Speaker 1: How many things are different since we met, since before
Speaker 1: the pandemic, how my life has changed, and how a
Speaker 1: lot of people's lives, and how things that you didn't
Speaker 1: realize were so important are really the important things. Right.
Speaker 1: It's not just your career, and it's not just you know,
Speaker 1: how you show up at work. It's just it's really
Speaker 1: the words that come out of your mouth and how
Speaker 1: you live your life. So today, Bobby, we are going
Speaker 1: to be speaking with a dear friend of mine, Maria Cornejo.
Speaker 1: She is an amazing, amazing designer and someone that I
Speaker 1: wear all the time. And we're on the TED stage
Speaker 1: in fact, and that's how she and I know each
Speaker 1: other because I were an outfit I bought up the
Speaker 1: sample sale on TED stage and she and I became
Speaker 1: friends after that. Well, I'm really looking for ward to
Speaker 1: meeting her because I really don't know anything about her.
Speaker 1: I know her clothes, I know you know, we've been
Speaker 1: in the same circles, but we have never actually met.
Speaker 1: I know. I find that so crazy because I feel
Speaker 1: like you're going to be fast friends and have a
Speaker 1: ton in common. So let's get started. Excited to talk
Speaker 1: to Maria. Hi, Maria, nice to meet you. Hi, Bobby.
Speaker 1: Nice to finally meet you. I know, all these years
Speaker 1: we have never ever ever been in any of these places,
Speaker 1: and we've had so many parallel you know, career things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and a lot of friends. We have friends in comments,
Speaker 1: which is nice, you know, but it's sort of like
Speaker 1: we're all I feel like I'm always just busy doing
Speaker 1: stuff and keeping quite a monastic life most of the time.
Speaker 1: Not glamorous at all. Oh, come on, it's all glamorous
Speaker 1: when you look back and you see all the things
Speaker 1: you've done and what you've produced, and who you are
Speaker 1: and and and who you were. Come on, it's very glamorous.
Speaker 1: You're doing what you want to be doing, isn't that correct? Yes,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm surprised it's not. You know, I don't
Speaker 1: do what I want to do every single day. Really,
Speaker 1: what would you rather do? Um? Garden? Okay, okay, hang
Speaker 1: out with my friends? You know? You know the fashion
Speaker 1: the fashion schedule is quite you know, you know, it's
Speaker 1: very forlorn, and you know, it's just like constantly like
Speaker 1: you're own three different seasons at the same time. I mean,
Speaker 1: I had to be reminded, you know what the spring,
Speaker 1: summer collection was about, because I've already gone through another
Speaker 1: three different ones since then, So it's just like I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm going Maria lives in the future. I live.
Speaker 1: You know, this is one of the things that I
Speaker 1: don't like about what I do is that I am
Speaker 1: never in the present, and so that's one of my
Speaker 1: biggest things that you know, it's I get to enjoy
Speaker 1: the clothes when I'm not designing. So I like to
Speaker 1: travel because when I get to be that woman. I
Speaker 1: like to go out once in a while because I
Speaker 1: get to be that woman. I'm also time a bit
Speaker 1: like a mechanic. But but I think possibly if you
Speaker 1: would stop and realize that if anyone would look at
Speaker 1: what you do and your day to day existence, people
Speaker 1: would kill to have this fulfilled life of creativity and business.
Speaker 1: So I think, you know, of course, I'm very lucky
Speaker 1: and blessed. I've been able to create my own environment
Speaker 1: at working environment. I know that for sure. I was
Speaker 1: never a corporate person, so yes, and I've wanted to
Speaker 1: have a working environment that was good and that I
Speaker 1: wanted to come to work every day. So there's so
Speaker 1: many questions I have to ask. But you've been you've
Speaker 1: been designing clothes for how many years? Well, I'm fifty
Speaker 1: nine now, so I'm so much older than you are. Really. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but your hair dog, so you either die. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: do dye my hair. Absolutely. I am sixty four and
Speaker 1: maybe by the time this podcast comes out, I might
Speaker 1: be sixty. So I'll be designing since I was twenty one.
Speaker 1: So that is let's do the math. That is a
Speaker 1: long time, right. But but you are also so known
Speaker 1: for so many things, but one of them is sustainability. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you did that before it was a word. Yes,
Speaker 1: You're like the o G of I love that I
Speaker 1: should have that well be called boy. I always called
Speaker 1: Bobby the o G of inclusive beauty, and I think
Speaker 1: of you as the o G of sustainability and fashion
Speaker 1: and that you're doing it. Like Bobby said before, it
Speaker 1: was cool before everybody was talking about it. Um, it
Speaker 1: was just always something that you did. I feel like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think since I started in New York and ninety
Speaker 1: I moved to in n six and I started the
Speaker 1: store Slash Creative Space in and I had had a
Speaker 1: six year old, my daughter being was not thirty and
Speaker 1: my son's twenty four. He was eight months old and
Speaker 1: after working for big commercial companies, I saw the amount
Speaker 1: waste and it just really shot me and I just thought,
Speaker 1: this is what we are doing to the planet, and
Speaker 1: this is what my kids are inheriting. And I felt
Speaker 1: really responsible, you know. And I've always thought, you know,
Speaker 1: my parents are real socialists and stuff, and I sort
Speaker 1: of fucked them off by going to do fashion. My
Speaker 1: dad thought I should have been a doctor or something
Speaker 1: more worthwhile, but I always thought that, you know, as
Speaker 1: a fashion designer we sort of sort of political. You
Speaker 1: can influence the people around you in a small way.
