Corpcore

29:10Living in Los Angeles, I feel a little bit skewed because, of course, I wear jeans every single day. But I'm curious how you thought about it and how you've been working it into the main concept. Yeah. So I'll say Amy Williams, the CEO of Citizens of Humanity, is one of my favorite people in the industry. It has been a mentor of mine and we have a great relationship. When I started Argent, part of my perspective was that the modernization of the of workwear just opened up this. It's it it created an opportunity for women to misstep in terms of wardrobing in tech. And so we didn't really have models of like how to dress.

30:00you had Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Elizabeth Holmes, Sheryl Sandberg, also not right, but it was very confusing. And so we started wearing jeans, but then we were emulating what men were wearing. So I saw a lot of women wear like hoodies and jeans. Jeans were accepted, but it was very confusing. And so I think women were showing up day after day feeling not like their best selves just trying because they weren't dressing the part. But I knew that I wanted like I would wear jeans with a blazer. I think that's like a really straightforward, very easy uniform. But I knew that I wanted denim in our assortment eventually.

30:35And I knew that I didn't want to produce it myself. And so COVID, as you can imagine, was not the best of times for our brand. And during COVID, we were sort of ideating like, what does post COVID look like? And I was very bullish on this opportunity. I knew this consumer would come back and come back in a big way. And that has been very true. And so Amy and I connected and I told her that I really wanted denim, but I didn't want to source denim. I wanted custom denim for our consumer. And so we started with an A. Goldie line that we designed together, A. Goldie for Argent, which is also part of the Citizens of Humanity umbrella.

31:13That was so successful that fast forward a couple of years later, Amy reached out with the idea of partnering in a larger way with Citizens of humanity because she was seeing the women that we were dressing and she was really liking, I think, you know, our positioning. And we launched earlier this year in the spring, we launched our first capsule. It blew out. So we launched our second capsule this fall. And it's just this ongoing relationship that we have that makes all the sense in the world for a million different reasons, in my opinion. It's how this woman's dressing. If she goes to Neiman's or Nordstrom or wherever, she's grabbing an Argent blazer and a citizen's jean.

31:49So why not make it even easier for her. That's really what we're both trying to do. You know, she is just so smart. And I think the, the smartest thing about this is like the fit of both companies is so good. And the A Goldie, all that's citizens, the fit is the best fit of, of new denim that you can get really. And you just see it that it's sort of becomes the fallback. Like you have to go to them because they do the best job. And that's something that in that market in particular, that's so crowded where your market is less crowded, especially for the high quality and that it's interesting. But going back to COVID, kind of a two-pronged question.

32:34A, how did you do it? And B, I think we're only, my new thing, I've been saying this to people the last three weeks, is that we're only in post-COVID now. Oh, sad. Yeah, I think you're right. I think that's right. But talk to that talk about well, I just think we thought we were post COVID and every like life changed. But now it's really going back to normal. Like I think I felt it personally in my life of decisions that I've been making about how to live my life that I'm like, oh, now it's back because I thought that I had like changed my life. And I was like to had this whole new life. And the reality is like that was still in COVID.

33:16and that wasn't my real life. Now my real life is here. And I think this like back to work thing is really, everybody's going back four days. So a lot of people five now, even in New York. And LA is different because it's, I don't know if they'll ever do that because of the writer's room culture. But there really is back to work now. But I'm, so I'm sure, which is great for you, but I'm curious, like what was COVID like? And like, how did the brand evolve to this point where people are, they don't need as many clothes as they used to, but they do need clothes again. Like real clothes. Oh my God.

33:59So many directions. I want to take this. 2020, let's see, March 2020. I was eight and a half months pregnant. The business was coming off like our best months. We were getting ready to raise our series A. I mean, and that was a good time in consumer. I'm sure you remember. Everyone was crushing, like thriving. yes in in a really false way where i was like people do not hire a bunch of people like this is all i could think about they're all like we're hiring 40 new people i'm like you're insane this is gonna go away in two years you all know it but this is the weird thing about this industry is that like no one thinks ahead they think okay two quarters there's a lot to unpack about the fashion industry in general which we haven't touched which i have enjoyed coming in as a business person in fashion because like a lot of antiquated poor practices but um but 2020 so my husband's ahead of marketing at argent i remember sitting in the office eight and a half months pregnant and like early signs of covid and the world's about to shut down and we were aggressive i remember going on these long walks trying to figure out like do we get out of our leases?

