Rachel Scott on the Sensuality of Craft

0:04Hi, this is Imran Ahmed, founder and CEO of the Business of Fashion. Welcome to the BOF podcast. It's Friday, July 4th. Rachel Scott, founder of Diotima, has built a reputation for bringing a nuanced portrayal of Caribbean culture to the global fashion stage. Drawing on her Jamaican heritage and global experience, Rachel seeks to foreground overlooked craft traditions and champion a narrative that moves beyond exoticized tropes. Craft doesn't have an aesthetic. Craft is like technique and execution. There are endless possibilities. And I think what I really thought about was like on a conceptual level, like I think that craft is maybe very the most intimate form of fashion, like because it is made by hand, like there is this like energy exchange almost.

0:54So I kept thinking about intimacy and like sensuality and desire. This week on the BOF podcast, I sit down with Rachel to discuss how she is redefining the narrative of craft in fashion while advocating for a more inclusive design industry. Here's Rachel Scott on the BOF podcast. Rachel Scott, welcome to the BOF podcast. Thank you for having me, Imran. It's really nice to talk to you. I've been an admirer of your work from afar and so curious to hear about the genesis of this brand that's so beautiful and so rooted in craft, which is something I think more and more people appreciate. But I really want to start with your earliest memories of growing up in Jamaica.

1:47And if fashion was at all part of those memories. I mean, what was it like? I've never been to Jamaica. Really? Oh my gosh, you have to go. You have to go. But when I'm there. Of course, I'd love that. No, I mean, growing up in Jamaica was incredible. I grew up in Kingston in the 80s and 90s. The thing about Jamaica, if you go, what you'll notice is that you hear music literally everywhere. It's like a very musical country. You know, it's like reggae, dancehall, but it's just everywhere. And so, you know, it's kind of idyllic. You know, you like, when you'd leave school, you go home, you go outside, you pick a mango in the tree.

2:24Like, it was really great. You'd go to the beach on the weekends. You'd go up into the mountains and find a river. My mother never allowed us to have like, what's the game? Nintendo. We never had Nintendo. So I don't even know what it's called. No video games at all. So you're really like a child in nature, right? Yeah. Even though I was in Kingston. Okay. And my mother, she was a flight attendant, but she also had a small boutique in Kingston. So I think I kind of always had this idea that clothes was something interesting and something to think about. in a serious way. And my dad used to design furniture.

2:59And so when I was young, I could never say I was bored. So my mother would be like, find something else to do. And so I would take like little pieces of fabric and go into the trees and like embroider for fun. And yeah, it was just, yeah, that was really lovely. And I would always dress up in my mother's clothes, which was the 80s. So, and it was Jamaica. So it was extravagance, lots of like like lurex and shoulders and body and sequins. And then when I was a teenager, I started going to Parsis when I was like 13. Because that's what you do in Jamaica. That's what you do. Yeah, you go out, you go to Parsis.

3:34And when I say, oh, like I would come home at four or five o 'clock in the morning as like a 15 year old. And my dad was awake. I'm sure he was awake just hoping you would get home safely. But I want to rewind to something you said earlier. when you said you were, you know, a young girl, you were already doing embroidery back then. I mean, yeah, I know that. And I've been reading that doilies and that kind of whole style of things like very much part of the culture. So like, are you literally learning to do that stuff as a young girl? So I didn't, I did not learn crochet when I was younger. And I think that's just like, because like, my mother didn't know her parents had died when she was young.

4:16I wasn't really close to my dad's mom. And so I never learned how to do it, but it was everywhere I went. Like everyone's house, there was doilies everywhere, starched like on dressing tables, dining tables, in the bathroom, like toilet paper roll covers, which I think is hilarious. So I didn't know that, but I did, my mother would buy me all these craft books every time she traveled. And it was like, how to do figure drawing, how to embroider, how to do needlework. And so I would just like try and learn every single thing. And it was always craft based. I think she really instilled that in me.