Speaker 1: You can't make big shifts, but even little shifts as
Speaker 1: something amount to something eventually. So what are the some
Speaker 1: of the things that that you do that's probably not
Speaker 1: accessible to people that buy your clothes, Like, what are
Speaker 1: some of the things, Well, we only produced on the man,
Speaker 1: We never overproduced, we produced locally on the collection. We
Speaker 1: I think pretty much most seasons, most of the fabrics
Speaker 1: at eco or sustainable or up cycled. We do a
Speaker 1: small network project with Bolivian Corp with of women, indigenous women,
Speaker 1: and you know, we we try, and I always say,
Speaker 1: try and make a good decision wherever possible. Let's you know,
Speaker 1: make the right decision because everything is cast and effect
Speaker 1: and you know, and we are responsible ultimately. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: I feel like one of the things that you've done
Speaker 1: really well is um like sort of moderate your growth,
Speaker 1: Like where most lines are such pressure to get bigger, bigger, bigger,
Speaker 1: and you seem like you've been really intentional about how
Speaker 1: you've grown over the past twenty some years and how
Speaker 1: you grow on the line, when you've expanded, when you
Speaker 1: know what stories you've gone into, that sort of thing,
Speaker 1: and so that you're not overproducing. Yeah. And it's also
Speaker 1: you know, trying to produce things that are well designed
Speaker 1: that will have longer than a season. And it's not
Speaker 1: about trends, you know. I think I always like the
Speaker 1: idea of loans of things being kept and passed on,
Speaker 1: and I think if something is well designed, it should
Speaker 1: last longer than a season. And what I has been
Speaker 1: the biggest change in your business since the pandemic, the
Speaker 1: biggest change, Oh my god. I mean we've you know, survival,
Speaker 1: I mean, everybody, you know, the teams stretched. Then I
Speaker 1: mean we're all like figuring out how Um. I think
Speaker 1: the first year was easier than this year because this
Speaker 1: year is there's no PvP loans. We're still in omicron land.
Speaker 1: You know, people are also exhausted. You know, everybody's been
Speaker 1: working really hard and we've all been on survival mode,
Speaker 1: and there's a point that everybody is sort of a
Speaker 1: breaking point. And and you know, for me as the
Speaker 1: head of whatever it is, keeping that energy up and
Speaker 1: trying to you know, go hey, here we go again, guys,
Speaker 1: you know, and it's like, you know, and everybody's like yeah,
Speaker 1: And you find that across the industry. I suspected around
Speaker 1: the board of the c FDA, right, yeah, I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: the board of the CFDA and women n y C.
Speaker 1: And are you seeing that across the board of all
Speaker 1: New York. I'm seeing it with everybody. I'm everywhere. I
Speaker 1: think everybody's just worn out, and I think everybody is exhausted,
Speaker 1: and everybody's gone through a lot of personal things as well,
Speaker 1: not only COVID, but I think, you know, everybody's going
Speaker 1: through a lot of stuff. And yeah, there's the one
Speaker 1: person that's got tons of money in the stock marketing.
Speaker 1: They've done really well, but most people already struggling, and
Speaker 1: they're struggling to make sense of why they're doing what
Speaker 1: they're doing, and you know, it's it's tough. And you've
Speaker 1: also had some personal changed, haven't you during this time? Yes,
Speaker 1: I mean I split up with my husband of thirty
Speaker 1: one years four years ago. I got divorced last September.
Speaker 1: I bought a house, gotline et cetera. X actually moved.
Speaker 1: I mean, within the space of two months, I had
Speaker 1: got divorced, I bought a new house, I had line disease,
Speaker 1: and I was just like spinning. You know, there was
Speaker 1: a lot going on. But you know, I always try
Speaker 1: how I grew up from background my parents were political refugees,
Speaker 1: and I always sort of try and look on the
Speaker 1: bright side and sort of take myself up. And I
Speaker 1: have my capacity for self petty is very short because
Speaker 1: I don't have that luxury. I don't have a mother.
Speaker 1: My mother died when I was fourteen. My dad died
Speaker 1: when he was fifty five, so and I was pregnant
Speaker 1: with my son. So I just my thing has always
Speaker 1: been like, Okay, breathe, reconfigure, remain fluid, and let's figure
Speaker 1: out what the next steps are. But it's it's it's tough.
Speaker 1: It's tough, you know, I mean, I'm going to see
Speaker 1: my daughter this weekend. And because I'm sort of at
Speaker 1: the point of she was like, ah, and she said,
Speaker 1: and she's important, said I'm just come here and I
Speaker 1: said yeah, because I was going to go to max Sar.
Speaker 1: She's in Portugal and she's going to have a baby,
Speaker 1: and so it's going to be a grandmother in June.
Speaker 1: Is that your first? Yes? Yes, how exciting. Yes, it's
Speaker 1: really exciting, so, you know, And I was gonna go
Speaker 1: on a little holiday on my own, but then I
Speaker 1: chickened that because I thought, I really don't want to
Speaker 1: be on my own line now. Mhm. I need I
Speaker 1: need a hug, I need a cuddle. I'm single, you know,
Speaker 1: it's not like I haven't exacting. I haven't been dating.
