I was still in my role at LVMH and they all wanted to know how they could break into the company, how they could have a career in luxury. I saw that the tide had turned and that the field looked very interesting to them, unlike when I graduated business school where nobody went into the field. And I realized that they were missing something that would prepare them to thrive in this business. And so I had a direct conversation with the then Dina faculty, and I said, You're doing a disservice to your students. They seem to want to go into luxury and marketing and these sort of design-oriented businesses, but they have no basis. And she said, Well, that's really interesting. So if you were to teach a class here, what would it be called?
SPEAKER_01Hello and welcome back to Fashion Founders Podcast. My name is Victoria Smith, and this week I'm joined by Pauline Brown, the former chairwoman of LVMH. This is a masterclass in the business of luxury fashion. And the practices that these businesses use to build loyalty, desire, and longevity with tangible applications to your business, your life, and your career. Pauline has an incredible background. And to give a brief synopsis, she got her MBA at Warden, went on to work at Bain, and when she realized she wasn't meant for consulting, she went on to Estee Lauder. So we talk about pivoting careers. Fast forward to her time at LVMH, where she oversaw a portfolio of more than 70 LVMH brands. She then designed and taught a course at the Harvard Business School called the Business of Aesthetics, because she realized that business school wasn't properly preparing students to work in fashion. She quite literally taught the course on working in luxury fashion. So this is an inside look into that Harvard Business School class. Now she runs her business aesthetic intelligence, spanning a book, a podcast, and other projects. If you want to work in luxury fashion specifically, we talked about this quite a bit in the episode, and I asked her what truly makes somebody stand out. And there were a lot of pieces of advice, but one I want to call out is being culturally literate and expanding your knowledge of fashion beyond Instagram and going back into history by reading books or watching a documentary. A new one that is coming out this week is Brunello the Gracious Visionary on Brunella Cuccinelli's brand and life. This is such an incredible episode, and I feel so honored to be able to sit down with Pauline and ask her all these questions for myself and obviously for all of us who want to have a career in fashion and learn from her experience on adapting to the times, changing industries, and using technology in a tasteful way. And if you are able to leave the podcast a rating, a review, and follow or subscribe to the show wherever you listen, it really helps the podcast grow and helps us continue to get incredible guests like Pauline. Thank you all so much for being here. So let's get into it. Hi, Pauline. Hi, great to be here. I am so excited to have you. You have such an incredible background. You were the former chairwoman of LVMH North America. So I can't wait to dive into all of that. But first, I want to know when did you first enter into fashion and beauty?
SPEAKER_00Well, I entered into beauty a good 20 years before I entered into fashion. My first job after business school was barely a job. I was a consultant at Bain and Company. I often call that chapter my MBA part two. It was very good for training, but it didn't feel real to me. And all I knew, I didn't have any role models. I had no clear direction. But all I really knew when I was looking to move past consulting is that I wanted to be in an industry that makes products I enjoy. Not just products I use, but products I enjoy. I at that point came to the conclusion I'm really more of a product person than a service person. And I just picked a whole bunch of categories that I had a certain sort of affinity with. And within those, there were some brands that spoke to me more than others. So I looked at fashion, I looked at beauty, I looked at entertainment, at music, all industries that are driven by creativity. And at that point, the best offer came through at Estee Lauder. So I moved from Boston back to New York, where I'm from, and had never done anything in the beauty industry before. And that is really, in my opinion, when I look back, that is where I grew up. That is where I learned everything that I still think about today as what is a brand, what how do you tell a story? How do you kind of create a position that emotionally resonates? So I started in beauty and then many years later made my way into fashion.
What was that transition like?
SPEAKER_00From consulting to beauty, yeah. To hard, hard. For one, when I got to Bain as a consultant, I was trained to apply everything I had learned in business school. When I got to SA Lauder as a strategy person, I had to, in that first year or so, untrain myself. And it was one of my very early meetings with the then COO. Eventually he became the CEO, where I did everything that I had been taught to do well at Bain. I put a deck together, had a lot of analysis, was pretty well measured, and had all the kind of tools that a normal MBA case study would include. And he barely looked at it, he slammed it down, and he basically said, I need you to look at this business like an owner. Like I don't want you to be an observer by my side. I need you to feel more like an owner. And owners don't analyze so dispassionately. Owners don't look at everything in terms of charts and numbers. They also look at things in terms of empathically, how's the customer responding? What's happening operationally, like that moment of truth at the counter. And I realized that there was a way of doing business and big business. This was not like a little startup. The company was already a couple billion dollars in annual revenue, but there was a way of doing business that was quite different than anything I had been prepared for. And if I had not adapted, and I suspect many of my, you know, former business school friends and Bain friends would not have, would have just said, why would I? I'm too sophisticated to start acting like a salesperson on the floor. If I had not, in a with with all humility, made that transition, I would not have survived in that company. And I ended up spending more time there than any one company I've worked at ever.