35:08Do we furlough the team? Do we react aggressively? Because the writing's on the wall for us. And this is at a time where every brand was putting up signs like, we'll be back in two weeks. Instead of doing that, I am probably more strategic, but I negotiated out of our leases and was allowed out of our leases and went as lean as I possibly could and I stopped production. And so I was able to preserve our cash. And I got deals that I wouldn't have gotten had I waited at all. Because once landlords realized the implications of COVID, they were not allowing people to break leases. We were just aggressive.

35:46And I think that was partially a result of my personal situation to second kid coming May 2020. And so that was what we did. And then we packed up and we moved home and we lived with my parents during COVID. And we launched a campaign in partnership with Supermajority, which is a nonprofit organization centered on the power of women as a voting block. And we made this hot pink suit. And then one day we made our year and we were able to survive because that campaign went viral. I don't know if you remember it, but it was just like lightning in a bottle. We had celebrities and business leaders and athletes all posting in our hot pink.

36:29and it was at a time where everyone was living on their phone and we were also disconnected and that was the only way we had to like connect with one another and it was like Instagram candy the suit and um and that I think gave our team the energy to keep going and then fast forward to 2021 we just started seeing industries and cities start to return we moved in New York it's like what the quote tail end of COVID and just started rebuilding and we've been trying to catch up to demand ever since. So when you talk about how we're just coming out of COVID, my version of that is for the first time, I feel like we've gotten our arms around the business.

37:06And it's taken that long for us to catch up. We've had so much residual like impact and just trying to scale to meet the demand because coming out of COVID, everyone in fashion told me that suiting was dead forever. And I'll tell you what's not dead forever is suiting. It's been trending since we came back. It's projected to continue trending. Women are wearing it on the red carpet and they're wearing it into casual workplaces with a sneaker and they're wearing it every which way. And we've just been, I think because we had the luxury of going lean and stepping back and spending time on it, and we really should have shuttered the business probably, but I'm so committed to this consumer, our mission, everyone involved in what we're building.

37:45But really, I just think women deserve what we're building. I refuse to give up on it. And we're benefiting, I guess, from that commitment now. And it's been so fun because we've been able to, I think, just be perfectly positioned with the right team, the right timing, the right product, the right branding, the best community of women that continues to grow. And now it just feels like we've been able to move out of the art of building a brand and now into the science of building a brand. So what, Sally, we should really just do an eight-hour off-site. I mean, that's also a muscle in point. Don't you feel like we should do that sometime?

38:22do you know my dream is like i call my working name is camp argent and you need to do it i i agree my actual dream i will do it it's like our work friends dinner yes expanded because i just want to talk to you about all this stuff like i want to talk to you about manufacturing i don't want to talk about tariffs let's not talk about tariffs but um i have good news on tariffs for me it's benefited us i'm like the only person that why did it benefit you we're paying more it's the stupidest like thing on the planet no business leader is going to tell you it's not the dumbest move but it's crushed our competition we are an entirely direct business and we manufacture predominantly in Portugal in the U.S.

39:03and so I would say that the impact on us has been like negligible compared to what it's been for our competitors we haven't had to compromise on quality we haven't had to like spite like really raise our pricing and we have a customer that is a bit price insensitive, but for all of these things and we're not locked into wholesale pricing, we've seen our competition downgrade every aspect of what they're offering is. And so it's just driven women to our brand. But yeah, that's the only thing I'll say about Taros. They're stupid, but they're working for us. Well, here's the thing that I think I keep hearing across the board.

