Speaker 1: I'm Sam Edis and I'm Amy Nelson. Welcome to What's
Speaker 1: Her Story? With Sam and Amy. This is a show
Speaker 1: about the world's most remarkable women, their professional and personal journeys. Together,
Speaker 1: we'll hear from gold medalists, best selling authors, and leaders
Speaker 1: of the world's most iconic brands. Listen every Thursday or
Speaker 1: join the conversation anytime on Instagram at What's Her Story Podcast.
Speaker 1: Sarah le Fleur is the founder and CEO of M
Speaker 1: M Lafleur, known for women's power casual work. Where when
Speaker 1: you first started your career, Sarah, you did not intend
Speaker 1: to be an entrepreneur. You went into finance and you
Speaker 1: were a management consultant. What was the moment that changed that?
Speaker 1: The moment I changed that was really because I didn't
Speaker 1: know what else I was going to do with my career,
Speaker 1: which very much at that point it felt like my life. Um,
Speaker 1: I think the way many of us think about our
Speaker 1: careers and our in our twenties. But Sam, the way
Speaker 1: you just asked that question reminded me. When I was
Speaker 1: working in management consulting, we had like a session on
Speaker 1: entrepreneurship and there was a partner at the firm came
Speaker 1: and said like, well, you know, do you think any
Speaker 1: of you are our entrepreneurs? And looked around the room
Speaker 1: and I think one person out of thirty our class
Speaker 1: was thirty people raised his hand and then he was like, well,
Speaker 1: what do you think about the rest of you? And
Speaker 1: he was like and someone else said, well, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm an entrepreneur, maybe I'm not. And he said, well,
Speaker 1: if you're not sure about it, then you're definitely not
Speaker 1: an entrepreneur, because an entrepreneur they know in their hearts
Speaker 1: that they were an entrepreneur. And I was like, well,
Speaker 1: I guess I'm not an entrepreneur then, you know, like
Speaker 1: desfinitely like I was, I was like, I definitely don't
Speaker 1: feel it. And if anything, my mother being an entrepreneur,
Speaker 1: I just saw how hard it was up close. You know,
Speaker 1: how much it's spilled into our lives and her life
Speaker 1: for like, how much it affected her personally. You know
Speaker 1: how difficult the people management side was, and how friends
Speaker 1: that she worked with they had falling out and and
Speaker 1: I would often see her like I always stay like
Speaker 1: I always I would I would see her sipping whiskey
Speaker 1: by herself in the middle of the night when I
Speaker 1: would come down for a glass of water. So like
Speaker 1: I think, having it seen it up close, I was like,
Speaker 1: this is not for me. And it was really only
Speaker 1: when I left my last job having only been there
Speaker 1: for four months, and so I like really kind of
Speaker 1: like rushed out of there without a plan B and
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't know what I was going to
Speaker 1: do next with my life. That I was like, well,
Speaker 1: I've always had this idea, maybe I should work on it.
Speaker 1: That had to be a tough period of time. What
Speaker 1: was it like for you? I think I had been
Speaker 1: wandering as I think, you know, I mean, I I
Speaker 1: certainly felt that way in my late twenties, um I
Speaker 1: had left consulting, I applied to business school, didn't get in.
Speaker 1: I ended up taking this job at a private equity
Speaker 1: firm that I really respected, and basically one week in
Speaker 1: knew that, like this was not a place where I
Speaker 1: was going to be successful. The culture was so different
Speaker 1: from what I was used to and what I knew
Speaker 1: I was gonna you know, be happy in, and so
Speaker 1: I felt like I gave it a good try, but
Speaker 1: I I was so like miserable doesn't even begin to
Speaker 1: describe it. Like I was getting you know, I had
Speaker 1: nervous ticks. I would be like shaking in my seat.
Speaker 1: I would get you know, kind of anxiety attacks thinking
Speaker 1: about having to go to work the next day, and
Speaker 1: I really I ran out of there, so, you know,
Speaker 1: I would say it was like one of the lowest
Speaker 1: moments of my professional confidence, I mean lowest moments of
Speaker 1: confidence period. And that was the way that that was
Speaker 1: really how MM started, you know, not not knowing what
Speaker 1: to do next with my life. It's really hard to
Speaker 1: start a business. A lot of people think about it,
Speaker 1: like what were the first things that you actually tangibly did.
