Fashion’s Crystal Ball

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2:03Hello and welcome to Fashion People. I'm Lauren Sherman, writer of Fox Fashion and Beauty, Memo Linecheat. And today with me on the show is famous astrologist, Susan Miller. We chat about her life in publishing, and she even makes a prediction about the future of the luxury industry. Before we get going, I wanted to remind you that if you like this podcast, you'll definitely love Puck, where I send an email called Line Sheet. If you're a fashion person, you get that reference. It's an original look at what's really going on inside the fashion and beauty industries. Line Sheet is scoopy, analytical, and above all, fun.

2:40Along with me, a subscription to Puck gains you access to an unmatched roster of experts reporting on powerful people and companies in entertainment, media, sports, politics, finance, the art world, and much more. If you're interested, listeners of Fashion People get a discount. Just go to puck.news slash fashion people to join puck or start a free trial. Happy Friday, everyone. Hope you had a great week. This week in line, she, Rachel Sturgatz, outlined the business of being Hailey Bieber. We stan Hailey Bieber. She also has an amazing business that I think is going to get more amazing. We've talked about, Malik and I talked on the podcast about how no one dislikes her.

3:21were obsessed. But Rachel got really good juicy details on how her businesses are doing, not just road. I highly suggest it. I also wrote about Gwyneth Haltrow's dinner for Sam Altman that is supposed to take place this weekend in the Hamptons. As of this recording, it's still taking place. I'll update, check line sheet, because maybe by the time line sheet publishes, there will be news malik also looked into the increasingly tense situation at j crew they have debt they're like not for sale but everything's for sale type vibe um we love the rebranding but has it worked at retail are they too reliant on off price these are all questions that malik asks there's lots to read and debate i also went to dinner at the wonderful francis pennington's house this week um francis is a tory birch executive og and she invited many of my LA friends over for a sort of farewell before we head off to Paris for the school year.

4:20It was so nice. As we were leaving, you know, I've gotten to know Francis really well being in LA and I understand why Tori holds her so close and also understand why she holds Tori so close. As a friend of mine, I texted him. I said, oh man, Francis is just truly the best. And he said, Yes. And we also sort of have Tori to thank for this. So it always goes back to Tori. But thank you again to Frances. She's just a really wonderful human being. So nice. If I had tears left in me, I would have shed them. But I don't. I can't cry anymore. Okay. I have to admit, I was a bit distracted, though. As many of you know, I was profiled in the style issue of Vanity Fair, which is on newsstands next week by this writer, Aidan McLaughlin.

5:11He makes fun of the fact that I can't pronounce anything. So it's either McLaughlin or McLaughlin. I don't know. Aidan, you're great. Aidan with an A. It is a very strange feeling to be subject of a proper profile. Obviously, I love attention. I do a job where my name is on everything I write, like everything I make. I like attention. I do this podcast. I'm a presenter. But this kind of attention can feel like a lot, especially the kind of Leo I am. Going back to Susan, you'll see when we talk about it. I'm not supposed to be the subject of a 2 ,000-word story. And it's nerve-wracking. It's like it was interesting to see.

5:51I thought he did a great job. It was interesting to see what he focused on, what he didn't. If you're interested in my work at Puck and you're interested in Puck in general, I suggest you read it. I know many of you do not subscribe. I think you should, as I say at the top of this podcast every single week. There are definitely things I could take issue with. The catty quotes were anonymous. I would really love to know who any of these quote unquote fashion editors were. And there were a lot of really good people interviewed on the record who got cut who were like, they didn't use my quote or I had all these other quotes that were better or whatever.

6:27I also I hate being compared to a gossip columnist because I don't think my male colleagues, I definitely report on gossip, but I wouldn't say that I gossip. I know it's a unique distinction and who really cares? this is amazing to have all this attention but I don't think my male colleagues who do the same sort of work I do would be considered in that way and it's just like a little bit grating but anyway generally I think that Aiden really managed to capture who I am as a person like it really came through and and my work and in a very flattering way I thought it was it was really nice as as one of my old colleagues said he's like this is the nicest or the most flat not not nicest because it was, it wasn't nice.

