Lori & Marci Hirshleifer: Owners of Hirshleifers – Legacy, Social Media, Style, Handbag Charms & Reinventing the Family Business

0:28Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having us. Around the world with your host, the Stade Guy. We welcome you back to the Stade Guy podcast, sharing stories of excellence with those in the know for those who just know. I would love to start off with your relationship. So your niece and aunt, aunt and niece, not sisters. Not sisters. Have you always had similar style and a deep friendship? I think our style is pretty similar. Definitely differs a little as well, but pretty similar. I think of all the family, the two of us in the female part of the family, it was most into fashion and always have been.

1:16Right. We've always had a close relationship though. Yeah, very close. Since a young age, yeah. I love that. Yeah. And how many members of the family are there that are involved in your business? Wow. eight seven or eight well there's you me david rob andrew jen karen shelly jen i think that's it yeah i think that's impressive yeah amazing five generations five generations well we were in the they're the fifth generation we're the fifth right my brother and my cousin. I'm sorry. Yeah. And so Generation One started the Hirschleifers boutique. In, yes. In Long Island. In Brooklyn. In Brooklyn. It started in 1905 actually.

2:05Wow. And it was a furrier. They were furriers in Brooklyn. Wow. And then they moved to Forest Hills. My great grandfather, my great grandfather started it. Wow. Yeah. And was it always like a forward moving fashion multi-brand store? It was. The Queen's store was, yes. And then we opened in Manhasset like 60 years ago. That's 60 years ago. And it was my mom's store. That's when she joined the business. Yeah. Incredible. So were you like a student working part-time at one point and then? It's all I ever wanted to do was join the business. I didn't want to go to college. I said, I'm going right out of high school.

2:44And my father said, no, you're going to go to college. You're and have four years of fun while you can because you're going to work the rest of your life. So I went to college. He wasn't lying. He wasn't lying. Working the rest of my life. And yeah, I went right into the business. Amazing. And then Marcy? I went to college as well. And then after college, I worked a few different places. Lori likes to make fun of the places I worked. But I did. Can you share a couple? Sure. I worked at Intermix, which you don't laugh at that one. No. Searle. There may have been like a bagel store and like... A pharmacy.

3:24A pharmacy. I like the pharmacy. That was great. She used to have to count change. Remember that? Yeah, I didn't. Change that. Did you style up the lab coat at the pharmacy? No. Just plain lab? I wasn't in like the... I was in like the, you know, the beauty section of the pharmacy. Fine. That makes more sense. You know, shampoos, conditioners, all that stuff. And then finally, or I always knew I wanted to be in the business. And I just wanted to see some other. You worked at Bendel's. I worked at Henry Bendel's. Yeah. And then I worked in the garment center, which I knew right away it wasn't for me.

3:59Like I wanted to be retail side, not wholesale. Okay. And then I came in and my grandfather was like, you got to learn everything. So I started learning everything. The receiving department. I was a cashier. stock I did it all that's how we all learned from the bottom family businesses fascinate me in general I think it takes incredible strategic planning to be able to make people fit into the role versus finding people that are best for a role very true and my friends who are part of family businesses or even run family businesses they often have an approach of send the kids off to other companies first let them make mistakes in someone else's dime yeah exactly and then come back yeah when they've already made enough mistakes to learn was that part of the family strategy for you i think i mean yeah from my grandfather he you know he was like let's let's have you learn somewhere else first and then when you're really ready you're going to come in which is what i did and my son worked through college he worked at other places as well i think all of us all of us did we all did yeah yeah so no one makes it to the top without going through the ranks no no we like to know how to do everything in the store like if it was just the family the eight of us there we all could figure out how to do everything from open to close to sell everything yeah i felt that when i came into the store and we did our our shopping event yeah it really feels like a family all together it's really cool i think part of it also is that we will do anything that we would never ask anyone to do something that we wouldn't do ourselves right so and they know it our staff knows it and they appreciate appreciate yeah yeah and fast forward to the two of you being social media legends which is how how i discovered actually my mom has been following you both for years really and she's she's a huge fan of how you dress and I realized that a lot of my friends and friends moms and they all follow you and they had no idea you you run on an operator store they just thought that you shopped you know indulge and take pictures we've been hearing that a lot lately it's crazy it's I mean it's cool for the image you know it's aspirational yeah you know I think that's why I did a store tour recently on my instagram because people don't really know right that there is a brick and mortar store or they might even assume that the store came after the social media presence right that's what most people do yeah right no we interrupt this sequence for a delivery of a cipriani meringue cake oh whoa since we're filming at casa cipriani it's only uh only appropriate that looks amazing That looks delicious.