Speaker 1: I kind of started with the formalities, which in retrospect
Speaker 1: was somewhat silly, but I think it was important for
Speaker 1: me to feel like I was committing to it. So
Speaker 1: I um incorporated in Delaware and that somehow made it
Speaker 1: seem real. It was La Fleur LLLS and that was
Speaker 1: a surprisingly easy process and I was like, Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: really doing this. And then I rented a tiny office space,
Speaker 1: which I gave up two months later because I realized
Speaker 1: I couldn't afford it. But it was when we work
Speaker 1: only had two buildings at that point, and I rented
Speaker 1: a small five dollar per month space and that actually
Speaker 1: got me out of the house every day, So that
Speaker 1: was a good thing. And that was actually the first
Speaker 1: kind of nearly logistical thing that I did. And then
Speaker 1: I just started talking to anybody who I thought knew
Speaker 1: anything remotely about fashion design. And I really did not
Speaker 1: know anybody in this world of fashion design, and you know,
Speaker 1: just to kind of give you a sense of how
Speaker 1: much I didn't know, you know, the only way I
Speaker 1: could see myself getting connected to someone who worked in
Speaker 1: fashion design was through someone who had gone to school
Speaker 1: with who had gone on to interior design school at
Speaker 1: Risdy And I was like, well, that's that's a little
Speaker 1: bit closer to fashion design. Maybe she'll know someone. And
Speaker 1: then she happened to know one person who went to
Speaker 1: the fashion department and connected me with her, and so
Speaker 1: she was like the first designer that I had actually
Speaker 1: spoken with, and she ultimately was the one who introduced
Speaker 1: me to a head hunter. Um. I knew that I
Speaker 1: wanted a co founder from the get go. I wanted
Speaker 1: someone with actual design expertise who had worked in the
Speaker 1: high end fashion world. That was really really important to
Speaker 1: me because I wanted the clothing that we made at
Speaker 1: MM to really reflect the kind of clothes that you
Speaker 1: would get at a high end fashion brand. And so
Speaker 1: a lot of people said, why don't you just kind
Speaker 1: of why don't you just design it. Why don't you
Speaker 1: just you know, add a sleeve to a a theory
Speaker 1: dress or you know, take a I don't know, Georgio
Speaker 1: Armani suit, but make it for cheaper. And I was like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: you're you're kind of missing the point, Like there's a
Speaker 1: whole gap here in terms of what I'm looking for.
Speaker 1: I'm looking for clothing that is not only beautiful. Of
Speaker 1: course it has to be beautiful, but it has to
Speaker 1: be machine washable and wrinkled resistant and has to be
Speaker 1: super comfortable. And I never want to have to be,
Speaker 1: you know, pulling at the at the scenes to make
Speaker 1: sure things are fitting. Well. I'm really trying to create
Speaker 1: something different. And so ultimately was through this head hunter
Speaker 1: that I met my co founder of Miaco. And she's
Speaker 1: actually also Japanese. I'm half Japanese. And people think that,
Speaker 1: you know, we we met through the japan connection, but
Speaker 1: but we actually met in the meatpacking district, like you know,
Speaker 1: that was we met through a headhunter. So that was
Speaker 1: probably like the next tangible step that I took. How
Speaker 1: did you convince her to take a leap with someone
Speaker 1: who had never been in fashion before? She had had
Speaker 1: this illustrious career, been designing for zac pose in she
Speaker 1: was entrenched in the fashion war. Old was it a
Speaker 1: pitch you had to give her or was she sold
Speaker 1: right away? I think she was curious right away, And
Speaker 1: I think in retrospect, I really see, you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's all about kind of where you are in your life.
Speaker 1: And I think if I had pitched pitched it to
Speaker 1: her any other time, she she very likely would have
Speaker 1: said no. She this was when I initially started talking
Speaker 1: to her. This is twenty eleven, so we were kind
Speaker 1: of coming out of the recession. But she saw a
Speaker 1: lot of her colleagues, um in the fashion world get
Speaker 1: laid off. And she also saw a lot of you know,
Speaker 1: these fashion brands that you respected go under, And I
Speaker 1: think she was really she was going through her existential
Speaker 1: her own existential crisis, saying like why should I be
Speaker 1: in fashion? Like when everything out there has already been designed?