Speaker 1: I mean I literally I was telling my son. I
Speaker 1: was joking about it. I said, I'm practically a virgin.
Speaker 1: I said, I've already ever been with your dad since
Speaker 1: I was twenty five. And he said, he said mom,
Speaker 1: And I said yes. I said, it's not very sexy
Speaker 1: for you to live with your mom, but it's not
Speaker 1: very sexy for me either. COVID, where where is your son?
Speaker 1: He's in New York and you know, and things. You know,
Speaker 1: even though we're divorced, we're still friends. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: married my best friend, so we'll always be friends and
Speaker 1: will always be family. And it's just it's a new fact.
Speaker 1: You know. We had dinner last night, which it's sort
Speaker 1: of reconfiguring what our family looks like again. But we
Speaker 1: don't we're not together. I think the pandemic for a
Speaker 1: lot of people is about reinvention, and you know, what
Speaker 1: you do with the information and how you proceed. And
Speaker 1: it sounds like you're kind of going through just figuring
Speaker 1: it out. But you know this this podcast, the reason
Speaker 1: we're doing it is because we find that everyone's in
Speaker 1: this situation right now. And and you know, it's called
Speaker 1: the important things, and so of course the important things
Speaker 1: are your family. You've said that you know you love
Speaker 1: your work. Yes, I love I love being creative. I
Speaker 1: love my team. I love the conversation. You know, it
Speaker 1: kept me going through my divorce in the last four years.
Speaker 1: If I hadn't had my team around me, I would
Speaker 1: have fallen into a pile and died, you know. And
Speaker 1: to be honest, to sort of have, you know, especially
Speaker 1: when or an empty nest as you probably love, Bobby, Um,
Speaker 1: your whole sense of reason for doing things is either
Speaker 1: your children or your marriage. And you know, and then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, like your children are not there,
Speaker 1: your marriage is not there. So what what keeps you going?
Speaker 1: What motivates you? And for me, it was sustainability on
Speaker 1: my team. Can you talk about that more, because that's
Speaker 1: I think that's really interesting because I think, you know,
Speaker 1: like what Bobby was saying, the the idea of reconfiguration,
Speaker 1: of reinvention um, there's a theme that she and I
Speaker 1: talked about a lot just in our conversations over the
Speaker 1: past few years. But then the pandemic sort of brought
Speaker 1: it all to ahead of Now everybody's going through it
Speaker 1: and thinking about what really matters to them in a
Speaker 1: deeper way. And I think one of the reasons we
Speaker 1: wanted to have you on is because of your background
Speaker 1: and being refugee and sort of all the things that
Speaker 1: you've been through in your life and then hitting this
Speaker 1: this time that's sort of testing your resilience again, and
Speaker 1: I feel like you've navigated that very elegantly, you know,
Speaker 1: very admirably. I don't know, I think people don't people
Speaker 1: all see me when I have built downs, you know,
Speaker 1: and I do have them in private usually, but like everybody,
Speaker 1: you know, I have days I feel sorry for myself
Speaker 1: when I pressed into tears, when somebody says something to me.
Speaker 1: I think it's just normal, it's human. And what do
Speaker 1: you do? What do you do or who do you
Speaker 1: call when you have those moments? Um? I have a
Speaker 1: few really really close friends. I can cry tony their
Speaker 1: a way. I just learned to self soothe and meditate
Speaker 1: and you know, and look at my plant and just think, Okay,
Speaker 1: this shall pass. And you know it's a moment that
Speaker 1: you're going through and you sort of, Um, you have
Speaker 1: to know how to hold yourself because you have Like
Speaker 1: I said, I don't have. I called my sister. She
Speaker 1: gets annoyed with me. She's in English. I always calling her.
Speaker 1: I don't have a mother, so she's like the next
Speaker 1: his thing. I love that we all have sisters. Wait
Speaker 1: are we all baby sisters? I'm the older. Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: the older, Maria? Are you the younger? The older? Um?
Speaker 1: The second one, the second I am the youngest. If
Speaker 1: you can't tell, you probably already figured that out. My
Speaker 1: sister calls me Forrest Gump because The way I get
Speaker 1: rid of my stress and stuff is like walking. I walk,
Speaker 1: even like stupid things like this morning, I had a
Speaker 1: ton of stuff to bring into work, like an outfit lunch.
Speaker 1: You know, I prepared my very healthy lunch and everything
Speaker 1: my smoothie and you know it's always and I was
Speaker 1: going to take an uber but then I thought, I
Speaker 1: just need those three blocks from my house to the
Speaker 1: subway station just to breathe the air, look at the
Speaker 1: park and just feel like human being before the day
Speaker 1: starts and you feel like you're going crazy. And what
Speaker 1: was in your smoothie? In my smoothie, Oh my god,
Speaker 1: I'm Charlie gave me her nutrition is who is amazing
Speaker 1: and she's you know, so my smoothie had blueberries, strawberries,
Speaker 1: but nanas, spinache, berlina collagen, um, golji berries, almonds and
Speaker 1: what else something like it. I hope a little bit
Speaker 1: of water, a bit of apple juice as well. Who's
Speaker 1: the nutritionist you've been holding up? His name is Chris. No,
Speaker 1: I'm not holding out. He's amazing. He's called Chris Gabriel
Speaker 1: and I met him about a year ago. Um, my doctor,
Speaker 1: I was having surgery and my doctor introduced me to
Speaker 1: him to prepare for surgery, and my surgeon introduced me
Speaker 1: to him, and he was so lovely, and I did
Speaker 1: I would say like eight percent of what he told me,
Speaker 1: because it's it's it's a lot. It's a lot, like
Speaker 1: he really. But I have to tell you, I went
Speaker 1: into the surgery feeling physically as well as I could,
Speaker 1: and I came out and I think I recovered a
Speaker 1: lot quicker because I was following his advice immediately after.