SPEAKER_01Analyze dispassionately is such an perfect way to put that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, consultants are very good at that. Yeah.
I want to talk about LVMH a bit. It's the largest luxury conglomerate. You were the former chairwoman, being so high up, knowing everything that's going on, thousands of employees. What did the relationship become like between you and the business? And you're like, you become kind of like a servant in the way, being on the board. How did you balance that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think one of the myths that people have about rising up the ranks, that the assumption is you get more and more powerful and you feel more and more agency. The reality is, in my experience, the more senior I got, the more indentured I became. I didn't own my time. Everything was scheduled down to the minute, and that's including the time outside of my working hours. You have so many different constituents that have, you know, different, different demands, different needs. It's a balancing act. So I think you have to be prepared that if you go down that path, that you're really giving a lot of yourself if you're going to do it well. Some people start down that path, and if they try to exercise their power in ways that don't work, you know, across all the different constituents, they won't make it. And in that respect, it's no different than what I would say big politics looks like. These positions become more and more political and politicized as you rise up the ranks. What kept me going, because none of that motivates me, but what really kept me more than going, what kept me excited and inspired is across the breadth of brands and industries, there's so much creativity and there's so much content, good content, so much history, craftsmanship. And so I just kind of savored in all of that richness. If I could have just spent my days as a kind of tour guide of the company, I would have been very happy. To be an operator was really pretty grueling, though.
A lot of the listeners of the podcast are probably their 20s or 30s navigating their careers. Maybe they're working in fashion, but they want to keep moving up, or they have a side hustle, a passion project that isn't their full time yet, but they'd love for it to be someday. What would you say now, having served all these positions, being so high level that could help somebody stand out at an earlier stage?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, a couple of things. So let me just start by telling you and and your listeners what not to do. Okay. Do not look at my career and deconstruct it over K, say, a 25 or 40 year period and say, well, you know, she started as a consultant and then she went into beauty and then she's, you know, rose through her strategy and then she became an opera. That's what I need to do. Number one, even if Pauline Brown started today and did the exact same things Pauline Brown did, it wouldn't have played out that way, not in 2026 going forward. So the times have changed, and I think the people who succeed are, as much as anything, making good opportunistic moves and good responsive moves to the environment we're in. And it's a very different environment. When I started my career, there was no internet. And that it wasn't a century ago. So we forget how much has happened just in the last 25, 30 years. The second thing I'd say is don't be in a rush. Oftentimes you'll have more to learn from people who are two to three stages ahead of you, as opposed to people who are, say, seven or eight. Partly because of what I just said, that times change and the model that they pursued may not be relevant anymore, but partly because there's so much that happens between the plans and the aspirations. And I think people need to be closer to the ground. I think they need to focus more on doing quality work, focus a little bit less on where it's going. We don't know where it's all going, but I can tell you with great assurance that if you build a reputation for excellence, if you have the right attitude toward work, if you love what you're doing, if you're patient, you will succeed. And so it may not happen as quickly as you want, but you also will have some fairly unexpected and and fortuitous breaks along the way and you can't plan for them.
SPEAKER_01I think the building for longevity is sometimes particularly hard for my generation because everything moves so fast that you want that success yesterday. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, often when the world is going in one direction, I say to your question about how do you stand out, you have to go in the other. And part of the fortitude that's requiring is to resist what's happening around us all. If I could give any bit of advice to your generation, it's commit to yourself to take, call it one hour a day that you would be spending on a screen, spending something that is much more embodied and intellectually nourishing. It's unrealistic. If I told you put away the phone for a week, nobody would listen. I wouldn't listen to me. I wouldn't even listen to me if I said put it away for a whole weekend. But give yourself one hour a day that you would have been on that you step back from it, because that is where you're going to grow in ways that will probably differentiate you more than trying to keep up with the scroll.
SPEAKER_01The hiring landscape is so different. Fashion is so different now. I think part of that is people used to say to company for 10 years, and now people switch after two for their bonus alignments. Are there other things that you can pinpoint like that and maybe give someone advice? So like I want to leave my company, I want to go start, but I don't know if I'm ready. Like I think there's a lot of people in this kind of placeholder stage and they talk about it.