6:54It's actually our reward. Post-podcast, we just dig in. We're ready. Okay, I'd love to know how the social media journey started. I started a long time ago, I think just doing mirror selfies, I believe. But it was a long time ago. I started after you. I think COVID is when it really happened for me, I guess. We had to close the store for a short period of time. And we were like, what are we going to do? Like, this can't be happening. So we would go into the store. It would be closed. And we would take pictures of, like, merchandise on ourselves. Or we'd bring stuff home. We'd do videos. And then it just, like, kind of blew up from there.

7:47And we were, like, we were the only game in town, basically, that was open. Oh. Yeah. And selling online and delivering to people's homes through pictures and videos? Yeah. So we would sell over the phone.

8:03They'd come to the store. They'd meet us outside. We'd walk out with our masks and our gloves, and we'd hand them their packages. It was nuts. Wow. But that's how it happened. And you also stock brands that very few other multi-brand stores in particular stock, which I think is also part of the... The appeal for online customers who can only buy certain brands with you. Yes. How does that happen? That we have these collections? Yeah, you have product that no one else has, you stock brands that no one else stocks. Like, well, a lot of it comes from, it's history, but my parents had the relationship with Chanel before us.

8:43It's been 40 years that we've had this relationship. and Chrome Hearts, we've had, those are our two longest relationships other than my marriage.

8:58Can you tell us about that? My marriage? Your marriage? I'm going to be married almost for 39 years. Congratulations. I met your husband. He's lovely. Thank you. Great. He's all right. He's a good guy. He's a great guy. He's entertaining. Great. And they're very close, Marcy and Dave. that's important yeah there's nothing worse than a friend or family member not liking your your partner yeah yeah no that's not good no like it yeah that's great and i generally love multi-brand stores and there's less and less of them every day yeah especially these very selectively stocked multi-brand stores you don't want it to be overwhelming like a supermarket either yeah and it was a big thing 10-15 years ago but very few players have lasted like i used to love colette in paris same same it was just amazing but the closest thing to it really feels like hirschleifers closest experience i've had very nice compliment yeah i mean it's the truth yeah is that part of the inspiration are you inspired by other stores at times i mean Definitely we're inspired by Colette, but there's hardly, as you said, there's not much left to get inspired by.

10:14I think we get more inspired by what we see out in the market, just on Instagram, on anything, things we like, and go from there. We're always looking for new designers, and we have the big ones, thank God, and we're looking for small, new people that are creative. All the time, right. We like to see everything. I love that. That keeps us special. for us. I want to jump back to the social media side of things. That's how I discovered you and how I think a lot of people may have as well. I know Virgil Abloh is a big fan of her schleifers and of the two of you. And he made you the Nebraska Birkin.

10:57Yeah. Right. How did all that relationship happen? Just from seeing him at the, it started, we were Probably one of their first stores to carry off white. So he showed us the collection. It was him and Julia, who was with him forever. David, Rob, and I in this little tiny room looking at the collection. We were like, this is pretty awesome. It was after he did Pyrex and all his other stuff. This was 2011 maybe? I don't even know. I have to look at my phone to see dates on the phone. That's a long time. And we just kind of became close, not close, but had a nice relationship. He came to visit us in our home in East Hampton.