Speaker 1: What is there to make? And I think she also
Speaker 1: sensed the enormous waste that exists in the high and
Speaker 1: fashion world. You spend months and months putting together these
Speaker 1: fashion shows that are you know, over and done in
Speaker 1: five minutes, and most of those clothes that end up
Speaker 1: on the runway are never to be seen again. And
Speaker 1: so when I came to her and said, like, look,
Speaker 1: there's this entire group of working women who think that
Speaker 1: everything out there right now doesn't meet their needs and
Speaker 1: and they want to be comfortable, and it's not like
Speaker 1: they want to be fronty. You know, there's this like
Speaker 1: I think that when people think of American working women,
Speaker 1: you know, immediately it's like, um, working girl like sneakers
Speaker 1: and big shoulder jackets and like the last thing you
Speaker 1: think is fashionable, right, like that that the American women,
Speaker 1: working women like are typically not associated with style. And
Speaker 1: I was like, I think there's a real opportunity to
Speaker 1: change this, and um, are you interested? And she was like, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm curious. And she always says to me, or she
Speaker 1: said to me since then she was like, apparently I
Speaker 1: said something along the lines of like, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know, I really don't know anything in fashion, but
Speaker 1: I'm not stupid, so I'm confident that I will, I
Speaker 1: will figure it out as I go along, and she
Speaker 1: was like, okay, like why not, like why not take
Speaker 1: a chance on you? And so that that is how
Speaker 1: it started. But I think it had to do with
Speaker 1: like where she was in her life and being kind
Speaker 1: of really curious about what was there a different way
Speaker 1: to operate a fashion business? And then how did you
Speaker 1: fund the business? Very haphazardly is how I would say it.
Speaker 1: So I, um, the first thing I had done actually
Speaker 1: talking about one of the first things we did. I
Speaker 1: grew up in Japan's I had a bank account in
Speaker 1: in Japan that I had been putting some money away
Speaker 1: and and I called up my mother and I said,
Speaker 1: I want you to, you know, help me transfer it
Speaker 1: all into this business account. And she was like all
Speaker 1: and I was like yes, all, which I would not
Speaker 1: have the guts to do today. But I was twenty
Speaker 1: seven and you know, I didn't have kids, no mortgage, like,
Speaker 1: no responsibilities. I just had to worry about me. So
Speaker 1: I was like, let's just go all in. And I
Speaker 1: had thirty six tho dollars saved up at that point,
Speaker 1: so it went all in, put that into Loffler LLC.
Speaker 1: And then I asked my parents if they'd be willing
Speaker 1: to lend me the same amount, so um they very
Speaker 1: kindly said yes. So we started with seventy two dollars
Speaker 1: in the bank account, and actually that got me through
Speaker 1: the first year of of hiring Miaco because her rate
Speaker 1: was ten thousand dollars to design a line of seven dresses.
Speaker 1: I paid two thousand dollars to my head hunter because
Speaker 1: he always took a twenty cut, and I always say
Speaker 1: it's the best two thousand dollars I ever spent from
Speaker 1: this business. And then, you know, I think we spent
Speaker 1: like ten thousand dollars to buy the fabric. You know,
Speaker 1: we were going to launch with the line of seven dresses.
Speaker 1: And one of the best piece of advice that I got,
Speaker 1: and I still say this to um entrepreneurs who are
Speaker 1: looking to manufacture things today, is don't hold inventory if
Speaker 1: you can. You know, just just have a sample and
Speaker 1: get orders against your sample, and then go and place
Speaker 1: the order because you never know what's going to sell
Speaker 1: or how much of it is going to sell, especially
Speaker 1: in the early days, and you never want to be
Speaker 1: stuck with that inventory. So what we did was we
Speaker 1: bought the fabric, and we brought seven dresses and we
Speaker 1: started doing these trunk shows and we took orders based
Speaker 1: on that, and then we would place the order at
Speaker 1: one of the factories in the garment district. We had
Speaker 1: to beg to work with us. You know, it's just
Speaker 1: really interesting. I thought like, if you if you were
Speaker 1: willing to pay, anyone would take you on. But you know,
Speaker 1: no factory wants to take you on because they see,
Speaker 1: they see designers come and go, come and go all
Speaker 1: the time, and they need consistent revenue. So I you know,
Speaker 1: I said, I'll pay extra, so please please please take
Speaker 1: white orders. And and and this this Korean gentleman agreed to
Speaker 1: manufactually these dresses for us, and then we would we
Speaker 1: would turn it around usually in two to three weeks
Speaker 1: because we had the fabric. And then we would rent
Speaker 1: a zip car remember those, and then drive around the
Speaker 1: city and it would be me and my co founder,
Speaker 1: my other co founder and a reb She would be
Speaker 1: sitting in the passenger seat and we would drive around
Speaker 1: and she would jump out and you know, drop off
Speaker 1: the dress and then jumped back in the car again.
