Speaker 1: I'm Sam Edis and I'm Amy Nelson. Welcome to What's
Speaker 1: Her Story? With Sam and Amy. This is a show
Speaker 1: about the world's most remarkable women, their professional and personal journeys. Together,
Speaker 1: we'll hear from gold medalists, best selling authors, and leaders
Speaker 1: of the world's most iconic brands. Listen every Thursday or
Speaker 1: join the conversation anytime on Instagram at What's Her Story Podcast.
Speaker 1: Susanne Learner is the president and CEO of Michael Stars,
Speaker 1: the fashion essentialist company she co founded with her late husband.
Speaker 1: She's an activist and a philanthropist devoted to running a
Speaker 1: socially responsible business, and she's been doing it for decades,
Speaker 1: far before it was cool. Susanne is also a board
Speaker 1: member of the MS Foundation for Women. Who was Susanne
Speaker 1: Larner before Michael Stars was built. That is a long story.
Speaker 1: I grew up in a in a nice little suburb
Speaker 1: that my parents could not afford in Chicago, and my
Speaker 1: dad was a traveling salesman, so he would be gone
Speaker 1: from Monday morning to Friday night. I was a latch
Speaker 1: key kid with my two older brothers, and my mom
Speaker 1: was a bookkeeper, but I used to help my dad
Speaker 1: on weekends, so he sold jewelry and I loved being
Speaker 1: with him, you know, checking the invoices and and sorting
Speaker 1: cards and I just love that kind of thing. So
Speaker 1: I just kind of grew up with these entrepreneurs. Even
Speaker 1: though they weren't successful, they had that entrepreneur of spirit.
Speaker 1: And then in high school, I got involved in the
Speaker 1: political movements because it was anti war movement, social justice,
Speaker 1: racial justice. Growing up in Chicago, this incredible movement. So
Speaker 1: I started doing things like I was the type of
Speaker 1: for the underground newspaper, and I went to demonstrations and
Speaker 1: I was kicked out of school for wearing blue jeans
Speaker 1: because at that time you could not wear blue jeans school.
Speaker 1: So between that and demonstration and then my senior year
Speaker 1: of high school, I decided to bus to a racially
Speaker 1: integrated high school because I grew up in a high
Speaker 1: school that had no integration at all. And there was
Speaker 1: a program called Operation Wing Spread and I was able
Speaker 1: to get on it. And this is after Chairman Fred
Speaker 1: Hampton the Black Panthers was was murdered a month later
Speaker 1: and I said to my parents, I'm going, and they
Speaker 1: just could not stop me. They always really helped me
Speaker 1: get to where I was going. They never really said no.
Speaker 1: I think I was a very good salesman. Really, even
Speaker 1: in that day, I could convince people. So I went
Speaker 1: to the high school and I realized what the world
Speaker 1: was like for other people. So I went to university
Speaker 1: and dropped out and worked as a secretary. So I
Speaker 1: had about a couple of years working for different companies.
Speaker 1: Even in high school, I was like a Kelly girl,
Speaker 1: and uh. I saved my money and I went off
Speaker 1: to Europe by myself when I was twenty one and
Speaker 1: spent three months there and realized I wanted to do
Speaker 1: more traveling. So came back to Chicago, went to school,
Speaker 1: and went off again, and I realized I really wanted
Speaker 1: to see the world. So I saved my money again,
Speaker 1: and I met an Australian guy in Greece one summer,
Speaker 1: and I ended up going to school in France, and
Speaker 1: then I moved to Australia on a fiancee's visa so
Speaker 1: I could get a visa and worked there. And then
Speaker 1: I traveled for two years overland, all through Indonesia, Thailand, Nepal,
Speaker 1: India and experienced life so um. One day in New Delhi,
Speaker 1: I wandered into a shop with a woman named Santo Sharma,
Speaker 1: and I was kind of blown away because it was
Speaker 1: a woman who owned an import export business. And we
Speaker 1: started talking and we became friends, and I went every day,
Speaker 1: and then she introduced me to some Americans and British
Speaker 1: people who wanted to start a clothing company. And I
Speaker 1: had not done that. I mean, I had been on
Speaker 1: like the teen board for a department store, but I
Speaker 1: had loved seventeen magazin Sean always was dealing with hand
Speaker 1: me downs, but being able to put together outfits, you know,
Speaker 1: embroidering blue jeans and in knitting sweaters. So I decided
Speaker 1: to do it. And I had no idea what I
Speaker 1: was doing. None of us had any idea. The designer
Speaker 1: was British and she lived in Kabba, Afghanistan, making these
Speaker 1: beautiful dresses. And we took an old Mercedes and we
Speaker 1: drove up to Afghanistan. I remembers in between two wars,
Speaker 1: and I ended up in Los Angeles with one of
Speaker 1: the partners who was here Afghanistan and India to l
Speaker 1: A like how did you get to l A? So
Speaker 1: Roger Wong, who was my part one of the partners
Speaker 1: had a art gallery here and he in this French
Speaker 1: American named Alan, who had the money. We're friends and
Speaker 1: we're importing beautiful jewelry, silver jewelry and sweaters from Morocco.
Speaker 1: And so he called Roger. His car had broken down.