Speaker 1: But then I got COVID and I stopped. And then
Speaker 1: I gifted Maria the rest of my sessions because I
Speaker 1: was I was being very noncompliant. But he's really into
Speaker 1: activated pumpkin seeds and that was like his big thing.
Speaker 1: Um So he was always having met activated pumpkin c
Speaker 1: which is the habit I still have. And he was
Speaker 1: really into blueberries, what else goji berries, as you mentioned, Maria,
Speaker 1: But what is he not into? I judge a nutritions
Speaker 1: by what they're not into. If someone tells me don't
Speaker 1: drink coffee, I leave, And if someone says don't drink vodka,
Speaker 1: I leave, I also leave. You know, what he was
Speaker 1: good about is that he and Maria I'm sure you
Speaker 1: found this too. It's he was really good about almost
Speaker 1: like just adding in more things as opposed to telling
Speaker 1: you a bunch of things you can't do. It was
Speaker 1: just like adding these good habits and then the idea
Speaker 1: of sort of crowding out some of the other things
Speaker 1: because you'll be more stated with whatever you're doing. But
Speaker 1: we were both doing it because I mean I was
Speaker 1: doing it because of a surgery like pre surgery thing.
Speaker 1: But I was surprised my like n y U surgeon
Speaker 1: help me to do it. So Maria going to jump
Speaker 1: into day to day habits? Can you take us through
Speaker 1: sort of a mundane day? How do you balance what
Speaker 1: you have to do with what you love to do? Uh?
Speaker 1: While I get up, I do make myself a cup
Speaker 1: of green tea since I'm not allowed to have so
Speaker 1: much black tea. I used to have like three cups
Speaker 1: of black team if I even had any food, because
Speaker 1: I'm not a morning person for food. I usually like
Speaker 1: to eat around eleven, uh, because of you know, I
Speaker 1: feel myself out with tea and coffee and I'm never
Speaker 1: really hungry that earlier. I sort of get hungry eleven.
Speaker 1: But with Christopher, he got me onto, like you know,
Speaker 1: in order to take supplements and things and you know,
Speaker 1: healing from the lime. Um. He got me into like
Speaker 1: eating early and having these movies and yeah, so it
Speaker 1: was so I do my smoothie, I take my green tea,
Speaker 1: I clean cat poop, I feed the cats. It like
Speaker 1: you know, usual mom stuff, you know, pick up stuff,
Speaker 1: but tidy up. I try and figure out what I'm
Speaker 1: doing for the day. I look at my calendar three
Speaker 1: times because two different calendars, because they're not thinking on
Speaker 1: things keep moving around, and so I always feel a
Speaker 1: little bit like you know, and sometimes I do, like
Speaker 1: if I wake up early enough, I do like a
Speaker 1: half an hour yoga class on online, you know, like
Speaker 1: just done. What's your favorite class? What kind of yoga?
Speaker 1: I just like, I mean, it sounds terrible. It's Adrian.
Speaker 1: She's on YouTube and she's great because she does these
Speaker 1: little classes that could be anything. You can just press
Speaker 1: play and it could be anything from eleven minutes for
Speaker 1: stress or twenty minutes for stretching, and it's it's not
Speaker 1: I don't have to feel guilty, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I just it is on YouTube and I do Peelatics
Speaker 1: once a week with somebody that I know sky and
Speaker 1: that is one on one most of the time. And
Speaker 1: then about the rest of your day. Do you eat lunch? Yes,
Speaker 1: I always eat lunch because they I call it hungry.
Speaker 1: They know with me not to schedule a meeting at
Speaker 1: lunch time because I turned into the Tasmanian devil if
Speaker 1: I haven't eaten, because I don't have to eat. But
Speaker 1: when I have to eat, my I have a really
Speaker 1: fast metabolism, and I literally I get really hungry, like angry. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you need breakfast. Yeah, I eat breakfast. And
Speaker 1: when I eat breakfast a real like I am better
Speaker 1: during the day. No, but that's why I'm doing these
Speaker 1: movies now, and I've sort of got better at it,
Speaker 1: so I'm sort of less. For me. It used to
Speaker 1: be my big meal was the evening because I could
Speaker 1: relax and not be eating in a rush. Like today,
Speaker 1: I made my lunch, but I'm sort of eating it
Speaker 1: between appointments and things, so to me, I don't find
Speaker 1: that very nutritious to eat in a rush. You know, what,
Speaker 1: what is your lunch? Well, today I had I made
Speaker 1: myself a beat salad with a rugula and time nuts
Speaker 1: and goji berries, and pomegranate. And then last night I
Speaker 1: went to a book of a dinner and I had
Speaker 1: leftover fish, so I put it on top and with
Speaker 1: lemon juice and olive on makes me hungry. It sounds excellent.