Speaker 1: And then and then we would you know, finish our
Speaker 1: day of delivery so like that was that was really
Speaker 1: the early days of how we got started. But seventy
Speaker 1: thousand dollars actually got me through that kind of initial
Speaker 1: phase and it was only after that that we began.
Speaker 1: That's not even true the first five years. I think
Speaker 1: I was kind of collecting small checks as we went along.
Speaker 1: I raised maybe four million in the first five years,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't until six So yeah, five years into
Speaker 1: the business that we actually closed our Series A. And
Speaker 1: it took a really long time just to put a
Speaker 1: pin in that because I think, you know, a lot
Speaker 1: of people who don't have experience with entrepreneurship, they read
Speaker 1: the news and they're like, oh, this company started and
Speaker 1: they raised the seed round and then they raised the
Speaker 1: Series A, and then they raised the Series B, and
Speaker 1: people think there are these like discrete periods of time
Speaker 1: between doing that. But for you, it sounds like it
Speaker 1: was different. I know for me it's been different. For Sam,
Speaker 1: it's been different. But like you kind of just were
Speaker 1: always kind of raising as you're growing. I know people
Speaker 1: think I'm not. People will say to me, you're raising again,
Speaker 1: and I'm kind of like, I never really stopped correct
Speaker 1: correct um and it was it was so funny because
Speaker 1: I think, you know, there were so many directed consumer
Speaker 1: brands that are that were cropping up at that time,
Speaker 1: you know, Wrby, Parker, Binovos, Everlane, and they would always
Speaker 1: announce these funding rounds, you know, like so and so
Speaker 1: closes X round, raises x million dollars. And I was like,
Speaker 1: what the hell am I doing wrong? Like because I
Speaker 1: was like I was, I had a quote unquote seed
Speaker 1: round basically going for four years, so it was it
Speaker 1: was incredibly messy. But I think like the piece of
Speaker 1: advice that that I've got and I passed on is like,
Speaker 1: first of all, all cash is green, and there's something
Speaker 1: to be said about a lot of and you say
Speaker 1: it's friends and family, but like it I mean true.
Speaker 1: I think maybe I have like three true friends and
Speaker 1: family on the cap table. Everyone else is like the
Speaker 1: friend of a friend of a friend and a lot
Speaker 1: of that, a lot of that capital is really um.
Speaker 1: In some ways, it's attractive because you know, they're they're
Speaker 1: supporters of you. They're not necessarily saying okay, like I'm
Speaker 1: expecting a twenty x return within a certain time period.
Speaker 1: Like in some ways, it's very flexible capital. So so
Speaker 1: I got ample timed. I think actually like make mistakes
Speaker 1: and also go slowly in a way that I think
Speaker 1: when we got to our Series A, like we were
Speaker 1: really late to raise our Series A and we were
Speaker 1: told that as much, you know that our revenue was
Speaker 1: kind of beyond what would people would typically consider a
Speaker 1: Series A round. But you know, I think as a result,
Speaker 1: I got to maintain more control of the business. I
Speaker 1: think I had better handle what we were doing. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it's I think there's there isn't such a formula. And
Speaker 1: I think this is especially true of female founded businesses.
Speaker 1: If you had to do it over again, would you
Speaker 1: have done the capital raising any differently? It's a really
Speaker 1: great question. I don't And I have to start by saying, like,
Speaker 1: I don't know how I could have done it differently.
Speaker 1: Like I was the first time entrepreneur um, most investors
Speaker 1: didn't want to touch fashion with a ten foot poll um.
Speaker 1: I had a really difficult time convincing vcs that this
Speaker 1: was a business worth backing UM. And it really wasn't
Speaker 1: until like the revenue started to grow and UM the
Speaker 1: trajectory was was obvious that that people were saying, Okay,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm willing to take a chance. So also
Speaker 1: I would say I was I was young, and I
Speaker 1: was happy to live on a I mean happy is
Speaker 1: maybe a strong word, but you know, I was paying
Speaker 1: myself forty eight K a year UM, and then I
Speaker 1: was tutoring on the side, and I did that for
Speaker 1: two years to make ends meet, and I couldn't do that.