Speaker 1: He said, Roger, I need a Mercedes engine. Roger bought
Speaker 1: the engine, took it on a plane New Delhi, and
Speaker 1: we all met and we said, we think we can
Speaker 1: do this company. And Allen had the money, Margaret had
Speaker 1: the designs, and Roger knew one person in the clothing business.
Speaker 1: So I went home into Chicago, packed my trunk and
Speaker 1: I moved to l A. And we started by talking
Speaker 1: to this woman Lee that her name was Lee Walzac,
Speaker 1: just coming back to me, and she rapped Casherrell and
Speaker 1: she helped us so much with understanding the business. And
Speaker 1: in those days, there were these big, big, big books
Speaker 1: that had every single specialty store in the country, and
Speaker 1: we just had we were so we were waiting for
Speaker 1: our samples. We were getting ready to start. We we
Speaker 1: you know, had our little business license. And then Margaret
Speaker 1: and Allen broke up. They were boyfriend and girlfriend and
Speaker 1: Roger and I then said, okay, now what are we
Speaker 1: gonna do well. The prior to leaving, I had met
Speaker 1: my plane had been delayed, and I ended up sharing
Speaker 1: a took took back to New Delhi with this Italian
Speaker 1: guy who said, I know these people in Old Delhi.
Speaker 1: And we went into the shop and it was this
Speaker 1: amazing company called Sader Silk, and they were making things
Speaker 1: for Fia Rucci and all the Italian brands, and they
Speaker 1: were very friendly, and I was very friendly and I
Speaker 1: bought some things. So I said to Roger, I remember
Speaker 1: these people. I'm going to send him a letter, and
Speaker 1: I think you should just go back there and get samples.
Speaker 1: So Roger took out his credit card, we put my
Speaker 1: ticket on it, I got on a plane. I showed
Speaker 1: up on their doorstep and they went, Susie, we just
Speaker 1: got your letter this morning. We're happy to see you,
Speaker 1: but we don't do business with Americans because we don't
Speaker 1: trust them. And by the end of the day they said,
Speaker 1: we're giving you a sample line and you just have
Speaker 1: to pay for it. And so I got a sample line,
Speaker 1: and I came back to Los Angeles and we called
Speaker 1: the line Susie Wong for me and Roger, and we
Speaker 1: started going out. You know, in those days there was
Speaker 1: big specialty stores like Contemplate Casuals and Judy's and Bullets
Speaker 1: was here. There were so many department stores and you
Speaker 1: could wander in on a Friday on the open by
Speaker 1: date and they would just write orders. Business was so
Speaker 1: amazing in the late seventies. So we got orders, and um,
Speaker 1: I called my parents and I said, you did not
Speaker 1: pay for my college. And I knew they didn't have
Speaker 1: a lot of money, and I said, I know I'm
Speaker 1: going to be successful. I need to borrow money. I
Speaker 1: want to borrow here's the orders, and I want to
Speaker 1: have money to pay for the orders. And they lent
Speaker 1: me money. They lent me fifteen thousand dollars. So we
Speaker 1: got the orders and I went back to India to
Speaker 1: check production and we shipped it and we were making
Speaker 1: some money. And then the end of the year there
Speaker 1: was always quota with customs. You know, you could only
Speaker 1: bring in a certain amount of goods into America from
Speaker 1: a foreign country. And quota closed in November and I
Speaker 1: hit We had a shipment sitting at the airport, so
Speaker 1: it was like the end of the road. But what
Speaker 1: we did was is when it cleared. I took the
Speaker 1: goods in and then we went out again and resold them.
Speaker 1: And I was packing boxes in my apartment, typing, typing invoices,
Speaker 1: you know, four shirts, four little shirts in a box
Speaker 1: with a separate invoice, you know, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds.
Speaker 1: But eventually it failed and we just could not do it. Well,
Speaker 1: did you pay your parents back? That's the big question
Speaker 1: in many many ways, but not that way. Starting a
Speaker 1: business is really hard. Most businesses do fail. What in
Speaker 1: you felt like you could call your parents and say, like,
Speaker 1: I know I'm going to be successful, Like a lot
Speaker 1: of young women don't say things like that. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: especially I think the days I was in I was
Speaker 1: a feminist and I felt I was powerful to accomplish things,
Speaker 1: and I knew it wasn't going to be in regular
Speaker 1: kind of things that women typically were doing in those days.
Speaker 1: And uh, I think when you're have no choice, you
Speaker 1: pick yourself up and you do things that you wouldn't
Speaker 1: typically do. Because I knew what it meant from my
Speaker 1: parents to say yes today, I understood um what it was,
Speaker 1: and I just I was really lucky because they believed
Speaker 1: in me. So what happened after where we left off.
Speaker 1: So UM, I ended up getting jobs and UM first
Speaker 1: job was at a little import company from India, and
Speaker 1: I did everything I you know, I checked the bills
Speaker 1: of lady. I would sit in the telex and write orders.