39:40I just met with this amazing jewelry brand that I don't know how to pronounce the name of it, so I'm going to look it up right now. Who is it? Horsenbrew. Have you heard of them? No. No. It's basically like it's these two LA guys. It's like a lot. It's like people who wear argent definitely wear this. It's like really wealthy people buy this stuff. It's sort of like rock and roll but not as rock and roll like Chrome Hearts meets Chanel or something. It's like really nice stuff. They haven't ever done any press. And now they opened a new store. I went to see it. And we were just talking about like people with money are still spending money.

40:24And they're happy to spend if the value is there. If they think it's bullshit, they're done. But now, like if you can show the value, even if it's crazy expensive, they're down to buy it. But you have to show value. And I think that's why a brand like yours that has a lot of value, you can charge a little bit more and people aren't going to like have a conniption. Well, what we're watching happen right now is brands 3x their pricing. I think some of it's artificial and some of it's real. There are companies who've like invested heavily in building factories in China and they just got crushed. So like I get it.

41:05But there are also luxury brands that are now trying to charge so much money for one blazer or whatever it is. And we have customers that could afford any price point that are absolutely trading down to brands like Argent because of the value. I think you like hit the nail on the head. They don't want to feel like they're they're being had, you know. Yeah. Yeah, it's so true. What else? There have like 8 ,000 things I want to ask you about. But one is about this, like you mentioned, just observing the fashion industry. Like coming out, first of all, how did you figure out manufacturing? Did you hire someone immediately?

41:44Did you know that sourcing and manufacturing would be? Like how much did you study how the fashion industry works before making this pitch deck and trying to get into it? I spent six months on research, meeting with anyone and everyone. It was just all about networking and learning. Eventually that informed a financial model that I put together, which really becomes your business plan, if we're being honest. Yeah. And I managed every penny of the business. And I think, you know, I spent years being that close to every aspect of the business. I still am. think every founder touches literally every aspect of the business do you get the shopify alert when someone makes yes i do still do i was just with um okay as someone who i feel like you should know if you don't monica padman and you know turn it off oh my god we've never met we've dm'd she you should be friends dm'd i really i know i was talking about her last night with someone with um with another mutual and i was like i do need to actually meet her she's good friends with Maddie Kahn, who I'm good friends with.

42:46And Alison Ruman. Yes. And I missed Alison's party here because, and Monica was there and I was with someone else who was with, I was with Sophia Rossi who was talking about Monica. I was like, I really need to meet Monica. Monica's amazing. I'll DM her. I feel like you should just have her on, just have her on. I would love to. That's such a good idea. I'll have her on one of the news days and she can comment. Because she loves fashion. Yeah. Maybe I'll do it when there's a Rose story, a story about the real, because she loves the real. Well, I, I, yeah, she does. But I bring her up because I had my phone at dinner and I mean, I'm just getting alerts all the time.

43:21It doesn't make sense for me to have this on still. Yeah. It is a, an actual drug, which is like, turn it off right now. You need to turn it off. I refuse to turn it off. I will never turn it off. I feel like I would be like that too. It's so fun. It's amazing. It must be so fun. It's such a drug. It's such a drug. And like we dress such cool women and I don't even think I know who we're dressing, but But it'll like we dress senators and they're just coming on your site and buying from you. You'll see these names and they're like icons in some capacity. And so it's fun to kind of drop in every now and again and you'll catch some names of founders or, you know, these women that really excite me.

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44:57Really quickly, what do you think is the fashion industry? Because you're in it now. Like you have wholesale accounts. you are competing against big big brands for the same customer in many cases um and and i do think you're a big advantage is the fact that it's it's replenishment it's not just one season we did a great suit type vibe um and and it serves a different purpose but what what are some of your observations of like how the industry works and how it needs to change because we're in like a big moment. This is going to run, I think, a week after on, I think it's going to be December 19th.

45:38And so we're in a big holiday season, but I've been writing a lot about what's going on at Saks Fifth Avenue and also like what's going on at the big luxury brands and whether or not the people are going to shop all of that. But also there's just so many things about the way the fashion industry operates that are so antiquated as a business that's supposed to be based on trend and like being ahead of the trend it's very old old school and I'm just curious as someone who came from tech and and from a business perspective of like you need to figure out how to make this work and sustainable long term like what you think about how this whole thing happens yeah there's I have so many opinions um I am so grateful to be where we are now but But it's been through like having very thick skin and having to endure a lot of just strange behavior.

