Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central. Hey, welcome to Beyond the Scenes,
Speaker 1: the podcast that goes deeper into segments and topics that
Speaker 1: originally aired on the Daily Show with Trevor Mill like this,
Speaker 1: This is what this podcast he is. All right, Look,
Speaker 1: you know how you get dressed to go somewhere, right
Speaker 1: and you look at the mirror and your outfit is nice,
Speaker 1: it's sharp, and then you think to yourself, you know what,
Speaker 1: maybe I need to add a watch and a belt
Speaker 1: and some shoes, some ear ring. You know what, let
Speaker 1: me put one of them Leprechaun belt buckles on my
Speaker 1: shoes to and boom, your outfit goes to the next level.
Speaker 1: Now you're in magazines, you're on Best Dress List, you're
Speaker 1: flying private, no more commercial.
Speaker 2: That's what this podcast is. I'm Roal Withjr.
Speaker 1: And speaking of fashion today, we're talking about a CP
Speaker 1: Time segment that we did that celebrated black trail blazers
Speaker 1: in fashion.
Speaker 3: Give me a clip.
Speaker 1: Normally, when we think about black fashion, we think about
Speaker 1: church hats so big they block your view of Jesus.
Speaker 1: What we think about those soups that Steve Harvey Wear
Speaker 1: has had haul all the buttons leave some buttons for
Speaker 1: the rest of us, Steve, they'd keep him my clothes
Speaker 1: together with staples. But in actuality, the world of fashion
Speaker 1: has been filled with influential and iconic African American designers,
Speaker 1: like our first trailblazer, Zelda win Valdez, who was one
Speaker 1: of the first designers whose clothing accentuated women's curves. Before her,
Speaker 1: women's fashion covered up their figures with big ass skirts
Speaker 1: the size of a carnival cruise ship. Women would get
Speaker 1: lost just bending over to tie the shoes. Zelda's curve
Speaker 1: flooring designs were so popular that Hugh Heffner asked her
Speaker 1: to design the iconic outfit for the Playboy Bunnies. Our
Speaker 1: last designer brings us to the modern day. Virgil Ablo,
Speaker 1: the first African American artistic director at Louis Vauton and
Speaker 1: driving force behind this decade street wear movement. He made
Speaker 1: high end fashion take street weear seriously. You know, fancy logos,
Speaker 1: T shirts, chunky sneakers, hoodies, pretty much anything you're not
Speaker 1: supposed to wear to a funeral unless you're in the
Speaker 1: deceased had beef rist in peace.
Speaker 2: Spencer Miss Jordan's is stepping on your grave.
Speaker 1: Right now, I'm joined by Daily Show producer Chelsea Williamson.
Speaker 1: A little later in the show, we're gonna be joined
Speaker 1: by two black women that are doing the damn thing
Speaker 1: in the world of fashion, but it was not an
Speaker 1: easy road for them to get there. We're gonna talk
Speaker 1: to them all about their journey. But first, Chelsea, we
Speaker 1: got to talk to you about this segment, how we
Speaker 1: put it together. How are you doing today?
Speaker 4: I'm doing good.
Speaker 2: How are you, Roy, I'm pretty good.
Speaker 1: I don't know why I'm qualified to talk about this.
Speaker 1: I have no fashion set. Have you seen photos of me, Chelsea?
Speaker 2: I have go Did they expect you to agree with me? Goodness? Gracious.
Speaker 1: You do a lot of the research for a lot
Speaker 1: of the CPE time segments, so you know you're shouldered with,
Speaker 1: you know, deciding what lives and what in terms of
Speaker 1: what's relevant in the piece. But let's just get to
Speaker 1: the impetus of this piece. What inspired this piece in
Speaker 1: the building.
Speaker 5: So this piece was actually pitched by one of my coworkers,
Speaker 5: Madeline Koons, and she was thinking about this in twenty
Speaker 5: eighteen when the MCA had a exhibit on Virgil Ablow,
Speaker 5: and she really wanted to go, So she kind of
Speaker 5: pitched as an idea and was like, we should talk
Speaker 5: more about black fashion icons. And then on the back
Speaker 5: end I came in and pitched the idea for the
Speaker 5: CP time on black fashion models.
Speaker 4: So it was kind of a two hander.
Speaker 1: So, you know, in the piece, we touched upon a
Speaker 1: few trail blazers like Zelda win Valdez, Stephen Burrows, and
Speaker 1: the late Virgil Ablow of course aforementioned. But why did
Speaker 1: you all choose to feature those designers in particular?
Speaker 5: Yeah, so I feel like all of them were vanguards
Speaker 5: in their specific field. So Zelda is interesting because she
Speaker 5: was embracing women's curves at a time when that wasn't
Speaker 5: quite the norm in fashion. Stephen Burrows is like one
Speaker 5: of the great designers of the you know, the disco
Speaker 5: era was a big in Studio fifty four, was making
Speaker 5: these like danceable and just like very weariable clothes that
Speaker 5: were iconic. And then you know, Virgil Ablow obviously is
Speaker 5: the first black designer to holm Louis Vaton's menswear. So
Speaker 5: I think all three of them are vanguards in their
Speaker 5: specific areas. They're all pioneers, and they all represented three
Speaker 5: very distinct eras in fashion and especially in black fashion.
Speaker 1: But are there other designers that played a big role
Speaker 1: and we have those big three. The issue we have
Speaker 1: at the Daily Show, of course, is always time. We
Speaker 1: are a thirty minute program, thirty thirty five minute program,
Speaker 1: so we only have, especially for CP time, we only
Speaker 1: have three to five minutes to really get into anything.
Speaker 1: So the battle as always do we tell you a
Speaker 1: little bit about a lot of people or do we
Speaker 1: tell you a lot about a few people? So who
Speaker 1: were some of the other black designers that played a
Speaker 1: big role in the industry?
Speaker 2: One? And two?
Speaker 1: What kind of snubs did you find in your research?
Speaker 1: You know, like the people who weren't always properly credited
Speaker 1: for the thing that they that eventually, you know, caught fire.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so, I mean there was a lot.
Speaker 5: There's a lot of black designers who weren't given their
Speaker 5: proper due. One that immediately comes to mind is Anne Lowe,
Speaker 5: who actually designed Jackie Kennedy's wedding dress, and then on
Speaker 5: the day that she was asked to bring it in,
Speaker 5: you know, before.
Speaker 4: The wedding, they made her use a surface entrance.