Speaker 1: I was assistant to the owners. But I always felt
Speaker 1: like I was failing up because I got fired from
Speaker 1: that job. And I think the the owner's wife didn't
Speaker 1: really like me, and I didn't quite understand that tension
Speaker 1: sometimes between women and what was happening. And I think
Speaker 1: I was powerful and I had an opinion and I
Speaker 1: probably stated it and she might not have wanted to
Speaker 1: hear it. So I moved to other companies. UM. And
Speaker 1: then I moved to a company called Disco Jeans, Disco
Speaker 1: and Law Disco Jeans, and I would sit there with
Speaker 1: allocation of things, this high of orders and have to
Speaker 1: decide who was getting shipped. Um, we have lots of
Speaker 1: sales reps. I worked for two male sales managers. And
Speaker 1: just last month I linked in with my old owner,
Speaker 1: the owner of the company, and I said, do you
Speaker 1: remember me? He said, blue eyes, curly hair, and respectfully aggressive. Oh.
Speaker 1: I love that. That's actually my favorite new term. Respectfully aggressive.
Speaker 1: This is amazing. Respectfully, how do people perceive you? Like,
Speaker 1: how did people perceive you when you were in your
Speaker 1: twenties and how you were doing things. See, you've always
Speaker 1: been a huge salesperson. I mean since high school with
Speaker 1: your dad, You've always been a salesperson. And I don't
Speaker 1: think most people think of a designer as a salesperson.
Speaker 1: And I don't think of myself as that. I I
Speaker 1: see incredible salespeople, and I don't think that's it. I
Speaker 1: think I believe in my product, and I have passion
Speaker 1: and I'm nice. I think people weren't used to it. Actually,
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks ago, my Nordstrom buyer, when we
Speaker 1: first had Michael Stars, she told a story. She's a
Speaker 1: black woman, and she said, you know, Susanne, you are
Speaker 1: always nice to me. Just I would walk into a
Speaker 1: showroom with twelve other Nordstrom buyers and people wouldn't look
Speaker 1: at me, people wouldn't speak to me. And she said,
Speaker 1: I had the biggest pen, I could write the biggest orders.
Speaker 1: But she said there was something there. And so when
Speaker 1: I came to her with the T shirts, she said,
Speaker 1: I blough from you because of who you were, and
Speaker 1: I didn't even know about the T shirts, but I
Speaker 1: bloffed you because of the type of person you were,
Speaker 1: and I had never she never told me that we've
Speaker 1: been friends for thirty five years and I never heard
Speaker 1: that story. So you know, it's really good. Always think that.
Speaker 1: I mean, it always comes back to all your relationships
Speaker 1: in your networking well. But I mean, I think that's
Speaker 1: something that people don't talk enough about in business because
Speaker 1: we're supposed to be like hard and fierce and everything,
Speaker 1: but just being a good, kind person, Like, do you
Speaker 1: think that's one of the things that had had defined
Speaker 1: your career? I think so. I think so. I think
Speaker 1: that everybody always knows me as being honest. I mean, listen,
Speaker 1: I can be tough when there's a lot of things
Speaker 1: in the plate. I can be frustrated. I sometimes get
Speaker 1: negative with people, and I kicked myself in the end.
Speaker 1: I learned now to be able to apologize and talk
Speaker 1: to them about it and explain the reasons why and
Speaker 1: try to improve always. But I think I've ended up
Speaker 1: being straight, a kind, honest but kind. I think you
Speaker 1: always have to do that as a person sitting next
Speaker 1: to you that's doing the task, whether they're failing or achieving,
Speaker 1: and it's still a human being. And now a quick break.
Speaker 1: So how did you launch Michael Stars? Well, from like
Speaker 1: for about four or five years, I had grown my
Speaker 1: two D square foot showroom to a three D fifty
Speaker 1: square foot showroom and I ended up taking on a partner.
Speaker 1: That particular week that Michael walked in my showroom. And
Speaker 1: he walked in and he at this South African accent.
Speaker 1: I kind of had met him before through one of
Speaker 1: my manufacturers, and and um, he came in with the
Speaker 1: line of Polly cotton sweatshirt shoulder padded printed with sweatshirts,
Speaker 1: and the sweatshirts were really super ugly and shoulder pads
Speaker 1: had just gone out of style, which I knew, but
Speaker 1: the designs are really super cute. And I was single.
Speaker 1: I had broken up with my boyfriend about six months before,
Speaker 1: and I was determined to never be with anybody again,
Speaker 1: and I was just so attracted to him. He was handsome,
Speaker 1: which kind of made it easier and interesting. So after
Speaker 1: three days of thinking about representing the line, I waited
Speaker 1: until Sunday night. I remember this call. I was so
Speaker 1: nervous because he was very convincing and I turned down
Speaker 1: the line and asked him out in a date and
Speaker 1: he was like, wait a minute, I don't remember what
Speaker 1: you look like, and nobody turns me and just could
Speaker 1: not understand it, and he said okay, and so we
Speaker 1: made a date for two days later and we had
Speaker 1: dinner and a bottle of wine and that was it.
Speaker 1: And a week later he showed up with the hand
Speaker 1: painted designs on T shirts and I said that I
Speaker 1: can sell. And that's when we started. He had second
Speaker 1: mortgaged his home. So I was the sales part and
Speaker 1: marketing and designing, and he was the marketing and running
Speaker 1: the business. And uh, it was there. It was there
Speaker 1: every minute of our lives. And it was already called
Speaker 1: Michael Stars. At that point it was called Michael Stars.
