the guests who came onto the podcast this year. I learned so much from each conversation and feel so grateful for the opportunity to connect so many amazing people and share their stories.  I put together a bonus episode with snippets of advice that founders shared from their experience. This ranges from fundraising, building a team, finding a co-founder the struggles of ent...

Welcome back to Fashion and founders the Podcast my name is Victoria Smith and this week I spoke with Trinity the founder of Third.   Third is an AI-powered search, compare and discover platform for preloved luxury handbags, featuring the largest range of rare and hard-to-find pieces available at present. This episode is not just for the luxury handbags and vintage lovers, this is one of the first...

Welcome back to Fashion and Founders the Podcast. My name is Victoria Smith and this week I am joined by Claire Stepanek, the founder and CEO of Ergo.  Have you ever wondered how brands decide on the price of an item. Or why it seems like brands always have a 10% off sale? Maybe you would buy something if it was $25 instead of $28?  Claire is building Ergo, a shopify tool that allows potential cus...

Welcome back to Fashion and Founders The Podcast. My name is Victoria Smith, and this week I’m joined with Jade Beguelin the co-founder of 4AM SKIN. You may have seen Jade from one of her TikToks about what hot girls in New York City are gatekeeping or wearing her viral under eye masks for her brand 4AM SKIN. She is how I found out about Pickle and the big silly trivia game, and she shares her bes...

Fashion Tech Talk: short, bite-sized information answering your most asked questions about fashion tech! This series is with Naama and Manya the founders of Threads of Tech a community for fashion creatives and technologists.  Topics this week  How to pitch your skill set to fashion companies or fashion tech startups? What can current students do to get involved in fashion-tech? Current job openin...

Hello and welcome back to Fashion and Founders The Podcast. This week I spoke with Jen Keane the Co-Founder and CEO of Modern Synthesis.  Modern synthesis is a London-based biotech company bringing life to new materials by working with bacteria to produce an entirely new class of nanocellulose based materials for fashion without using any plastic or animal inputs.  Jen’s background leading up to f...

Hello and welcome back to Fashion and Founders The Podcast, my name is Victoria Smith and this week I spoke with Mary Korlin Downs. She has become a fashion tech thought leader through her Tiktok, Instagram, and Substack where she posts weekly job boards, fashion tech news, and more.  Mary used to work at Bipty, a fashion rental company and I actually have an episode with the founder Natalia. She...

Welcome back to Fashion and Founders The Podcast. My name is Victoria Smith and this week I spoke with Kate Sanne the Co-Founder of Beni. Beni is a google Chrome extension that shops alongside you, helping you find secondhand pieces.  Kate shares some great insight into what the future of the fashion tech industry holds. She recently moderated a panel at Harvard Business School’s Retail and Luxury...

Welcome to the first episode of season three of fashion and founders the podcast. This week I am joined by Kristine Locker founder of Locker, the Pinterest for online shopping. In this episode, Kristine talks about the founding of Locker the amazing community that she has built, all about fundraising, working with Maggie Sellers as an angel investor, and so much insight into her founder journey. K...

Hello and welcome to the first episode of Season 3 of Fashion & Founders The Podcast, Conversations in Fashion Circularity, Tech, and Innovation!  Formerly Interwoven Stories, but all those episodes will still be available! Intro in what's coming and some changes, I have lots of amazing episodes lined up! Conversations with founders and innovators working in different sectors of the fashi...

This week I spoke with Manya and Naama founders of Threads of Tech. Together they are creating a community in the fashion tech community from putting on events during NYFW to their job board and connecting people to their dream jobs.  Naama has a background as a software engineer and knitwear designer and Manya as a Data Analyst and Fashion Designer. What started out as a roommate search ended up...

This week I am joined by Kaley, editorial director at Cascale, formerly known as Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC). You may have heard of the Higg Index, a collection of tools that measure the environmental and social impact of products and supply chains in the apparel, footwear, and textile industries In 2009, Walmart and Patagonia founded the SAC to convene apparel industry stakeholders on a p...

This week I spoke with Emily Stochl, Vice President of Advocacy and Community Engagement at Remake. Emily has been in the sustainable fashion space for many years now and began at Remake as an ambassador. She also hosts her own podcast, the Pre-Loved Podcast, so check that out as well. Remake is working on systems change in the fashion industry and creating a more ethical fashion industry. In toda...

Welcome back to Interwoven Stories, this week I had interviewed Julia O’Mara, Co-Founder and COO of Pickle. Pickle is a peer to peer fashion rental platform headquartered in New York City and we were able to meet in person amidst New York Fashion Week. In this episode Julia shares some fun stories about the early days of Pickle, advice for entrepreneurs, and really fun renter stories from engageme...

This week I am joined with Jeanine Co-Founder and CEO of World Collective, the first digital transformation hub for the fashion industry. She has an incredible background in fashion with two decades of experience from the Otto Group to being the VP of Supply Chain at Calvin Klein to the Global VP at the Innovation Lab of PVH Corp to founding a nonprofit to support women and children working in the...

This week I was joined with Genia the founder of Been London. Started in 2018, BEEN London is an award-winning accessories brand that was named 'one of the most innovative fashion companies in the world' by British VOGUE. Genia is on a mission to make beautiful things out of waste and help us all reimagine what objects can be. She has a really cool approach to design and sustainability a...

This week on Interwoven Stories,  I spoke with Diana Kakkar the founder and chief executive of MAES London, a luxury garment manufacturing studio located in North London specialising in designer womenswear. I got the opportunity to tour her factory and it was incredible to see firsthand what she has built. Diana is deeply integrated in the UK fashion scene as she is also a mentor at the British Fa...

This week I spoke with Kelly Drennan, the founder and executive director of Fashion Takes Action (FTA).  FTA is Canada's only non-profit organization devoted to advancing sustainability in the entire fashion system through education, awareness, research and collaboration.  Kelly shares how she started Fashion Takes Action in 2007 and discovered a real need to education and collaboration in su...