SPEAKER_00Very transitory time. Well, the first thing, the the one thing that won't transition, whether you change jobs or fields or you commit, you are still you and you're gonna bring yourself wherever you go. And we do live in a time where I think more and more you are your company. Whether you work for a company or you're self-employed or something in the middle, you know, uh project-based, you still have to look at your value proposition as independent of that. And I think the first question you have to ask before whether you like the job or you like the company is are you adding value in some concrete way? And are you feeling good about the way in which you're adding value? And if the answer to either of those questions is no, then that's a different solution to what you would do next. If you're not adding value, you have to figure out how you can, because that imperils you from a reputation standpoint, but also from a just a security standpoint. But if you are, I've been in roles in my career where one in particular when I was in private equity, where I was adding a lot of value. There was a lot of value being unlocked through the buying and selling of different assets and identifying next generation brands, but I didn't actually enjoy the process. And that created a different discomfort, which is why I moved on from that field. So I think when those two are aligned, you're in a really good place. And you probably shouldn't overthink it or challenge it to the point where you're going to give up something that's really quite good.
SPEAKER_01Speaking of longevity and a career, I think a great place to look at is actually luxury brands with longevity. You've overseen so many brands, LVMH, one of the biggest ones to me, and has kind of a special place for me and my mom is Dior.
How do these brands plan for longevity if they're kind of always planning to be around? They don't have an extra strategy that a startup does of I want to sell in five years and get my money and go. I kind of can't imagine a world where Dior is like, we're shutting our doors. And yeah, that's not gonna happen. How do these brands plan for the future in the way that startups aren't?
SPEAKER_00Well, there's a confidence that comes from any brand proposition that's been around in the case of Dior for 70 years. So you know that there's a heritage that can't be made up. Aspects of that heritage will be of different levels of relevancy at different times. The challenge when you're in fashion is everyone wants to be relevant this season. And there are times where the DNA of the brand is just not in sync, right? It's what we're seeing with Gucci right now, and they're really trying to figure it out, and the results are not good so far. Dior has more of a stable position, so it has it occupied a place going all the way back to the new look in the post-World War II era that it still hearkens to without feeling overly nostalgic. I would say Chanel does that even better. Chanel has a few other levers that it works with, not least of which we have a much fuller view of who Chanel was, who Coco was as a person than we do who Christian was. And she's more aspirational and maybe more exciting or more dimensional than he would be as a figure. And that's an asset that they use. They also have a lot of codes, more recognizable iconic codes than almost any other fashion brand. And that's it's it's around all of that that yes, there are seasonal flows and there's decisions. Do we open the store, do we represent different views in the window this season? I mean, there's a lot of churn, but the underpinnings of the brand are not changing all that much. And I think for brands that do probably stray too far from why they even meant something at some point in history, they're the ones that really lose trust and become much more fragile. And going back to your question about Dior, um I think there's such clarity of the rank and file in the company about what it stands for and the different ways it can represent and express that through different seasons and different cultures and geographies.
SPEAKER_01They really, I just like I can't picture a world where they would shut their doors and I can't say that about many companies.
SPEAKER_00But keep in mind within the 70 plus brands at LVMH, there are brands that have shut their doors. It not everyone has the breadth and depth of Dior, right? And some of the brands, they're not bad brands, but they couldn't work within the LVMH context. So that's why there was a decision recently to sell off Marc Jacobs. That's why many years ago they sold off Donna Karen. That's why they shut down the collaboration with Bono on a Africa-made sustainable brand called Eden. That's why they sold Stella McCartney back to her. It's not that every brand within their fold works, and it's not that they're the right partner for every brand. But when they have it, when the ones they do get right blow everyone else away.
SPEAKER_01Are there things you noticed being on the board that maybe from an outside perspective, I would think that has to be so important for that company. But once you're really seeing in the weeds of it, like that actually doesn't, it's a vanity metric, or that actually didn't play in.
