Diane von Fürstenberg Live Chat | Talks at Google

Hi.

I'm just going to quickly open and welcome you to the third Women at Google event. And we're really excited to have with us today Diane von Furstenberg, who is obviously a household name and someone we're very excited about welcoming here. Diane would very humbly say that she's been at the top of the fashion industry twice. I would argue that she's been at the top of the fashion industry for 30 years. She's designed everything from dresses to sportswear to cosmetics, luggage, rugs. In 2005, she was recognized with a lifetime achievement award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America. But I was really excited to hear her talk because I think she's a master of reinvention. And that's something that we here at Google need to learn about. How do we maintain being edgy and relevant and interesting to people over a 30 year history? And that's something she knows a lot about and she has a really amazing story. So with that, I will welcome Diane von Furstenberg to Google.

Hi. I'm very, very happy to be here today. It's actually fun. We've been traveling with Andre and I. We were in Houston, we were in San Francisco, and I'm on my way to LA today. And today was my Google field trip and I was really, really looking forward to do that. And so, and I have to say that I, you know, I often do this with students or with groups of women because it's always inspiring to hear other women speak and tell their story because there's always something to take from it. But today I was knowing that I was coming here, I was a little bit intimidated because I thought, what am I going to talk about with this kind of company, with this kind of success? So anyway, I'm a little intimidated, but that's okay. We'll start. So I will tell you today, I will tell you the story. My story. And what I do is in order not to get lost, I follow photographs. And so it's easier for me to, to go that way. So it started with a little girl who was born in Belgium. And that's me. And I was born, I was actually my mother, who you see next to it before I was born, was prisoner of war. She went to Auschwitz at the age of 20 and stayed in the camp for 14 months. She was not supposed to survive. She did survive because the war stopped. And when they found her, she weighed 49 pounds. And so she went back to Belgium where she was living with her parents. And within six months she gained her weight Again. And then my father came back from Switzerland, where he had been during the war. They got married, and the doctor said, it's absolutely. You must absolutely not have a child because you won't be able to make it or the child won't be in. Well, guess what? Twelve months later, I was born. But the reason I mentioned that is because I think that my birth was already a miracle. So, you know, that's the beginning of the story. Then this is at age 22, I married a very handsome prince. And you know what else? Right. But the thing that. The reason I put that is because at that time, my whole life started. I got married, I had babies, and I started my company. But also because, you know, when you read those stupid fairy tales, when you are a child, the end of the fairy tale is you marry the prince. Well, what I'm trying to tell you is that the beginning of the fairy tale could be that you marry the prince. And before I married Egon, I had gone to university in Switzerland, and