Speaker 5: And she literally had to tell them the dress comes
Speaker 5: in with me, I made this dress, and Jackie actually
Speaker 5: didn't give her credit for the dress in the end,
Speaker 5: and then on top of like being like, you're also black,
Speaker 5: so now you have to suddenly use a service entrance,
Speaker 5: even though she'd actually been working for the Jackie's family
Speaker 5: for a couple of years, like dressmaking and such, so
Speaker 5: you know, she was snubbed, and then it was later
Speaker 5: kind of found out that she designed the dress. But
Speaker 5: there's a lot of other you know people as well.
Speaker 5: I think of like Elizabeth Kleckley, who was you know,
Speaker 5: the Civil War like dressmaker, and she dressed Mary Todd
Speaker 5: Lincoln and also did like a scandalous memoir which got
Speaker 5: everybody up in arms in the eighteen sixties. But you know,
Speaker 5: and then you come into now you start thinking about streetwear,
Speaker 5: you think of somebody like Dapper Dan, who was literally
Speaker 5: shut down multiple times, including by now you know Supreme
Speaker 5: Court Justine Sonya Soda Mayor on one of the raids
Speaker 5: Findy was doing against him. So you have people like that,
Speaker 5: and I think in continuing with streetwear, there's so many
Speaker 5: black designers in streetwear like walk or wear, and then
Speaker 5: just all the stylists that came out of that era,
Speaker 5: and even if you didn't have black people designing the
Speaker 5: outfits themselves, we were typically remixing and making things more cool,
Speaker 5: like Tommy Hill figure during that time, Polo Ralph Lauren
Speaker 5: during that time. Even Nautica, like Natica was very much
Speaker 5: like a black brand.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I say right now, as Duck Hid and this cheer.
Speaker 5: Shoot, cross Colors, Fu Boo like all of that during
Speaker 5: the nineties, and then I think I'd be remiss also
Speaker 5: mention that even though they may not have been designers,
Speaker 5: I think, especially during the sixties and the fifties, a
Speaker 5: lot of the girl groups and a lot of the
Speaker 5: boy bands, they made their own clothes, like the Temptations.
Speaker 5: Eddie Kendricks, who was a member of the Temptations, actually
Speaker 5: made their like iconic purple suits and he made a
Speaker 5: lot of their suits. And I feel like it's not
Speaker 5: often talked about, but especially for that time period, like
Speaker 5: who was going to be dressing them? You know, you
Speaker 5: actually think about it, and it's like you have a
Speaker 5: group of like you know, three, four or five people,
Speaker 5: it's like, well, somebody got to know how to sell
Speaker 5: and we'll figure it out for us. So I feel
Speaker 5: like you also have to bring up, you know, those
Speaker 5: types who were not traditional designers and maybe didn't design
Speaker 5: anything for anybody else, but they made iconic contributions to
Speaker 5: the culture, and I think should be included in our
Speaker 5: overall black fashion history.
Speaker 1: You know, there are styles and trends that originate in
Speaker 1: the Black community and then somehow they just magically appear
Speaker 1: in the fashion industry. Give me a down some of
Speaker 1: the stuff that's been appropriated from Black culture that makes
Speaker 1: its way into mainstream fashion without accrediting the place of
Speaker 1: the culture of origin.
Speaker 5: I actually think on the jewelry side, we saw a
Speaker 5: big example is like Sex and the City when Sarah
Speaker 5: Jaxica Parker's character Carrie calls her like nameplate necklace. That's
Speaker 5: a Carrie ghetto gold and that was something that you know,
Speaker 5: I think she wore it two thousand and two, two
Speaker 5: thousand and three something in there, And it's like by
Speaker 5: that point, you know, black women had been wearing nameplate
Speaker 5: necklaces years in all, since the nineties, like, and it
Speaker 5: was something that was considered derogatory. Then now you see
Speaker 5: nameplate nexluces everywhere costing like so much money, and it's
Speaker 5: just completely kind of it hasn't completely left the culture,
Speaker 5: but it's definitely something that now it's a lot more
Speaker 5: mainstream and has lost you know, I think a lot
Speaker 5: of people kind of don't really think about the fact
Speaker 5: that black women kind.
Speaker 4: Of did it.
Speaker 5: Even more recently, I would say something like something we've
Speaker 5: seen on social media, like the whole clean girl aesthetic
Speaker 5: where it's just like a white shirt, pulled back hair
Speaker 5: with the bun and like hoops and you know, just
Speaker 5: like very like minimal style. There's been a very big
Speaker 5: outcry on social media where black women are like, we've
Speaker 5: been wearing that for years, Like black girls love a
Speaker 5: pulled back bun in some hoops. Like it's just like
Speaker 5: so classic of a fashion aesthetic.
Speaker 2: You know, you know what I did.
Speaker 1: But I feel like the mistake that the fashion industry
Speaker 1: makes it. I don't know if it's the fashion industry
Speaker 1: of the fashion magazines, like, I don't know if it's
Speaker 1: the designers and the magazines. Would they present it as
Speaker 1: here's the new thing. You could just go, we're doing
Speaker 1: a thing, but when you go, this is the all
Speaker 1: new craze, Like wait a minute, now, this isn't the
Speaker 1: new craze. This is an old craze that you just
Speaker 1: discovered right with your late ass.
Speaker 5: And we saw that happen with streetwear. I think that's
Speaker 5: what's going on currently. Like you see all of these
Speaker 5: brands are currently everybody wants to be in streetwear, and
Speaker 5: it's like, where did streetwear come from the streets, which
Speaker 5: was typically black and brown people?
Speaker 4: This is what they we were wearing.
Speaker 5: To go back to what we were talking about, you
Speaker 5: know a second ago with the nineties, how black people
Speaker 5: were remixing mainstream brands is now what the mainstream brands make,
Speaker 5: and we don't.
Speaker 4: Get the credit for that.
Speaker 5: Like the way that the rappers were wearing there's stuff
Speaker 5: in the nineties, just black people living in various like
Speaker 5: you know, all over the States. The way that they
Speaker 5: were wearing things was not how they were modeled, right,
Speaker 5: So it's just very interesting that now that is the
Speaker 5: style you even think about, like baggy jeans becoming now mainstream,
Speaker 5: which has been very.
Speaker 1: Interesting, or the torn up jeans, distressed the distressed jeans. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: after the break, we're going to have an opportunity to
Speaker 1: sit down with two wonderful, wonderful people who have been
Speaker 1: at the forefront of not only black fashion design, but
Speaker 1: also trying to change the industry to get rid of
Speaker 1: all of these blind spots that we've just been talking about.
