Solo - My Career!

0:00The following podcast is a Dear Media production.

0:14Hello. This podcast is once again getting torn in really late. And I'll tell you that's because I had one of my best friends on last week and she's never been on a podcast and is a very quiet person in terms of, you know, social media engagement and whatnot. That's not her thing. And had never, you know, we like talked about doing a podcast together for a multitude of reasons because she's like a life coach. And so I was kind of like, why don't we basically do a session? And we did and it was really good. But then both of us were kind of like, oh, we talked so much. And we were like, maybe there are other things that we wish we would have spoken about.

1:03And I've had many instances where I've had people come on the podcast and we've had such a great pod session. And then they'll call me the next day and be like, way too scared. I can't be that vulnerable. I shared too much. I got too comfortable. I don't want anybody to know about this. I like being private. What if one of my investors hears that I said this and they get mad? I mean, we all live in like this very paranoid world where we're like, a lot of us are overthinking all the time. And I unfortunately and fortunately have been over expressing and overly vulnerable on the internet since I had a blog in 2018.

1:43sorry, woohoo, 2005. So I lead with that and I love connecting with people. And I mean, I talk to people all day long. Like I was at the beach yesterday. Within two seconds of meeting this woman standing next to me, I found out that she has a daughter who also is neurodivergent and came out as transgender last year. And we talked about that experience and how proud she is of her new daughter and blah, blah, blah, blah. And like, you know, Davide like walked up and she and I were like, like had tears coming down our face. And he's like, what is happening? Like, I'm like, oh, this is Barbara. I just met her.

2:26Like she was saying, oh, cute Carla. You know, I'm a very chatty person and I lead with vulnerability. And that for some reason makes me feel more safe, even though it's created a pretty intense parasocial relationship where it makes people really not like me when they don't like me because they feel like they know me so well. So that's me. But if you're like a normal person who's not used to being so exposed, I would understand how you would think a million times about everything that you said being received in the way in which you intended it to be received. And so she's going to come over tomorrow.

3:08And we are going to record another one in the comfort of my home, which she has been hanging out in since she was 14. Feels really safe here. And I think like the studio was also something that it's like, so out of respect for her, I didn't want to release that podcast unless she was 100 % happy with it. So now you're giving a last minute solo, which I always love to do, but it's probably going to come out late. And it's horrible of me. but it is what it is. And I'm sorry. And if you guys are like, why is this a day late? That is why. Shorter podcasts where I talk about one topic extensively. And you guys asked a lot of really beautiful questions, like bridal advice, how to open up a retail store, what I envision for my interiors, three generations under one roof.

4:04But I do think that I want to talk about my career because I love hearing about other people's and I feel like many of you are like me. I'm still trying to figure it out and it always feels better to hear from somebody else. So I, after high school, went to Parsons Design School in New York City. Actually, I went to Eugene Lang because I thought I wanted to be a journalist. And I really wanted to go to USC. And I didn't get in. No shocker. It was especially like that year, 2005. Like it was once it still is, but that's when it started getting like insanely competitive. and the college application process for me was such a clusterfuck because I knew some schools would value me greatly for all my extracurriculars, but I knew that some schools wouldn't even want to look at me because I had a very average grade point average.

5:07It's like a three, five or something. And so even less, it was not like an academic gal. It was funny. You could tell which topics I did well in because it would be like A, And then it would be just like solid C's everywhere else. And I really learned in high school that I had the wherewithal in high school to know that my value wasn't defined by my grades. even though I went to a college preparatory private school that really, you know, loved getting their girls into college and talking about the, remember we get like the year before me, like one girl got into an Ivy league and everyone was made such a big deal out of it.

5:52But like, I was like, I'm going to end up wherever I always had faith. I was going to end up wherever I needed to be. My dad was really hard on my older siblings, but by the time I was in school, they didn't ask me ever like if I did my homework or study with me. And that's like literally one of the biggest topics I have in therapy right now is like this insecurity about academia and my like fears for my children about how do I instill something in them that's just not a part of me. David, I barely graduated high school. So in college was never even considered for him. And my parents were very like, you're going to end up where you're going to end up.

6:34And I felt really insecure in school. I didn't really develop a system. It's like, I'm exact, like me turning in, me almost 40 turning in a podcast like the day before is very Pia in high school. That's exactly, I've just, because I've learned to be last minute and I've learned to be really crafty and I've learned to think on my toes and I've learned to turn things over really quickly and talk my way in and out of things. I've learned that way more than I learned how to sit down and actually, like, I don't know how to study. I never did that. My dad really rode my brothers about that. And then my one brother who's a naval captain was very like self-motivated and would stay up all night studying and went to a really good all-boys school called Loyola.