that's where I met him. And after university, I didn't quite know what I wanted to do. I didn't really have a vocation, per se, but I did know that I wanted to be independent. And I had a friend who had an Italian man who had a factory. Actually, he had three factories in northern Italy. One factory was a printing factory where they printed silk scarves and like that. The other factory was a knitting factory where they made jersey fabric. And the third factory is where they made clothes. And I stayed with him for almost a year, some kind of an internship. And I didn't think I was doing anything except just, you know, watching him and scream at everybody. But now, looking back, I realize that actually I learned a lot while I was there. And so what happened is my agon. My boyfriend came back, was living in America, and he came back to Italy, and we got engaged, and we got engaged and we had a party and so on. I didn't really take the engagement very seriously, but, I mean, I did, but I didn't really believe he actually meant it. And I was really young and I was. You know, it was realism. And then he went off with a friend of his around the world, and I stayed at that factory with the Italian factory. And I remember driving with my friend from Milan Como to Florence, and he had a Maserati and he drove like a mad Italian. But that day, for some reason, I was very nauseous and very nauseous. And to make the story short, I was pregnant. And so then I was Really, I didn't know what to do. I said, oh, my God. All I wanted all my life was to be an independent woman. And here I am, I have to get married and I'm pregnant. So I said to the Italian man, please, let me make a few samples, and since I'm going to live in America, maybe I could sell them for you. And. And this is how I began. I made a few samples in the factory, and I used it from odds and pieces that were laying around, and I made my first. I can't call it a line, but a first few samples. I then went to New York, and in New York, through connections of my husband, I met. This is Diana Vreeland. Well, I don't know if you know who Diana Vreeland is, but Diana Vreeland was the empress of fashion. She ran Vogue magazine. And she was an extraordinary woman, very flamboyant, who loved helping young people and would find young photographers and art directors and all of that. And she was very, very, very powerful. So somebody arranged an appointment for me, and I went to the offices of Vogue, and I was even more intimidated than I was today when I came here. And I went into that office where everybody was so chic and so wonderful. And they put me in her office, and there was a rack of clothes, and I took all the clothes out of my suitcase. I was pregnant then. I was pregnant six months, and they're filming, so I shouldn't have them working. And then she comes in, and I always remember she had a long. How do you say, cigarette holder. She was smoking cigarettes. And she had bright, bright nails and bright white lips and black, black hair. And she came to me, and the first thing she said to me is she pulled my chin up and she said, chin up, up, up. And I thought, oh, my God, this is not starting well. But actually, she did like the clothes. She looked at it. She. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I mean, it was like the whole thing was like a dream. And then I found myself outside the office on the floor with a suitcase.

