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fashion

Rebecca Minkoff: Be Fearless & Follow Your Passion

Welcome to Episode 100! We’re ending Season 4 of When Women Win with a fearless bang – talking with world-renowned & industry-leading fashion designer, Rebecca Minkoff. Her massively popular line of handbags, accessories, and footwear are distributed in over 900 stores worldwide as well as her website.

Rebecca started creating her own clothes at just 8 years old. The moment that propelled her talent into the spotlight occurred when she was 21, days after 9/11… A famous actress wore Rebecca’s handmade ‘I Love NY’ tee on the Jay Leno Show, and the name drop changed her entire life. Suddenly there was immense demand for her debut five-piece capsule collection. But what looked like an overnight success to most, was really years of passion, grit, and fearlessness.

On This Episode of When Women Win:

Rebecca and I talked about designing your life according to your passions. We discussed the roles that self-awareness and courage played in her success, and the impact the pandemic has had on her company. Rebecca shared the inspiration behind her new book, Fearless: The New Rules for Unlocking Creativity, Courage and Success. I love the structure of the book: 21 rules we should all break if we want to achieve success. We got into 7 of them, so you have another 14 to discover in the book!

Notable Quotes:
  • “Never not use your womanhood to your advantage.”
  • “You may have to separate that what makes you happy doesn’t make you money.”
Book Recommendations:

Rebecca’s book Fearless: The New Rules for Unlocking Creativity, Courage, and Success drops on June 15th, and if you pre-order it now at readfearless.com, you’ll receive 7 bonus goodies! If you buy it elsewhere, email a copy of your receipt to Fearless@RebeccaMinkoff.com , she’ll still send you the goodies!

Talking Points in This Episode:
  • Pursuing your passion with or without permission
  • Dealing with instant success
  • Adapting a retail business during a pandemic
  • Trusting your gut
  • The myth of balance

You can learn more about Rebecca by checking out rebeccaminkoff.com.

Please get in touch with me at When Women Win and let me know what you think of this episode or the show in general. You can reach me via LinkedIn or the web contact form. Thank you!

 

 

Dima Ayad: the Business of Inclusive Fashion


Dima Ayad began her career in hospitality, developing restaurant and entertainment concepts for leading hotel chains like Kerzner, Raffles and Jumeirah. During her 15 year tenure, she launched restaurants like Gordon Ramsay’s Bread Street Kitchen, and award-winning music festivals like Sandance.

Whilst still working full-time in hospitality, a difficult personal experience led Dima to address a problem that she had struggled with for years: her clothing size (12/14 US) just wasn’t available. She began making her own evening gowns, and eventually created her eponymous label (Dima Ayad) for women of all shapes and sizes. A few years in, the brand took off and Dima left hospitality to devote herself entirely to her mission: to make luxury fashion accessible to women of all sizes.

We talked about how she was essentially forced to address the market gap, and how she has scaled her business – failures, challenges, and tips for success. We discussed what “plus size” and “luxury fashion” actually mean, why clothes are not available in sizes that would fit more than half the population and how the global idea of beauty has morphed over time from Marilyn Monroe to Kate Moss. We also touched on sustainability in fashion and how wasteful it is as an industry. Maybe the biggest lesson I took away is the massive impact that clothes can have on your mood and your day, how clothes can be empowering or the opposite. Dima gave a fantastically relatable example – I hope you’ll listen to it.

My favorite quote was “There’s something so beautiful about being yourself”. And Dima’s book recommendation was Mitch Albom’s Tuesdays with Morrie.

You can find Dima at her website or on Instagram.

Please do get in touch with the team at When Women Win and let us know what you think of this episode or the show in general. You can reach us via InstagramTwitter, LinkedIn. Thank you!