4:51And yet by the time I was a teenager, when I was going out, I would need a new outfit every week. And there wasn't like a mall or anything like that. So I would have to make my own outfit. So I would do that every week. Whether they were proper clothes is a different story. They were mostly like little scraps that kind of like were almost skirts, but not really. So triangle tops. So when did this kind of passing interest in making your own clothes turn into something more concrete where you thought about going into fashion? And then growing up in Jamaica, I mean, how do you even go about doing that?

5:30Yeah, this was when print was still, you know, very much alive and well. There was this one pharmacy near my house that had international magazines. And so I would go there and I would buy everything I could, like all the Vogues. I remember being obsessed with Italian Vogue when I was younger. And that's when I started to really take it seriously. At first, I thought I was going to do interior design. And I think because of my dad, I'm really close to my dad. But then I started realizing how interesting clothes were and the world of that. So when I was getting ready to go to university, obviously there's no, well, there is a fashion program now at the art school, but there wasn't back then.

6:11But there also wasn't the strongest arts education or the most widespread arts education in Jamaica at the time. So I decided that I needed to get like as full of an education as possible. So I left and went to liberal arts school to study language and to study arts because I was worried that if I went straight into fashion school, I would miss a lot of opportunity just just to like catch up with everybody else. You know, education in Jamaica is great, but it's very focused on more traditional fields like medicine and law and much more serious. So where was this liberal arts school that you went to and why did you choose that school?

6:52I chose that school because I got a scholarship. It was Colgate University. So it was upstate New York. It's a really good school, but it was very isolated. And, you know, I know I'm from Jamaica, but I'm from the capital. and going to like upstate New York in rural upstate New York was a big culture shock, obviously. No parties till four in the morning in upstate New York. I was like, these parties are not good. They have no idea. No, so I would go down to the, and my best friend was from the city. And so we would go down. She's still my best friend. She actually works with me. And so we'd go down to the city as much as we could.

7:31And then I started doing like summers. I would live with her and then do like a course at FIT. And then I did an internship at Vogue. And I realized that I definitely wanted to be on the design side of fashion. I did like a summer program at CSM and I just kept doing internships. I did want to like a bridal company in London. I can't remember what they're called. So I knew like I needed to get a formal education. So when I graduated, I ended up going to Milan and studying at Instituto Marangoni. That's cool because you're kind of getting already at a very early stage in your life, a really global perspective, not just on culture, but also on fashion.

8:14So when you're thinking about America and Europe, like what were the things that you discovered about fashion in Europe that was different from how it was in the US? I mean, they're both so interesting to me, still are. I think there is a formality and a seriousness in Europe. And then there's like a real casual coolness about America. But then also my mother, she was a flight attendant, right? So she would also take me all over the world. So when I was younger, she would just take me out to school, put me on the jump seat back in the day when you could do that. And when I was younger, she was kind of adamant not to take us to Europe because she was like, that's easy.

8:53to take us to Asia. And we spent a lot of time going to Thailand and Hong Kong and just traveling around there and South America a little bit. Like I went to Brazil and Mexico a few times. So I think I already had this like grounding of a global perspective. And I think that's also kind of the reason I studied language. I've been obsessed with language since I was young. And I think it's really because of that kind of exposure. And then I started thinking about clothes as language, especially because I was seeing these different perspectives and these different approaches to dressing. So your first full-time experience in the industry was to work at other companies, right?

9:35So like one of the big decisions a lot of designers have to make is that do they want to venture out on their own from the beginning or do they want to go work somewhere else first? That's a very luxurious perspective and question to be able to ask. I did not have that option. You know, I was on a visa. I wasn't even legally able to start a business anywhere. I had to work because there wasn't a fashion brand in Jamaica. And so if I wanted to grow and get experience, I had to work because I wouldn't be able to stay in Europe or live in the States otherwise. So that was the obvious next step. And so I'd gotten an internship at Costume National when I finished with Marangoni.