SPEAKER_00Well, so there are certain things that don't move the needle commercially or are very hard to measure whether they're actually having impact. I think one thing that every brand, not just in the luxury sector, but every brand is still grappling with the influencer sponsorship model, partnership model. You know, the graveyard is full of Kardashian partnerships that went nowhere except for the Kardashians. You know, they did fine, but the brand didn't have a lift. And then there are ones, you know, like a skim that are skims that was a breakout success. So point number one is just because you align yourself with somebody who has a big following doesn't mean you're gonna see a return and the math there is still sorting itself out. Number two, even if the math works in terms of buzz generation, even if something becomes incredibly sticky, it doesn't always lead to sales. So who are you getting sticky with, right? And is it serving your longer-term interests? The uh Swatch AP collaboration, you know, by most measures was a fiasco and not because it didn't create desirability. There was extraordinary desirability. There were, you know, f long lines down the block and fights going on to get this $500 watch, but it wasn't in the interest of of the heritage brand AP to do that. And it backfired. So I think doing things for attention, for attention's sake, never really work well financially or strategically. But when they work well, I'm not saying that they shouldn't be, you know, that they should we that there shouldn't be every effort to make them work well.
SPEAKER_01Are there things that you think luxury or legacy brands know and do really well regarding consumer behavior and psychology that a startup can take in or even someone building their personal brand can implement?
SPEAKER_00Well, I think what luxury, and I'm and this is particular to European luxury. European luxury operates quite differently than you know what what might be the comparable here in the US. European luxury, you know, has really mastered the art of seduction. And I think the French are are especially good at this, but understanding how you keep people wanting, not oversharing, but sharing enough to keep the intrigue strong, doing it artfully, so every touch point and every way of expressing is done with a certain tastefulness and emotional connection to the brand itself and understanding at the core what this brand is really trying to say without having to say it so directly. You know, as Americans, and I would say the same of say Germans and Brits, uh we're pretty direct, right? We say what we mean, we mean what we say. We tend to look at the quickest way to get from point A to point Z. And sometimes that doesn't create the depth and the richness that is required of luxury. It does, it's great for technology, it's great for many forms of entertainment, it's great for CPG, right, which is really a volume business, a mass market business. But luxury operates with different uh drivers. And I think that sensitivity that you see among those European houses is why they continue to reign supreme in the field.
SPEAKER_01They really do have that, like je ne sais quoi to that.
SPEAKER_00And everybody, when you go in the companies, it isn't just the designers or the the marketers who do this well. People in finance appreciate. They may not be able to execute, you know, a great social media strategy or a campaign design, but they appreciate and they recognize what is on brand, what isn't, and they give brands the space to do this
well.
SPEAKER_01You mentioned taste, and I want to get into your class that you taught at Harvard, the business of aesthetics and your book, Aesthetic Intelligence. Why do you think a class like that wasn't taught at a business school before? And why did it deserve a place in this curriculum?
SPEAKER_00So it wasn't taught because all education and MBA education in particular is very rational and has assumed, much like you know, historically the field of economics and more of the sciences, that consumers are rational. And when I say that, I'm not being pejorative. The implication when I say, well, uh that's a false assumption is that the consumer is actually being irrational. The consumer is not being irrational, they're being emotive, they're being emotional human beings who will respond to things based on dreams and desires, which is at the underpinning of all humans. And I think it you know, until one of the reasons let me just back up. The reason I even introduced the course, I thought to introduce it was because back in 2015 I was giving a talk up at Harvard Business School and it was at a retail symposium. And afterwards many of the students had come up to me. I was still in my role. At LVMH, and they all wanted to know how they could break into the company, how they could have a career in luxury. I saw that the tide had turned and that the field looked very interesting to them, unlike when I graduated business school where nobody went into the field. And I realized that they were missing something that would prepare them to thrive in this business. It was preparing them well to be investment bankers or consultants, which is where I started. It was not preparing them well to do the hard things that I did when I first got to Estee Lauder. And so I had a direct conversation with the then Dina faculty, and I said, You're doing a disservice to your students. They seem to want to go into luxury and marketing and these sort of design-oriented businesses, but they have no basis. There's no training around what it really takes, this genes say quoi that you just described it as. And she said, Well, that's really interesting. So if you were to teach a class here, what would it be called? And I immediately felt like it wasn't about luxury per se, it was bigger than luxury. And it was more tangible than emotional intelligence, which is sort of relational. It was really about how we respond, you know, to art and to beauty and to things that excite us on a human level. And so I just blurted out without having given it a lot of thought. Well, it's kind of like the business of aesthetics. And she said, Oh, I love it. How do you spell it? Like that was the first conversation we had. Like, and I just decided then and there I'm going to spell it with an A and then an E. And I never went back. That was the opening. Now that was 10 years ago. And I've done a lot of research since. And I've taught also at Columbia and I've given lectures around the world, most recently at Oxford. And I've realized that this is a bigger opportunity than a business one. This isn't just for MBAs, that this is something that every young person coming into the workforce, even if you go into technology or into heavy industry, should be attuned to. And it should be taught because it can be.