And.

And I said, now what? And her assistant, Keshia looked at me and she said, you know, I think she really liked it, so I think we'll help you. And I said, well, what do I do now? She said, well, what you should do is you should sell, you know, you should see buyers. I said, but how do I do that? She said, well, I'll tell you what. Next week is market week. Not next week, maybe in two weeks is market week, which means that people come from all over and buyers go from place to place. Why don't you take a room in a hotel? And I'll tell you where you should take a room in the hotel called the Gotham Hotel, because that's where the California people show their lines. So there will be traffic, and then you will be able to see buyers. And I said, all right, and how will people know about me? And she said, well, she said, you should list yourself in the Fashion Calendar and maybe take a little ad in Womenswear Daily, which is the trade newspaper. So I said to her, may I use your phone? And she said, yes. And from her office, I called the hotel, I called the Fashion calendar, and then I asked a friend of mine if he would take a picture of me. And he took pictures of me with my very first dress, which was a navy and white print dress. And I sat on a white cube, and because I thought that the cube was too wide, I thought I should write something on the cube. And I wrote, feel like a dress. Wear. No, not feel like a dress. Feel like a woman. Wear a dress. And little did I know that that sentence is something that I would use still 30 years ago, 30 years later. Because, as a matter of fact, I'm opening a shop next week. Two weeks, I'm going to Japan where I open a shop. And it's. Somebody sent me posters, and they're all over. That photograph. 30 years later is all over Tokyo. All right, so. And Diana Nivreeland did follow her word. She did photograph my clothes. And here you could see it on Marisa Berenson and Pat Cleveland. And if you look at the price, you know that it's a long, long time ago. And I was. I was very, very, very busy during the following two years, because not only did I start my business, but I had two babies. I had one in January and then one in February, the next February. And actually, I like to show this picture because the four of us, my husband, me, and my two children, all of us together, we are 50 years old. So. So for two years, I worked out of my apartment and doing everything. I would go back and forth to Italy every month and working in the sample room there and trying to get a few samples and then coming back and then seeing buyers and getting little orders like 24 pieces and 11 pieces. And then I would go to the factory, and I said, can I have these ordered made? And the smoke man would scream at me, I have a factory. What do you think? I can't make these kind of quantities. And I said, please, please, please stay with Me, I know it'll be bigger. And so that stayed for two years. So after two years, I knew that there was a little traction because wherever I sold the clothes, they would fly off. So I knew that I had traction, but I didn't know how to proceed in order of becoming a little bit more professional and not working out of my dining room table. So what I thought would be the easiest thing to do, the shortcut, is to find a large company on 7th Avenue and offer my services and offer my product, and maybe I could become a division of theirs. So I asked. I found out I couldn't have Googled. There was no Google. But I found out some companies made appointment with president. And I went to see three companies, and I went to see three companies, and I, you know, hello. And I showed my clothes, and they looked at me and they say, yes, sweet, but no, we're not interested. And one man, the last man I saw was a little young, and he was a little. I mean, you have to understand, I was 24, right? So he was very nice. He said, you know what? You don't need me. You don't need me. You should just take a showroom and a salesman and that's all. You have a factory, so that's all you should do. I said, but I don't know any salesman. So he said, well, come back next week and I may have somebody for you. So next week I went back and he introduced me to this man. And this man appeared very, very old to me. He was 39 years old, and he was out of work. He was a salesman out of work. And I said, well, he, you know, this is what I have, but I really don't have much money. And he said, well, I tell you what, if you give me $300 a week and 25% of the company, I'll go with you. So I said, well, 25% of zero is zero. So that was easy. I said, sure. And so we started, and I took a showroom on 7th Avenue, and. And at first, he didn't really understand the type of clothes that I did. So what I did is I used the fabric. It was a cotton jersey at the time. And I made some shirts for him. And then he put the shirts on, and he kind of understood that it was really cozy and comfy and all of that. And he was a very good salesman. And we opened a showroom, and very quickly he had a lot of contact, and he opened a lot, a lot of specialty stores