10:16And the team there was really incredible. And my direct boss was Danish, I remember. And she didn't speak much Italian or like fantastic Italian. And I actually picked it up quickly because I'd studied French before. And so I ended up like becoming her assistant. And then at the time there wasn't pre-collections. It was just starting. It was like mid 2000s. And so there wasn't this idea of like a pre-collection and a show collection. And so there was a commercial offering and then there was like the show offering. And we focused on the show, which was so fun. And there was some of the team from back in the 90s, because this is early 2000s, back in the like heyday in the 90s that had left and were like some German designers and they would come in for the show.

11:00And that's when we would do the most insane like experimentation with material. It was mostly like materiality, like doing fabric manipulation and doing crazy things with embellishments. I remember like spray painting this insane tuxedo blaze, like jacket, neon yellow the day before a show and being like, oh, my God, this thing cost that wasn't so dollars. What if I fuck it up? Yeah, I mean, I remember Enya Capasa. I mean, that was such a defining brand of that time in Milan. It's kind of sad it's not around anymore. So after that, you went back to the US, right? So I got kicked out of Italy. Okay.

11:42And I couldn't decide. I didn't know what to do because I was, I'd been away now almost eight years from home. So I went to London for a second, just like to interview. I interviewed with Phoebe when she was hiring her team for Celine. She said I had nice sketches. That must have been an amazing meeting. It was very cool. but I needed a visa. Like there was no chance. I was an assistant level. I needed a visa. There was no chance. Um, I interviewed with Sarah Burton. It was a year before Alexander McQueen passed away. And I just remember I, so it's actually full circle cause I met her the other day on the, at the Met Gala and I was like, Oh my God, I met you 20 years ago.

12:21But yeah, so I ended up having to leave and I went back home and I was like, maybe I'll start a brand now. So this must've been, it was the end of 2009, I think. Yeah. So I started thinking about this idea of like the Caribbean basin as like a region. So not just the islands, but like also central and South America and having like, I already then was like thinking about the framework for the brand and like thinking about craft and like shared cultural heritage and what that meant. And because my mother had been traveling to Brazil a lot for her boutique, I was like thinking about manufacturers there, but I didn't feel ready.

12:56And I felt kind of scared to be in Jamaica. And it was definitely going to be like a colloquial, like it was not going to be international. It was going to be very local. And the same friend of mine from Colgate was like, why don't you just come to New York? I'll buy a ticket. But if you come, you have to send your resume out. And so I did. And then I got a job at Jay Mandel. And so I moved to New York. Amazing. I mean, what strikes me in the way that you seem to make decisions is like you have to be very practical about things, but you've always been thinking about this brand, right? You've always been germinating it in your head in some way.

13:33So what was the moment when you realized you were ready to start the brand? Well, it was definitely a pandemic existential crisis because I, you know, I'd worked for many people for a long time. My last job, I'd been there for almost like eight and a half years. But and I'd been thinking about this and I'd even talked to my boss at the time about doing it. And fashion just takes over your life, especially if you're a designer. That's like all you do, all you think about. It's all your time. You work all the time. And so there's never a moment of reflection. And, you know, I know how expensive it is.

14:13And I just never I never even thought it was possible. And then the pandemic happened and I was still working. I hadn't lost my job or anything, but I had this separation from going into the studio for a few months. and I had like this really delightful work-life balance where I would like start at nine and close the laptop at six. It was amazing. But then I had all this time to think, you know, and I was like, what am I doing? At the time I was like late Thursdays. I'm like, where am I going? What is it for? Who does it serve? So I think I just really started having these questions. And then I started having this like feeling, this urgent feeling that I had to do something.