46:34Early days, it was things as simple as can I wire you money? And no, we only take checks. You know, like it's just that's like one example of a bajillion of like where things don't make sense. Yeah. A lot of our partners don't necessarily have good business acumen and sometimes will do things that like negatively affect them and you, you know. So it's like it's just trying to overcome that, like, I think, behind the scenes and really bring people on that understand what you're building or committed to what you're building and are willing to partner with you on things like payment terms and, you know, pricing, stuff like that.

47:10The actual industry itself, it's very. There's a lot of, oh, that's just how it's done. Yes, it's it's very fun to come in to and be a bit of a maverick and be like, well, that's OK. We're just like not going to do that. It does not make sense. Yeah. And it's also very it can be very exclusive and clicky. Yes. And snooty in a way that feels almost like bullying mean girly. And you're the opposite. Correct. And our brand is inclusive. Like our brand is meant to be inclusive. And I want women from fashion connecting with women from tech connecting with women from politics, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

47:51There's so much value in that. what I appreciate so much about fashion is like this is I don't like anyone I think that ignores the role fashion plays in their day-to-day is naive there are a group of people here that are so unbelievably talented that really are for me like with Stephanie for example she's making clothes that make me feel better every day that make me feel like myself that make me feel comfortable and confident. And like, I wish that for everyone. And I think that that is such a gift. But I think it can be a bit siloed and exclusive in a way that's unproductive, because I think that there's value to be had externally from the business world, or, you know, culturally from other people that it's not always allowed in.

48:37And I also think fashion can actually I think this is what I love about Puck and about you. I think y 'all are willing to like, say it, like say it how it is, and how you see it without everyone having to tell you that that's okay. I think sometimes fashion can be late and like defiant, like committing to something in a way that's not at all leading. Yeah. And I think you have like a lot of respect for fashion that sometimes people in the fashion industry don't have respect for it. And I think you're the use the word inclusive and that's like such a but your brand really is inclusive. And there is something about it.

49:13Look, there's great a great thing about exclusivity and like stuff being rarefied. There's a quality to that, but there is also a, you're just missing out. You're missing, you're missing out on. And I think that is the thing that frustrates me about it is like, you're right. It's like, everybody thinks the same thing. And if you're not on board with that, you're a jerk. Like I probably told you this, but I loved Chanel. I'd be curious if you liked it because there's like a lot of suiting in it, but I loved it and I thought it was great. and after I wrote about it and I thought I did good business analysis of it too.

49:51I'm not just like, I love these clothes. People were really pissed off at me. They were like, you're not being the first Mattu Chanel collection. This one, I think they were like, okay, this is how she feels. I'm not gonna get mad. But people were like, because I do tend to be critical and I was still critical, but I also really loved it and I thought that was important And I think there's just so much judgment of of where you land on things in fashion and which seems like why this is all emotional stuff that it does affect how people perceive you. And it does affect these things. And it is serious, but it's also it should be something that's enjoyed and and appreciated.

50:37And I think there are a lot of people who are in the industry are almost too jaded to appreciate what it is. And I feel like you have a really good outside perspective and that is now inside. Like you're in the middle of it now. And so and there is an opportunity when you mentioned the doing things differently. Yael Aflalo is a lot like that. She is very like, well, we're not going to do it like that because it's dumb. And look, she had a very successful business and now is building another success. Well, she's had three actually. And I think it's amazing to see someone like that who's been in it for 30, well, not 30, 15, 20 years and still have that attitude because so many people fall into the like, okay, well, everybody else has 30 % wholesale.