and stores all around the country. And I would Go in Italy and get the clothes made. I mean, and then he would ship me all around America to do personal appearances. And that's how really I discovered this country. And I remember I spent so many hours on the plains and I was studying the map of America, and now actually I can list the states alphabetically in about two minutes. Anyway, so it happened, the whole thing went quite fast. And I was on the COVID of Women's Wear Daily, which is a big deal very, very soon. And celebrities at the time, I mean, well, you know who Gloria Steinem is, right? She came to speak here and she started wearing the clothes. And so, you know, it all happened really, really, really fast. And then there was this little wrapped up. This is actually Nixon's daughter and Julie Eisenhower, she made a speech and she was wearing a little wrap top. At first it was a wrap top that I had created, just like a little dancer top. And it sold very well. So I thought one day it'd be nice to turn the top into a dress. And that was the very first wrap dress. And from there on, it went really, really, really fast. Very fast. I mean, everybody wanted that dress. I had a great salesman and we sold all around the country. And I landed on the COVID of the Wall Street Journal. And I have a very funny story about this. And since we are mostly women in this room, you will really like it. I used to have. By now I'm separated from my husband and I have two small children at home. So I try, because I travel a lot, I try to take a lot of early plane so that I can have dinner with my kids. So that that day, wherever it is, in January 1976, I think, right, I am on a very, very early plane, like seven o' clock plane to Pittsburgh. And I'm in this plane and I at the newsstand, I buy all kinds of magazine, and on top of it I have the Wall Street Journal. And I sit down in the plane and I'm the only woman in the plane. And there's a guy near me and he looks at me and, you know, I was cute and I had good legs and he looks at me and he really wants to talk to me, but he doesn't know how to move. So he looks at the Wall Street Journal and he says, why does a pretty girl like you read the Wall Street Journal? So I looked at him and I thought, jerk. But I said nothing. And one of the very best satisfaction I've ever experienced in my life is that I said nothing. I didn't say, huh, look at that that's me on the COVID I didn't say anything. Of course, every time I speak, I tell everybody. So anyway, meanwhile, you know, all of a sudden, like that, I was famous so quickly that there were all kinds of other companies that came to me and wanted my name for all kinds of different brands. Sunglasses and jewelry and scarves and all of that. And before I knew, I mean, everything was happening so fast. Before I knew I had actually become what today people say, a brand. And that landed me the same year on the COVID of Newsweek. And that also is like, a big deal. Newsweek then was a lot more important than now. We didn't have the Internet. We didn't have cnn. So the weekly magazines is really where you got all the news. So that was a very big deal. And there was a little girl, you know, 28 years old. And they didn't believe I was 28. They went to Belgium to check my birth certificate. But of course. And you may have heard that they often say that when you have so much exposure, there's always a double ed. And what happened is that every store in America wanted that wrap dress. And my salesman wanted to sell more and more, and my manufacturer wanted to make more and more. And they thought it would never end. And it was basically the same style over and over, just in different colors. So what had to happen happened. It became saturated. And I thought, that's a good picture for saturation. And that was quite a hard time. All of a sudden, I find myself, after having lived this four years of everything I did turned into gold. All of a sudden. It was like stores didn't want to close anymore, and the manufacturer was keeping on manufacturing. And the salesman by now is drinking and walking in my office and telling me he wants to become president of the country. I thought, oh, my God, I'm having a trouble here. So first thing I did is I separated from my partner. And he did very well. He had started with $250 in, and he left with a million dollars or something. And I stayed with all this inventory. But what had happened in between is that my name had become a brand. And therefore the same companies that did not. The other fashion companies that did not want to hear from me then all of a sudden were interested. So I did find what I had wanted originally. I found a large company who was willing to take on the inventory and run the business and license my name for fashion. So that's what I did, and that's how I saved myself. But by then, I had been, you know, I had been Going around the country and meeting women and doing things. So I wanted to go on. And I decided, I said, okay, now I'll become Estee Lauder. And I decided to go into the beauty business. And I thought