The Fashion Translator

🎙️ In this episode of The Fashion Translator , I spoke with Stephen Laundy, founder of Fashion Compass, about the key shifts direct-to-consumer brands need to make when stepping into the wholesale arena. With nearly two decades of experience placing fashion, accessories, and footwear brands with agents, distributors, and retail partners across more than 40 countries, Stephen highlights margin stra...

🎙️ In this episode of The Fashion Translator , I spoke with Robert Patton, Founder & CEO of SHEATH Underwear, about his journey turning a hand-sewn prototype into a thriving brand, and the sheer grit, problem-solving, and single-minded focus required to bring his vision to life. Robert sketched the idea for a dual-pouch underwear design while deployed in Iraq, then returned home, bought a sewing m...

🎙️ In this episode of The Fashion Translator, I spoke with Carla Daniela, founder of Tailor Love in San Diego, about why a wedding dress only really works when it stops trying to please anyone but the bride wearing it. Carla’s shop spent years doing general alterations before she narrowed her focus entirely to wedding dresses. Brides come to her stressed about pleasing everyone else at the wedding...

There is a unique magic in taking an idea from raw concept, sketching every detail, selecting the perfect textiles, and seeing it walk down the aisle. For Richard and Lenka’s wedding at @the.castle.wedding, I was honored to design the bridesmaid collection. Catch every step of the transformation and final looks in action! This is just Part 1 of our series—drop a comment with your favorite look and...

🎙️ In this episode of The Fashion Translator, I spoke with Jerónimo Canale, Founder of Synced Graphics, about the power of aligning high-performing ads with a seamlessly optimized store experience. After early 3D content work for a kombucha brand generated real sales, Jerónimo expanded into paid ads to directly influence growth—refining Shopify offers and page copy to perfectly complement what the...

🎙️ In this episode of The Fashion Translator, Claire-Lys Bastien Wald sits down with Sara DeLuca, Co-Founder and Product Lead at Dovetail Workwear. Building an apparel brand for tradeswomen and women who work with their hands requires far more than shrinking men’s workwear or adding pastel colorways. Sara shares how Dovetail co-develops durable, fit-focused utility pants, outerwear, and workwear w...

🎙️ In this episode of The Fashion Translator, I spoke with Gabriel Cardier, Founder and CEO of Aurushi, about redefining adaptive apparel by solving functional hardware friction and prioritizing dignity in design. While the broader fashion market often approaches adaptive clothing as a mere checklist item—relying on basic velcro or zipper additions—apparel worn with prosthetics, orthotics, and bra...

🎙️ In this episode of The Fashion Translator, I spoke with Jessica Couch, Founder of Fashion Tech Directory, about why fashion brands keep struggling to adopt the technology built to help them. Jessica spent 13 years watching fashion brands and technology providers try to communicate and mostly fail. Solution providers pitch in dense, data-first language built for other industries, while brands op...

🎙️ In this episode of The Fashion Translator, I spoke with Emily Petroff, founder and CEO of Switch Society, about what happens when you remove money from the equation — and give women access to fashion through community, circulation, and zero guilt. Eighty percent of the American closet hasn’t been worn in the last year. Emily Petroff knew this, because she was living it. But instead of buying mo...

🎙️ In this episode of The Fashion Translator, I spoke with Andy Fine, founder of Sartoro, about what it really takes to deliver a bespoke suit experience entirely online — and why the fit might actually be better than what you’d get in a store. Getting a well-fitted suit has always meant navigating a trade-off: quality costs money, coordination takes time, and the tailoring process requires showin...

🎙️ In this episode of The Fashion Translator, I spoke with Shreya Bhan, Founder of BrushCode, about what happens when a fashion designer with 15 years of industry experience gets tired of waiting for the tools she needed — and builds them herself. BrushCode is a trend intelligence platform built primarily for small and independent brands — the ones that have always been left out of the room where...

🎙️ In this episode of The Fashion Translator, I spoke with Parke Ballantine — stylist, creative director, artist, and facilitator. Together, we unpack the magic of that effortless presence we all admire. Parke beautifully compares it to a serene duck gliding across the water—calm and graceful on the surface, powered by deep, intentional movement underneath. It is a stunning blend of psychology, so...