11:37We had lunch there. Just he was an epic guy. I mean, brilliant, kind. Beyond talented. Yeah, and beyond talented. I love that. Yeah. He had a tremendous impact on my career as well. Yes. Yeah, just through his support. He started reposting me when I had barely any followers. Oh, wow. And he would always comment the modern Robin Leach of the Lifestyle Division famous. That's great. Yeah. And here I am. Yeah, you are. Doing the podcast now. That's pretty cool. I think he did that for a lot of people. A lot of young people who were starting and not so young people. But he was always so supportive of everybody.

12:19He was. Yeah. I mean, with the customization on the Birkin, I think that was one of the first steps into people adding flavor to something that's already special, but like kind of a fashion staple. I think anyone who starts to get into style, especially women, they want a Birkin as part of their collection. And having the Nebraska print on out of this little flair, did that also lead to all the accessories? somehow um i think maybe it did the nebraska everyone always asks me why nebraska do you live in nebraska did you ever live in nebraska i'm like no it's just he decided what he's painting right he you know it was his collection whatever i said sent him the bag i said you do what you want yeah so nothing to do with nebraska other than the collection but i think it came after the decorating the bags it's just i kind of ran out of room on my arms and my ankles so went to the handbag amazing yeah so you you put necklaces on the on the handbags is that how it started charms charms like your charms like any charms they're just fun today it's just so much fun gives it a personality yeah it makes it more sure yeah personalize it yeah more and the when did you start doing that i don't know years ago years ago yeah thanks so why do you think it became a trend like now in the past six months it's like i don't people don't even carry handbags anymore without charms no you see everyone with a charm and now minu has the bags with you know the charms are coming with the yeah with the bags i don't know how it took off like it did but it did i really think is this you guys honestly i think people agree online it's i think you guys started the handbag charm trend i think laurie did and then maybe yeah laurie did we we all you know jumped on board yeah yeah it's a good one but we're out of space now i don't know what we're decorating next on the body this is too much you think sneakers next yeah uh-huh yeah me started yeah the charms and the shoes yeah okay so that's next with poobel when we sent you guys some poobel to put on the bag yeah it's one of the times that our customers and fans are most excited because it's like a massive seal of approval yeah you know it's like fitting it into your outfits it's like okay the cool the cool ladies are wearing them you know it's very cool for Bill.

14:59It is. We love it. You guys make it cool. Appreciate it. Have things changed for you now on a day-to-day basis at the store and in your lives ever since you started to grow online? Airports. Airports. Restaurants. Yeah. It's become... It's still strange to us. We go to Miami. It still feels weird. It's because we're the same people. When they ask for pictures. Is it weird? Of course we do. We'd love to. We're so happy. But, you know, we're shy. We get embarrassed. We're very shy. I know you are. Yeah, exactly. So we're not the people that I guess we look like on Instagram. Right. On social media.

15:37Hopefully it's not usually the case. I also am a little different to my social media. Yes, right. Yes, you definitely are. A little. No, I'm kidding. A little bit. A little bit. So do you like it? Are you happy with the outcomes of the fame? I mean, I appreciate it. Yeah, appreciate it. Yeah. I appreciate it. But, you know, sometimes you're not dressed and you have no makeup on and you're walking in Soho. Like Sunday morning, this is Sunday. David and I went to a store and I came out of the store and there's these two young girls and they're like, oh my God. I love your TikToks. And I'm like in sweatpants and I look, you know.

16:17I think that's why people love you though. Yeah. Because it's just authentically you. Yeah. Right. Right. And also, I think you mix and match brands as well as your store, which is rare because a lot of people now are dressing like mannequins when they have the budget to do so. So they'll stay loyal to one brand, which can kind of look cool too. And also matching neutral tones can look good too. But I think this elegant maximalism and playfulness with really nice pieces rarely exists. Yeah. Because it takes thinking. It's actually a hard decision to make. I think that's how we also, when we buy, I think we think about that.

16:56We merchandise the store with those thoughts. So that you're not only buying one brand, but you can wear like the 12 brands that I have on. That's super cool. So would you define your category as anything? Do you have a name for the type of style that you have? No. I call it like elevated Elegant maximalism I don't know if that's Like overkill But I think it's elevated because the amazing brands You wear, materials use It's elegant because you know It's undeniable And it's maximalism because it's very expressive Yes, it's all true That makes sense And those things are like contradictions I was talking about this with Nadine Ghosn Contradictions I think are very cool In general but now more than ever where something very premium but very playful is really fun.