7:23But like that was very self-motivated from him where I, I just like, I, listen, if this is something to complain about, how lucky am I? But I definitely wish that my parents would have been even just like minorly interested in like what I was doing in school and encouraged me and put some boundaries around that. So I'm very lucky that I got into the schools that I did, but I knew in hindsight in that moment, like I'm clearly not going to go to a school that is mainly focused on academia because that's not what I'm interested in or care. I was always very creative. I did. I was like, I would say I was like the kid in Rushmore.

8:06I did every curricular activity, you know, ASB student activities director and did the morning news and worked for the paper and worked in theater and did all those kinds of things. So going to Eugene Lang and Parsons go and going into the new school was the perfect place for me. I think almost on a daily basis about how much I wish I could go back to Parsons. I haven't finished, but I wish, well, cause that also the, this is very Pia. I did all the creative classes and the classes that I have left are like macro and micro economics. And I think like algebra, which I'm just, I have no, I'm not passing those and I'm not wasting money on it.

8:49And you know, when you're going to an art school, it becomes pretty clear that building up your portfolio is the most important thing. So I unexpectedly moved to New York. I knew I could have ended up anywhere. Like I said, I applied to like 22 schools because also at that time there was the general application. So I just sent it off to many schools.

9:12Baroncini:I got into Fordham, And I got into the new school. What was the other school? There was another like really cool smaller school I got into in New Orleans that gave me a scholarship, which was awesome. And I didn't, I majorly considered it, which is really tragic to think back on because that was the year that Katrina happened. I would have been there for that. But I remember like just being like, oh my God, okay. I got in and I'm moving to New York. And because that had not been like a long-term goal of mine, I had to like digest that I was moving to New York and there's not many dorms at the new school.

9:56And so it's kind of like majorly first come first serve. And me and another girl that I got introduced to through my friend, neither one of us could find dorms. So we had to get an apartment. So she grew up in Santa Monica. We got introduced to each other and we got an apartment on the Lower East Side, which was Essex between Grand and Hester. And a new building. And I remember so clearly like my mom dropping me off and just like crying hysterically. because especially at that time, like now Delancey is packed with huge, there's like a mall in a movie theater, like on Delancey, like none of that was there at all.

10:40And it was definitely, I could not imagine now being like Carmela's mom and just being like, okay, you live here now. I don't, I mean, I just, and I'll tell you, I did a lot of things that were probably very normal for a college kid and very normal for a kid who had like no real like, there's not like much of like a college experience because there isn't like a very like large campus. Your campus is New York. And I took multiple different classes and it was just like kind of a mess. Like I loved school. I actually found a paper that I wrote I've said, you know, we rebrand our, our memory so much.

11:24So in my head, I have, I have me labeled as like such like a bad student, but I actually found like two of my projects and a paper that I had saved where my professor wrote on, like gave me an A and like, he was like, you should put this in your portfolio. This is really good work. And by the way, this is like way before, I mean, now I don't know how you would even not, I mean, I could write a paper in four seconds with Chad GPT. This was just me and my brain and a book.

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14:00I am bringing you candid conversations that will equip you with everything you need to live your best life and look good doing it. Think of Well as your go-to resource for all of the latest in wellness and me as your internet bestie. New episodes drop every Wednesday. Hope to see you there.

14:28I remember, God, what year was that? I think I was like in my third year of being there that my mom called me and said that my parents' financial advisor, who was a very close family friend of ours, who was always at Sunday dinner at our house, had stolen all of their money that he said he was investing. And he was like building a mansion in Napa with his girlfriend. And because he had spent all the money when he finally was arrested and went to court, there was no money to like pay anybody back. And it was a big controversy because this was a well-known, dude, he, thank God he wasn't doing my parents' taxes.

15:16He was doing the taxes of another family member of mine and like hadn't paid her taxes in like 10 years. And she's, it was, it was really, really bad. And so I remember just thinking to myself like, Like, okay, my parents obviously took out a loan. I'm still paying off my college. My parents took out a loan to pay for me to go to school. And now they have no money. And they'd already like refinanced. Like, I was just like, I need to get to work. And so I remember the conversation so clearly. This is how I got like my first freelance job. I was living on 7th Street and a big photographer lived across the street from me.