the best way I could do by going into the beauty business is first writing a book about beauty. Well, at 28, you're beautiful. You didn't need to write a book. But that's how I learned everything. And very soon after, I started and I created a fragrance named Tatiana, after my daughter. And once again, a line of cosmetics. And once again I went around the country. And once again, I must say, I had another success. Within five years, I built a very large cosmetic brand. And things were looking very good, except that once more, I had had a man in a suit. You know, men in a suit, you hide behind them. You think they're so serious. Sorry, Andre, you're wearing a suit. But what had happened? One day he called me and I was in Paris, and he said to me, well, you should come down, because, you know, the bankers want your personal guarantee. And I said, what? So I came back and I realized what I had not realized, that in order to grow that company, we had borrowed a lot of money. And the bankers were getting very nervous, and they wanted a personal guarantee. And I wasn't about to give them a personal guarantee because I had just bought a beautiful house in the country for my children, an apartment, and I was too afraid to lose that. So I, by then, actually, I was a number seven woman business owner in America. So I decided that I really had to sell the company. So I sold the beauty company, and I sold the beauty company for a lot of money. Most of them went. Most of it went to the bankers. But. And. But I, you know, and by doing that, I actually had surrendered my name. Everything I own had my name was a license by then, and I had a license for life. I had license, don't ask me how I got there for jeans. And so I didn't have very much control on my name. And all the people that had bought it, all these people, they didn't really want to deal with me very much. So at a time, I mean, years had gone by, and by then, my children are teenagers. So when you have children, I mean, you always love your children, but when they are teenagers, you don't like them, and they don't like you either. So they went to boarding school, and I went to Paris. I fell in love. I fell in love with a writer. And I moved to Paris and I stayed in Paris for five years, started a publishing house there. And in order to be somewhat attached to America and to the business of design, I did some inspirational decoration books and so on. But after five years, I kind of missed America and I missed my children and I missed my house in the country. And also the love affair was getting a little stale. So I decided to come back. And I came back to America. And by now my children are big and they are in college. They went to Brown, and they all have wonderful ideas about what they will do in the future. And I all of a sudden find myself with, you know, what happened. I came back to America. When I left, I had a big business and my identity was so involved, actually, with my work. All of a sudden I looked at what had happened to. Because I always said that I have three children, a son, a daughter and a brand. And my son and my daughter, as you can tell, had become very beautiful, wonderful people. And my brand, on the contrary, was just a horror. I mean, it was all over the place. All the companies, the distribution, the quality of the product, the quality, the integrity of the design, all of it had completely deserved, I mean, deteriorated. And it was really, really bad. And I tried to, you know, go and talk to them and everybody would look at me like I was a Has been. And it was really, really a very. It was. It was bad for quite a few years. I ate a lot of humble pie and felt really, really bad, really bad. But I kept on thinking, but, you know, these women, those customers. Because all through my successful years, I had had such dialogue with the customer, with women. I said, I am sure that if I go back, if I could go directly back to them, they remember me. And that's when I heard about a company called QVC. So on a Friday, 1992, I want to visit QVC. And it was. I came, I went to QVC. It was outside Philadelphia, and. Well, I shouldn't show you that yet. And I went to Philadelphia. Oh, no, I have a blanket. Yeah. And so I arrived in the studio, and it was a studio just like that. And there was a stage. And on the middle of the stage, it was Susan. What's her name? Lucci. Susan Lucci. All right, so you know who she is. And she was selling shampoo. And within an hour, she sold $500,000 worth of shampoo. So I thought, this sounds good. This is like a personal appearance on a national level. I should do that. It does look little tacky. But, you know, so after that, I met. I met with the management and they Were very eager to do. But they were very eager to do clothes with me. And I thought to myself, how can you sell clothes on television? But anyway, I said, okay, let me think about it. So I went to Hong Kong and it was very interesting. I went to visit a factory that when I was very big, they were very small, and now I was very small and they were very big, but they remember me.