7:13It was kind. He said it was the most flattering profile of a journalist I've ever read. So it's, I'm in Vanity Fair. What a life. Thanks to Aidan for not asking me how I get my sources. The most annoying question ever. And for Vanity Fair editor in chief, Mark Waducci for his gumption. I've, I'm really flattered and appreciate it and grateful and all that stuff. Now let's get going with Susan. Susan Miller, welcome to Fashion People. Thank you so much. I'm so excited. I love what you've created. Thank you. It's funny. I feel like you are. Well, first of all, what did you have for breakfast this morning?

7:58Actually, I had on the O 'Plea yogurt and I didn't have any coffee. Not yet. I will later. Tell me what dress you're wearing. You're wearing it's, um, has, um, it's like a Dolce Gabbana of my favorite, my, my favorite when he goes into all black or goes a little off the shelf. That's not me. I like his flowers. Yeah. I have a lot of his dresses. You look gorgeous. I can say Dolce and Gabbana. Yeah. Yeah. It looks so good. It's like for the listeners, it's like a, um, like a digital print, almost floor. It's like that traditional Dolce floral. It's gorgeous. It looks really good. Susan, I don't think that there is a I think that people are going to freak out that you're that you're on this podcast.

8:51Thank you. No, such a legend. Oh, just a hardworking little person here in my apartment. Like Chrissy says, and, you know, my daughter, mommy, you don't get out enough. But, you know, when you're writing all the time and, you know, Astrology Zone, my website, I write between 35 and 40 ,000 words a month divided by 12 signs. Susan, how did you get into astrology? What was your life? Did you grow up in New York City? Oh, yeah, I did. I was born in Lenox Hill Hospital. My father had an Italian specialty grocery store that was started by my grandfather at the turn of the century when Grandpa came over from Sicily.

9:36My father, you know, we were right over the store. That's how I became a good cook. I would just look at the recipe and run downstairs and get everything I needed. But the astrology came from the German side of my family. My mom knew astrology, was actually quite a scholar. She did not read for people outside the family, but she just kept studying astrology. And she did a correspondence class before I was born with her sister. She did not want to study astrology, but my mother was very good with math. And her sister, my aunt, Harriet, talked her into it. Started to cry and said, if you don't work with me, I can't do charas.

10:28And so my mother looked to her sister and said, okay, I'll study it, but I don't think it works. And then when she started studying it, realized, whoa, this does work. She studied for eight years and then continued to study after she got done with the correspondence class that was based in California. But we were always in New York. and then she finally got married and she was dating my father for 10 years and had me right away and like the first day I was born the nurse said we can't bring your baby girl to you there's something very wrong with her but we're trying to figure it out and we'll give you the baby after we have a conference and that must have been hard on my mother I have something so rare that she thinks it might be tied to the nausea medicine they gave her because they said something went wrong in her fifth month.

11:33It's my circulatory system, but it's not hemophilia. It acts like it, but it's not that. It causes internal bleeding. my veins turn to tissue paper and vanish under pressure. They just disappear. And it's terrible for surgery because under pressure could be an operation. Or when I was little, it was being happy for Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny or my birthday. I would get an attack once a year, pretty much, and it would last eight weeks. And I couldn't move not even an inch in the bed. and no doctor understood it and couldn't come to the house so when i was well i looked perfect but when i was sick i was really sick yeah and no one would believe me so um i just when i was 14 they went in and i was in the hospital 11 months and they had to paralyze me from the knee down um because they were tourniqueting me so tightly they're trying to saved me and the leg, which they did.