15:56and at the time everything was still in catalogs so like the urban outfitters catalog the anthropology catalog the free people catalog it was a really big deal and it was they were huge jobs and like really cool photographers like ryan mcginley were like getting those jobs and they were you know everybody that's like if you were a photographer you were doing editorial and then you were doing those types of campaigns. And I remember this photographer friend of mine was like, I used to get those jobs all the time and I haven't gotten them in forever. And like, I wonder why, you know, I really want one of those big money jobs again.

16:36And at the time people had blogs. And so her blog was all this personal work. And she used to shoot these really fucking beautiful metal, heavy metal kids in Rhode Island that were so fucking cool. And she would go to these shows and she would shoot them and they were stunning kids and they had long hair and that would paint their faces and they were fucking sick. And they were like all her muses at the time. And I remember saying like, your work is really beautiful, but if I'm anthropology, I don't think I'm not necessarily going to you to shoot like a woman running through a field and a dress if like, this is what your work looks like.

17:07And so I offered to produce a photo shoot for her so she could put some work on her site that was more feminine. And so I like asked a bunch of favors and got a bunch of like very cool girls together and a stylist and, you know, networked to get some brands involved and yada, yada, yada. And we put together this like really cool shoot. And I remember thinking like, I love doing that. I loved organizing that. I loved coordinating with everybody. I loved being, I loved how busy it was. I loved being inspired. I it was just like it kind of clicked and I was like, okay, like I could do that and she was really happy with it and At the time I was just like man like here I go and I was a waitress And so I stayed kind of like doing both of those things and I remember going to my college counselor and saying like you know, i'm starting to get like some freelance work and I'm worried about finances and she said listen if you're getting jobs that are building up your for your portfolios Just keep doing that.

18:12You can always come back. We'll put it on hold for a year. And I didn't go back. Actually, one of my professors, Jessica Glasscock, she's really cool. I really want to have her on the podcast because, you know, I think in my head, I reference a lot of the things that I was taught at school, you know, going to design school and learning the fundamentals of design in itself and how every single object we interact with all day long is a designed object and having to learn about fonts and kerning and serifs and designing fonts and taking those Photoshop classes. I took a class, Jessica Glasscock taught a class called the death of cool, where we would have to, you know, pick an item that was the Genesis was something that had nothing to do with the commercialization of the item.

19:04So like how the leather jacket, you know it's called a bomber jacket because it was pilots and then it became like a biker jacket because guys would come back from war and they would all wear their pilot jackets on their like motorcycle they would form like little crews together so they could have the camaraderie of all being at war together but then people started making leather jackets and it was like we talked about that with denim we talked about with lots of categories and it was just absolutely fucking fascinating and so I think about that all the time when I think about like how I interact with my cup or how I interact with a mirror that's in front of me or when I pick up my phone or when I think of the way that streets are laid out and lights like in public art and how important free art is in parks and cities.

19:50It's just like so cool. And it's classes I wish I could go back to. So I started working and had a great time just kind of ripping around. I would I would do photo shoots when I could. There was a magazine called Oyster Magazine that was really cool. And I would do some jobs for them. And then I started working for a director named Diane Martell, who was a really big music video director. She did like all of Wu-Tang, all of Mariah Carey, Beyonce, like everything. And she still works for lots of people. But when Miley Cyrus was being like wild Miley. She did all of that. She did that tour and she did all those videos.

20:32So I started casting for her and I, she taught me how to street cast. Basically. I went out with one of her friends who'd been, who was a photographer who'd been casting for her for like 10 years. And she taught me how to like cast kids off of the street. So I would either go to like Broadway. One time I went to Orchard Beach in the Bronx, which was amazing. And I casted a Beyonce video with kids from up there, which was so fucking sick. Orchard Beach in the Bronx is so fucking wild and so cool. And I'd go up to these beautiful girls and I'd be like, hi, I'm casting for a Beyonce video. And their moms would be like, I told you, I told you you were beautiful.

21:12And I'd be like, she is beautiful. And she'd be like, I knew you were going to be famous. And I was like, let's try to make her famous. It was something where my big personality was really came in very handy and like dealing with people. I did my Cyrus. That was my Cyrus video. Then I did a Harley Davidson campaign with her. I did like lots of stuff and I was kind of like freelancing all over the place. And then I got a job working at People's Revolution for Kelly Catrone, which was a job that I really wanted for a long time. And I ended up being out in LA visiting my family and she was looking for interns to do a red carpet event.

21:50Oh my God, what event was this? I think it wasn't a magazine. It was like the teen, it wasn't the teen choice. There was some event that was happening that does not happen anymore. And it was at the Roosevelt Hotel. And I had never done this before, but someone from Kelly's team said, you need to work the red carpet you need to keep it organized you need to make sure that you're announcing who the famous person is make sure that they're okay that their team's okay and kind of like walk them back and forth and get and make sure that it's seamless and smooth and kelly watched me do that whole thing and she's like have you done this before i said no and she was like well i want you to work for me you did a really good job doing that she's like are you a scorpio and i say she's like i'm a scorpio like we need okay come back to new work and come work.