14:54And like, if I didn't do this thing for myself that like, I wasn't going to make it like somehow I would not survive not doing something. And so yeah, that's when it happened. And this idea of doing something rooted in the Caribbean. Yeah, that was a common thread through all of your ideation over the years. Yeah. Talk to me about what you think the fashion industry, or maybe the world at large doesn't understand about what a place like Jamaica can offer creatively, culturally, from a craft perspective? Yeah, it's so complicated. You know, I think people think about Jamaica and the Caribbean in such a, like, it's very exoticized.

15:35It's very much rusted in, like, you know, the colonial history of it. And, you know, the Caribbean is not a serious place. And it's just beaches and, you know, good times. And I think I really had a problem with that. And, like, just from a cultural perspective of how we were portrayed. And I had seen many moments in history, even from Dior with the red, yellow, green bags. And I was like, every time I saw the Caribbean reference, it just felt like everything was a trope. And I really had, I took issue with that. And I felt like there needed to be a different perspective just from this cultural level.

16:12One that felt more true to me. And I think there's no way to actually reference a culture without being nostalgic. I think you always have to present something new. You can't just be like, this is a culture because it's not, it's not a static thing. You know, it's always changing, but at least I thought it could come from a perspective that was from the Caribbean. But then I also remember, and I think this is very much because of my experience at Costume, I did all of the embroidery and embellishment in India. And I remember even then, this is like mid 2000s, nobody spoke about that. It was always like made in Europe, made in Italy.

16:45And like, of course, that has its value. And there are things that I absolutely want to make in Italy and do like footwear, for example. But I think that India is and has always been the leader and expert in embroidery. And I just felt like it was unfair that this wasn't talked about in a more public or respected way back in the day. This is a new thing of talking about this, I think. And I remember when I was working there that there were some techniques that we would do in India that I remember seeing in Jamaica. And I was like, wait, this is really interesting. There is this like kind of global knowledge of something.

17:19But why is it that only one place gets this value and nowhere else like is it respected, you know? And so it became kind of my mission to try and find a way to present a very informal understanding of craft. It's not like a formalized industry in any way, but I know the knowledge exists. And it's like, it's an oral tradition that exists that I wanted to find a way to elevate and like present to the world. And I thought like, yeah, that should also be a part of my mission. That's such a great sense of purpose and intention behind what you're doing, but doing it in practice, making it really happen.

17:56Like, how did you go from that kernel of an idea to like the hard grind of figuring out how to make it happen? Well, when I started, I was like, I had no idea if anything was going to happen. So it was just kind of playing around, honestly. And I had met some women and at the moment, it's just crochet that I do in Jamaica. And I'd met some women that had like craft shops and they were really lovely. And so I would just develop with them. And then my first collection, I ended up guessing a few orders and it was in the crochet, obviously. So I had to figure out how to produce it. And my mother, I have to say, did a lot of the groundwork because she's there.

18:34And the two of us kind of just worked with a group of, we started meeting other women through some of the women we'd already known. And then we came across a group, like a little craft co-op, basically, of women who like teach each other skills. and that I had actually met with them like 15 years prior for when I was thinking about it. And so we just started meeting all these ladies across the island. And then my mother really like kept on top of them. And I realized though that obviously it's handmade and there's like limitations to speed. And also they've never worked on a fashion calendar. So I had to figure out a way to diversify the product offering in a way that like allowed for this level of attention to craft and like elevating in craft in a way that didn't feel like, I don't know, state or old fashioned or not sexy.

19:24And so I started thinking about other crafts I was interested in. And there was this manufacturer in India that I had worked with for a long time and really loved working with them. And so we started developing other things. So even like, it wasn't necessarily like embellishments and beading, but it was a loss of thread work. And I was connecting seams of, you know, shirts and tailoring. And then I was doing fully fashioned knitwear out of China. And then I was like, well, they have the capability to do embellishments on knitwear. So maybe I do that there. And so I just started finding other techniques and the places where they're like really experts in there and just making sure that this like focus on craft was everywhere.