Speaker 1: Now I've got three small kids and a mortgage and
Speaker 1: I now, you know, I used to never go to
Speaker 1: the doctor a doctor in my twenties, and now I
Speaker 1: go like seemingly pretty regularly. So like it's just interesting.
Speaker 1: Like now I would say I probably couldn't start a
Speaker 1: business without proper funding. And now a quick break. Another
Speaker 1: question about kind of the early days, as you really
Speaker 1: grew through trunk shows, how did you find the people
Speaker 1: to host the trunk shows? A lot of friends, a
Speaker 1: lot of girlfriends who helped me, and then a lot
Speaker 1: of coworkers. Um. One of them, her name was Lucy
Speaker 1: to Land. She was the CEO at Paperless post Um
Speaker 1: and now she runs a VC. But she was a
Speaker 1: girlfriend from college and I think you know, she also
Speaker 1: ran a startup, so she just knew how important your
Speaker 1: your friends were and your network is in helping initially
Speaker 1: get your business off the ground. Um. So she said,
Speaker 1: you know, come post a trunk show in my house.
Speaker 1: And her husband, I think, was at business school at
Speaker 1: that time, so she invited a bunch of his business
Speaker 1: old friends who remained some of our best customers to
Speaker 1: this day, you know, almost ten years later. Um, we
Speaker 1: did one in Washington, d C. Also hosted by like
Speaker 1: three of my college friends, and yeah, it was very
Speaker 1: much like friends coming out of the world works to
Speaker 1: support me. My very first customer was actually my first
Speaker 1: one of my first bosses at beIN UM, the management
Speaker 1: consulting from I worked at. And also we you know,
Speaker 1: I also talked to a lot of women in their
Speaker 1: twenties were saying, I don't love my job. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to find the thing I'm actually passionate about. And I say,
Speaker 1: I totally understand that. You know, I've been there, but like,
Speaker 1: you know, do the best job that you can in
Speaker 1: the job that you're currently in, because you know that's
Speaker 1: going to lead to something else. And I have I've
Speaker 1: really found that to be true. Um. You know that
Speaker 1: friends and colleagues from previous places have have really come
Speaker 1: to help me start the business. I love that advice
Speaker 1: because I think that work ethic is so pivotal. We
Speaker 1: always remember someone's work ethic. You don't necessarily remember whether
Speaker 1: they were the perfect fit for that job or how
Speaker 1: their career trajectory looked, but you do remember their work ethic.
Speaker 1: It's great advice for young people. You can shine anywhere, yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure. And even if you know, you know, you
Speaker 1: kind of know, like, I'm not this is not really
Speaker 1: my thing. I'm not really like, this is not me
Speaker 1: at my best. But I have found that like just
Speaker 1: the connections that you make and hopefully you meet people
Speaker 1: you genuinely like and admire, regardless of what your job
Speaker 1: you're in, and those relationships have been so important to me,
Speaker 1: just like personally but but also professionally and growing. Um,
Speaker 1: how have your sales evolved? Is that something that still
Speaker 1: keeps you up at night today or does it take
Speaker 1: care of itself at this point right now we are
Speaker 1: probably online are and we've gone through so many phases.
Speaker 1: You know, I would say brick and mortar or just
Speaker 1: meeting our customers in person was always a really really
Speaker 1: important part of our business. And so even though we
Speaker 1: said we were directed consumer, we didn't necessarily mean that
Speaker 1: we were e commerce only. Like our our stores and
Speaker 1: our we call them show rooms. We have one in
Speaker 1: New York City and Brian Park and one in Washington,
Speaker 1: D C. But we had had I think nine you know,
Speaker 1: prior to to COVID, and unfortunately we had to close
Speaker 1: them all during the pandemic. And then we opened Washington
Speaker 1: d C. Up in the fall of which ended up
Speaker 1: being kind of a catastrophe because we're located two blocks
Speaker 1: from the White House and we couldn't even access our
Speaker 1: store for like six weeks around the insurrection. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was it was madness. Um. So um, it's been
Speaker 1: a really really tough couple of years for brick and
Speaker 1: mortar retail. But we did open up our Brian Park
Speaker 1: show room in fall of twenty one, and then um,
Speaker 1: we're looking to open up three more of a zeer,
Speaker 1: so we're we're really leaning back into in person um
Speaker 1: retail stores. E Commerce is kind of the thing that
Speaker 1: kept us going, you know, even through the pandemic. And
Speaker 1: we had this really really hard moment in the early
Speaker 1: days of the pandemic when you know, we really didn't
Speaker 1: understand what COVID was and there was this big decision point.