Speaker 1: I'm excited to get down and sit down and talk
Speaker 1: with these people. This is beyond the scenes. We'll be
Speaker 1: right back beyond the scenes. Welcome back now. I just
Speaker 1: had a wonderful conversation with Chelsea Williamson, and it's always
Speaker 1: good to have your own Chelsea, but I think it's
Speaker 1: time that we add some more people.
Speaker 2: Let's make it more fashion y. Is that a word.
Speaker 1: Let's up the fashionness of this and really get into
Speaker 1: the granular issues within the fashion industry for black women
Speaker 1: and black brown people as a whole. We are joined
Speaker 1: by the CEO of Harlem's Fashion Role Brandis Daniel Brandis.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. How you're doing.
Speaker 4: I'm doing great?
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me, spectacular.
Speaker 1: I'd also like to welcome the editor in chief at
Speaker 1: The Cut and chief at The Cut and founder of
Speaker 1: the Black and Fashion Council. Please welcome Lindsey. People's Lindsey.
Speaker 1: How you're doing?
Speaker 4: H I am good?
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: All right, so let's get right into it. So Lindsey
Speaker 1: and brandis. Let's talk a little bit about your journey
Speaker 1: breaking into the fashion industry, you know, because there's already
Speaker 1: hurdles in general just with fashion, and then there's hurdles
Speaker 1: when you're black, and then there's more hurdles when you're
Speaker 1: a black woman. This is a mostly white industry. Branded,
Speaker 1: let's start with you. What were some of the things
Speaker 1: that you knew were coming and what were some of
Speaker 1: the more unexpected hurdles once you actually got into it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, thank you for that, Royce.
Speaker 6: So I moved to New York with a dream of
Speaker 6: working in luxury fashion. I was working in apparel production
Speaker 6: for a company that did all the production for Victoria's Secrets,
Speaker 6: and so we were kind of behind the scenes, but
Speaker 6: I was really looking to how can I work for
Speaker 6: one of the brands that I absolutely love. And I
Speaker 6: can't even tell you how many resumes I sent out.
Speaker 7: How many people I reached out to, and never.
Speaker 6: Got even an interview with any of those brands. So,
Speaker 6: you know, I always believe though, like challenges are a
Speaker 6: great way to reroute you to where you're supposed to be.
Speaker 6: And so now I get to work with a lot
Speaker 6: of those brands and partnerships. But back when I first
Speaker 6: came to New York seventeen years ago.
Speaker 4: I got crickets.
Speaker 1: Let's also real quick, let's talk about like this idea
Speaker 1: that you're going through this and then you start talking
Speaker 1: to other fashion designers, like what were other black fashion designers?
Speaker 1: What were they saying? Was it just like yeah, good
Speaker 1: does that be? Or was it also like a figure
Speaker 1: it out? Was there any sense of alliance amongst black women?
Speaker 6: So again we're talking seventeen years ago when I first
Speaker 6: moved here, and so at the time, people didn't want
Speaker 6: to identify as black in fashion because they didn't want
Speaker 6: to be stereotyped. They didn't want to be boxed in.
Speaker 6: They didn't want to not get opportunities because people knew
Speaker 6: that they.
Speaker 7: Were black, and it was a real thing and a
Speaker 7: real challenge.
Speaker 6: And so a lot of times it was how do
Speaker 6: I enter into this industry in a way that is
Speaker 6: very nondescript, where I can, you know, go in do
Speaker 6: a great job, but not really bring this part of
Speaker 6: my identity with me. That's really what I felt in
Speaker 6: the beginning of being here. It was really tough because
Speaker 6: the industry was brutal actually Lindsay did an article on
Speaker 6: it a few years ago, but it was brutal for
Speaker 6: black people in this industry, and so, you know, we
Speaker 6: just didn't talk a lot about race, which is you know,
Speaker 6: I'm fast warning a bit, which is why it was
Speaker 6: so hard to start a company that supported black designers,
Speaker 6: because no one wanted to put that out really into
Speaker 6: the to the public view.
Speaker 4: In this industry.
Speaker 1: Lindsay, let's talk about that article real quick. I want
Speaker 1: to get into your beginnings and how you came to
Speaker 1: New York. But first you wrote that article for The Cut.
Speaker 1: It was called Everywhere and Nowhere what it's really like
Speaker 1: to be black and work in fashion. Just tell me
Speaker 1: the day where you were just like, you know what,
Speaker 1: everybody got to know what the hell going on? Suffer
Speaker 1: in silence, and then just one day you was like,
Speaker 1: damn it, I'm gonna open up Microsoft Word and I'm
Speaker 1: just type until I came type no more. And you
Speaker 1: went around and interviewed people from all these different facets
Speaker 1: of the fashion industry. Just talk to us a little
Speaker 1: bit about what inspired that article, on what you discovered
Speaker 1: and those through those interviews.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean I saw so much of what Brandis
Speaker 8: was talking about and always admired what Brandis was doing,
Speaker 8: but I felt like she was one of the few
Speaker 8: people doing it. I felt like there wasn't that much
Speaker 8: help for black people in fashion. There were a few initiatives,
Speaker 8: a few things that people wanted to talk about, but
Speaker 8: it really wasn't something that I think people were okay
Speaker 8: with bringing to the forefront. And I'd actually had the
Speaker 8: idea to do that piece when I first started the cut,
Speaker 8: so I didn't end up doing it till like four
Speaker 8: and a half years later actually, but I had pitched
Speaker 8: the idea actually when I started and it got shot down.
Speaker 8: So it was something that I always wanted to do
Speaker 8: it just you know, took life and time to be
Speaker 8: able to actually do and by the time that I
Speaker 8: wanted to do it so much to change the industry
Speaker 8: that I think people felt like there had been some
Speaker 8: advancements that were very public facing, but a lot of
Speaker 8: black people were still really internally frustrated and feeling like, oh,
Speaker 8: you know, all these magazines are putting black people on
Speaker 8: the covers of magazines and wanting to patent back, but
Speaker 8: the black people who work at this publication feel terrible,
Speaker 8: you know, are treated terribly. And I think that for
Speaker 8: me was a point of you know, if I'm going
Speaker 8: to do this and I'm going to hustle this hard,
Speaker 8: this industry needs to be more sustainable for black people.
Speaker 1: You spoke to a number of black people for this article.