20:03And I did the math the other day and I think 65 % of the collection has handmade in some way. Wow. I mean, I think it really speaks to that 10 or so years of experience that you had in other places, especially in Italy, where they, I mean, I agree with you, by the way, that there is this unfortunate, still ongoing tendency to do things in other places and not credit the people who make them. But, you know, there is such a long history of making and, you know, the craft in Italy is obviously, you know, itself incredible. Right. And so that experience with sourcing and all of the work that you were doing when you were at Costume, it really came in handy.

20:42Absolutely. When you're building your own thing, right? Because you don't just need to look or think about your own backyard, like having that familiarity with all of the possibilities of craft in other parts of the world is really helpful. Exactly. Absolutely. And also all of my experiences after that, because when I was at Mandel, I was focused again on the gowns, which was, you know, embellished or like lots of fabric manipulation. And then I left that and went into contemporary because I was looking for a work-life balance. But that was interesting because I'd never thought about the customer.

21:12So I think it's like all of these different experiences kind of like built my foundation of how I work. we'll be right back with more on the bof podcast

21:27so what's the breakthrough moment where you realize that hmm maybe this little business that i'm building it's gonna work and i don't mean the cfda prizes and all that stuff i mean like that real instinct that you're getting feedback from the market yeah That's positive because you can win as many prizes as you can. But if people aren't buying the clothes, ultimately it doesn't work. I mean, I think the prizes came after the wholesale accounts, you know, and I'm really so grateful to some of the early adopters, you know, like Bergdorf Goodman. They were one of my first accounts. I think they were like my third season.

22:09And you have to note, like my first season was January 21 was the wholesale appointments because it was pre-fall 21. and it was virtual and people bought it without having seen anything in person, you know. And then I think it was someone like Essence picked this up pretty early. I'm not there anymore, but I was there. And then Moda came early and Bergdorf's and McMullen, Sharon McMullen also came early. And I think like because of their kind of belief in the brand and support, I was like, okay, well, I guess this is real now. I have to leave my job and work on this. So wait, you were doing all of this while you were still having the day job?

22:47Yeah, it was crazy. Wow. Okay, so you decide that you're ready to make the real plunge. Yeah. Back to the practical matters. Like, how do you finance the requirements to grow a business from scratch? Well, I had like a little bit of savings, which was not a lot in the scheme of fashion, very little. And I use that to start. and I was just like, the only way this is going to be possible is if I get deposits because the production has to pay for itself. So I was pretty strict about deposits back then and we've been lucky to work with really great partnerships and that's basically how it happened.

23:25But then it gets more complicated the bigger the orders and so that's why I started doing these competitions to find capital essentially for the business. It's funny. I was in Milan earlier this week at the Camera de la Moda Fashion Trust because they were giving out some grants. And I was talking to some people about just, you know, I used to think there were way too many fashion prizes in our industry. But given the state of the industry now and how challenging things are, like designers are really, you know, it sounds like this was the case for you as well. Like those can really be a lifeline as you're trying to like find the working capital to finance all that production in advance.

24:09Yeah, absolutely. And I think some people are, you know, I don't know. I guess it may be just like a level of privilege that I don't really have. But some people are like, oh, I can't do all these prizes. It doesn't look good. And I'm like, I actually don't care. Somehow the bills have to get paid. So, but I think I've done them all. No, I don't think there are any left. Well, you have won a number of really impressive prizes, but I guess those are not a permanent solution to growing and financing a business. So as you have been navigating the last year or so, when things have become really challenging with some of the retailers that you work with, you mentioned Bergdorf Goodman.

24:51I was in Milan and the designers there were complaining to me that they're not getting paid. We obviously all know about the issues at Saks, you know, and, you know, it's not just a Bergdorf-Saks-Neiman issue. This is like a fairly longstanding widespread issue about poor payments. So first of all, have you managed to continue to finance your business by getting deposits in advance? And are people actually paying on time? People aren't paying on time. Definitely not. And I mean, it's like you said, it's widespread. It's not like specific to one account. And that has been extremely challenging.