Speaker 1: We had just closed all of our stores, we had
Speaker 1: furloughed all of our retail employees, and we had to
Speaker 1: make a decision about whether to keep the warehouse open.
Speaker 1: And I knew that if we close the warehouse, our
Speaker 1: sales would go to zero. You know, we literally wouldn't
Speaker 1: be able to ship anything out. We would have to
Speaker 1: furload the entire company. Or we could keep the warehouse
Speaker 1: going and at least bring any eCOM sales um And
Speaker 1: we decided to go with the ladder and tried to
Speaker 1: take as many precautions as we possibly could to keep
Speaker 1: our our warehouse team safe. You know that that those
Speaker 1: were kind of like the real challenges that we were
Speaker 1: going through in the early days of the pandemic. And
Speaker 1: so Sam to your question about like sales do they
Speaker 1: take care of themselves? They never take care of themselves.
Speaker 1: I would love to be in a place where I
Speaker 1: was like, you know what, there's just like recurring revenue
Speaker 1: on a daily basis, But like I, I and the
Speaker 1: rest of my team, you know, we're watching their numbers
Speaker 1: like a hawk. And um, it's just it's fascinating also
Speaker 1: how much what's going on in the world affects your numbers,
Speaker 1: you know, Roe v way that decision came out and frankly,
Speaker 1: the weekend that followed terrible for sales. And you know,
Speaker 1: whenever there's bad news in and the recession is certainly looming,
Speaker 1: and so that's that's kind of a real risk that
Speaker 1: that we're facing. But I also think like that's actually
Speaker 1: one of the fun Maybe too strong a word, but
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, I guess I would call it fun.
Speaker 1: There there's a there's an element of like, okay, you
Speaker 1: always have to react to what's going on, and like retail,
Speaker 1: you can actually be quite nimble. You know, you can
Speaker 1: come up with new tactics, new marketing pushes, new price changes,
Speaker 1: new promotions, like there are actually so many levers at
Speaker 1: your disposal. And I think one of the reasons I
Speaker 1: never get tired of of um, never get tired is
Speaker 1: maybe the right word. I never board, Yeah, never get
Speaker 1: bored of running a retail businesses because it keeps you
Speaker 1: on your toes constantly, constantly, constantly. How did the pandemic
Speaker 1: changes in fashion impact you now that everything has become
Speaker 1: more casual. I mean, we saw it in our own
Speaker 1: dressing behavior in the very beginning you know, we just
Speaker 1: we And then La Flair was very much a company
Speaker 1: that was a dressing women who went to the office,
Speaker 1: who were in places where they were being seen and
Speaker 1: had to look presentable. And I don't necessarily mean just
Speaker 1: like people who were lawyers and bankers. I mean I
Speaker 1: think anyone really like anyone who had a professional job
Speaker 1: who had to dress a certain way. And I mean
Speaker 1: I don't even remember this about myself in the early
Speaker 1: pandemic days, Like I just stopped wearing makeup. I was like,
Speaker 1: who the f cares? Like, I'm just like and you know,
Speaker 1: it was the very early days, and and we saw,
Speaker 1: you know, consumer demand obviously drop, and there was this
Speaker 1: moment where we were like, what is the point of
Speaker 1: MM in this new world? Like does our is our
Speaker 1: business even relevant? And I think for the first two
Speaker 1: to three months I was really unsure. And I think
Speaker 1: actually as the pandemic went on, we started to hear
Speaker 1: from customers. There were a few things that we did
Speaker 1: kind of just at the get go. We we had
Speaker 1: these like perfect travel pants. We called them the Colby
Speaker 1: Origami suiting pants. But actually I kept on wearing them
Speaker 1: in the early days of the pandemic. Because they had
Speaker 1: this elastic waste band and they it was like made
Speaker 1: from this like super comfortable fabric, and so I was like,
Speaker 1: you know what if we named these the Colby Joggers