12:40I had the chief of staff for the Hospital for Joint Diseases, is now part of NYU Langone. And I had the best. I had a very famous doctor, and I loved him. He's no longer with us. He died a few years ago, but he was great. And they had to rehabilitate the look. So I never attended high school. I did homeschool, both in the hospital and in the recovery two years at home. So I went from junior high to college. I went to NYU. I had to be near the hospital. So NYU was perfect. And I majored in business. But I was still wearing the brace on my leg getting close to college. And I just wanted to know if I'd look like everybody else.

13:32would I walk naturally without crutches, without the big leg raise? And I kept begging my mother to teach me and she kept saying no. And I'm like, I don't get it. Why are you saying no? And she said, because you'll study for a year and you'll think you know what you're doing and you'll read for your friends. I'm like, do you see any friends coming here? They're sick of me being sick. I don't have any friends. I'm not in school. And it was okay. I was the kind of kid that liked to read, liked to be quietly by myself. So it was okay. I mean, it wasn't a bad thing. But she just wouldn't teach me.

14:13So one day I wrote to Horoscope Magazine. They had a section where they would analyze a case of maybe four people. And they never used people's names. You just had your birth info, and I knew what time I was born, which is very, very important in astrology, right to the minute. And I sent the letter in, and I never heard anything. Like, okay, they're not answering me. But then one day, my mother walked into the living room and said, did you write a horoscope magazine? I thought, how does she know? This was a secret. My sister mailed the letter. How did she find out? and she said i think you're in the latest issue this is your time of birth this is your problem this has to be you i said yes well what did they say and you know when you ask an astrologer any question she has to be like an or he has to be like a detective you just don't look at the one area.

15:16You look at great family support, lives in a big city, close to facilities. Look at the dignity of the doctor, of the attitude of the patient. And health is three parts in astrology. You have the first house, vitality and how you feel. The sixth house is what you do to stay well or get well the eighth house is surgery and the 12th house is confinement and healing after the surgery or or just by itself like people in rehab say or in nursing home or physical therapy so um the the um the editor thought i would walk and she's very positive and i do uh except right now I broke my leg but that's but yeah you did walk I do I just can't wear heels it's okay when you can't wear heels you can't wear a ball gown and and when you're five foot three well you look beautiful but but I have a leg so I'm happy about that and actually my mother did teach me after she read that to me I said the lady used words I don't understand technical terms you need to teach me that she said but you have your answer and I looked at her like you know and I smiled and she said oh no you want to check the editor-in-chief I'm like of course it's my life yes I do so she said all right but you have to study 12 years or you won't be any good I said okay and she didn't think I'd stick to it, but I did.

17:03Tell me, so you studied for 12 years. How did you, I knew, I feel like a lot of us, obviously people who work in the industry know your daughter Chrissy very well, and who is an amazing human and very talented on, on so many levels. But, but I feel like you became famous because of the Elle magazine or, or what, so how did you get into magazines? because you mentioned glamour no my my illness constantly drove my life um i had a huge the most scary operation in 1992 and um that's when i i've had 40 blood transfusions but that night i had 18 of the 40 and then i had to go home and stay home for a full year and wait for the bone to grow around the steel.

18:00I kept breaking the thigh bone just walking across the room. And they didn't think I'd live through the operation. I had to sign my will, ask my mother if she would take care of the children. I mean, it was... But I said to the doctor, if I can't walk across the room, how am I going to go to the supermarket, go to Bloomingdale's and buy back-to-school clothes and take them to Disney World? How am I going to have a life? so he was the chief of staff so he did go in but we i had to wait that year at home and my husband had never worked um i finally we got divorced neither one of us remarried and we still stayed friendly but i i needed income i was an agent for commercial photographers and I couldn't visit art directors the internet didn't really become a factor until well 1995 was the birth of the internet for most companies like that's when Amazon started that's when I started my website but 1992 everything was still um we didn't know about the internet that much It was behind the curtain.