25:30I think that's why I continue to do these competitions and find opportunities for grants because it's like, you know, no strings, like kind of funding. But yeah, I'm looking into other options for how to bring capital into the business. I haven't yet explored investment, but I've been looking into other avenues, whether it's collaborations or things like that. my focus is really going to be to build out the DTC components of the business because it's, it's a really tiny part of the business and it's so important, obviously for margins and a healthy business. But that's just been challenging because it does take capital to build us out.

26:03So yeah, it's really an urgent need for us to build that portion of the business. Okay. So let's, let's talk back to some of the like brand building part of what you're doing, because, you know, as I said at the beginning, just looking at what you do, the imagery, there's just this like, I don't even know what the right words are to use it. And I don't like using the word elevate because, you know, craft itself is beautiful, but you have - It's elevated, yeah. Yeah. It just feels like if you're going to take the kind of craft that you work with in different parts of the world and offer it to a global fashion industry, there has to be some process of making it feel so desirable, so beautiful, so sophisticated, which you've done.

26:51So how do you navigate that? Like when you're working with craftspeople, there must be this kind of exchange with them around like how you get the result that you want, that you know that the market will respond to. I mean, I think it's an approach from my perspective, because I think that for a long time craft has like had a like people associated a like an aesthetic to craft and craft doesn't have an aesthetic like craft is like technique and execution it's like knowledge it's not it doesn't have its own aesthetic you can do with crochet anything and like you want it's like they're endless possibilities and I think what I really thought about was like just like on a conceptual level like I think that craft is maybe very the most intimate form of fashion like because it is made by hand like there is this like energy exchange almost so I kept thinking about intimacy and like sensuality and desire and really these people it's not that I had to impart any any like requirements to them on on it being elevated the work as we said is elevated it's more like how do I utilize these techniques in a way that does not feel crafty you know it's it's it's not them I think it's really designers that have that responsibility and I think I thought about like combinations of things like tailoring with crochet for example I think I thought about embroidery in a way that wasn't like bohemian or like super decorative sometimes it's more about texture sometimes it's again about like the sensuality of like what's exposed what's revealed and how it's done or things that are complete and things that are coming undone like I think a lot about like what these techniques can allow me to do in silhouettes basically and the exchange with the artisans and the craftspeople you know one of the other things that I think is sometimes not understood is resident within those people is boundless creativity absolutely so much you know back to this notion of like the in a way the colonization of fashion and if we wanted to talk about the decolonization of fashion.

29:00I think part of that is crediting artists and artisans and craftspeople with their own creativity. Because in any process where you're working with, even if it's a factory, a made in Italy factory, there's just the people you're working with, they are creative as well. Absolutely. That dialogue is so misunderstood, I think, by a lot of people. Like, how do you go about doing that? Like, what's that process like? Yeah, because for me, I think this is like, And this is a problem with fashion in general. It's like this idea of the creative genius. And it's usually a man, usually a white man. And it's like the dictatorship of their points of view.

29:37But actually, it's not at all what happens in reality. Like every single collection involves tens, maybe sometimes hundreds of people. For me, I have an openness that I think is important. So I can go in and say I want to do something. But it really is a dialogue. And it's like, well, this is better because of this. or I think this is more interesting because of this. And if you're open to it, I think like you can make more interesting things. I think oftentimes fashion wants to just force like ideas onto people or onto techniques that I just don't, I just don't think that's a way to do it. And I don't think it's reality.