Speaker 1: The original artist was a man named John Stars, who
Speaker 1: was a volleyball playing her most of each resident that
Speaker 1: used to sell them at little fairs, and Michael used
Speaker 1: to buy them and bring him. He had a home
Speaker 1: in Miconos, used to go to Miconos a couple of
Speaker 1: times a year and his friends would He'd give them
Speaker 1: away to his friends because everybody wanted them. So we
Speaker 1: knew we had something, and I put him up. I
Speaker 1: put him up in the showroom. Remember this little baby
Speaker 1: chew room and Fred Siegel, Bloomingdale, Barney's all walked into
Speaker 1: my door and said, we want to buy those. How
Speaker 1: do you think they knew where your door was? Those days,
Speaker 1: people just wandered the halls and they kind of look
Speaker 1: they were looking for interesting new things. In those days,
Speaker 1: it wasn't as difficult, I think as nowadays, because people
Speaker 1: don't do those kind of things. Even the trade shows.
Speaker 1: There's fewer people walking around, there's fewer there's fewer stores
Speaker 1: to sell to. What's the process today? Start a website?
Speaker 1: I mean in terms of marketing, Start a website, get
Speaker 1: some photos done, send an email, hope somebody's gonna look.
Speaker 1: Use your networking. I use LinkedIn all the time. I
Speaker 1: highly recommended. I will just reach out to people. So
Speaker 1: you mentioned you know sustainability, and I think you've really
Speaker 1: been a model as a leader in so many ways,
Speaker 1: but one of them is that you've always you've always
Speaker 1: included social impact and everything you've done very openly, long
Speaker 1: before many CEOs would touch anything. How did you navigate
Speaker 1: that we would all be charitable ourselves personally? Michael used
Speaker 1: to read something in the newspaper. He cut it out
Speaker 1: and sent a check, so it was it's been always
Speaker 1: twenty years now. We started the foundation because we wanted
Speaker 1: to give to organizations that my customers would care about.
Speaker 1: And so basically it's like women and girls. I cared
Speaker 1: about voting rights and um helping women change their communities
Speaker 1: through government. So I was. I used to read Reclear,
Speaker 1: you know, that magazine had was most political fashion magazine
Speaker 1: out there at the time, and I found a little
Speaker 1: clipping of an organization called Women Thrive. Women Thrive helped
Speaker 1: train women in advocacy so they as a group could
Speaker 1: get together and go to their governments and their towns
Speaker 1: and their villages and make change. And that just appealed
Speaker 1: to me so much. So I wrote them a letter,
Speaker 1: I sent them a little check, and when I went
Speaker 1: to Washington for another event, I called them up and said,
Speaker 1: I'd really love to meet with you, and the woman
Speaker 1: met me for breakfast. I don't know what I was doing.
Speaker 1: I'd never said on a board. I didn't know anything,
Speaker 1: and she said she started talking to me and I
Speaker 1: started learning, and so later they offered me a position
Speaker 1: on the board, and I thought, why do you want me.
Speaker 1: I own a small company. I don't have the credentials,
Speaker 1: and they said, that's why we want you, because you
Speaker 1: have a real voice. And so that was my start
Speaker 1: sitting on nonprofit boards, and through that and the foundation,
Speaker 1: we started giving more and more grants strictly to grassroots
Speaker 1: women's groups. We didn't go for the big, big organizations.
Speaker 1: They have their own way of fundraising. We wanted to
Speaker 1: go where our money had the most impact. Most fashion
Speaker 1: companies are like churn and burn right. They come out
Speaker 1: with a splash and then they disappear. One thing that
Speaker 1: makes Michael Starr's unique is that you've had such staying
Speaker 1: power and at the same time, you've never maybe at
Speaker 1: one point you were the sexy object, you know, the sexy,
Speaker 1: shiny object, but you've always just been a staple. Is
Speaker 1: that part of your strategy or was that accidental. I
Speaker 1: feel like we always tried to do things that were
Speaker 1: on trend, that would last a long time, that was
Speaker 1: a staple, and not things that were really trendy. I
Speaker 1: think though, for the most part, it's because we were
Speaker 1: a family owned company, and when I would see that
Speaker 1: one product, like our our screen printed T shirts, nobody
Speaker 1: wanted him. After a couple of years, we went to
Speaker 1: one of our shows. I said, Michael, they're not nobody
Speaker 1: wants them anymore. Put the booth up, and so we
Speaker 1: had a little five by ten booth with that. And
Speaker 1: in the meantime, I had been doing garment die T
Speaker 1: shirts with French ribbon roses on it with my partner,
Speaker 1: and I said, why don't we just do garment die
Speaker 1: T shirts because we have customers asking for them. So
Speaker 1: we had a little a ten by ten booth with those.
Speaker 1: We got like five orders for the printed T shirts,
Speaker 1: and everybody wanted the solid T shirts. So I think
Speaker 1: over the years I really had the gift of knowing
Speaker 1: what people want and what's going to be next. So
Speaker 1: we've gone through a lot of transitions, you know, because
Speaker 1: then we created our shiny object, the Shine T shirt,
Speaker 1: which in the nine these kind of blew us up,
Speaker 1: and our one size idea. I had a blue Shine
Speaker 1: T shirt. Everybody has a Shine T shirt story, every
Speaker 1: single person I meet. Now it's so funny to hear
Speaker 1: these stories, and I'm telling you, they're all happy. My
Speaker 1: first date, my first thing in college. I couldn't afford it,
Speaker 1: and my mother finally I was able to afford it.