Speaker 1: Do you do sweets at all? Do you have a
Speaker 1: sweet tooth? Well, I'm off a horror replacement now, so yes,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm getting a sweet tooth. And I never used
Speaker 1: to have it, but I've been having like mandarins and
Speaker 1: stuff like that as soon as I love really bad
Speaker 1: English chocolate that is my It's bad, that's your, yes,
Speaker 1: And so luckily I can't get it everywhere, but I
Speaker 1: don't need it all the time, and i'd like, um,
Speaker 1: I love marines. M you know really, I don't like
Speaker 1: meringues and I love marines. I love them. I love marangs.
Speaker 1: Do you do both of you? Two? Yeah? But you
Speaker 1: know what, you know why I don't eat them. So
Speaker 1: I went back to school after I left the corporate job,
Speaker 1: and I to degree as a health coach, and I
Speaker 1: learned that if you're meringues are sugar and eggs and white,
Speaker 1: there's no fat and no fiber. So what does that
Speaker 1: do with spikes? Your blood sugar like the second you
Speaker 1: eat it. It doesn't work for me, like you need
Speaker 1: like it would be better to take like one spoon
Speaker 1: of like a vanilla ice cream and walk away. But
Speaker 1: but you know not, none of those are good and
Speaker 1: and and what about a cocktails? Are you a wine drinker? Well,
Speaker 1: last night I had a gin and tonic, which I love.
Speaker 1: The night before I had a glass of red wine.
Speaker 1: It depends on the mood, to be honest. But you're like,
Speaker 1: you like a drink, you drink with me. I don't
Speaker 1: like both of you. I like to drink, yes, but
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't. I don't drink every night. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I try and sort of do drinking on my social nights,
Speaker 1: which you know now during COVID ended up being like
Speaker 1: social with myself. So I was drinking every night like
Speaker 1: everybody else. But that's not good. So so now I've
Speaker 1: sort of cut down. But it's just that was my
Speaker 1: My treat was a glass of wine or two glass
Speaker 1: of wine and night, you know, And that was I
Speaker 1: think we got a lot of us through COVID, but
Speaker 1: everybody started over drinking. I know, I know I had
Speaker 1: to cut back on wine because I was I mean,
Speaker 1: I would just like accidentally end up drinking like half
Speaker 1: a bottle and not even realizing. That's why I moved
Speaker 1: to cocktails, so that I would only have one and
Speaker 1: then I would just keep adding like ice and water
Speaker 1: to it. But I was like I didn't even realize
Speaker 1: such like drinking and hanging out and suddenly I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I have like it's really a problem.
Speaker 1: It's a lot of sugar. Yeah, it's terrible. I mean
Speaker 1: I keep adding sparks. That's the thing about con says
Speaker 1: is good because you go ice and then you keep
Speaker 1: adding sparkling water in that exactly, so you make it
Speaker 1: last a lot longer, exactly. So I have I have
Speaker 1: a few more questions about your career and your business.
Speaker 1: You've spent a lot of time working with a bunch
Speaker 1: of celebrities and well known Like, what is the difference
Speaker 1: that you find dressing a celebrity dress regular women. Well,
Speaker 1: I think you know, it's it's not It's not like
Speaker 1: I was dressing celebrities for the red carpet. I mean
Speaker 1: most of the time when we work with people that
Speaker 1: are well known, it is because they've come into the store.
Speaker 1: It's a very organic it's not working really, um, apart
Speaker 1: from a couple of people working with the stylists, most
Speaker 1: of the time they come in the store and they're
Speaker 1: like the collections. So it's it's sort of I think
Speaker 1: the celebrity or no celebrities, that regular women with the
Speaker 1: same body shape problems that we all have, you know.
Speaker 1: I think it's um, the regular people, and that's sort
Speaker 1: of it's sort of interesting how insecure we all are,
Speaker 1: you know, no matter how famous, how we've all got
Speaker 1: the same issues. It is true. I mean we're all,
Speaker 1: you know, I think the whole point is we're all
Speaker 1: the same. Like we're all the same very much, yes
Speaker 1: and no, we're all very different shapes societies, but we
Speaker 1: all have similar securities. I mean literally, the most utiful women,
Speaker 1: they'll have insecurities that even like the ones that have
Speaker 1: the amazing bodies, they all have like issues everybody. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think we're also critical on ourselves. You know. It's
Speaker 1: like I'm sitting here looking at my wrinkles as I'm
Speaker 1: talking to you. I thought we were going to do
Speaker 1: this audio, and I'm like, oh my god, we want worry.
Speaker 1: But I think one of the things that I love
Speaker 1: about your collection is a big fan of the brand.
Speaker 1: You know, obviously I were a ton of your stuff.
Speaker 1: Is um, I've always said this to you that you
Speaker 1: design like a designer who loves women like you're it's
Speaker 1: not like you're punishing women's bodies into a shape that
Speaker 1: you think it should be. You're very democratic, accepting a Democrats. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you know it is. It's like it's really everything
Speaker 1: flows without being from me. It's not like everything is
Speaker 1: a giant bag or anything like that. It's got a
Speaker 1: lot of shape. But I can wear the same dress
Speaker 1: that my sister wears and potentially in the same size,
Speaker 1: and it looks very different on both of us, but
Speaker 1: it looks great on both of us. And that's I
Speaker 1: think really unusual from from a high end designer perspective,
Speaker 1: where it's not trying to squeeze you into a shape
Speaker 1: that your body may not want to go into at
Speaker 1: this point. So there's something interesting about that. And I
Speaker 1: think also, you know what Bobby was sort of saying
Speaker 1: is the types of women that you dress I think
Speaker 1: are really interesting because it's quite a range of really smart,
Speaker 1: kind of badass women. That is my way of flattering myself.