17:52Like the bag charms. Exactly. It's like this absurdity of elegance and material and quality with bringing out the child within and having fun and celebrating color. There's definitely people that will say, there'll be comments sometimes on Instagram or TikTok, why do you do that to your bag? or how could you put such a little charm or whatever it is on your Birkin or expensive handbag? You know, they think it makes it less important and it doesn't. It helps personalize it more for you and makes it more fun. For sure. I was just going to talk about Nadine and say that, you know, we carried her collection, how many, six years ago?

18:39I don't know, before. More? Yeah. So we had the hamburger ring, sushi ring, the earphones, the headphones. I think before people really understood what it was to have playful things, I don't know what changed that made it suddenly acceptable. But I'm so happy it did. I'm so happy it did too. I love that category of product. I think a few players do it well. like another one is Elder Statesman where it's just like incredible materials but playful and colorful and expressive. I think something that may have changed recently is people who wear nice things sometimes feel less safe wearing nice things in some environments will get robbed.

19:29There's a whole other conversation and reasons for that which are sad but But I think also people feel like they stand out less to someone who could rob them. Exactly. It's more just fun and playful because it just looks like a toy. Right. It's true. Whereas maybe a Cartier bracelet or something stands out as this is Cartier. A pencil is like, oh, it's just a pencil. Who's wearing that anyway? Are you wearing it right now? Of course I am. I love it. I don't take it off. But I take it off sometimes. Do you sleep in the full? Not the full, but a lot of them. Full stack? Okay. These don't come off.

20:08These, of course, stay on. Chrome hearts ones? Yeah. I sleep in my full. I know. I don't know how you do that.

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20:47But I know that the two of you are incredibly modest and also shy, so it's probably hard for you to share this, but I think there's lots of business owners who would love to learn from you. What are a couple tips that you may be able to share with them of things you've done that people could do to go viral, grow their businesses, start trends maybe? I mean, we definitely try and think out of the box is a big thing we try and do quite often. And getting out of our comfort zone, which, you know, we don't like talking on camera. We don't like to do any of that stuff. Thank you for being here. We force ourselves to do it.

21:31I don't know. I think also just staying true to your business, you know, knowing what exists, what you have to, the stick-to-itiveness, the determination, all that. Dedication, yeah. Like the daily posting. That's a lot. No giving up. No. Because it's like they always want to see more and they always want to see, you know, not only do they want to see the store, They want to see our day in the life, like, you know, not when we're at work, which is rare because we're always all there. But the few hours we're not, what are we doing and how do we spend our time? And it's I think it's, you know, being a family business and that we're always all there and around.

22:17It makes the clients, the customers feel like a different way about us and about the business, about the store. They're coming into our home. It's like a family and they're coming into our home. I think running a family business can be incredibly difficult to most. And the dynamic you guys have is really cool and inspiring to most people who are just family members. I think people have a hard time getting along with siblings, let alone their aunt and their nieces and their cousins. and going a step further and working together is even more challenging to most. What do you think it takes to be able to work with family as well as you do?

23:03Well, it definitely is challenging. Not all the time, but there's trust. A different level of trust, I think, because we're a family. You don't think someone's going to stab you in the back, and it's very different. And we usually all agree on most things, which is a big deal too. Right. And we all, I think, also have our own little areas that we kind of stay in our own lanes at times. And then if and when need be, we all discuss everything. But I think we all know what we're good at and strive at, so we kind of stay in that lane. I love that. I think for a fashion business today, when people are starting, especially a multi-brand fashion business, they think global distribution, scale, fast, fast, fast, versus you guys have gone local, family.