30:13So I try to be as collaborative as possible. Also because I don't have a design team. So that is kind of my design team. So you're doing it all on your own and work with the craftspeople basically. Yeah. Amazing. Well, that's even more powerful in a way because you have such a direct relationship with them. You're not like outsourcing that to some assistant. You're the person in direct dialogue with them, which is cool. Yeah, totally. I mean, I need some help, but yeah. So speaking of which, I mean, if you're not raising money right now, and I know as a Black entrepreneur, a woman entrepreneur, that's particularly challenging.

30:50How are you feeling about navigating this as the business becomes more and more important as it continues to grow? What's that been like for you? Yeah, I've just been trying to find other opportunities. It's not that I'm against fundraising. I just wasn't sure that I was ready for it at this exact moment. I think that could change in six months. But it's almost like a scrappy bootstrap kind of way of doing things. You know, I think about utilizing the resources I do have, like my studio and like how I can build DTC, not just on e-com, but through like private appointments and clienteling. I think there's a lot of power there.

31:30And I do think that there's an audience where I just have to tap into that some more. But again, yeah, I've been having conversations around collaborations and things like that, which, you know, there are other people in this industry I respect who have done that. And I've seen them be successful with that. Last week, I met with Martine Rose when I was in London and, you know, she spoke a lot about that and how it helped. And that was really helpful for me to hear and listen to that. There are other ways, you know, it's not just VC. You can do it other ways. Absolutely. So what are you most proud of at this stage since launching Diotima?

32:08Maybe showing, hopefully showing a new perspective of the Caribbean. And I think like adding to a conversation on craft in a way that's more sensual, I think that maybe is my signature, I hope. And I think that comes across. So I want to keep doing that. I love that idea of the sensuality of craft, because you're right. People don't often see associate craft with something that's sensual. Did you land on that in the process of building the company? Yeah, absolutely. I think I didn't think about it that way so much before. I mean, I have had respect, so much respect for it always. And I do think that comes out of my time in Italy.

32:48But, you know, I would do things with the crochet that was really unusual. Like I would take these doilies and I would just drape them directly on the body and the way it would just like mold to the body and hold. And like, and then I started thinking about the mesh that I would add the crystals to and how that was almost a sensual experience in wearing it. And then I was like, actually, this is quite, you know, I would receive the production of the crochet and I just like, I would open the box and I would like feel this energy, you know. And I thought there is spirit and there is like this, something that's imparted from the person making it to the person wearing it.

33:27And that's very intimate. That's a beautiful notion. So there's probably other people out there who are looking at what you've done and thinking, wow, I'd love to do that. What advice do you have to offer to some young woman from the Caribbean or elsewhere who's looking to find her path into fashion? Yeah, I mean, I think there's this idea of young and emerging that is really just old now. We don't need to think about that. And I don't think people need to look like fashion is really crazy because someone that's really small and doesn't have a lot of resources is being judged on the same level as someone from a conglomerate.

34:12And so you just have to realize that you don't have to abide by these notions of when you should do something, how you should do it, like the way you should do it. I think you should just wait till you're ready and find your way. That's great advice. Nice. I'd like to double click a little bit on what you said about the notion of young and emerging as being outdated. What do you mean? Well, so for example, the LVMH prize, you can't enter after 40, which is so crazy to me. It's like, again, like I didn't have the option to start a brand at 22. I think it's a very classist idea. It's more than ageist is classist.

34:49So I think we have to realize that we don't live in an even world. And young does not mean better. I think there is something beautiful to experience and knowledge and confidence in that experience. I think, of course, that doesn't mean that young is a problem. But I think emerging is maybe more interesting than young. I don't think we have to assign age. Yeah, redefining what emerging means. I mean, it's not about where you are in your life. It's about where you are in your business. Exactly. And I also, as a 41-year-old, feel younger than I was at 31. Well, cheers to that. And Rachel, thank you.

35:29Thank you for your time and for sharing your story. It's really beautiful what you're building. I can't wait to see how it develops. And yeah, congratulations. I'm really, really impressed with it. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. The BOF podcast is edited and produced by Olivia Davies and Eric Bria. Thank you.