Speaker 1: instead of this origami shooting pants, and sales grew by
Speaker 1: eight x just based on that name change, you know,
Speaker 1: and and just positioning things differently. Yeah, So that was
Speaker 1: really wild, and we just started making small, small tweaks
Speaker 1: like that, because I think we were always proud of
Speaker 1: the fact that our clothes were meant to be comfortable,
Speaker 1: Like even even if they were meant, you know, to
Speaker 1: be clothes that you were going to be seen, and
Speaker 1: they were always meant to be comfortable. So I think
Speaker 1: a lot of it was like could we just reframe
Speaker 1: them in a different way? And customers reacted really really
Speaker 1: well to that, and I think as time went on,
Speaker 1: we said like, Okay, what is actually the new way
Speaker 1: that women are going to be dressing? Because you know,
Speaker 1: I think to your to my earlier point of like,
Speaker 1: you know, what is the point of mm A lot
Speaker 1: of the angst that I think women and people in
Speaker 1: general feel about getting dressed. It's not as though that
Speaker 1: that disappeared with COVID you know. In fact, I think
Speaker 1: what we're hearing a lot now is like I have
Speaker 1: now gone hybrid, and I don't know what tressing for
Speaker 1: a hybrid work environment looks like. Or I have a
Speaker 1: lifestyle now where I'm in the office, I'm working from
Speaker 1: home in the morning, but then I go into the
Speaker 1: office in the afternoon and everyone's saying that we can
Speaker 1: dress a little more casually, but I don't actually know
Speaker 1: what that means. And so We're getting a lot of questions.
Speaker 1: And I think MM was always created to solve this problem.
Speaker 1: And I would say, like a lot of it is angst.
Speaker 1: You know, we talk about women on average spending two
Speaker 1: more weeks per year versus men getting ready in the morning,
Speaker 1: which is crazy, right, It's like what would you do
Speaker 1: with that two weeks? But it's not as though like
Speaker 1: suddenly that two weeks was given back to all women
Speaker 1: because of COVID. Like I think, actually, if anything, women
Speaker 1: are just as dressed. Um. You know, I'm speaking also
Speaker 1: for myself, but like a lot of women put on
Speaker 1: weight during the pandemic, and so like like how do
Speaker 1: I dress? You know, do I buy new clothes or
Speaker 1: do I buy things that kind of like conflex with
Speaker 1: your size, and so you know, as a business, the
Speaker 1: direction we've been leaning into, we're calling it power casual,
Speaker 1: and that's really a lot of customers who were dressing
Speaker 1: business casual. We're saying, actually the new look is power casual.
Speaker 1: So you know, if you've got business formal being kind
Speaker 1: of the most formal way of dressing and suiting, and
Speaker 1: then you've got business casual a little more, you know,
Speaker 1: dressed down, and then you've got like casual all the
Speaker 1: way at the bottom. Then power casual is this like
Speaker 1: new things somewhere in between business casual and creative casual
Speaker 1: where you want to show that like you're looking, you're
Speaker 1: looking ready to get down to business. Your your there
Speaker 1: and you're presentable. But it's it's flexible. It's clothes that
Speaker 1: you could also be going out to um drinks with
Speaker 1: your friends in or picking up your kids from school in.
Speaker 1: Like it doesn't look like, oh, she was at the
Speaker 1: office and she just like walked over here. So that's
Speaker 1: the look that we are pushing forward and really talking
Speaker 1: to our customers about and it's really allowed our business
Speaker 1: to rebound and grow again. And you know what I'm
Speaker 1: focused on for twenty two and beyond and now a
Speaker 1: quick break. What was there ever a time where you
Speaker 1: thought the business might fail multiple times? Yeah? How did
Speaker 1: you find inspiration or whatever you needed to push through
Speaker 1: those moments? They're scary. It honestly just felt like one
Speaker 1: it's a cliche of one foot in front of the other.