Speaker 1: I said, do you still have it? Now? Their daughters
Speaker 1: are taking them out of their closets. It's really it's
Speaker 1: really wonderful to see it. What is advice you would
Speaker 1: give to a younger woman kind of starting out or
Speaker 1: a woman in her forties wants to pivot had You've
Speaker 1: got to find what you're passionate about. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people were probably careers they really weren't happy
Speaker 1: in and how to deal with especially these women in
Speaker 1: thirties and forties that are having to redefine themselves and
Speaker 1: what to do. So I think they just have to
Speaker 1: go and search for it a bit. But it takes work,
Speaker 1: and I think using again your networks of people who
Speaker 1: care like you care, you can find something. And I
Speaker 1: know there's so many women that lost their businesses. We know,
Speaker 1: I mean, what's the percentage? I mean there was a huge,
Speaker 1: huge failure of so many women, and how do we
Speaker 1: get those women back into the workforce and caring about things.
Speaker 1: We were very lucky at Michael Stars. We um had
Speaker 1: a furlowsom people, but we started making masks immediately and
Speaker 1: everybody wanted casual clothing work from home. Clothing. So our
Speaker 1: business actually exploded, and I had been self funding the
Speaker 1: business for five years before. I didn't want venture capital money.
Speaker 1: I wanted of Michael Stars as a woman owned company.
Speaker 1: I just wouldn't do it, and that kind of helped
Speaker 1: us survive that and be able to bring in people
Speaker 1: who cared, who were committed, who are costly committed to
Speaker 1: the mission of Michael Stars. Like what we felt about
Speaker 1: women in the world inequality, I wanted women like that
Speaker 1: working for me. And I have to say, we have
Speaker 1: so many people that have worked for us for so
Speaker 1: long they are now senior managers, directors, assistant managers of
Speaker 1: a warehouse. As woman, she's now my director of all
Speaker 1: my warehouses. People have become controllers from being accounts payable.
Speaker 1: I think you've got it. You've got it almost interview
Speaker 1: the company you want to work for as much as
Speaker 1: I'm interviewing you. You have to make sure it's the
Speaker 1: right fit. And now a quick break, Suzanne. I know
Speaker 1: that you and your husband ran the company together for
Speaker 1: so long and then he passed away. What was that
Speaker 1: like for you, both personally and professionally. It was a
Speaker 1: long road. He was sick and we didn't tell a soul.
Speaker 1: He didn't want anybody to know, and then it was
Speaker 1: getting more obvious. So I had that point four national
Speaker 1: show rooms and we incorporated into Michael Stars, and I
Speaker 1: joined the company officially full time, integrating everything and was
Speaker 1: going to work every day. And he didn't want to.
Speaker 1: He wasn't as enthusiastic about it. He was happy staying home.
Speaker 1: We had just adopted a dog, and um, he hung out,
Speaker 1: he started painting and left more to me. You know,
Speaker 1: we were the like dynamic duo and if we weren't
Speaker 1: loving each other, we were fighting each other. And you know,
Speaker 1: it's the third person in the bed. So it was
Speaker 1: a big change for me because at night when we
Speaker 1: used to play scrabble all night long and talk about
Speaker 1: things and books and reading and traveling and spending time
Speaker 1: in Greece, he would he was going to bed early.
Speaker 1: So I had to get used to actually being by
Speaker 1: myself because I was always the one traveling, he was
Speaker 1: always the one home. So we finally told people, and um,
Speaker 1: you know, when he passed away, it was very difficult.
Speaker 1: It was expected, so I knew that, but I didn't
Speaker 1: understand what it meant. After being together thirty years but
Speaker 1: I what was I going to do? I had to
Speaker 1: go to work. I had to be there for everybody there.
Speaker 1: We considered the company our family. Twice we had big
Speaker 1: offers to sell and we just didn't want to sell.
Speaker 1: We we didn't want that money. We wanted our family
Speaker 1: and our business. So I would get up five o'clock
Speaker 1: every more name and go off on the patio with
Speaker 1: a coffee. And so many people wrote to me and
Speaker 1: I would sit there and cry and read emails and
Speaker 1: post from Facebook and find old photos and um, I
Speaker 1: would just get up and go to work. And UM,
Speaker 1: I knew that was something that Michael wanted me to
Speaker 1: do because we believed in it so much. And it
Speaker 1: was hard because people were Michael was a very big presence,
Speaker 1: huge personality, and I don't think people trusted me. They
Speaker 1: didn't really know me. They didn't know my background, they
Speaker 1: didn't know the years I had worked for other companies.
Speaker 1: I mean, Michael had been an entrepreneur, he never had
Speaker 1: any background, so they didn't know all the guidance he
Speaker 1: was getting from behind with me. And the amount of
Speaker 1: times I've had where I pushed my agenda and pushed
Speaker 1: what I believe so much and I would. That's the
Speaker 1: other thing. Just keep pushing for what you believe. I
Speaker 1: would keep doing until he finally warmed down and he
Speaker 1: agreed to to something. But there were a lot of
Speaker 1: silos at the company, A lot of people that might
Speaker 1: have resented me, didn't think I. I thought I was
Speaker 1: going to fail, and I just kept working at it
Speaker 1: every day and trying to break down the barriers and
Speaker 1: getting people to talk to each other and redefining and
Speaker 1: re looking at the company as a new, shiny object
Speaker 1: of what we could do to make it new again.