Speaker 1: It's a good I know, yes, I've got a very
Speaker 1: very smart the clothes of only dress intelligent women, only smart, beautiful,
Speaker 1: really cool women. Well, you know the thing is that
Speaker 1: asked for the size and tusivity for me when I
Speaker 1: started the store, in the collection one I had just her.
Speaker 1: I had an eight month old and a six and
Speaker 1: a half year old, and my body, like most women,
Speaker 1: changes sizes all the time to change. You know, you
Speaker 1: have your here is when you've had a child, when
Speaker 1: you've eaten too much, when you drank too much, when
Speaker 1: you've had a holiday, when you're happy. When you said,
Speaker 1: you know, we're in constant plucks of sizes and if anything,
Speaker 1: now that I'm older, and you know, of course I
Speaker 1: don't have perios anymore, and I don't you know, I
Speaker 1: don't have My children are grown up, not my I was.
Speaker 1: I was actually talking to Nutritions and he said, well,
Speaker 1: now your body is actually the size that it needs
Speaker 1: to be because you sort of your body is sort
Speaker 1: of adjust as you get older, and this is the
Speaker 1: shape that you're meant to be because I've gone through
Speaker 1: like I've gone look like I've gone from being ninety
Speaker 1: three pounds two hundred and sixteen pounds, which it doesn't
Speaker 1: sound a lot when you're small. It's a big ship.
Speaker 1: Five five ft yes, so you're tiny, and yes, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm five foot yes, But you know it's it's like
Speaker 1: people laugh at me. Oh, you put I said, I've
Speaker 1: put away, and they got how much? And I got
Speaker 1: five pounds ago five just a lot lot. Yeah, when
Speaker 1: you're when you're in my height, it's more like, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's not a good thing. I'm just saying I've gained
Speaker 1: twenty and so it's like you did not definitely did.
Speaker 1: I mean, I have I have pictures when I broke
Speaker 1: when I broke my foot, and I was a hundred
Speaker 1: and sixteen pounds because for nearly a year I couldn't
Speaker 1: really walk anyway. I had a cast, and and I
Speaker 1: didn't have a picture on my board here with my
Speaker 1: son at some Cooper Hero It's thing or whatever. I
Speaker 1: watched things. I took my son and this, you know
Speaker 1: when they take those pictures side, you know, in the
Speaker 1: red carpet, and I'm literally hiding my foot with my
Speaker 1: cast behind the leg to try and hide it. I
Speaker 1: even went to the White House and I was looking
Speaker 1: at the picture I have a picture of me and
Speaker 1: Michell Levana got God, I looked really overweight, and I
Speaker 1: just remembered it's because I had a broken foot and
Speaker 1: I went there with my cast. So it's like it's
Speaker 1: like there's no glamorous pictures on me. At that time,
Speaker 1: I was just like, oh, is trying to hide this
Speaker 1: giant plastic thing. Well, I bet you were very glamorous.
Speaker 1: And I think it's all how we perceive ourselves. I
Speaker 1: think it's so interesting how hard we are in ourselves.
Speaker 1: But I think now you wouldn't hide it, like like
Speaker 1: I think the pandemic has made us all be at
Speaker 1: least for many of us, a little more comfortable. I mean,
Speaker 1: when would we be sitting in a closet, you know,
Speaker 1: have doing a podcast, Like I'm sitting into a new
Speaker 1: house in my husband's closet. Yeah, my back is killing me.
Speaker 1: But you know, I don't know what else is happening
Speaker 1: outside of this closet room, but you do it. And
Speaker 1: you know, I made sure there was no dirty laundry anywhere, Like,
Speaker 1: you know, that's it. I have my kids stuff like
Speaker 1: all behind me, all of her laundries over here out
Speaker 1: of you on the camera. But yeah, You're right, it's true,
Speaker 1: and I mean to get back to a jelly thing
Speaker 1: about the size and fativity. Yeah, you know, like I said,
Speaker 1: I was, I just had a night month old, I
Speaker 1: had a six year old, and and on the idea
Speaker 1: of designing, I wanted to stop creating something that was
Speaker 1: based on very simple geometric shapes that would drape around
Speaker 1: the woman's body and it would be very much about
Speaker 1: what the women's body did to that fabric. So the
Speaker 1: concept of the collection was super simple. It was like, really,
Speaker 1: I thought, I'm a mom. I want interesting clothes. I
Speaker 1: don't want to look like a Just because I'm a
Speaker 1: mother doesn't mean I have to look boring. I was
Speaker 1: still wanted to wear things that were designed but in
Speaker 1: basic fabrics like dynam or recycled flees, you know, politics
Speaker 1: and t shirting, but just making things that were interesting
Speaker 1: and it didn't matter what size I was. Things would
Speaker 1: always have an elastic waist band, or they would have
Speaker 1: drape in a way that would be flattering. And I
Speaker 1: always go, well, my middle might not be looking so
Speaker 1: great right now, but my legs look great, or my
Speaker 1: shoulder looks great, or you know, it's like trying to
Speaker 1: focus on the positive sides of women rather than pinpointing
Speaker 1: what's wrong with us. And I think that's so much
Speaker 1: about dial today is figuring out what works for you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not your traditional body type. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, we mo your teeny I'm teeny, but I
Speaker 1: happen to have really small shoulders but really big boobs. Maybe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've got no boots, I think so. Yeah, No, I'd
Speaker 1: rather have that. And you know, I have a midsection.