And.

And I said, you know, I have a concept about selling clothes. I mean, scarves and shirts on television, and I would like to do that. And so he went along with me. We made some sample, and I created a line called Silk Assets. And I did go on television on QVC. And the first two hours we sold a million $400,000. So all of a sudden, all of a sudden, the same people who thought that I was a. Has been all of a sudden called me a pioneer again. And so if it didn't, I mean, if being on QVC wasn't exactly what I had in mind about regaining my name and my career, what it did is like, first of all, I made a little money. But second, it gave me confidence and it was quite wonderful because with the confidence, I could then go and try to. To see what I would do next. So at the time they was. It was very much. It was, what is it, 95, 96, 97, 98, somewhere like that. It was a time that a lot of department stores merged together into Federated and so on. And so I knew the chairman of Federated because I had known these people in the past. And I had breakfast with him and I said to him, I would like to become your exclusive designer. I will have a design studio and I will design for you and I will work with your buyer and I will help you promote it. But you have to take care of the production and you own the inventory. Because twice I sold my company because I had owned inventory and I was a little bit inventory phobic. So he said he thought it was a very good idea. So we started to go in negotiation and it all seemed to be wonderful. And I said to him, and I realized that for them was a big investment. So I said to them, okay, this is what I would do for you. I will get a. I had seen a place downtown in the Midpack district. And I say, I will. I have a design studio and I will use that design studio to work on the design and to show room to show the buyers. And also what I will do is I will write a book that told about my story in the past. That will make a line between the past and the future. And therefore, when the book comes out, the line and everything will be ready and we can go on a promotional tour. And I had it figured it all out. So he agreed, but somehow he didn't totally agree, because one day on a Friday afternoon as I was going to the country, I got a phone call and some woman called me and she said, guess what? The deal is off. I said, oh, no. I said, I had started to write the book, I had a commitment with the publisher, and I had actually signed to buy to get this. This studio downtown. Anyway, so I was pretty depressed. And it was Friday afternoon. And anyway, so by Sunday, by the time I drove back to the country, back from the country to New York, I had decided that I was going to do it. I was going to start all again like I did years, years ago. Because I must say, one sign I had is that I had started to notice that young girls, the generation of my daughter, were buying the old dresses in vintage shops. And people were starting to look at that very much again. So I called my friend Rosemary Bravo, who was the president of Saks Fifth Avenue, and she's a very smart woman. And I said, would you be interested in me doing those dresses again? And she said, absolutely. She said, everyone is now copying these dresses. Absolutely. So I did. And. And this is very funny. This is an ad that I took for the launch of it, and on the left it says, you know, what does it say? He stared at me all night. And then he said, something about you reminds me of your mother. And. And it's very funny because that's again, something I just came up with staring at those photos. And everybody said, no, you can't do that. Nobody wants to look like their mother. And I just thought it was funny. I mean, I just thought it was funny, but I didn't think that it's actually what did happen. And so very quickly, Vogue took on and all the young girls started wearing the clothes. And. And the clothes were. And the wrap dress was again at Saks and a shop called Scoop, which is in the, you know, it was in the Village. And that is the beginning of my second generation of my company. I then brought a young English designers designer and we kind of upgraded the wrap dress and made it modern. He made me do things that I would never do myself, like putting my face on T shirts. And then we did that again on taxicabs. And today, this is where we are. We sell in 42 countries. These are the countries we sell in we are in all these stores. And a few years ago, I started to open my own boutiques. The first one was next to my headquarters on the 12th Street. And everyone said, who on earth is going to shop on 12th Street? And so that's why I created the theater space in the back to create a little animation, which was very successful. And later we opened in Miami and in Los Angeles, in London and in Antwerp, we opened in Paris, two stores. This is Madonna, who came near the opening. And in Saint Tropez last summer, very successful. And in Hong Kong and Tokyo, where I'm going next week. And now the brand is involved in brand extension. I have a line of fine jewelry that I do for H. Stern Swimwear. I know. What is that? Handbags, swimwear, scarves, luggage, rugs, beauty, fragrance. And then every now and then, you know, a little design design kind of thing. I designed the dresses for Serena Williams at Wimbledon and a T Mobile and there's a Barbie coming out. And I used to hate Barbie. My daughter wasn't allowed to use it. And then, of course, a website. I don't know if you've gone into my website, but that's one of my very successful shops, too. And since we live in the world of celebrities, I cannot end this without showing you celebrities in the clothes. And two years ago, and that's what happens when you get older, you get lifetime award. So the CFDA gave me a lifetime award and soon followed by electing me as the president of the cfda. By the way, CFDA is the Council of Fashion Designers of America. So I now represent 280,000, not thousand. 280 designers in America. And this is my new headquarter that is about to be ready at the end of the year. So this is where I am today. And I just hope you had fun. And. And I'm now ready for any question. All right. A man.