Speaker 1: How many people did you feel were true allies in
Speaker 1: this cause? Because you know, and I cannot compare entertainment
Speaker 1: to fashion, but I just do know that there are
Speaker 1: some black people in entertainment that are all about respectability politics.
Speaker 2: And just hit you better, calm down. You're black, you
Speaker 2: can do black. Let's going back out there with the
Speaker 2: white fel.
Speaker 1: Like, did you have any instances or conversations like that
Speaker 1: while researching this article or just your fashion journey in general?
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean I actually when I had first moved
Speaker 8: to New York, working three jobs, exhausted, I used to
Speaker 8: do these women of color and fashion lunches in my
Speaker 8: apartment for all the young black girls who were also
Speaker 8: assistants in entry level.
Speaker 3: And it was not fancy at all.
Speaker 8: I lived in a very tiny apartment, but it was
Speaker 8: probably thirty of us squeezed into like a really small
Speaker 8: living room and we would.
Speaker 2: Just talk about free COVID days.
Speaker 1: I remember the good old days when you could just
Speaker 1: put yeah.
Speaker 8: A long time ago now, but this was when I
Speaker 8: was an assistant and to like twenty twelve ish, and
Speaker 8: then we would talk about a lot of things of
Speaker 8: how we all would deal with something very differently, and
Speaker 8: one of the ones that I remember so clearly was
Speaker 8: a few of us had been called the N word
Speaker 8: by WHY colleagues on set, and we all had very
Speaker 8: different opinions of how we wanted to deal with it.
Speaker 8: And I always felt like, and still feel like, like,
Speaker 8: I I love what I do, and I'm very fortunate
Speaker 8: to do what I do, but I don't love it
Speaker 8: enough to be disrespected, and I don't love it enough
Speaker 8: to I think tolerate a lot of behaviors that I
Speaker 8: think other people will. And I made that decision really
Speaker 8: early on that I wasn't going to assimilate or code switch,
Speaker 8: and that if I was going to do it, I
Speaker 8: was going to do it my way or just wasn't
Speaker 8: going to do it at all.
Speaker 3: I'm very just all or nothing person in general.
Speaker 8: But I think that it also made me realize that
Speaker 8: ALI shit really is only important if it's active, like
Speaker 8: it has to be people really speaking up and joining together,
Speaker 8: and I think doing it in a way that is
Speaker 8: actually sustainable for other black people as well, and not
Speaker 8: just for yourself. So it doesn't really matter if you're like,
Speaker 8: you know, I'm okay with someone not me, obviously, but
Speaker 8: if I'm okay with someone calling me the end word,
Speaker 8: you do realize that that's going to happen to another
Speaker 8: black person. Because if you stand there and don't say anything,
Speaker 8: and you say, well, I need this job and this
Speaker 8: is fine, and I'll, you know, I'll just suck it up,
Speaker 8: then that means that they think that behavior is okay,
Speaker 8: and they think that they can also treat another black
Speaker 8: person like that, And that, to me is just completely
Speaker 8: against my own moral code and integrity. And I think
Speaker 8: that it also just puts black people, I think, in
Speaker 8: a really tough position because if we don't have the connections,
Speaker 8: we don't have the generational wealth, we don't have all
Speaker 8: the things. It was really fascinating, I think, to have
Speaker 8: that conversation because everyone was just so desperate, and so
Speaker 8: everyone kind of came at it at different places and
Speaker 8: not even from a judgmental situation. But I think then
Speaker 8: I knew and made the decision like either I'm doing
Speaker 8: this my way or I'm not doing it at all.
Speaker 1: Okay, So then to that point, Brandon, So I want
Speaker 1: to ask you in one second year, just what your
Speaker 1: thoughts are on what some of the other hurdles that
Speaker 1: are currently faced by black people within the fashion industry.
Speaker 1: But first, lindsay, let's backtrack three jobs. What else was
Speaker 1: the struggle like when you first got hit? Where'd you
Speaker 1: come from? The team's Midwest is in the research doc,
Speaker 1: But I want to get granular, like where not Midwest?
Speaker 3: Now, I'm from Wisconsin.
Speaker 1: Not exactly the fashions, love the filannel, lots of good
Speaker 1: filannel in Wisconsin, but not a fashion epicenter. You recognize that.
Speaker 1: So you bounced to New York with a rent It's quadruple.
Speaker 1: Just walk me through those early days in New York
Speaker 1: as you were trying to navigate those hurdles.
Speaker 8: I mean, I laugh now, but I just cried so
Speaker 8: much during that period that I think I'm shocked that
Speaker 8: I even honestly stayed because I was just honestly mentally
Speaker 8: drained and emotionally exhausted. And I'm really proud of myself
Speaker 8: when I look back on those days. But even I
Speaker 8: think now it just allowed me to build up affortitude
Speaker 8: to be able to handle things now that I probably
Speaker 8: thought I would never be able to handle.
Speaker 3: But I yeah, I mean I worked.
Speaker 8: You know that at that time you only got paid
Speaker 8: nine dollars an hour working in the closet at night.
Speaker 8: I was always changing mannequins for different stores.
Speaker 3: So like the store that.
Speaker 1: I made me over the day, are you at least
Speaker 1: working in something fashion? The mannequins are fashionists, But are
Speaker 1: you like in and around print in any like, what
Speaker 1: was the day job?
Speaker 2: What were the day job?
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean the day job when I started in
Speaker 8: what we call the fashion closet is just you know,
Speaker 8: you are assisting all of the fashion teams. So you
Speaker 8: could be going on shoots, You could be merchandising and
Speaker 8: organizing clothing. You could be doing check ins and returns
Speaker 8: of items that are coming in for shoots, like sitting
Speaker 8: on sitting in you know, in the very back of
Speaker 8: creative meetings, all of that. So just getting a look
Speaker 8: at to how the covers and all of the fashion
Speaker 8: shoots are made. But I think even then I felt, honestly,
Speaker 8: I think it was the exhaustion of you know, working
Speaker 8: at night. I would always leave teen Vogue during the
Speaker 8: day and then I would go work at night of
Speaker 8: changing the mankins or freelancing for another stylust. On the weekends,
Speaker 8: I always waitressed Saturday and Sunday. But it still wasn't enough.