Speaker 1: I've had three children and you know my I've had
Speaker 1: nutrition as that say, if I want to get rid
Speaker 1: of that, I need to stop drinking. And I told
Speaker 1: them I'd rather get rid of you so and find
Speaker 1: someone that will help me. No, but it's true, I do.
Speaker 1: I think so anyway, So, I you know that's just me.
Speaker 1: But I mean, I'm with you. I went to the
Speaker 1: same Yeah, I know, but it's only one drink, like
Speaker 1: four nights a week. Guys, I don't think, I know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're the way we talk about it, I know, we're
Speaker 1: just we joke. Well, I I say everything in moderation.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm like dairy free looking tree, but you
Speaker 1: know I cheat. Yeah, Well, it's so funny. You say
Speaker 1: that because I say, I'm much more into would have eating,
Speaker 1: which means I don't have to announce I'm anything the end,
Speaker 1: because I have done that. I've said I'm paleo, I'm keto.
Speaker 1: You know. I tried veganism for one week. That was
Speaker 1: short lived. That was definitely short lived. Give me it, no,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think for me, what I always think
Speaker 1: about is that um being pregnant. Your body sort of
Speaker 1: tells you what it needs. I think I'm food. This
Speaker 1: is medicine. I really believe in that, you know, And
Speaker 1: I think, you know, if I like, I always used
Speaker 1: to say to my son, for your brain to work,
Speaker 1: you need to put good things. And I used to say,
Speaker 1: you need to eat like colors, rainbows. You know, you
Speaker 1: can't just eat beige food. That is not okay because
Speaker 1: that is like your brain is beige. So you have
Speaker 1: to eat colors, you know. And I grew up in
Speaker 1: in Chile where my you know, my parents, and we
Speaker 1: were used to be made to eat the most disgusting
Speaker 1: things I thought at the time when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: like you know, like urchin raw urchin. So we used
Speaker 1: to have cod liver oil every day. But left by
Speaker 1: this spoon and you know, like seaweeds too, and and
Speaker 1: I literally I couldn't eat seafood until I was in
Speaker 1: my twenties after leaving home because I was so brought
Speaker 1: up eating everything, but also like what would be considered
Speaker 1: quite weird, like it's probably all actually you could probably
Speaker 1: bottle all of that and make a lot of money
Speaker 1: at this point to super food. Well, it's funny. I
Speaker 1: was just I was just listening to you, Maria and
Speaker 1: thinking about your business and how you design and all
Speaker 1: your sustainability and everything about you and listen to talk
Speaker 1: about food and all this, and I'm like, why have
Speaker 1: you not or maybe you have have like a world
Speaker 1: of Maria, you know, where people can experience you know,
Speaker 1: your best olive oil, you're smoothie ingredients. Or have you
Speaker 1: ever incorporated more lifestyle into your design? Um? I would
Speaker 1: love to eventually, you know, but I think that's like
Speaker 1: maybe my next face. What are your future thoughts for
Speaker 1: your business? Do you have any Well, I think we're
Speaker 1: on the past that we we more and more of
Speaker 1: like more and more sustainable and trying to you know,
Speaker 1: like everybody trying to stay relevant because you know, in
Speaker 1: the business where fashion constantly writes you off and you're
Speaker 1: evlevant because especially I mean, I've been around for a
Speaker 1: long time and fifty nine, so I'm literally competing for
Speaker 1: press or whatever. Like everybody calls me a season design
Speaker 1: now or what is the other term, mature? Somebody said
Speaker 1: iCONECT seasoned, and I thought all this fact would be
Speaker 1: quite good. You know. It's like you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: It's like and you sort of put against like you know,
Speaker 1: like kids, and you're like, it's okay, you were once
Speaker 1: those kids, but look at what you've done. I'm in
Speaker 1: the same situation. I can't people still right about the
Speaker 1: same things about that. I say that I used to
Speaker 1: say thirty years ago. I mean, same thing. And it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know why because we're the o G. You know
Speaker 1: we are, and you know our job is to mentor
Speaker 1: the younger generation. I mean, do you have I know,
Speaker 1: you know you're involved in with c F d A.
Speaker 1: Do you have younger designers that you mentor not? Right now? No,
Speaker 1: We've just been keeping it very tight to the company.