Speaker 1: But like I think if I knew if someone had
Speaker 1: like like tapped my shoulder and on in like March
Speaker 1: twenty and it said like, hey, you know, I know
Speaker 1: everyone's saying like this is going to be like a
Speaker 1: two week thing or maybe a three month thing, but actually,
Speaker 1: like you're not going to even get close to normal
Speaker 1: for another two and a half years. Good luck. I
Speaker 1: think I would have just been like, well, that's it,
Speaker 1: Like I don't have it in me, Like I call
Speaker 1: it it quits. But like, you know, this is about
Speaker 1: like I think, the human spirit being incredibly resilient, and
Speaker 1: when you're actually just like in it day to day,
Speaker 1: you're like, well, I just have to keep going like
Speaker 1: there is no other option, and so we so we did,
Speaker 1: and my I have to say, like I have a
Speaker 1: really I have a team that I love. A lot
Speaker 1: of them have been with me for a really really
Speaker 1: long time. Now, you know we're talking five plus years. Um,
Speaker 1: I think the majority of our team has been with
Speaker 1: us for five plus years, and so yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I felt like I owed it to them to really
Speaker 1: see it through because they were willing to stick it through,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, it's it was such a hot
Speaker 1: job market still is. They could have they could have
Speaker 1: gotten a job in so many other places, but I
Speaker 1: felt like they kept showing up, and so I had
Speaker 1: to too. You talked about how clubby the garment center
Speaker 1: manufacturing world can be, but fashion is just as clubby.
Speaker 1: Has the fashion industry accepted you. I think they honestly
Speaker 1: don't know what to do with us, and who's I have?
Speaker 1: I think I we have been very lucky to receive
Speaker 1: a couple of awards by fashion groups, but whenever we
Speaker 1: went to um the kind of award ceremony, they would
Speaker 1: be like who are you, Like we've never heard of
Speaker 1: you know, where do you sell through? And we're like,
Speaker 1: just correct and they're like what's you know? Like you're
Speaker 1: not like what departments are you with or like you
Speaker 1: know where do you advertise? Like again, like I'm actually
Speaker 1: specifically remembering this one award that we got where we
Speaker 1: were sitting at a table with like a bunch of publishers,
Speaker 1: because that's you know, it's basically the old school network
Speaker 1: is like publishers, department stores, and fashion brands. It's like
Speaker 1: that's the that's the world that you operated and if anything. Actually,
Speaker 1: I remember when I first when we were first launching,
Speaker 1: I met I got to meet with an editor um
Speaker 1: who had been I can't even remember, but she was
Speaker 1: at you know, I can't Harper's Revover, one of those
Speaker 1: very well established fashion magazines, and she looked at my
Speaker 1: dress and she was like, but that's so boring, Like
Speaker 1: what would I what would I have to say about
Speaker 1: that dress? And I was I was really hurt by
Speaker 1: that comment. But I you know, I think in retrospect,
Speaker 1: I understand she was. You know, for with magazines, it's
Speaker 1: like they want things that are flash, flashy and I catchy, catching,
Speaker 1: and and something being practical. You know, something is like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's a sheath dress that's machine washable and wrinkle resistance,
Speaker 1: has pockets, just like nah, it's like so not sexy, right, Like,
Speaker 1: so I felt like I got written off by the
Speaker 1: fashion world where I had you know, I was like, well,
Speaker 1: they're not gonna they're not gonna want anything to do
Speaker 1: with us, and we're gonna have to just like pave
Speaker 1: our own way. And I think to some extent that
Speaker 1: is that is um, that's been a fine strategy for us.
Speaker 1: I do have this job, this this dream though, and
Speaker 1: because now apparently it's all about us manifesting it, I'm
Speaker 1: just going to put it out there, which is I
Speaker 1: really do want. I want Miako to win a c
Speaker 1: f d A one day, and she is someone who
Speaker 1: is so deserving of that. You know, she is such
Speaker 1: an amazing uh lee talented designer and actually so also intelligent.
Speaker 1: She's not just artistic, you know, she's really thinking about, Okay,
Speaker 1: what are her problems and how am I going to
Speaker 1: try to solve them? And so I'm just gonna say this.
Speaker 1: You know, Anna Wintour, if you're listening, I want you
Speaker 1: to take a look at Miako Nakamura. Stay tuned for
Speaker 1: part two of our two part series with sarah La Floor.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we have a guest that just warrants two episodes.
Speaker 1: We'll be talking about her infertility issues, her wildly unexpected
Speaker 1: childbirth outcome, her parenting journey, and we also give Sarah
Speaker 1: some parenting advice on how to manage the three kid
Speaker 1: or in Amy's case, four kid juggle. Thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to What's Her Story with Sam and Amy. We would
Speaker 1: appreciate it if you leave her review wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts, and of course, connect with us on social
Speaker 1: media at What's Her Story podcast. What's Her Story with
Speaker 1: Sam and Amy is powered by my company, The Riveter
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Speaker 1: our producer Stacy Parra and our male perspective Blue Burns