Speaker 8: Like it was it was enough to like pay my bills,
Speaker 8: it wasn't enough to really do anything else. And there
Speaker 8: are a lot of situations where you know, and brandis
Speaker 8: knows this. Like so much in fashion, is also how
Speaker 8: you dress and how you appear. That is also such
Speaker 8: a big part of the social currency of being able
Speaker 8: to talk with people, to be able to feel like
Speaker 8: they think that you're at least good enough to be
Speaker 8: in the rooms. And so a lot of times I
Speaker 8: would get really frustrated in the early days because I
Speaker 8: would always outwork other people. But it really wasn't necessarily
Speaker 8: about me outworking other people. It was about them, you know,
Speaker 8: having certain connections or you know. I would intern with
Speaker 8: girls who would wear full chanelle every day and I
Speaker 8: couldn't compete because I was wearing gap and that was
Speaker 8: all that I could afford. And that was the social
Speaker 8: currency in the way of you know, when your boss
Speaker 8: see someone wearing Chanelle, They're like, oh, my gosh, I
Speaker 8: love that outfit. And then they are like, oh, you
Speaker 8: should style this thing because you have great style, when
Speaker 8: really what they have is, you know, elitism and classism
Speaker 8: and other advantages that I just didn't have. And so
Speaker 8: it's quite frustrating, and it's really expensive to be able
Speaker 8: to want to work into fashion, to dream about working
Speaker 8: in fashion.
Speaker 3: It's really expensive.
Speaker 1: So then to that point, brandis what do you think
Speaker 1: of some of the other barriers that black and brown
Speaker 1: people deal with when they enter the fashion industry and
Speaker 1: have things like social media and direct to consumer movement
Speaker 1: created another point of entry for them.
Speaker 7: Yeah, can I go back real quick?
Speaker 4: Roy too Plant.
Speaker 6: When Lindsay interviewed us for that article, it was like
Speaker 6: a therapist that called me and said, how do you feel?
Speaker 6: I think I kept Lindsay on the phone for over
Speaker 6: an hour because because no one had ever asked me
Speaker 6: how it felt to be black and fashion.
Speaker 4: And I remember talking.
Speaker 6: To Lindsey about what was it like interviewing all these people?
Speaker 6: She interviewed like one hundred people and everyone felt the
Speaker 6: same way. So this was hours and hours of her
Speaker 6: listening to people of color and how they felt, particularly
Speaker 6: black people, and how they felt working in passion.
Speaker 4: So Lindsay, thank you for that. I needed them.
Speaker 1: Okay, But then let me ask you, why did you
Speaker 1: agree to do the interview? Because she interviewed a hundred people.
Speaker 1: I know, if you interviewed a hundred, then Lindsey, I
Speaker 1: know at least another fifty to sixty decline to participate
Speaker 1: because they probably scared of backlash and being on the
Speaker 1: record talking about racism and the industry that don't I
Speaker 1: don't want the white people to see my name in it.
Speaker 2: I can do it.
Speaker 1: Can you talk to me? But I won't get my name? No,
Speaker 1: I need your name because it gives legitimacy. So brandis,
Speaker 1: why did you agree? Why weren't you scared into being
Speaker 1: silence on speaking on race.
Speaker 6: It was a few things, and there were some things
Speaker 6: that I even edited with because.
Speaker 4: Of where I knew I was going.
Speaker 6: But one of the things was Lindsay did my very
Speaker 6: first interview with the cut and I never forget when
Speaker 6: people are part of my beginning journeys.
Speaker 7: And also I felt like this was a conversation that.
Speaker 6: We really weren't having in fashion and the fact that
Speaker 6: I could be a part of it, or that she
Speaker 6: even asked me to be a part of it really
Speaker 6: felt like an honor for me to be able to
Speaker 6: voice that because it's been up until that article, these
Speaker 6: were conversations we were only.
Speaker 4: Having with each other, and I kind.
Speaker 6: Of felt like, finally, this is going to be an
Speaker 6: article that everyone in fashion and retail are going to
Speaker 6: have to read and decide whether they want to reckon
Speaker 6: with this or not.
Speaker 4: So for me, it was an honor to be a
Speaker 4: part of it.
Speaker 1: So then to that point, brandis when you had an
Speaker 1: opportunity to speak in just this years and years of
Speaker 1: PTSD and everything you'd gone through just starts vomiting up.
Speaker 1: What are some of the other hurdles and obstacles for
Speaker 1: black and brown fashion designers or black and brown people
Speaker 1: in the fashion industry period that they're dealing with. Because
Speaker 1: if you don't have the Chanelle outfit off the rip
Speaker 1: to be in your internship, that means you ain't got money,
Speaker 1: which means you probably can't get an investor because they
Speaker 1: don't want to invest in you because they look at
Speaker 1: your clothes and decide your clothes you don't dress nice.
Speaker 1: So how do I know that you know how to
Speaker 1: make nice. So what were some of the hurdles that
Speaker 1: you think are still out there?
Speaker 6: Yeah, so I work with designer black designers mostly, and
Speaker 6: some of their hurdles were not having access to mentorship
Speaker 6: because this is a hard business.
Speaker 7: Most black people don't come from a family where they've.
Speaker 6: Got, you know, an auntie who was as whole designer,
Speaker 6: So there's like no one that you can really go
Speaker 6: to besides other designers who are also trying to figure
Speaker 6: it out.
Speaker 4: Part of it was financing.
Speaker 6: How do I even get the money to be able
Speaker 6: to set up a website? Because again, this industry is
Speaker 6: so based on aesthetics, So if you go to a
Speaker 6: designer's website and it doesn't look like it compares with.
Speaker 7: Another non black designer in that space, people are judging
Speaker 7: you based on that.
Speaker 6: A lot of times it was them trying to get
Speaker 6: in stores, but retaellers saying, you know what, this designer,
Speaker 6: I don't think that they are really fit. I don't
Speaker 6: think our consumers will really get it. A lot of
Speaker 6: times they were told to water their styles down. I
Speaker 6: had a designer who has a very clear aesthetic of
Speaker 6: like what her brand looks like, and one season she came.
Speaker 7: Out, I didn't even know those were her clothes.
Speaker 6: And the reason she had done that was because she
Speaker 6: had met with white buyers who had told her that
Speaker 6: she needed to make all these changes to her collection
Speaker 6: in order to be considered for their store. I mean, honestly, Roy,
Speaker 6: I could go on and on about the challenges for
Speaker 6: black designers, but I think it kind of goes down
Speaker 6: to financing, opportunities, access, and really they're not being a
Speaker 6: very clear intention initially. That's changed a bit for the
Speaker 6: industry to really support black designers.
Speaker 1: Are there options, like when we just talk about fashion school,
Speaker 1: what are the options for someone that is still in
Speaker 1: the Midwest who cannot afford the move to New York?
