The Glossy Podcast

Ronny Kobo's self-named fashion line is nearly synonymous with "party dress," and there aren't many occasions for those these days. "Luckily, we have not seen a lot of canceled styles and canceled orders," Kobo said on the Glossy Podcast. But the brand is still pivoting to selling online, including for the swimwear line it will be launching in the spring. "Retail's going to change drastically in t...

The pandemic has been hard on fashion brands -- but especially for Billy Reid, which hosts an annual arts festival in its hometown of Florence, Alabama that has become part of its identity. "I can't tell you how many texts I get per week from friends, going, 'What's up with Shindig this year?' And you have to let them down easy," Reid said on the Glossy Podcast. The menswear-first company is looki...

The direct-to-consumer brands that have sprung up in the last decade have promised to deliver quality at a better price by cutting out the middlemen: retailers. Italic wants to do the same, but is taking a different approach by working with multiple manufacturers that supply top brands. Its result is a lineup of quality products, without brand names or premium price tags. The company launched in 2...

To forecast the next fashion trends, Soludos founder Nick Brown looked to past crises. Before the 2008 crisis, "it was all about ornaments and stuff being very sexy and over-the-top," Brown said on the Glossy Podcast. "Then in 2010, it shifted toward minimalism and modernism." Brown wagered that fashion will stay on the minimalist side. But either way, shoes are a tough category. "In some of these...

In fashion, the small businesses have suffered more than the big ones since March. But Commando founder Kerry O'Brien thinks that, for those boutiques that can survive a tortuous shutdown, the other side will be a lot brighter. "I think they're going to have a resurgence if they can make it through these times," she said. "Women are going to want to go to their local shop, and they're going to wan...

The ongoing demand for LaQuan Smith's signature sexy designs is both a blessing and a curse, as he put it on the Glossy Podcast. "It was a very humbling experience, because I had to find alternative ways to still be able to produce these orders," Smith said. "Thankful they didn't get dropped, but also, damn, because I'm now in a compromised position: How do I get these done, how do I fulfill all t...

After a pandemic-caused delay, influencer Arielle Charnas' clothing company Something Navy finally relaunched last week as a direct-to-consumer brand, after selling exclusively as a Nordstrom collaboration. For her and interim CEO Matt Scanlan, it was worth the wait: Online, Something Navy grossed $1 million in just 30 minutes, according to Charnas and Scanlan. "The velocity and speed of sales tot...

Putting on a digital fashion show isn't especially revolutionary. But Anifa Mvuemba, the founder of Hanifa, gave her Instagram Live show a novel twist: there weren't any models, whether digital or real. "This will be a great way to get everyone's attention," Mvuemba recalled thinking, on the Glossy Podcast. Her virtual runway was stalked by Hanifa dresses, moving of their own accord as if draped o...

Speaking for her corner of the fashion industry -- luxury denim -- Warp+Weft founder Sarah Ahmed said that discussions around racial issues should only be beginning. "If everyone was always receptive to this -- to racial equality -- we wouldn't be having these problems," Ahmed said on the Glossy Podcast. "We all need to take a look: maybe the joke that we make, the model choice that we made -- why...

Before the coronavirus pandemic, Trina Turk's self-named fashion label made 15% of its sales through e-commerce. But with Neiman Marcus' filing for bankruptcy in May and an ongoing lack of foot traffic at mall stores, Turk ideally wants that percentage raised to 50% or more. "If they weren't shopping online prior to this whole thing, they are jumping online now," Turk said about shoppers on the Gl...

Womenswear brand Knix has already gone through the painful transition to DTC that other clothing companies are being forced into during the pandemic. "I feel for those brands," Knix CEO Joanna Griffiths said on the Glossy Podcast. "But I also know that it's possible." Griffiths founded the company in 2013 to make and market leakproof underwear. At the time, the business model was entirely about wh...

Protests continue around the country and world three weeks after George Floyd's death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer. This new instance of police violence caught on video has boosted public support for Black Lives Matter while driving policy changes from governments, police departments and companies. Toms is used to building strategies around public good. "We're incredibly proud to h...

Fashion designer Anna Sui thinks the industry is overdue for a reckoning, in terms of diversity. "This is the moment for black designers and companies to step up. The curtains are open. Go for it," Sui said on the Glossy Podcast. Though not equivalent to the black experience, Sui's childhood was filled with dreams to become a designer despite not seeing anyone who looked like her at the forefront...