22:38And at the time, like she couldn't pay me enough to pay for an apartment in the city. I mean, I'm sure I could have gotten something like very far outside of the city, but she offered for me to live in the back of the showroom. So she owned three floors in a building in Soho and one floor was offices, one floor was her apartment and one floor was the showroom. So when we would have, you know, we represented a lot of different designers, like Subi was one of our clients. And so we would set up everything in the showroom and walk people through the appointments and get their collections and learn from the designers what the top pieces are of the collection and what inspired them.

23:16And then they'd come through and then we, I'd have to like memorize everybody, like all the editor at the time, like there was no influencers. It was all editors and socialites and famous people and like models. So what's funny now is like, there are some people there's so many interactions that I have had with people who are so famous now that were so wild and I would never talk about it because I'm not a fucking snitch bitch but like they're just the only one that I will say openly is a woman who is so fucking mean was Blake Lively I was shocked at how rude she was in a meeting that I had with her like 15 years ago like like our whole team this wasn't with People's Revolution was another company was horrified, horrified, left with such bad taste in our mouths.

24:02Couldn't believe it was like so disappointed in how rude she was. But that's, that's, that's the extent of the shit talking I'll do. Because I also think sometimes people have like bad days, but I think there's like a lot of people that you see on the internet that are now very famous. And you think they just like ended up in these places by accident. It just like happened. But like, there are so many people like that worked there that fought tooth and fucking nail to make sure that they were at every event happening in New York City and made friends with every party photographer and like made sure that they were getting photographed and are now have like multi-million dollar companies and are talented and deserve it.

24:39But like that aspect of it is something that, you know, projected them very forward, you know, being at these things and being photographed and looking beautiful and all of that, like, you know, that's not something that needs to happen in order for you to be famous anymore or successful because we have the internet and create our own worlds. But at the time it was like managing the door. Oh my God. I had to do the door for so many events for fashion week. Oh my God. And we would stay up, Stephanie Skrner and I, we would stay up all night in my apartment doing seating for shows and like not sleep and then go to the show in the morning.

25:21We would just smoke in the office. It was fucking crazy. I didn't even have a kitchen. I ate at Lucky Strike every day, but it was so fun. And I fucked up a lot there, a lot. I made really, really huge mistakes, but they were good mistakes. I remember one time we had our first desk side at Vogue. And a desk side is when you have a meeting with an editor at Vogue. And you're supposed to like, you know, desk side, like you're going to their desk, but you never get brought into the actual office? Did they like meet you in like a little lobby on the Condé floor? It says Vogue, but they come outside of the glass doors and you bring your rack.

25:57And I'll never forget Robin Berkley was so clear with me, but I just didn't know. And like, maybe wasn't paying attention, but I also, I knew nothing about PR. So she was like, you need to bring the key products from the collection. I think it was Camilla and Mark at the time. And so, you know, I looked up what they sent over from their internal team that said, okay, the key pieces of the season are at least like five key pieces. And I think I brought like five pieces, but she meant like bring the strongest items in the collection, like plus the key pieces. Don't just only, you know, if the collection has like 35 fucking pieces in it, you don't just bring five pieces to Vogue.

26:33And so she was not, she was having a meeting on her phone and she was like, are you good? And I was like, yeah. So I packed up the rack and I packed up the garment bags. And I remember like, I was like, couldn't, I did not have anything to wear. and one of like the cute gays in the office, like put together an outfit for me. And I was like, couldn't fit. And, you know, I definitely wasn't the size to fit anything in the showroom. So we like finagled a dress to go on me with like the zipper unbuttoned or unzipped. And then I wore a jacket on top and I was like so nervous to go to Vogue. And like one of my best friends from childhood worked there at the time and like, was like, okay, like come inside and you can meet everybody.

27:05And I just felt like so trashy compared to her, even though we've been friends since eighth grade. Like, I was just like, oh my God. And it was my birthday. And we're getting out of the cab in front of Condé Nast and Robin's still on the phone. And I opened the trunk of the cab and I grabbed one garment bag and she looked at me and said, where's the other bag? And I said, what do you mean? And she was on the phone and she said, hold on, I got to go and hung up. She goes, where do you mean? What do you mean? Where's the other bag? I said, what do you mean there was the other bag? I got one bag.