Speaker 1: Or is that the first hurdle that you have to
Speaker 1: overcome to even get to all it. It's like, Mario,
Speaker 1: you got to beat this boss and then you can
Speaker 1: face the bosses of racism and colonialism and lack of
Speaker 1: investors and nepotism and financial barriers, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 6: I'm so happy you bring that up because that's a
Speaker 6: big barrier. So you know, again, most people are going
Speaker 6: to college, or first black people going to college or
Speaker 6: first generation sacond generation student. I couldn't have told my mom,
Speaker 6: I'm going to fashion school right out of high school,
Speaker 6: you know, like A, who has the money for that? B?
Speaker 4: What job are you going to?
Speaker 6: You know, it's really about how do we set up
Speaker 6: the next generation to win? And that's hard for us
Speaker 6: to wrap our hands around as you're looking at all
Speaker 6: the systematic challenges we've been through as a people. And
Speaker 6: so you're right, the first barrier is design schools. If
Speaker 6: you look at the percentage of you know, design students
Speaker 6: in schools like Parsons, in schools like Rizby, who is
Speaker 6: one of the top schools, in schools like.
Speaker 7: SCAD, it's it's so tiny.
Speaker 6: It's probably less than five percent of the students that
Speaker 6: are there. Some of them is less than one percent.
Speaker 6: So you're absolutely right, that is the first barrier. That's why,
Speaker 6: you know, we've started to do a lot of work
Speaker 6: with HBCU fashion departments because it's like, how do we
Speaker 6: get these students prepared and ready to compete with students
Speaker 6: who have graduated from these top fashion institutions. You know,
Speaker 6: So there's oh my goodness, when we start to peel
Speaker 6: back the layers of all the challenges and why the
Speaker 6: challenges exist and get to like the systematic root of it.
Speaker 7: It's it's hard, it can feel overwhelmed.
Speaker 2: I love that you're kind of smiling, but this is
Speaker 2: this is a.
Speaker 4: Lot, it's a lot.
Speaker 7: I'm smiling because I have Lindsay on here with me,
Speaker 7: and she.
Speaker 8: Knows exact really what I'm talking about, exactly what she's
Speaker 8: talking about.
Speaker 6: And when you start peeling about the back the layers,
Speaker 6: it's so much.
Speaker 4: But you know, you got to start somewhere.
Speaker 6: And I think that's you know, Lindsay with Black and
Speaker 6: Fashion Council and be Harlem's Fashion on Icon three sixty.
Speaker 4: I think we both said.
Speaker 6: We don't know how we're going to tackle all this,
Speaker 6: but let's at least start.
Speaker 1: Yeah, after the break, I want to get a little
Speaker 1: bit deeper into solutions. We have talked about all of
Speaker 1: the hurdles. How do we dominate the hurdles. We'll try
Speaker 1: and figure that out with our guess next this is
Speaker 1: beyond the scenes, all right, So we've talked about the hurdles,
Speaker 1: let's talk a little bit about the solutions and progress.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 1: Thank you all for being on with us today because
Speaker 1: you see what I consider to be performative social justice
Speaker 1: versus what is actually quantifiable real stuff. So, Lindsey, you
Speaker 1: had this fall fashion cover for the Cut, and you
Speaker 1: had Megan thee Stallion and you had Megan Markle on that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we did a CP time a while back on The
Speaker 1: Daily Show where we celebrated the history of black models
Speaker 1: like Naomi Sims, who they told her she was too dark,
Speaker 1: and then it was Tracy Africa Norman who was a
Speaker 1: trance model. So you have these mile markers of progress,
Speaker 1: But is that smoking mirrors or are we really making
Speaker 1: progress to some degree in the fashion industry when it
Speaker 1: comes to being aware of racism and needing to do
Speaker 1: something to fix it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think that there has been progress.
Speaker 8: Like I don't want to negate that because I think
Speaker 8: there's been so much incredible work that people have done.
Speaker 8: But I do think that a lot of the changes
Speaker 8: that we are talking about it's just an infrastructural change.
Speaker 8: It's stuff that's been going on for generations and generations,
Speaker 8: and it's going to take a really long time for
Speaker 8: it to change. So I think that there has been
Speaker 8: a progress. I think a lot of things still stand.
Speaker 8: It's just that people are very scared to talk about them,
Speaker 8: or they figure out a way to honestly just leave
Speaker 8: fashion and say, you know, I just don't want to
Speaker 8: deal with this anymore, and maybe start something on their own,
Speaker 8: or just end up doing something I think a little
Speaker 8: bit different in fashion, but every part has its own
Speaker 8: unique problems obviously, and what brandis was referring to, you
Speaker 8: know how black designers have very specific issues. I think
Speaker 8: at Editorial we have very specific issues that like we
Speaker 8: just have not really decided to tackle.
Speaker 3: A lot of times.
Speaker 8: And so, you know, I'm really grateful to be able
Speaker 8: to run a publication and to be able to yes,
Speaker 8: do those front facing things of having both Megans on
Speaker 8: the cover, and I'm incredibly proud of that, and that's amazing,
Speaker 8: but it is also very who'sive behind the scenes, and
Speaker 8: every little thing that we do is inclusive and intentionally
Speaker 8: really thoughtful to make sure that it's not just a
Speaker 8: front facing thing that we're doing to say that we
Speaker 8: put somebody in the cover, but from the people that
Speaker 8: I hire, from people who are editing texts, that people
Speaker 8: who are shooting everything, to people that we commission for things,
Speaker 8: to hiring people on staff and not just freelance, so
Speaker 8: that you get notifications about this person doing something the publication.
Speaker 8: What we're talking about is a holistic change, and I
Speaker 8: think that is just going to take a long time.
Speaker 1: How do you all, well, I guess if you want
Speaker 1: to get what you've already kind of answered this question.
Speaker 1: You have answered this question to a degree of what
Speaker 1: you all are doing to hold the industry accountable in
Speaker 1: terms of progress.
Speaker 2: But also.
Speaker 1: Is it difficult to hold an industry accountable while still
Speaker 1: operating within it.
Speaker 6: I think the only way to really hold it accountable
Speaker 6: is to be.
Speaker 4: Operating within it.
Speaker 6: It's hard to from the outside if also from the outside,
Speaker 6: and I am at outsider, but if I was from
Speaker 6: the outside trying to affect change in passion, it would
Speaker 6: be really difficult to do. One of the things that
Speaker 6: I do is try to keep it on the front
Speaker 6: of people's.