SPEAKER_01Well, thank you for like proposing that because I'm just thinking back to my time and nothing was ever taught about fashion. And if it is, it's like here's a sewing class. And it's so much deeper than that. And it often isn't given that depth of respect that other topics are.
SPEAKER_00I I I fully agree. And it's not looking at fashion through that dispassionate objective lens that I mentioned earlier. It's not just looking at the size of the industry and the competitive landscape and so forth. It's looking at why people buy. Nobody, even among the poorest segments of society, nobody needs another white t-shirt. This is not about features and functions and cost-benefit analysis. It's really about that idea of tapping into people's dreams and desires. And I personally don't care much about fashion. I don't use the word that much. I think the concept of fashion and the this sort of habit trail that we're on of just putting newness out in the world is unhealthy and not that interesting to me. I think a lot about style. And that to me is healthy because in every society, people have a need to express their style. I always say good style is not about good image. It's about a good outer expression of an inner value system. And if we can connect our inner values to how we talk and how we talk to others and how we move through the world, like that is a great service. And then all of a sudden you respect style in a way that, you know, has otherwise, I think, to been been diminished, especially in the world of business.
I have gotten the question to myself and people who said, like, we need more on this, specifically in luxury. And like you said, it's like, how do I break into luxury fashion specifically, not just unique glow, but Louis Vuitton? And my first instinct was like, I don't think there's a different transferable skill that you need. I think it's about understanding that depth. Can that be taught? And is it your course?
SPEAKER_00Well, I know it can be taught because I've taught it over and over. So point number one is everybody has taste. Some people come into the world with much more developed taste than others. It's a little bit like athleticism. A very small percentage of the population, no matter how hard they work, could ever be an Olympiad, right? There are all sorts of factors that have to come together and pretty early in life. And it's exposure and it's musculature and it's influences, training, and so forth. But 100% of the population, if they work out and sleep well and eat healthily, is going to be more fit tomorrow than they were yesterday, right? It's just the fundamentals. And so I look at taste and aesthetic intelligence more broadly as a muscle. And whatever your starting point, there's a lot more capacity than most people realize. The first step is always just going back into our more childlike selves because some of the things that we know as young adults, even certain, and as kids, we know we like. We know, you know, if you ask a kid what flavor ice cream they want, you know, they're not wrestling with it. And they're not thinking about, you know, which one is more caloric or all the other calculations that go on in our head. They just know what their desires are. And so the first step is just getting back into our sense of self, what we like, what we don't, not what other people are telling us we should like or not. Now that's not good enough. That in and of itself isn't tasteful. And then the next few steps are learning how to articulate it, how to curate it, because in in a in a tasteful space, it's as much about what you leave out as what you bring in, and what your taste is versus someone else's. So one of the things I'm working on right now, and it it'll come out in the fall, is a taste test, because there is not just a singular type of taste, but whatever your taste type is, you can be better. And that's what I want to train, continue to train.
SPEAKER_01I was learning about this. It's going to be a little bit like Myers Bragg's, I think, for taste. Are there different categories when you share this?
SPEAKER_00So what I'll share for now, and we're in early beta right now, beta testing, so we're continuing to refine, is that there are there appear to be about five major variables, and the variables are all working independently. And the variables will indicate why you like certain things, why you might like a silhouette that's more flowy versus one that's more tailored and structured, why you may like a Bauhaus architecture versus more of a Beaux-Arts, right? There are certain formations, there are certain some of them are stylistic, some of them are even, is it more emotive or more cerebral? Is there a bolder contrast or more sort of tonality and subtlety? So the first thing is just understanding that there are different different factors that are coming together for different people. And the test is actually breaking those down. The second one is how those five or so factors come together is is archetypal. And there appear to be right now about 10 to 12 archetypes that most people cluster in. What that's going to indicate when you have the feedback of what your archetype is is not just maybe which brands of clothing you will fare better in, not because you don't like other brands, but because those are you when you're at your best, or what style furnishing might you might surround yourself with to work at your best or to sleep at your best. But also understanding around cultures. Because when you join a company, going back to your question about when people should move on from where they are or stay or go deeper, often what the the difference between people who succeed in an environment and those who don't, it's not really skill set, but it's it's around am I in the the environment, the the environment and an environment based on a set of codes and and cultural values that are so aligned with who I am that I can be at my best. And that's what people don't have a good enough sense of in the absence of these kind of frameworks.