In a three-week period shortly after the pandemic outbreak, Richer Poorer sold three times as many sweatpants than in all of 2019. That was a small part of an overall trend for the basics clothing brand: The first five months of 2020 have greatly boosted online sales, transforming it into an e-commerce business first and foremost. "We essentially had to kind of rebuild and restructure our team ove...

Brideside co-founder and CEO Nicole Staple predicts there will be a wedding boom as the threat of coronavirus subsides. "We are seeing pretty overwhelming data that suggests women are postponing -- not canceling -- weddings," Staple said on the Glossy Podcast. But she isn't sitting back and waiting for the upswing. Launched in 2012, the company went from selling bridesmaid dresses exclusively to o...

Designer Alejandra Alonso Rojas is taking these uncommon times as permission to question the industry she operates in. “I think I’m going to come out of this as a rebel, because I’ve been really analyzing the business and what I want to do, and there are so many things I want to change in order to survive this and to make the business profitable,” Alonso Rojas said on the Glossy Podcast. The usual...

Jens Grede's denim-first fashion line, Frame, was growing fast until the pandemic hit. The company has 10 stores and had planned to double that number in 2020. Instead, the company is looking to 2021. "I'm still very confident about our store strategy right now," Grede said on the Glossy Podcast. Whenever doors do open again, Grede said they'll have a lower customer capacity, masks for visitors an...

Sweatpants are a best-seller for Mack Weldon in normal times. But unsurprisingly, they're especially popular now, as many Americans have seen their commute to the office replaced by yet another day of getting comfortable at home. "A lot of people are wearing sweatpants, that's for sure," Brian Berger, Mack Weldon CEO and founder, said on the Glossy Podcast. The activewear brand's focus on e-commer...

Fashion designer Nicole Miller knows her brand is best known for its dresses, and she sees the pandemic as one more reason to diversify her product line. "[We're] trying to become more of a lifestyle brand, giving our customer a broader range of things to choose from," Miller said on the Glossy Podcast. "I'm not just there for your party dress." Miller talked about how direct-to-consumer isn't a s...

For apparel sales, under the pandemic, different items are suffering different fates. Swimwear sales are at a halt, while lingerie and sleepwear are doing much better. Morgan Lane knows this first-hand, specializing in all three of these categories. "Fall orders, for the most part, were being received in February. And for stores that are getting their budgets canceled, because they can't be sellin...

If much of the retail industry is feeling squeezed by the coronavirus pandemic, outdoor apparel may be especially hard hit. "It's been kind of a mix," Jeff Johnson, co-founder of outerwear brand The Arrivals, said on the Glossy Podcast. "Sales, even traffic, has been lower." Johnson still manages to find positives. The company's main sales season runs from August to January or February -- this yea...

For Rebecca Minkoff, the coronavirus pandemic is a chance for her namesake business to accelerate pre-existing plans. That starts with reexamining the brand's dependence on its own brick-and-mortar stores versus wholesale. "We always had a plan to have the ratios be more equal, and I think this has forced that to happen," Minkoff said on the Glossy Podcast. "I see a strong desire to return to phys...

Ramy Brook Sharp opened a brand flagship store in Manhattan last fall, before the coronavirus pandemic shut down just about every brick-and-mortar store in New York City -- though since, the company's focus has changed to the company's e-commerce site, of course. Direct-to-consumer was a priority even before the crisis. "That's definitely going to be the future of the company," Brook Sharp said on...

For Charles Gorra, whose company Rebag has bought and sold luxury handbags since 2014, the competition isn't Hermès or Louis Vuitton. "We like to say we don't compete against this or that company, but we compete against idleness," Gorra said on the Glossy Podcast. His estimate is that nine out of 10 "luxury owners" have never sold those items and that most of his customers (on the selling end) are...

Jewelry company Gorjana is growing, self-funded and profitable, but its founders insist that it was a slow and tricky road. "No home runs here," Gorjana Reidel said on the Glossy Podcast. She and her husband, Jason Griffin Reidel, first sold their jewelry in small boutiques before partnering with Nordstrom in 2014. "We were kind of the pioneers of the category that you see so many people getting i...