19:16So I had to find a way to make money. And I had the children at Combin of the Sacred Heart, which is very expensive. Caroline Kennedy went there, Lady Gaga, a very distinguished, beautiful school. So I asked my mother, go to the newsstand and get me every magazine you can find that might have a horoscope in it. She came back with like 30 magazines. she had bridal magazines and everything and i noticed in mccall's they had a horoscope now this is what we call a bible belt magazine very conservative uh read by middle america and um i was surprised to see a horoscope in there because usually sister seven magazines like Ladies Home Journal and so forth, Good Housekeeping, did not have horoscope.

20:14So I read it and I thought, hmm. So I didn't know which editor was in charge. So I looked at the masthead and I remember the girl's name was Amy Bingham. And I thought, I'll get from A to B with Amy. So I called her up and I said, you know, I know you have a horoscope person you love. but maybe she'll write a book and she doesn't have time to do a cover story. I would like to be on your list to do ancillary work for you. She said, why don't you send me your clips? And I was writing for a magazine called Beauty. It was new. They wound up not being able to pay me. They were paying me$200 every article, but near the end, they were running out of money, but I kept writing.

21:09But even Cosmopolitan called me up and said, I like your writing. And I was surprised. But McCall's, I took all my clips, put it in a red envelope, because it was right near Christmas. I put a bow on a candy cane, and the big burly messenger came and I said, don't lose the candy cane. He said, I won't Susan. And she called me and said, oh my gosh, we love you. You are going to join McCall's and we'll start after the holiday in January. We'll set it all up. They gave me a full page and then they were having trouble with the budget. So five months into it, and I loved my editor. I remember it was Joe Dumanowicz.

22:04And we really had fun. If he had to scrunch something, it would almost be like crossword puzzles. We'd find words that said the same thing in a more economical way. We would have fun talking. And he said, Susan, Sally has to cut your column. And I said, okay. He said, no hard feelings? I said, no, I understand. I mean, it's business. Well, she got mailbags full of mail. Being like, bring it back, bring it back. Bring it back. And he called me again and he said, do you want to come back? I'm like, yeah. He said, we can only give you a half page this time. I said, oh, we got to scrunch even more.

22:50Well, deal breaker, you have to be my editor. He said, that's a done deal. And I went back for five more years, wrote many cover stories. And then Rosie O'Donnell bought the magazine. But it was such a good experience. It was really good. Before I had written for them, I had gotten some work with bridal magazines. But you're always talking about brides. I wanted something a little bit more general. But it was nice. They were good to me. and um meanwhile back at the ranch i still had my agent work for the photographers and i talked to another agent and i said how am i going to do this messengers are like 40 each way and i have to be able to get jobs from the ad agencies she said send a letter out and thank everyone for the blood that they donated.

23:50I said, but they didn't. I didn't ask her any. She said, don't let that stop you. So we wrote a letter to tell them how sick I was and that I would have to recover for a year. But thank you for caring about me and those of you who donated blood, I thank you. Well, my phone rang off the hook. Art directors came to me, to my apartment. I mean, it was amazing. My mom was still alive. She was helping me take care of the children, you know, cooking their meals and so forth. And that's how I survived. And I was getting known in the industry. After my mother said I was ready to read charts, I didn't charge.

24:37So people knew when they had a crisis, call 911 and Susan will answer and take a taxi down to you. and I did I mean I would go to McCann Erickson or J. Walter Thompson or Young or whoever and sit with the art director you know after like five o 'clock and you know maybe the landlord sold the building she had to find an apartment or her boyfriend broke up with her or whatever it was I had guys and girls calling me and I always did it for free because I have a job I was an agent for commercial photographers. I was paid well. I mean, I was shooting, I mean, my photographer was shooting Coca-Cola for the world.

25:18I was, I had broken that. I mean, he was new and I was very effective. I really didn't need a new job, but it was Saatchi and Saatchi that gave us Cheerios. That was to change my life. I took the creative director to a beautiful restaurant at lunchtime for thank you and read his chart because creative people live their life creatively they want to push back the borders of their lives to make it richer and more wonderful experience and they live their life creatively what else can i be doing that would be fun or or a learning experience something and um he said my wife would love you i said i would love her what does she do she's creative director of one of books i said in the time life building on 50th street opposite radio city musical yep and so that was my first job life magazine ah i would love to go there You know Life Magazine is coming back.