SPEAKER_01Well, I can't wait to take that test and see where I fall in. I'm very curious. Kind of going back to
I want to break into luxury fashion. Is there something tangible that you've seen? If you want to learn more about fashion and have a real talking point, whether you're at a dinner party or in an interview, this is for you. There is a new piece of fashion media coming out this week that I am so excited about. The documentary film Brunello, the Gracious Visionary on Brunello Cuccinelli's incredible career, comes out in theaters this week on July 24th. Maybe you watched Emily in Paris last season and remember that it featured a family that owned a premium cashmere brand that was based on Brunello Cuccinelli. And this film goes into his influence beyond fashion. Brunello is a fashion icon and well regarded as a visionary in the industry. Growing up on a farm led to his constant desire to preserve nature and leave the world around him a better place. He was a speaker at the G20 on humanistic capitalism, where his efforts focused on blending profit with human dignity, ethics, and sustainability. I had the absolute pleasure of previewing the film, and it is a must-see for fashion lovers and aspiring entrepreneurs. In this episode, I asked Pauline, what can someone do to stand out and work in luxury fashion specifically? Her response: be culturally literate. Expand your knowledge of fashion beyond what you see on your phone or on the streets. Go back in history, learn about the brands, learn about the creators of the brand. This is the perfect way to do that. You can go to this film by yourself or with one of your girlfriends. I highly recommend watching Brunello The Gracious Visionary in Select Theaters on July 24th. And let me know what you think. I think a resume or a cover letter, it can be hard to get out who you are as a person. Is there something that you would say to someone of go learn about the legacy and the history of the brand or speak to a specific experience, not just tell me you have you're great at coding or great at marketing? Like what would you say that they can do today if they have what they're prepping for an interview?
SPEAKER_00So two things. So one of the things that people in the industry, I think, continue to invest in has nothing to do with their day job and nothing really even to do with the brand per se, but it's being culturally and sensorially literate. And what do I mean by that? Culturally literate is if you work in a pretty fast-moving field like fashion, you need to know what's going on in the world. The reason some fashion brands at any moment in time work and others don't is often because they're tapping into something and they're doing it credibly, not just exploitively, that means something that is bigger than what that brand is doing. And so I think having the curiosity and the worldliness to understand what's happening around the brand and your world, above and beyond your city, your friend group, you know, the stores you frequent. So just really having that curiosity and investing in it. You may or may not be able to get to the Costume Institute of the Met, certainly if you don't live in New York, you may not. But you can know it's going on. And that's an obvious one. But think about all the lesser movies that are out. Not Devil Wears Prada, but maybe one that was up for an Oscar and documentary. Because oftentimes it's sort of on the fringes of culture where the most interesting things are happening as well. So people I know who do very well, they are they're tapped in and they they make time to do more than just that which would make them perform well in the job. And those that cultural literacy that I've just described will see you through wherever you end up. It will find a way, even if it means when you're at the holiday party and you're having cocktail conversations, that you're just a more interesting person. Number two, I talked about sensory literacy. And that's just having an understanding of all the stimulus around you, having a critical view when you walk in a room, what you like about the room, or how maybe little touches could make it a little bit more fresher or more interesting. Developing that critical thinking, but critical thinking not in a sort of abstract scholarly way, but more in the world of style and expressions. And I think of that as sort of a sensory literacy. The third thing you mentioned being in prepping for the interview, certainly knowing all the basics, that's entry stakes to me. Like knowing what's happening with the brand. If you're interviewing at Dior, yes, you should have studied the Jonathan Anderson collection. You don't have to love every piece, but you should have looked at it closely enough to be able to say something that is more than just, you know, a passing comment. But I think that in and of itself is not going to land the job. I think what will land it is probably having more historical reference, knowing things about the brand that the average person wouldn't know, even if they read the reviews or looked at the collection, you know, understanding what maybe what stores have opened in the last year and how they were architected and what that might be saying about where the brand is going. So I think that kind of level of interest and of studiousness will be helpful.
SPEAKER_01I love that answer. And I think the documentary side in the books is so interesting. I recently at the Tribeca Film Festival saw a film, I think it was called Dior and I, but it was about a specific creative director. And there's more of these coming out. Runello Cuccinelli came out with a documentary. So there's a lot of resources for people to just increase the depth of knowledge that they have.