Gift Wrapping Is a Love Language. Not because the paper is expensive, or the ribbon is perfectly tied, or the fold is flawless. But because someone chose to spend time on something that would be undone in seconds. That decision — to slow down and make something beautiful before it is opened — can convey as much intentionality than the present inside. A gesture that predates the gift bag Humans hav...

🎙️ In this episode of The Fashion Translator, I spoke with Melissa Dusenberry, Founder and Creative Director of All The Brilliants, about what it means to buy jewelry with intention — and why so much of the industry has made that genuinely difficult to do. Melissa began her career as an art director in advertising, moved to Paris to find something more personally fulfilling, and discovered the jew...

A girls’ meetup at @WHotelDubai turned into something I did not expect — a quiet education in Emirati jewelry culture. The hotel had integrated traditional Emirati aesthetic throughout the space in a way that felt intentionaL. The gold pieces displayed were references to a jewelry tradition that goes back over four thousand years and carries more cultural weight than most people realize. The UAE’s...

🎙️ In this episode of The Fashion Translator, I spoke with Tracy Vontelle Green, Co-Founder & CEO of Vontelle, about what it means to build a brand that solves a problem most people didn’t even know they had. Vontelle started with a simple, physical frustration: glasses that don’t fit. Frames that press into your cheekbones, temples too short, nose bridges too narrow. Tracy and her co-founder Nanc...

On the intersection of creative direction and sourcing — and what it looks like when the two are finally the same conversation. Some materials communicate before they are ever cut and sewn. Creative direction and sourcing are the same conversation. We help brands find the materials that match the vision — and bring it into product. If your collection exists in your head but not yet in your hands,...

🎙️ In this episode of The Fashion Translator, I spoke with Taylor Artman, Co-Founder & CEO of Surf & Turf Golf, about what it really means to build a brand from a social club logo that went viral to 650+ wholesale accounts, all without outside capital. What stands out in this conversation is how Taylor thinks about growth. Not as a destination, but as a discipline — knowing when to say no, when to...

🎙️ In this episode of The Fashion Translator, I spoke with Cynthia Kim, Founder of Love Classic, about what it really takes to build a niche fashion brand from a single product — and grow it with intention. Cynthia started with thigh-high socks. Not randomly — but because she understood the product from the inside out: the fiber, the construction, the feel. That foundation is now informing how she...

For a long time, Paris was the plan. It made sense on paper. Fashion capital. Creative energy. The city that shaped so much of what I thought I knew about this industry. But life has a way of offering you something better than the plan you had. Dubai was not what I expected to choose. And then, it chose me — and everything shifted. Not because Dubai is more glamorous, But because it asked somethin...

Ariane and I have known each other for years — long before Lys Link, long before any of this made professional sense. What started as a friendship in Montréal eventually became something else entirely: a working relationship built on mutual trust, shared standards, and the kind of honesty that only comes from knowing someone well enough to tell them the truth. We are a flight apart. We have never...

🎙️ In this episode of The Fashion Translator, I spoke with Dario Markovic Ristic, CEO of Eric Javits, about leading a heritage accessory brand through D2C transformation, operational complexity, and the next layer of AI-driven growth. Eric Javits has been built over more than four decades, but the brand’s recent evolution reflects a very modern reality: even established fashion businesses cannot r...

🎙️ In this episode of The Fashion Translator , I spoke with Joseph Alexander Rein, Founder and CEO of LW PEARL and LW PEARL Atelier, about building a fashion business at the intersection of luxury craft, textile development, digital product workflows, and retail expansion. Joseph brings a rare perspective into the conversation: one shaped by couture-level garment work, embroidery, luxury, and the...

🎙️ In this episode of The Fashion Translator, I spoke with Janice Tam, Co-Founder & CEO of TrueToForm, about how body scanning, 3D fit prediction, and sizing data are reshaping the way apparel brands approach fit online. Fit is often treated as a size chart problem. But for apparel brands, it sits much deeper — inside customer confidence, e-commerce conversion, product development, return rates, a...

🎙️ In this episode of The Fashion Translator, I spoke with Cayla O’Connell Davis, CEO & Co-Founder of Subset, about the operational reality behind sustainable fashion — and why material standards, certifications, chemical safety, and supply chain decisions are becoming impossible to separate from brand credibility. This conversation goes far beyond marketing claims. From organic cotton sourcing an...