Speaker 1: Did you get rid of those people who were in
Speaker 1: the silos or did you convert them into Suzanne Learner fans? Well,
Speaker 1: I I converted most people. There were a couple that
Speaker 1: I know during the years and wanted me to get
Speaker 1: wanted to fire me because I think they wanted the power.
Speaker 1: And so those people ended up leaving. And I had
Speaker 1: to be strong, you know, because you have to speak
Speaker 1: up for yourself. You have to feel empowered to be
Speaker 1: able to deal with that. And you know you can't
Speaker 1: deal with it angry. You gotta you gotta figure out
Speaker 1: your strategy for doing it. So no, we we had
Speaker 1: a we had a great crew that are still many
Speaker 1: people are still with us, and you know Michael, I
Speaker 1: mean psychics. I'm going to talk about psychists for a second.
Speaker 1: I'd go to Greece. We have a home there and
Speaker 1: I'd sit in my bedroom and Michael had a hammock
Speaker 1: he he loved being in and I always put it up.
Speaker 1: And I was sitting there and looking out the window
Speaker 1: and literally it was just moving back and forth. There
Speaker 1: was no wind, just moving back and forth. So then
Speaker 1: I just went to a psychic and he was there,
Speaker 1: and I, you know, I felt very uh not just
Speaker 1: warm and fuzzy, but that I know he's there. I know,
Speaker 1: I know he's always around. And so I don't really
Speaker 1: believe in heaven in hell, but um, I believe that
Speaker 1: people stay with you. Their spirit stays with you, their
Speaker 1: energy stays with you. And so I think I don't
Speaker 1: miss him as much as I might have if I
Speaker 1: hadn't had those experiences, because he's there, his niece, photos up,
Speaker 1: big photos up in the warehouse. Everybody talks about Michael, um,
Speaker 1: everybody thinks about him. He's really the core of the company.
Speaker 1: Before he left, before he passed away, did you talk
Speaker 1: with him about what the transition would be like at
Speaker 1: the company. He when he handed me the reins, he
Speaker 1: knew that I would be a good and you know,
Speaker 1: at the same time, I was going out more doing
Speaker 1: a little bit more public speaking. Why we hadn't even
Speaker 1: doing any public speaking about what I believed and what
Speaker 1: I wanted to do. And I was encouraged. And actually
Speaker 1: the night before he died and we didn't know he
Speaker 1: was in hospice, but he was home step up. It
Speaker 1: offered me an opportunity to speak on a panel and
Speaker 1: I said I can't do this, and he said, you go,
Speaker 1: you go, you go. And it was the first time
Speaker 1: I spoke with anybody. And I came home and he
Speaker 1: died the next day. And I feel like he waited
Speaker 1: for me, like he believed in me, and he wanted
Speaker 1: what was best for me. When I used to go
Speaker 1: out to town places to like my board meetings, he
Speaker 1: wouldn't tell me this. He'd always argue with me. I'd
Speaker 1: never tell him until the night before that I was
Speaker 1: actually leaving, because he'd always get upset that I was leaving.
Speaker 1: But my my friends would say, oh, he said, oh,
Speaker 1: Susie is out saving the world. She's out of town
Speaker 1: doing the things. Oh, she really believed in in what
Speaker 1: I believed in and encouraged me in many ways, but
Speaker 1: there was no big transition plan. What do you do
Speaker 1: at night now now that he's not there, Well, I'm
Speaker 1: probably on zoom calls and working and doing something until
Speaker 1: probably about eight o'clock at night, and uh, then it's
Speaker 1: trying to make something healthy, binging the latest show playing. Oh,
Speaker 1: I do play Spider scroup, I do play Spider. It's terrible.
Speaker 1: It's Spider solid here, do not start. One of my
Speaker 1: friends started and yelled at me the next month, saying
Speaker 1: I can't get off of it. So it kind of
Speaker 1: it's almost like my meditation. I mean, I do my
Speaker 1: plots in my yoga. That's so funny, Susan, because I
Speaker 1: always say that my my near time spelling bee is
Speaker 1: my meditation. Well, I have to say that's probably a
Speaker 1: lot better for your mind learning new words there, which
Speaker 1: is just so many less. But you know, I'm doing
Speaker 1: so many things between my activism and you know, and
Speaker 1: running the company, and and and friendships and trying to
Speaker 1: change the world and getting equal rights to memo passed,
Speaker 1: and there's so much going on that I actually have
Speaker 1: to find that break to do nothing. And I am
Speaker 1: do not have children like you too, So I I'm
Speaker 1: lucky enough to have that thing. It's just me and
Speaker 1: my dog. And don't you have stepchildren? I have two
Speaker 1: stepchildren and I have two grandchildren. And are you involved
Speaker 1: in their lives? I am? I am. Sometimes it's not easy, No,
Speaker 1: I feel they have resentments that the kids, the step
Speaker 1: kids definitely have resentments. And I hope that one day
Speaker 1: they'll figure it out. But I'm not holding my breath,
Speaker 1: And you know what, it's their life. They have to
Speaker 1: decide and understand who I am for them, and I'm
Speaker 1: hoping one day they'll they'll figure it out. And I
Speaker 1: have so many friends, and I really do feel like
Speaker 1: friends and companions are your family. They really are. And
Speaker 1: I have a wonderful brother, anna, niece and nephew and
Speaker 1: they've got kids. And I'm like, Shoes Shoe, I show up.