SPEAKER_00And know that, especially in fashion, it's working in this context. And some of the context has nothing to do with fashion. And then within fashion, there's a lot going on. So maybe if you were interviewing at Dior, also understanding what differentiates it from, for example, the same woman who might go to Chanel. They're the same customer who shops in both stores. But what's happening that triggers her interest in Dior, that it differentiates. Sometimes the differentiation is so subtle, but it's so important. And so that level of discrimination and sensitivity, I think, also is good in whether or not it leads to a job offer. It's just if you're going to be in the industry, you kind of need to have a point of view on these things.
I want to get your perspective on something because I had taste in terms of career come up two different times on the podcast in very different ways. So one, Marina Laurudae, the founder of La Raday Shoes, was on, and she told me that at her first job interview in New York at AirMez, the interviewers said to her, I can tell you have good taste, but then what? And it really struck her and she really rethought how she approached her career and that she needed to pair her taste with a tangible skill if she was applying to a company. So that's one. Second, I just had Shop My. They work with content creators, influencers. Some are faceless, though. They're not really like on camera. And she said, you can make a career now out of taste. And they're betting this whole billion-dollar company that AI can't replace human taste. What do you think in terms of, oh, taste wasn't enough to get her the job? And I can make a whole career out of taste.
SPEAKER_00Well, I don't think so. First of all, I think what each of them said was true when they said it. Meaning, even though your interview wasn't that long ago, when the comment was made that taste isn't enough, it was probably I'm making it up, but 15 years ago? Maybe. It was probably well before AI. So I think some of what you were hearing from Shop Mai is what we're seeing with the world we live in today. What I would say is, first of all, taste in a vacuum, not good enough. But skills in a vacuum, not good enough either. And skills will change a lot. Taste can only get better. What we like is it's a little bit like personality. If you ask somebody, could could you get by in in your career with a great personality, but not a single skill? Maybe if you're a politician and you have a good script, you know, screenwriter or or or a script writer or whatever, whatever, maybe there's a few jobs and sales, but not really. Because even salespeople, like at some point you have to be able to, you know, analyze the data too, and you have to be able to make good strategic calls. So I don't think it's an either-or, but I think in my opinion, taste and personality, and the two should go hand in hand. A good taste should be enough reflection of your personality. That is the differentiator. And the skills that you have to develop are going to change a lot over time. The skills that I needed 30 years ago that were very important to get from that level in my career to the next level, I don't need anymore. And by the way, if I started today, I probably would use ChatGPT for them. I don't know that I'd need them today, but I need other skills. I need other skills. And I do think on this idea of taste, taste isn't just how things appear, although that's a big part of it. It's also a voice. As more and more voices, voices on our social feed, voices in Substack are kind of sounding AI generated or AI heavily, heavily influenced, that to me it has the same effect of creating AI models and AI fashion. It's flat. And so in thinking about how you express yourself, I would also spend a lot of energy and time thinking about how do you express yourself through words? How do you show the rhythm of your of your communication, of your, of your language, word choice, really important. Even punctuation. I mean, nobody should ever use an M-dash. That's just such a tell. But forgetting M-dash, like, you know, I remember when I was in private equity, I was an early investor in a skincare brand called Philosophy. And it was founded by a woman, Christina Carlino, real interesting character. And she had such definitive, she was such an archetype herself, but such definitive sense of who she was. And she never used a capital. She would write long, rambling emails. You would never, ever, ever see a capital in anything she ever expressed. She didn't use it in her brand, in the philosophy brand, and she didn't use it in her emails. She didn't use it, you know, in in anything you would see. And that was just a marker of who she was. It was grammatically incorrect, but we knew it wasn't, it was done with utter intentionality. And so I think everyone should be thinking about, you know, not just how do I pay attention to the rules, but how do I express something that actually matters to me in an original
way?
SPEAKER_01In this era of AI, and it is just, it's so pervasive now. Taste is becoming a little bit more, it's showing up more if I can tell if someone wrote an email with ChatGPT or if they wrote it themselves, like you had mentioned with the M-dash. Is there a skill set or our POV that we should be developing more as AI just kind of dominates more and more things?