Speaker 1: You know, we're tiny teams, so that's COVID sort of.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm on the board, but to be honest,
Speaker 1: my involvement have been very minimal right now. Although that's said,
Speaker 1: I was with you for dinner the other night and
Speaker 1: we ran into Lazarrow from Frances Schouler, and you clearly
Speaker 1: were a mentor to him. So I think it's interesting
Speaker 1: that if you don't see yourself as a formal mentor,
Speaker 1: it's very clear to me from the outside that you
Speaker 1: both are incredible mentors just by the way you live
Speaker 1: your lives and the way you work and how you've
Speaker 1: got your businesses to a whole generation coming up, you know,
Speaker 1: the chip folks that are in the weeds and coming up. Still,
Speaker 1: it's um, I think you're underestimating the power of that
Speaker 1: you have. Thank you and Jelly. I mean I think
Speaker 1: it's last time was my intern when I opened the
Speaker 1: store on Moll Street, you know, and then he became
Speaker 1: Frances Cooler and used to come and pick him up
Speaker 1: from the store. I mean, I've had some of the
Speaker 1: opportunity to work and you know, maybe bent to us
Speaker 1: interns like amazing people. But I don't, you know, like
Speaker 1: people always say that, oh my god, you really influenced me,
Speaker 1: or you really looked up to you, But I never
Speaker 1: think in those terms. You know, I just don't. I
Speaker 1: just do. I never I think as a woman, we
Speaker 1: just keep doing, we don't, you know. It's it's I
Speaker 1: mean sometimes people go, you know, they come up to
Speaker 1: me and they really complementary and it's almost like embarrassing
Speaker 1: because I get really shy, but it's really sweet. But
Speaker 1: it's also when not used to like blown our own
Speaker 1: homes sort of thing. You know, you sort of you're
Speaker 1: just getting over it and you're just doing what you
Speaker 1: want to do, and you hopefully by doing something with
Speaker 1: intention and authenticity, good things come of it and good
Speaker 1: people follow. And who was there for you when you
Speaker 1: were a young designer? Did you have any mentors or
Speaker 1: people you that had an impact on you? I mean
Speaker 1: I always you know. When I was in London, I
Speaker 1: as a shop girl. I used to work for Maureen
Speaker 1: Dougherty who has egg now, and she used to have
Speaker 1: help and easy be yucky and the feud she stores
Speaker 1: and I was exacted a girl that was like fifteen sixteen.
Speaker 1: I used to wash hangers and get everybody's lunches and
Speaker 1: where the ugly outfits that nobody wanted to wear. And
Speaker 1: they used to put me in there and said were
Speaker 1: you cute yourself, and it was like the eliest things.
Speaker 1: So um. And then through the years, you know, I've
Speaker 1: had you know, champions are forever telling me. You know,
Speaker 1: you know, one of my best friends of Kamila Nicholson,
Speaker 1: and she's forever telling me, you know, like she just
Speaker 1: looks at the collection she said, oh my god, it
Speaker 1: looks great. I just you know, for us, we're so
Speaker 1: wrapped up in it. You never get a time to
Speaker 1: actually look back and say, oh my god, this is great.
Speaker 1: So it's really nice. You know. I have another friend Mikelly,
Speaker 1: who I used to work with, who literally it's also
Speaker 1: super supportive, you know, within the company, of course, I
Speaker 1: have my business farmer Mauritia, but it's most of the
Speaker 1: time we're just figuring out what's next. We're not you know,
Speaker 1: patching each other's back and saying, oh, this looks amazing.
Speaker 1: So it's not that sort of relationship, but it's just interesting.
Speaker 1: You know. Even even my sister said to me the
Speaker 1: other day, she said, you know, she's quite tough, but
Speaker 1: she's very loving. She said to me, I think you
Speaker 1: need to do more commercial things. And I was like,
Speaker 1: I thought I was I thought we were trying to
Speaker 1: do that. This is about commercial, so I can do well.
Speaker 1: I have a question about you were aalked about staying
Speaker 1: present and how difficult it can be when you're a
Speaker 1: fashion designer and you're literally your job is to look
Speaker 1: into the future, and you always designed the next to
Speaker 1: the next of the act. What do you do to
Speaker 1: stay present for yourself? I stay very present with my
Speaker 1: relationships with my friends on a day to day and
Speaker 1: I think that's my plans, my cats, my son, you know,
Speaker 1: my family. I think, Um, I'm always trying to figure
Speaker 1: out how to stay in the present because it's on
Speaker 1: a personal level. I can do that, but it's really
Speaker 1: hard when you're you know, I go in the store
Speaker 1: and the spring summer is just arriving results in the
Speaker 1: store as well, and in the other room is to
Speaker 1: show room and we're showing full winter and up here
Speaker 1: we're working on cruise in spring summer, so that visually,
Speaker 1: I'm looking at five things at the same time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're looking at all the seasons and one and one
Speaker 1: walk through and literally I start, you know, I start
Speaker 1: going to look crazy, and I sort of, you know,
Speaker 1: like I cover things like which sheets sometimes, you know,
Speaker 1: like rax and because it's just visually overwhelming. I mean,
Speaker 1: our financial officer I had a lot of pictures in
Speaker 1: his office space and I said, I just want a white,
Speaker 1: clean space with my plants. And that's it. Because I
Speaker 1: am constantly looking at things. So for me to walk
Speaker 1: every day is important, to be able to meditate, even
Speaker 1: if it's just ten minutes, or to to you know,
Speaker 1: talk to my son and have a conversation and not
Speaker 1: be running around like a blue ass fly. It's amazing. Well, Marie,
Speaker 1: I ask everyone this question. I have one final question
Speaker 1: and it's I think the most important one. If you
Speaker 1: could tell someone that's listening one thing that could change
Speaker 1: the course of their life for the better, one thing
Speaker 1: that you do. What would it be? One thing is
Speaker 1: don't sweat the small stuff, take bigger picture. Things will pass,
Speaker 1: you know, good advice. M