Speaker 1: You know. Those FaceTime calls every week are so great.
Speaker 1: I just saw him last weekend. They're in New York
Speaker 1: and I welcome to Dory Shoes you so I know
Speaker 1: you have you can build families wherever. Speaking of so
Speaker 1: much Ado, what is next for Michael Starters. I mean,
Speaker 1: where do you hope to bring the brand? If someone
Speaker 1: you know came to your door tomorrow and tried to
Speaker 1: buy the brand from you, would you sell it? How
Speaker 1: are you thinking about that? I'm a proponent of keeping
Speaker 1: your company's private. I've seen so many brands, so many
Speaker 1: brands that are no longer relevant. They're just a licensed
Speaker 1: brand because they got off the founder got offered a
Speaker 1: lot of money. They take it, they have a contract.
Speaker 1: They usually stay about a year before they're either kicked
Speaker 1: out or the company has changed so much the product
Speaker 1: becomes less relevant. Somebody's got to pay back the VC,
Speaker 1: somebody's got to pay back the future profits. So the
Speaker 1: quality suffers and the pricing goes up and they lose
Speaker 1: their way. And I don't want that to happen with
Speaker 1: Michael Stars. It's just something about this company that's so special.
Speaker 1: So I'll probably end up doing an employee share and
Speaker 1: do something different. Um, we have wonderful new people that
Speaker 1: have come on board that are helping me out now
Speaker 1: or I don't have to sit in the design room
Speaker 1: and fix things. You know, they're they're now they're helping product.
Speaker 1: We have a wonderful marketing team, um great art director.
Speaker 1: And so my plans are to help the community of
Speaker 1: Michael Stars learn more about actionable items that they can
Speaker 1: do in the world to change the world, because gender
Speaker 1: equality for me is really important as racial equality. And
Speaker 1: a lot of my customers don't have time to think
Speaker 1: about where to go, what to do, how to get involved.
Speaker 1: They're very busy lives, and I want to give them
Speaker 1: that opportunity to learn and share about things. Even if
Speaker 1: they just share it on a like, I want them
Speaker 1: to share it with their friends for more and more
Speaker 1: people to know about what we need to do in
Speaker 1: this world to really have full purity. And so that's
Speaker 1: my big mission and I'm Michael Stars. I could have
Speaker 1: closed it and business was kind of not great when
Speaker 1: Michael passed away, and I just pushed my own money.
Speaker 1: I took my savings and I said, I'm going to
Speaker 1: make this happen. I believe in this brand, and my
Speaker 1: c p A and my board and people who worked
Speaker 1: for me believed in me, and from them believing in me,
Speaker 1: I was able to go forward into the world and
Speaker 1: just do what I had to do. And I invested
Speaker 1: a lot of money back in the business. But I
Speaker 1: just knew that it's something more important. It's it's not
Speaker 1: so tangible, and now I have to stay in the
Speaker 1: last two years business is phenomenal. So now I'm my
Speaker 1: role this year is to incorporate my vision and who
Speaker 1: I am into the brand. All right, well, we're gonna
Speaker 1: go to our speed around now, Suzanne, where we're going
Speaker 1: to ask Tess a few questions and you can give
Speaker 1: us quick answers. What are you reading. I just finished
Speaker 1: a book by Twohrry Coates called The Water Dancer. It
Speaker 1: is one of the more beautiful books I've ever read
Speaker 1: in my life, so I highly recommend it, and I'm
Speaker 1: going to start reading. I try to read a fiction
Speaker 1: in a nonfiction book at the same time. And I've
Speaker 1: got a pile of books that I've collected over COVID
Speaker 1: that i want to read. But um, I just got
Speaker 1: a friend of mine just gave me Patrice Colorea's new
Speaker 1: book that's about twelve Ways that you kind of you
Speaker 1: can change the world because she dressed wrote incredible book
Speaker 1: about her upbringing in California, and she's really an icon
Speaker 1: for me. So that's the next book I'm reading. I'm
Speaker 1: reading a lot from African American authors. I want to
Speaker 1: understand more. You know, I was white privileg I didn't
Speaker 1: think I was privileged, but I was definitely white privileged.
Speaker 1: And understanding the world in a different way is for
Speaker 1: me really important. You mentioned binge watching shows. What are
Speaker 1: you binging right now? Oh? The Guilded Age, which I
Speaker 1: really love. I love Julian Fellas and and Pammy and Tommy.