23:58It's this, again, a contradiction of this brick-and-mortar approach for fashion. Why have you taken that approach? Because we all, I think most likely because, you know, we want to be, we all want to be, we can't be in a million places at once. so I mean we've been asked to open stores all over the place and we know they'd be amazing but who would be there it's different when we're all there in one spot the secret to the success yeah it was so funny my parents were to dinner recently and my mom's friend tells their other friends like oh my god we have such similar style I love how we're both dressed the same way and one of the husbands says you guys don't have the same style you just have the same budget you know and it's true if you if you have your own style and you can mix and match it's takes incredible taste but you could also shortcut it by just having a budget yeah exactly and have someone do it for you but then you have to hang it in your closet like that you know what i mean you can't pick from this and only wear that sweater that hand and that shoe take a photo and have it on the outfit.

25:09Yeah. I mean, I see people who have these amazing in-store shopping experiences. Yeah. And the item looks so good in the store, but they're so addicted to shopping that no matter how big their homes are, they end up just stuffing it in the shelf. Never wearing it. That's terrible. It looks horrible at home and they never wear it. No, you have to trade out too. That's terrible. You got to get rid of your stuff. Yeah. How do you do that? Well, a lot I give away. I'm sure people love that. Yeah. Who's on the gifting list? that sounds like a great list to be on she is that sounds fantastic like you don't even know we we trade we give him i get hand-me-downs she gets you know a lot of it stays on my sister loves any hand-me-down anything anything i think most would a laurie hirschleifer hand-me-down is there's no regular hand-me-down she likes anything yeah she does like anything okay if one of you didn't want to work with the family i think a lot of people who are part of family businesses have this where they are raised to fit into the family business and they actually want to go off and do their own thing which is often a great thing yeah would your family be accepting of that um that i'm not sure about that might be a little strange but my the My middle sister, her other aunt, she was an attorney before she came to the store.

26:33So I think we would do all that stuff before, not after. And my brother, you know, when we were all younger, like it was holiday breaks from school, we would all work in the store part time. um as he got older college dabbled in a few different areas photography cooking he was like there's no way i'm going into business i'm just i'm not there's no way i hate it i hate it i hate it he opened um a restaurant in brooklyn called franny's with his wife francine and had another a restaurant called marco's also in brooklyn um for a few years those clothes he moved to vermont and then and made cheese made cheese and he was like what the hell am i doing here he was the chef he was incredible he is incredible he's an incredible chef um cheese in vermont and he was like i'm gonna come into the store we were like huh but he was crazy yeah like really like you had a lobotomy like what is going on this isn't even you um but he's here and he's amazing and um does a great job does a great job he's like operations he runs the store basically um so yeah so you know we didn't frown obviously when he was coming in but we did think that he was um something happened to his brain like we were like who is this yeah i mean it It sounds like everyone wants to be part of the business.

28:07Yeah, I think so. I think it's grown enough that we each have our own areas and we're comfortable. And Marcy and I do most of the same job other than her selling, which is a huge part of her job. But I think there's room for everybody and no one steps on anyone's toes. So it works out perfectly. Sure. Yeah. And what about the ambassador roles, which the two of you have as the online ambassadors of the store? Does anyone... Is anyone in the family inspired to also step into the social media side of things? I don't think so. I don't think so. No. Both my sisters have no interest in that. And my cousin and my brother would rather jump off this than ever be the face or, you know, no.

28:54They have no interest. Exactly. but what what do you think it takes for a brand to get to a point to be liked by the two of you and to be bought by the store because there's lots of brands coming up every day and I'm sure you get crazy inbound people wishing to be stocked with you and you say no to most and yes to some what does that decision making process usually look like I'm sure it's not just demand because this no no i think it we have to feel either passionate about it or like or something that's missing in our current yeah stock um we have a new brand a shoe brand that we bought for the first time that's coming in for whatever season's coming in but she's a new designer her packaging is incredible like but we didn't know that collection's beautiful we found her on instagram Yeah.

29:50Beautiful. Really special. Very different from anything else that we have. So it's, I think that's really what it is. It has to be different and it has to fill the, a spot. We're always looking, like whether it be for shoes or jewelry, anything, we're always looking for new bag charms. Luxons, bagged arms, yeah. Well, in a very Stade Guy fashion, we always play this game on the show of à la poubelle versus fantastique. As you know, à la poubelle is things that are in the trash. Fantastique is things that are great. Can you share a couple of things, ideally each, that are à la poubelle or a couple of things that are fantastique that you're particularly grateful for in your industry lives, work?