You know, viral marketing is a buzzword. My sense is that fashion has always been kind of a virally marketed commodity with people spreading it through words of mouth, people that they know, people that they look up to personally. Has that changed in the Internet age? Has it increased? Decreased.

Word of mouth, you mean? Right. No. Well, you know, it's funny. I mean, I always, you know, advertising is so important and everything, but it is true that word of mouth is always your best advertising. And I mean, everything has changed in the age of Internet. I mean, you can't compare before and after. I mean, the reach is so wide. And some of it is great because people can buy you from all over. And some of it is horrible because I have two fashion shows a year on Fashion Week, and the day after my fashion show, things are pulled out of the web and they're copied and there's counterfeit, and, you know, there's. So you have the. You know, you have the good side and you have the bad side, and you have to live with both.

Thank you.

So I was wondering if you could talk more about your designs and where you're thinking about as for, like, the future of where you're going. And I remember from your show last month that, like, you opened with a wrap dress, and there weren't that many other wrap dresses. I was really impressed that, like, there's this, like, wide variety of clothing. So I was just wondering, I guess, where you're looking to go.

All right. Well, I think that no matter what. What I do in life, I mean, wrap dress will be written on my tombstone. So, I mean, no matter how much I try to stay away from it, it will never be, you know, and first of all, fashion is such a mysterious thing. You know, it's L' air du temps. It's mysterious why all of a sudden everybody wears combat boots or why everybody goes one color. I mean, fashion is very mysterious, and it really has two energies. It starts from the. I mean, one is what the street decides, and the designers are really inspired by the streets, by what people wear, and then the street is inspired by the designers. So you have these things when you are in this business. First of all, I do two collections a year, but I really have collection full collections every month. So every month, if you go to a store, you will see different merchandise. So I'm saying that to the fact that it's not. You don't stop and start. It's like an ongoing thing. So it's like a piece of music or like a meal that never stops, you know? So you have a little sweet, you need a little salt, you need a little salt, you have a little sweet, and you go a little short, you go a little long, you go a little tight, you go a little. So it's like. So it is easier to work that way, you know, because it's an ongoing music. And then, of course, what is really important, every designer is different. Some designers are very designers, you know, and it's art and it's whatever, and it's very avant garde, and it's all of that. Me, my role in fashion is quite different. I. I am interested in women, and I'm inspired by women, and I want women to look hot and great and confident and beautiful. And therefore, my clothes, I mean, and it's the instruction in my design room that's the most important thing for my brand. The DNA of my brand is the fabric has to be soft, it has to be comfortable. The fit has to be flattering to the body. The colors have to be. You know, it's a whole thing. So that is always there. Now, as it relates to wraps, we always have wraps, and wraps always sell very well, but we go with trends. You know, now the silhouette is a little looser. So we have. And then when I show a fashion show, of course, I will always begin the first thing is the wrap, because that's like saying, hello, this is me. And. But after that, you show different things, too. And it's a very. I mean, when I show a collection, I have 800 samples to choose from over a period of four months. So it's very difficult. And it's the hardest thing is to edit and to choose what you will show. And that's why, actually, I have this great English girl who comes from England, and she chooses because I'm too attached to everything. I can't choose properly.

Hi. Thank you for coming to speak with us today. Excuse my voice. Hearkening back to the experience you had on the airplane where you were the only woman in first class and also happened to be on the COVID of Wall Street Journal and probably one of few highly visible, highly successful women in the country at the time. How has that changed for you and evolved over the years in terms of your experience, Experience with the male attitude and changing culture?

Well, the thing is, first of all, I always enjoyed being a woman. I mean, and I'm so glad I am a woman. And if you don't, if you want to be happy to be a woman, I recommend you see the movie Volvaire when it comes out, because you come out of that movie, it's an Almodovar movie, you're so happy you're a woman. And anyway, so. And the thing that I. For me, it was always an advantage, but it's also because I work for myself. So, you know, I'm saying I wasn't in a corporate environment where maybe the men got the best jobs. So I didn't feel that. But I think that to be a woman is so great. And I mean, and I never cease to be impressed by women. And I think I have yet to meet a woman who is not strong. But sometimes women are afraid of their own strength. And I think that's why I try to, you know, through my. Through my work and through my fashion and through everything I say through that, I try to make, you know, empower women and make them feel you could be a woman and be hard and be great and be successful and be in the driving seat and go for it. So that's what I believe and that's what I try to promote. And that's it.

I have a lighter weight question. I was just curious what your favorite thing to wear is that you've designed currently and your favorite thing to wear.

That someone else has designed. All right. Well, I. First of all, I don't really like to shop, so I'm very lucky. I go once a month. I go to my shop and I pick my things. And so I'm very comfortable in my own clothes. I mean, of course, my clothes are now getting younger than I am, so I can't actually wear everything, but I'm really comfortable in my clothes. And if I don't wear my clothes, I'm usually in hiking gear.

Well, hi. Lately a lot of designers started working with stores such as Target or. Hm. Do you have any plans like that?