Speaker 4: Minds, of brand's minds. So all the time I.
Speaker 6: Am having conversations about race and passion, about some of
Speaker 6: the challenges that designers are still facing. So for example,
Speaker 6: there's been so many department stores who now are carrying
Speaker 6: black designers. So what they do is they open the door,
Speaker 6: they allow the designers in but what I've said to
Speaker 6: them is there has to be a program in place
Speaker 6: to make sure that you can sustain them, because they're
Speaker 6: not coming from the same resources, so they can't deal
Speaker 6: with your net sixty terms, and you may have to
Speaker 6: pay them a deposit upfront and if you want to
Speaker 6: keep them, and by the way, if you don't want
Speaker 6: to keep them, basically what you're saying is you don't
Speaker 6: want to grow because when you looking at gen Zers,
Speaker 6: the racial equity, it's so important to them. So if
Speaker 6: brands want to last in the future and they want
Speaker 6: to attract gen z, which if they want to grow,
Speaker 6: they have to attract them. They have to be willing
Speaker 6: to do the things that are needed to make sure
Speaker 6: that these designers can actually keep showing up in this
Speaker 6: department store. I read something on Bloomberg recently that twenty
Speaker 6: five percent of black people say they shop from black
Speaker 6: people frequently, black brands frequently, and under thirty five that
Speaker 6: jumps to forty percent.
Speaker 7: Well, that's a big deal, and that's a lot of
Speaker 7: money that's represented here, and so brands have to find
Speaker 7: a way how do we make sure that these designers
Speaker 7: can come in and stay in And so it's just
Speaker 7: having listening.
Speaker 6: To the designers, hearing what their challenges are, and then
Speaker 6: as I'm meeting with brands, which I probably have about
Speaker 6: meetings with like ten brands a week, making sure that
Speaker 6: I'm communicating this to them so that basically I can,
Speaker 6: you know, help to give the designers avoids inside of
Speaker 6: these brands.
Speaker 1: Lindsay, talk to me a little bit about when we
Speaker 1: talk about accountability for these brands. The emphasis for the
Speaker 1: Black and Fashion Council, which I don't want to call
Speaker 1: it like the consumer report on whether or not you're
Speaker 1: doing the work you claim to be tweeting about working
Speaker 1: and doing, but I know it's a public report to
Speaker 1: track these things. How do you quantify, you know, from
Speaker 1: a data standpoint, how are you quantifying this? And what
Speaker 1: has been the response you've seen from the companies that
Speaker 1: decided to, you know, be a part of this project.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean for Black and Fashion Council, a lot
Speaker 8: of it is by co founder of Sandria Charles runs
Speaker 8: a PR firm.
Speaker 3: Obviously I'm an editorial.
Speaker 8: We started to just get on zooms with a bunch
Speaker 8: of people like brandis to say like what can we
Speaker 8: collectively do a little bit more of to push the
Speaker 8: industry to actually be held accountable, and I think that
Speaker 8: a lot of it was like we wanted to create
Speaker 8: safe spaces for you know, black people in fashion to
Speaker 8: be able to just you know, have fun and to
Speaker 8: be able to have a sense of community. So we
Speaker 8: do our own like seasonal dinner for all you know,
Speaker 8: the senior level and people on the board a black
Speaker 8: and fashion consul, but then we also did one for
Speaker 8: younger people in fashion to be able to have fellowship
Speaker 8: and find the community at SOHO works last week. We
Speaker 8: always do our showroom at IMG at Springs Studios where
Speaker 8: they already have all the shows, and that really helps
Speaker 8: all the young designers get exposure. We set up you know,
Speaker 8: press appointments and buyers and all of that for them,
Speaker 8: and so it's been cool to see young designers start
Speaker 8: in the showroom and then be able to build enough
Speaker 8: to have their own show, which is incredible like Theophilia,
Speaker 8: and I like, I'm so proud of all of them.
Speaker 8: Every season we do our job fare, which is free
Speaker 8: for students, and we do that you know, twice a
Speaker 8: year to just work with HBCUs and community colleges to
Speaker 8: get all the kids just more exposure as far as
Speaker 8: different jobs that they can do outside of being a
Speaker 8: stylist and the flashy stuff that they may see. There's
Speaker 8: a ton of from jobs in fashion that I think
Speaker 8: you just don't know about if you don't come from fashion.
Speaker 8: And then obviously we have our directory, which is all
Speaker 8: we've partnered with Color of Change on which basically works
Speaker 8: to not let the companies say, like, we only use
Speaker 8: this photographer because we've.
Speaker 3: Known him for a very long time.
Speaker 8: So it's an industry wide, vetted directory of you know production,
Speaker 8: you know set production photographers make up all of that
Speaker 8: that all the companies can use. And so part of
Speaker 8: it was that we wanted to provide a lot of
Speaker 8: these resources first to be able to not give companies
Speaker 8: the excuse. And then the Corporate Equality Index is really
Speaker 8: our way of saying, like, now we've provided all of
Speaker 8: these areas in ways in which you can rise the
Speaker 8: occasion of making changes, how are you actually doing that?
Speaker 8: And I think for a lot of the companies, it's
Speaker 8: been forcing them to get out of the habit of
Speaker 8: doing the things that they've always done. And we got
Speaker 8: really nitty gritty with companies, like even you throw a
Speaker 8: company holiday party, who's catering it every year because it's
Speaker 8: probably your friend who you've been booking for the past
Speaker 8: ten years. Like being not really to the naity greet
Speaker 8: people because I think also a lot of brands, and
Speaker 8: especially because when we had started it, it was during
Speaker 8: the pandemic, and so a lot of brands were like, well, like,
Speaker 8: we don't have more money to donate, or we don't
Speaker 8: have more money to hire to make our company more inclusive.
Speaker 3: But literally every little thing that you do.
Speaker 8: You should be interrogating and saying, how can I be
Speaker 8: more inclusive in this? How can I step outside of
Speaker 8: my comfort zone? And I think just making the brands
Speaker 8: understand that it's okay to be uncomfortable and that's actually
Speaker 8: a good thing when you're out of your comfort zone
Speaker 8: and being challenged to do something differently.
Speaker 1: I know we don't have a lot of time left,
Speaker 1: you know, in brandis I did want to for sure
Speaker 1: recognize the Icon three sixty fund that you started as
Speaker 1: an effort to raise funds for designers of color, and
Speaker 1: you also support black college fashion departments. I wish you
Speaker 1: would have been around when I was at FAMU back
Speaker 1: in ninety six, still wearing chaps up top and Tommy
Speaker 1: Hill figure pants. I did not know you couldnot wear
Speaker 1: clashing it. No one told me. Okay, no one told me.