51:24We're going to do that or 40 % or we're going to sell to these people even though they're never going to pay us the whole amount. And to be able to like have the perspective of like, this is insane. I'm not doing this. This is the only way the industry is going to change. it's also interesting because we are doing something for our consumer that i've seen every single day and i've seen the impact of it grow i've seen our business grow at a clip that like is unmatched honestly in the industry right now like our growth year over year is significant and going into next year it's going to be significant again and it's a weird time for a lot of brands and so i think that i have such conviction in our offering and what we're delivering to our customer and I know that like the right people in fashion appreciate it and are part of what we're building and I've seen a lot of people come around and I've seen a lot of things in the last decade I'll say and some of the best advice I've ever gotten is in business it's good to have a short-term memory and I do subscribe to that yeah um so I think that in building an inclusive brand and in in working on gender equity all boats very much rise with the tide so the more people that we can have involved in what we're building and subscribing to our message and like advocating and advancing women um the better off we are and the product serves as sort of a physical reminder of our mission and everything that we stand for and so our goal really is to bring in as many people as possible.

52:57And, you know, we've we've had relationships evolve with individuals and with wholesalers and with media. You know, I've seen a lot. Yeah. I mean, the media part is interesting. I bet people ignored you when you started. Not everyone. I mean, you're very well connected. I know you had stuff quick, like the right people. Laura Brown didn't ignore you. but like Laura Brown favorite I see her on Tuesday I love her so much but she's a great example of someone that's like I have she's confident I think it comes down to confidence a lot of times um she understands what we're building and she has since the second that we met and when we met Argent was not what Argent is now at all yeah and I and I've had people bet against me that have come back around and I've had you know like it's um it is what it is well Well, when you make something good, people do and know how to execute and like market it and all of that.

53:53Like you need everything. But if the product is good and you get the other stuff right, it can it can break through. And also you just have you have such a clear idea of what you want to do. And so many people don't. And that kind of comes to the last thing I want to talk about is this editorial thing. So you have it's very I've written and talked to me a lot about content and commerce. I worked at Lucky Magazine for a year and I've seen different things like retailers try to launch magazines, not a poor day launch a magazine. My friends Claire, Claire Mazur and Erica Cerullo had this whole concept of a kind where it was like really story driven products that they ran for like 15 years.

54:38and now they're running this. Have you met them actually? I don't think so. You need to connect with them because you know they have this romance novel. They're building like the A24 of romance. It's called 831 Stories. Yes. Yes. Oh, I want to know them. Okay, I'll do the intro after this. You have to do stuff together because it's the perfect, it's really, really good. But anyway, they are very interested in content and commerce. I've seen it work at places like Tori Birch. She has invested a lot of money in editorial that has nothing to do with like they link sometimes to product, but it's really there is a separate team.

55:20They work with marketing, but it's not marketing. And she no matter what happens to that company, she keeps these people. And the reason I think it's been successful in my mind is because like Tori was able to transform the kind of perception of her business. And a lot of that had to do with the fact that she had this strong editorial. But like we're such a conversion based, ROI based culture. You can't always see the editorial converting. Like sometimes you can. But I'm curious, like, A, why did you invest heavily in editorial and you have so many different things that you do? and B, what has the sort of results been?

55:59If I had to say right now what our unfair competitive advantage is, it is our editorial arm. And it's been something that I wanted to do since day one. Argent really was born. The consistent thing for us has been our mission, which is removing barriers for women. We did not start with an editorial arm because I thought it was scope creep. And I really wanted to focus on the individual that we were serving, the product and getting that right. And so we iterated on that for years. And then finally, we got to a place where I was like, OK, it feels like time for us to hire an editorial director, Gina Marinelli.

56:38She's amazing. She's awesome. She's really special. And we brought Gina on and it is an investment. And I think the luxury of being a founder led company and having values aligned investors is that I can make decisions that aren't directly tied to ROI. And it's what I touched on earlier, which is it's an art what I'm building. And to get to the revenue that we've gotten to, it is a tradeoff between like these decisions that aren't like I can just make choices that I want to. Yeah. And bringing women into our storytelling was so obvious to me. And I think that it probably did convert in a way, too, because women see themselves in other professional women more than they do in models.