You know, I did that way before anybody else. And I can tell you that for me, it was a mistake. So let the. I mean, and I think it's great. I think it's great that we elevate designs that you have really good design at the mass merchant. I encourage that. I think it's wonderful. However, I position my brand at this point that I am in a very select distribution, which means I am in the very best stores all around the world. But at that, in those stores, I'm probably opening price, you know, so the rest of the clothes in the stores that I'm in are probably more expensive than I am. So having said that, having that canoe and that niche in the market, I think that's where I should stay and not try to go lower or higher.

What responsibility do you think the fashion industry has for social justice issues like manufacturing labor?

Oh, big. I mean, you know, fashion is a huge industry. Huge, huge, huge industry. And I think that it is important that, you know, all these things that had issued a few years ago about slave laboring and all that, it was good that it was surfaced and people are dealing with it. And I think everybody has a civic responsibility as an individual and as a business. And so I think the more we enhance that, the better.

Thank you. Do you think that the industry is going to go towards that as a marketability?

What?

Go towards just labor as a form of marketability for their products.

You know, I hate to think that everything is marketing, you know, I mean, I think you got to be honest, and honesty always wins. But I don't like to think that the idea of marketing good things, I mean, you do good things, and you get the consequence after.

Thank you.

Hi. Can you talk a little bit about.

What you're doing to protect your brand the third time around?

Yes, yes, yes. Third time around. Did you say third time around? Second time around? Well, that's really. I mean, all the mistakes that I had made early on, I am really not doing again. And this time, I am controlling the growth. I don't want to grow too much. I do not want to saturate the market. I do not do license deals left and right and lose control. So I have very much the control of the brand through the distribution, through the quality, through the product, and through the image. And so it's very much, you know, inside. It's a family business. It belongs to my children and myself, and I don't intend to change that. I'm not selling it, and hopefully I'll stay around until my granddaughter will take over.

How do you think that the climate of the fashion industry has changed in the past 15 and 20 years? And how do you think that you would have handled selling off your business the first time around if you had been in that situation now?

God, you know, how would the cake taste if I had forgotten the sugar? I mean, it's. I mean, I don't know. I mean, it's the. Yes, of course everything has changed. Everything is a much bigger industry. The stores are bigger this and that. But, you know, you can't think that way. If you think that way, then nothing will ever happen. This miracle of Google would have not happened. You just, you know, in the big mountains, there are cracks, and inside the cracks, there are little things that come out. And so you learn from your mistakes, but you keep on always looking ahead. And I don't know how it would have been. And I'm glad for my mistakes because I learned. And anyway, whether I'm glad of my mistakes or not, I can't change it. So. So I think the thing is, look ahead and have big dreams and little steps.

Hi. I'm an avid watcher of Project Runway, and I know you weren't a judge on it once, and I was wondering what your thoughts were on these new reality TV show designers and what you think about them being a fashion show. And if you think that it cheapens fashion or it's good and it supports it?

No, I actually think it's nice. I think it's nice because it also allows the wider public to understand all the different facets of fashion and what you have to do to put a show together, to put a garment together and everything. So I think it's good. What I don't like is that they chip chop it, you know, so when you actually see it on television, if you, I mean, if you, you were there, they only take the little bits of it. And so I don't like that. But other than that, I think it's done a lot for the industry and to stimulate people and to make people all around the country. In Iowa, some person who didn't know me may be very inspired by it and move into it and prove to be very talented. So I think it's good.

Hi.

Obviously your husband is a very influential business person. I was curious if he's had any influence on your business dealings or conversely, if you've actually influenced him in any way.

Yes, of course. I've known him. Even though I've only been married five years. I have, I met him 32 years ago. So we know each other a really long time and we have helped each other and he's helped me many, many times. I remember specifically on my first crisis when I was 28 and I was, you know, he helped me there and he helped me negotiate the deal with the company who took over. And then, oh, I don't know why that happened. And as far as me helping him, well, I am the one who actually brought him to qvc and that turned into, you know, his opening into the interactive business. So. Yes. All right, thank you.