Speaker 1: But I would love to talk about Harlem Fashion Row
Speaker 1: before we get out of here, because I want to
Speaker 1: end on this. I want to end on The question
Speaker 1: to both of you really is about what words do
Speaker 1: you have? You know, what do you feel in terms
Speaker 1: of the future of the fashion industry, and what would
Speaker 1: you say to young black people who are trying to
Speaker 1: enter the industry.
Speaker 2: Brands.
Speaker 1: I'll start with you because I feel like Harlem Fashion
Speaker 1: Row does a great job of connecting and I know
Speaker 1: you also set up these big retreats for people of
Speaker 1: varying stages along their career journey to meet in Parlay.
Speaker 1: But talk a little bit about Harlem Fashion Row and
Speaker 1: then I'll ask the question to you, Lindsey.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 7: So I love the work we're doing with Harlem's Fashion Row.
Speaker 6: We're really acting as a bridge between designers of color,
Speaker 6: mostly Black designers, and brands, and so we're doing that
Speaker 6: through events, collaborations, brand strategy, and pipeline programs like the
Speaker 6: HBCU summits that we do. But my goal really Roy
Speaker 6: and what I think is going to like shift everything
Speaker 6: is to.
Speaker 4: Build an endowment for black designers.
Speaker 7: You know, we don't have any endowments for.
Speaker 6: Black people in Passion, and we were able to give
Speaker 6: away a million dollars to designers a few years ago,
Speaker 6: and now we're getting ready to launch a new business
Speaker 6: initiative where five percent of that money is going to
Speaker 6: go back to fund Icon three sixty. Because until we
Speaker 6: get something set up where you know, designers never have
Speaker 6: to worry about how they're going to finance their collections
Speaker 6: and they never have to kind of be thinking about,
Speaker 6: you know, how do I go and pitch investors because
Speaker 6: quite frankly, black designers rarely ever get investment dollars, you know,
Speaker 6: from fund So we have to figure out how do
Speaker 6: we do this ourselves, and so we're working on. My
Speaker 6: goal is to lead this industry with a twenty million dollar.
Speaker 4: Endowment for designers of color, and.
Speaker 6: Everything that I'm doing right now, I'm thinking about how
Speaker 6: how do we make that happen.
Speaker 1: You can make it nineteen million, give me a million,
Speaker 1: make a nineteen million, got be twenty.
Speaker 2: Perspected.
Speaker 6: But now that's a goal so that we can have
Speaker 6: something that is sustainable in perpetuity, because this conversation is cyclical.
Speaker 7: It's happened every twenty to thirty years.
Speaker 6: If you go back and look in history, Lois Alexander
Speaker 6: Lane was doing the work I'm doing with hfr Or
Speaker 6: back in the seventies. So the conversation keeps happening every
Speaker 6: few decades. So we have to figure out how do
Speaker 6: we set up something that lasts and in perpetuity.
Speaker 1: And lastly, Lindsey, what do you hope to see in
Speaker 1: the future of fashion for black and brown? And what
Speaker 1: would you say to young black people who are trying
Speaker 1: to enter the industry and you know, see all see
Speaker 1: the mountain that they have to start climbing.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean, I think my goal is that there
Speaker 8: doesn't even need to be as many dei rolls honestly
Speaker 8: for companies, because it should should just be intrinsically something
Speaker 8: that we all have to do. It should not be
Speaker 8: something that companies make a special department for and gives out,
Speaker 8: you know, all the rules and regulations and guidelines. Like
Speaker 8: I think that in a perfect world it would be
Speaker 8: part of a company, but it wouldn't be a driving
Speaker 8: force of saying this is the only way that we
Speaker 8: have to be inclusive because I think a lot of times,
Speaker 8: especially for big companies, a lot of those initiatives just
Speaker 8: sit with human resources and it doesn't actually help when
Speaker 8: you work it. Like especially fashion magazines, a lot of
Speaker 8: those things don't really trickle down and they kind of
Speaker 8: stay at the top and in the air, but you
Speaker 8: don't actually feel them when you work there. And so
Speaker 8: my goal would be for it to be you know,
Speaker 8: if there's a you know, amazing photographer that a publication
Speaker 8: likes to work with, but they happen to be really racist,
Speaker 8: that publications are able to say, you know what, that
Speaker 8: doesn't align with our value system and we have to
Speaker 8: let you go and we can't work with you anymore
Speaker 8: because that's just intrinsically important to us. And that's not
Speaker 8: just something that you know, sits on an HR tablet
Speaker 8: and something that we say we care about d I,
Speaker 8: but we really don't.
Speaker 3: That's really my goal in the industry.
Speaker 8: But I think as far as young people, I just
Speaker 8: always encourage them to really be hungry for this work.
Speaker 3: I think you have to really really love it.
Speaker 8: I mean, we Brandis and I smile because I mean
Speaker 8: brandison Is, She's the original gangs. She's been doing this
Speaker 8: forever and you have to kind of smile and do it.
Speaker 8: But also Brandis loves it, like she loves working with
Speaker 8: Soues designer. She is so passionate about it. And I
Speaker 8: think you have to because it's not easy and it
Speaker 8: is really hard, and I think I want to see
Speaker 8: young people really love the work and have, you know,
Speaker 8: very specific goals in mind, instead of being so focused
Speaker 8: on how it looks on social media and you know,
Speaker 8: how how much attention, how many likes, all of that,
Speaker 8: all of that stuff, you know, fades to the background
Speaker 8: and it is not important, but doing the work always is,
Speaker 8: and that's really what's going to help the next generation.
Speaker 2: So well.
Speaker 1: I cannot thank you all enough for this wonderful conversation.
Speaker 1: I will end this with the words of the Great
Speaker 1: Beyond Sanders. If you look good, you feel good. If
Speaker 1: you feel good, you play good. If you play good,
Speaker 1: they pay good. Thank you all so much for making
Speaker 1: people look good so that they can feel good and
Speaker 1: go about their lives accomplishing all of the dreams that
Speaker 1: they've set out for themselves. That's all the time we
Speaker 1: have for today. Thank you to our guest Chelsea Brandison Lindsey,
Speaker 1: and thank you listener for going beyond the scenes with me.
Speaker 2: Play some music.
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