57:34And I think that we did a lookbook shoot yesterday. There's like there's a role for that as well, because these women really know how to photograph. And that's a whole that's an industry in and of itself. But I'm so deeply committed to our mission. And our mission is the celebration of these women that we're featuring, the storytelling around these women, and giving future leaders and girls and creators, you know, like something to aspire to and showing them different forms of work is like, that's my lifeblood. and I think just like the the vision 10 years ago is something that we're now just starting to realize where it's like how do we bring all these women that we've touched in some capacity you know for years together and put them in a room in a way that you know relationships form and live outside of Argent and it's now we have we have our podcast we have our work friends work friends is a podcast it's confusing but work friends is also like our marquee editorial series where we photograph women, we storytell around them, we create video assets, and we dedicate like a week every year to like featuring these women individually.

58:52I just think it's like so integral to the brand. But what it's done for us is reinforced loyalty with the customers that we're dressing. It's created more access points. So for people that want to be involved in the brand, it's created another channel through which they could come in through. yeah so it it could be like i've been wanting to dress um i don't know who an example would be but let's say i've been wanting to dress this woman forever and then her team reaches out because she wants to be on the podcast or she now wants to be on work friends um it's a it's a fun it's a fun way to uh bring people in um and it gives us more levers i think uh from a business perspective that now reinforces you know our goal of growing the company as well it's it's not a great answer but it's really fun.

59:39Yeah. And I also think like, look, I think a lot of people who do what you do are actually really, and are good at it, are good editors. And I think that's the thing, like it's about point of view, it's about clarity and it's about curiosity and like those things together. And you have all of that. And that comes out, like you want to do work friends, you want to bring people together, you want to have these amazing dinners, you want to And like it's I think that you see that the only reason to do this is to like have all of it. Because if you just they wouldn't be so fun. Like you're obviously having a great time.

1:00:22It is so fun. We literally study women's work like that is our job. Gina and I will sit in my office and like we're trying to put together work friends classes or we're trying to like, you know, figure out what story we haven't told. what industry we haven't really like touched yet. And we just get to learn about awesome women. And they're like, there's so many cool women to feature. And I geek out about that. Like, that's my happy place. And it's such a gift because we get a front row seat to these awesome women that are doing unbelievable work. And I think there are themes that have been consistent throughout these conversations too with these women that are benefiting the up and comers, Like our podcast is predominantly listened to by like 20 and 30 year olds, you know, who are hungry for like tools and are hungry for these raw conversations that aren't they're not getting access to.

1:01:17Yeah. Yeah, that's it's awesome. It's so inspiring. And and Sally, congrats on everything. And for making, you know, persevering and getting through it because it's not easy. I remember meeting or seeing Sarah Gibson Tuttle and she was early, early on the Argent board and early on the Argent train. But I think like I've seen many brands try to launch in this space and not work and have the right intention, but just not a not clear. And so I just hats off. It's really cool. And I'm so glad that we're we're work friends now because you're. amazing um it's been so inspiring to get to know you the last few months uh it's funny well first of all everyone should listen to uh you on our podcast because your story is awesome no your story is awesome but we left and i uh told gabby who introduced us i was like gabby cats as i'm pretty sure lauren and our best friends now whether she knows it or not no i felt similarly i was like oh my god she's so great and I also it's like we are all so busy and it was a example of like if a bunch of people tell you you need to meet someone just do it even though like we tried so many times and it was really hard but it's worth the effort if if if people you trust say you need to meet someone make every effort to because I'm so glad we met and and can chat and are gonna do this offsite soon.

1:02:53Thank you. I can't wait for our offsite. So great. It worked out just the way it was supposed to. I'm so grateful to you. You know, I'm like the biggest fan of you and Puck. And I think, I mean, Sally. Yeah, thank you. Well, this was so great. Congrats on everything. And we'll talk soon for sure. Fashion People is a presentation of Odyssey in partnership with Puck. This show was produced and edited by Molly Nugent. Special thanks to our executive producers, Puck co-founder John Kelly, executive editor Ben Landy and director of editorial operations Gobby Grossman an additional thanks to the team at Odyssey J.D.

1:03:30Crowley, Jenna Weiss-Berman and Bob Tabador

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