30:38Family is fantastic. Yeah. Dogs are fantastic. You know, my hashtag on every post is it's all family. You guys would fit perfectly into Stade, by the way. Because Stade is an incredible place where it's so unique. You should go. Never been. So there's basically one street that all the stores are on called the Promenade, which is like the Stade High Street. Yeah. And there's maybe like two dozen stores. like max 30 stores and during high season of course a lot of tourists come in like me but during the rest of the year it's all just residents shopping and every store knows every person that's amazing and it's really like a family and people who have homes rarely pay for things and they usually just have a tab that's on the home i love that really yeah and even ultra high-end stores so like even like the lower piano store every sales associate there yeah it's a house House charge.

31:37Yeah, house charge. We used to have house charges. That's so cool. It's amazing. And they know all the chalets by name. And you never have to carry a shopping bag. So the residents are never carrying the bags because they're like, oh, I love this. Oh, so chic. Deliver it to the house. So chic. And they also do this thing where they sometimes assume you might like something. So you'll get home and it'll just be there. And you're like, oh, my God, look at all these things. And if you like them, then you keep it and they'll charge you whenever. I'd like to meet the people that live there. It's amazing.

32:03Yeah, they're the best. You need them as clients. You do. And if you don't like the items, then they... Send someone to take them back? They pick them up, yeah. They just take them back. I mean, it's very few chalets and very few homes, but with incredible spending power. And most of these homes have lots of staff that... Of course. Take care of the things on their behalf. It's a really cool place. So when I started to figure out that... That's incredible. It's amazing. It's a very cool place. Whenever anyone would walk into one of these stores or restaurants and the waiters know all the residents and it really felt like a family.

32:37So I started making this joke that Shtad is all family. So my hashtag on every single post is hashtag. I haven't even noticed that. It's all family. I think budget aside, do you think there is ever an appropriate age to start wearing designer pieces? Because I often see parents who dress their kids up. I do. I definitely do. I do as well. Yeah. Yeah. I have a 13-year-old and like, you know, he's in the business he's not in the business obviously but he's growing up the same way i grew up in the business and i remember i didn't get my first item from the store till my sweet 16 same never forget it was a red mosquito dress car wash dress i wish i still had it what's a car wash dress it was like on pierre was it on the car wash yeah those things okay fine i didn't So, I mean, it's different now.

33:34We have a lot of less expensive collections that are geared towards his age bracket. But, you know, when you see people coming in buying children a Chanel bag, it's like, wow. We have some people that come in and buy their infants, you know, their first Chanel bag. I've seen a lot of that. I'm sure you have. Yes. I've seen a lot of that. I think that what they want their kids to look and not look like is up to them. But I think it just creates a strange value system for children. And what do they have to look forward to? It's also, you go to the nail salon now and you're sitting next to a four-year-old or a three-year-old getting their nails done and it's crazy.

34:20Yeah. That's what's actually a problem in skincare because skincare is a big trend because of social media. And these kids are using anti-aging. it's actually very bad for but also I mean I don't generally go to Sephora because I would prefer to buy it online but when you do go it's filled with 12, 13, 14 year olds that have all this skin care ready, makeup I mean it was different well thank you both so much for being here thank you for being on the Stad Guy podcast one of my first guests I'm very excited to see what you continue to accomplish and how you continue to style poubelle in your amazing outfits and I know that my followers particularly in Europe would love to see you in Europe and ideally in Stade we're going to Stade I don't ski though most people there don't ski it's just chic we're there they just hang out you can do a pop-up yeah that would be good awesome well thank you so much thank you thank you for listening to this episode of the Stardguy podcast if you're keen to learn more please follow along by engaging with our social channels on Instagram TikTok, Spotify YouTube and Apple podcasts and we look forward to seeing you next week merci beaucoup, à la prochaine and a big hug from the Stardguy