Speaker 1: A friend of mine produced it, and actually it's really
Speaker 1: good and it really talks about a woman's role in
Speaker 1: those days. And she was the one who got all
Speaker 1: the pressure. He he got nothing. So it was really
Speaker 1: interesting how dynamics of women and feminism and culture and
Speaker 1: sexuality and pornography, UM, and what it was like in
Speaker 1: those days and what she went through really different. Now
Speaker 1: when you travel again abroad, where is the first place
Speaker 1: you're going? I mean, I really want to go back
Speaker 1: to India again. I haven't been there in years. But
Speaker 1: you know, I'm a little fearful about the changes that
Speaker 1: have happened in the world since I've gone um and
Speaker 1: haven't traveled as much. And you know, Haiti, I've been
Speaker 1: going to Haiti since the earthquake, and it's like a
Speaker 1: second home, and their political problems are so bad that
Speaker 1: I haven't been able to go there either. If you
Speaker 1: had to put all of your money into one cause
Speaker 1: I know you're involved in so many, what would that
Speaker 1: one causby is a terrible question. And to ask me,
Speaker 1: I am giving money. I you have no idea how
Speaker 1: much money I give up. I mean, it's not the
Speaker 1: amount of money, it's the amount of I know. But
Speaker 1: that's why. That's why you're the only guest I've ever
Speaker 1: asked this to Suzanne, because you're always giving your money away.
Speaker 1: For me, it's supporting women in whatever way. So I'm
Speaker 1: kind of getting around this. You know, I'm supporting women
Speaker 1: of color, grassroots movement building. I really do believe that
Speaker 1: the world's going to change from the bottom up, and
Speaker 1: so anything that I can do to create equality, purity,
Speaker 1: and power in women are the causes that I give
Speaker 1: to all Right, Well, lou Burns has been listening to
Speaker 1: our conversation this whole time, and he is joining us
Speaker 1: with the male perspective because of who you are, and
Speaker 1: you have a huge following. Um, if you could change
Speaker 1: anything that's happening right now, the outcome of it, what
Speaker 1: would it be and why keating democracy. I think that
Speaker 1: in this time right now, with what's going on in
Speaker 1: every single state that's not allowing reproductive rights, voting rights,
Speaker 1: the war in Ukraine, the authoritarian governments all over the
Speaker 1: world that are taking power, it really is frightening to me.
Speaker 1: So I think the biggest thing that I would love
Speaker 1: to see is democracy in action, where everybody has an
Speaker 1: equal voice. So, you know, it's funny, Sam. I met
Speaker 1: Susanne years ago at the Riveter in l A and
Speaker 1: she's one of those people that you quickly realized, Wow,
Speaker 1: I'm really lucky I met her for a myriad of reasons, right, Like,
Speaker 1: she's very cool, She's kind of like the epitome of cool,
Speaker 1: and she's been doing things for decades that were very
Speaker 1: avant garde that like maybe we really think are normal now,
Speaker 1: but like she did them way before anyone else did.
Speaker 1: It's funny. I knew Michael Starr's way before I knew
Speaker 1: of Susanne because I was Michael Starrs T shirt wearing
Speaker 1: person in my I think twenties, I mean years ago,
Speaker 1: and um, I remember it was like one size fits
Speaker 1: all and everyone had those that were like the sparkly
Speaker 1: T shirts. And then the way I met Susanna. It's
Speaker 1: kind of funny, but she came to one of my
Speaker 1: political events that I'd organized and then she cold email
Speaker 1: me on LinkedIn and asked if we could set up
Speaker 1: a call. And it sounds like that's something she does often,
Speaker 1: Like she reaches out to people she wants to know
Speaker 1: and she just goes for it, which you know, I'm
Speaker 1: a huge fan of. And I mean, it's inspiring to
Speaker 1: see someone because I remember when she reached out to me,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh my god, she's a CEO of Michael Starr.
Speaker 1: She's just you know, she's a stud. Like that's kind
Speaker 1: of how I think of her. And um, but if so,
Speaker 1: you know a lot of people think they're above doing
Speaker 1: something like that, and I love the fact that as
Speaker 1: a CEO, she still does that and she's still doing it,
Speaker 1: you know, in her you know, well into her career
Speaker 1: beyond just being a CEO, and you know, she's she's
Speaker 1: very young at heart, but like she's still incredibly curious
Speaker 1: in creative and I think it sounds like she's been
Speaker 1: that way her entire life. I Mean, it was so
Speaker 1: interesting to hear about her childhood and to hear like
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Like not a lot of people are like
Speaker 1: running off to India and meeting with textile designers in
Speaker 1: you know, whatever year that was. It's fascinating, It's wild.
Speaker 1: I also love the part where she shared how she's
Speaker 1: rebuilt her life after the loss of a spouse, which
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people can relate to. And um,
Speaker 1: you know, having no kids of her own and losing
Speaker 1: a spouse, that must be an incredibly intense and lonely experience,
Speaker 1: and somehow she still lived right away. It seems like
Speaker 1: she figured out a way to live a fulfilling, rich life,
Speaker 1: and I found that so impressive. I agree. I mean,
Speaker 1: she's it sounds like she's been very intentional about it,
Speaker 1: and that's hard, right, But she's kept living and kept
Speaker 1: dreaming and kept meeting people and doing things and building
Speaker 1: Michael stars. I hope that my career looks like hers
Speaker 1: in a few decades from now. Thanks for listening to
Speaker 1: What's Her Story with Sam and Amy. We would appreciate
Speaker 1: it if you leave her review wherever you get your podcasts,
Speaker 1: and of course, connect with us on social media at
Speaker 1: What's Her Story podcast? What's Her Story with Sam and
Speaker 1: Amy is powered by my company, The Riveter at The
Speaker 1: Riveter dot c O and Sam's company, park Place Payments
Speaker 1: at park place payments dot com. Thanks to our producer
Speaker 1: Stacy Parra and our male perspective, blue Burns