26:27Tell me that. I love Day in the Life. I love the beauty of still photography. Oh, is it Heidi Klum who bought it? It's Carly Kloss, but close. Carly Kloss. Yeah. It's fine. God bless her for doing that because they should have never ended it. Never.

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28:37Do you think understanding and using astrology has made you a more optimistic person? Oh, totally. Do you think you're naturally optimistic? My mom and I, she is always optimistic. I remember after the first surgery when I was 14, I said, I'm in the middle of the ocean. I'm on a raft. The waves are 15 feet high and it's night. and I don't know which way land is. I have no idea. And I have to get to the shore and I don't know how to get there. And she said, oh, you will. You will find the shore. And when you get there, I'll be standing there to be with you. And she said, Susie, when you get through this therapy, you'll have so many shoes, you'll wind them up against the wall and say, which shoes will I wear today?

29:36You know, she's talking to a 14-year-old girl. She said, you'll have pretty dresses. You'll go to parties. It will be very different. You'll be able to travel. Because I could never travel because I never knew when an attack was coming. It's amazing. So you ended up having this amazing career in magazines. I'm so curious. Yeah. Well, you know, I wanted to write for foreign magazines because you learn a lot from different cultures because the editors talk to you differently yeah like how is uh first you said vogue japan right so like how i'm 18 years with vogue japan and i just left because they i have a new editor who didn't want to do the translations rather hire a girl in japan i vogue japan w korea temple in turkey claudia brazil amika li esmo to spain vogue germany vogue china vogue greece i've written for all of them but um you well they contacted me um and in brazil i worked for claudia a very long time they contacted me i'm looking now for more um because i only write for w korea south of south korea and um amica italy i was lovely magazine published in Milan beautiful oh yeah I know it oh you of course you do you all the magazine so I'm looking for I would love a Spanish magazine you know something in a foreign language I have the time with with your own site what have you found like when did you start it and and what have you found do you get a lot of emails from people and do you respond to all of them how do you manage that i have a staff but the readers are so interesting the way i got my website was through the saji and saji man who introduced me to the lady at uh was creative director of time like books jackie meyer and she um i kept reading her chart and she can take me to china grill across the street it was so nice and uh we became really good friends and she said I have a feeling about you.

31:56I'm going to give you a book. I said, really? Yeah. And she did. And the book sold out. It was a little tiny book. And then she said, I'm going to send you upstairs to the webmaster. They wanted something short for women every day. I said, first of all, you shouldn't limit this to women. Men want to know what's coming next. And actually, when astrology started in Babylonia by the Chaldeans and Asparta, it was the province of the king to get to read astrology because he had the money and you'd have to hire the mathematician in a nearby university. He'd have to come on horseback to the castle and then get back to teach the next day.

32:42So it was always men really learning what was coming up. And of course, Salido wants to know, what do I have to worry about? Famine and approaching army, difficult weather, you know, what's coming up that I'm not thinking about, the what if? And so they said, well, that's true. You know, you could write non-gender specific if that's what you want to do. I said, I do. I said, but I can't. I said, I want to change the world. I put my arm out. I want to change the world, and I can't do it at 25 words per sign. And they're looking at me. Well, what do you want to do? I said, I want something long.

33:25They said, how long? Well, at the time, I said 1 ,700 words per sign. Now I'm writing 2 ,500 to 4 ,000 words. It depends on the month and what's going on for the reader. The more they need me, the more I give them. I know by their charts that they need more of me or less of me. So they said, won't you get tired? I said, tired? No, I wasn't born with family connections or family money, but I don't get tired. I was born with so much energy. And they said, well, we're not going to pay you a dollar a word if you write all this stuff. You know, pundits are saying 500 words in this new thing called the internet.