SPEAKER_00So I go back to one of the first things I said to you, which is I think we need to restore balance between how much we're using technology toward certain ends and how much we're doing things utterly absent of technology. So right now the the balance is way too heavy toward our interface engagement and toward our AI reliance. And if you do nothing else differently, coming off of listening to this podcast, but give yourself that one hour a day that is is not necessarily part of your workout routine, which inevitably even people in their working out are still looking at screens. But I think most people are. But where you're in in nature, where you're in your body, where you're in company with others, really just talking to them in kind of real ways, number one, is just healthier. And number two, I think that it restores the sense of that human-to-human element, which is what is missing. And it's why brands that are doing this well, and a lot are not, are so over-rewarded right now. You mentioned earlier Hermes. I mean, Hermes does human experience really well. You know, nothing about their stores is formulaic. Every detail is attended to and with care and with quality, and they are so well rewarded for it.
SPEAKER_01They really are. I would love to see some sort of guide from you, maybe Substack or whatever, about how to use technology and AI in a tasteful way. Because I think it feels like you can't not use it, but how can you use it in a way that doesn't kind of diminish your intelligence in a way?
SPEAKER_00So a boss of mine years ago made a comment. I never forgot it, and it may have applications here. So the context for the comment was very different. I was at the Estee Law Companies. At the time, the company had about 20 to 25 different beauty brands. Every one of them were competing with each other because the difference between, you know, a red lipstick from Mac and a red lipstick from Clinique, it's not the color of the red that's going to differentiate them, right? And so these are really commodity business. The only differentiator is the personality and the uh aesthetic presentation of these brands. The challenge as a public company was to create more and more synergies, to uh start to uh merge all the production lines, to have uh teams that are work working on certain elements of one brand be shared for others. So this sort of because it's very efficient to do that. And it doesn't make sense when you have twenty plus brands to have, you know, twenty plus finance teams. And the question was well, where do you draw the line? Like what do you keep separate? Because if you were an efficiency plate, you'd bring everything under one roof, right? And if you're a a digital expert, you should be a digital expert across all 20 plus brands. And he basically said, you know what, we're going to take every function within our company, the functions that the customer that perform activities that the customer, the end customer, the beauty buyer, can see and feel, differentiate or decentralized. Any function that the customer would never feel or see, we're going to centralize. So what does that mean? Product development, counter design or merchandising design, training of staffers, you know, salespeople, that all has to be independent. Salespeople, particularly. If I go to a saleswoman for Mac and then she says, Well, you don't want this, I can sell you, you know, a two-faced over here, like game over. That's you start to commoditize everything. But the minute that the customer feels they've walked into a world that's unto itself, but you still have the benefit of taking finance and HR and IT and RD, you know, far-ranging RD, and you've shared the cost, that's how the big company benefits can start to take hold. I would say, going back to your question about AI, anything that someone else can touch and feel and see, voice, ideas, expressions, visuals, I think that has to have a very, very heavy human imprint. But problem solving, strategic analysis, organization, I think that can be highly leveraged when it comes to AI.
SPEAKER_01I do feel like luxury brands have their technology pretty invisible to the customer and it makes it feel like such a seamless experience and it's more tasteful.
I'm curious because maybe it's something I've been experiencing now where I feel like my financial situation doesn't align with the taste I'd love to spend on it. And to put it in a higher level way, but what would you say if someone's like, I can't afford my taste level? Like I have good taste, I have a curated eye, I don't have a million dollars.
SPEAKER_00So um I'll be very crude in my response. I don't buy it. First thing I would say is that if you think of the people you've come across in your life or even watched from afar who have the best taste, they are never the richest people. And the reason is Coco Chanel had a very good line for this. She said, elegance is restraint. That good taste is as much about trade-offs as it is about addition. And often what people who have unlimited means, they don't have the motivation to not do things, to to choose against certain options. And everything looks good, right? If you have a closet that can carry anything you've ever wanted to buy in any store you've ever been in. So I think some of what makes something tasteful is the choicefulness of it. Number two, there's so much that can be done that you're already doing that requires no spending. And the w the the example I give is if you live in an apartment and every one to two years your landlord is obligated to repaint, for example. Or you just decide you're gonna take the initiative and do it yourself. It doesn't cost that much to change the color of the walls. To decide instead of linen white, maybe I'm gonna play with this avocado green or or wherever your mind or imagination might want to take you. And it makes a huge difference to the space, right? There are a lot of little things you're doing that don't take big investments that really change a message and an experience entirely. The first thing I would say is start with the things you're already doing. Second thing is when I think about brands that do this really well, they're often not the ones that would ever hire the likes of a Peter Marino, one of the more expensive luxury retail architects. Muji. Now, Muji may not be my taste or your taste, but they have a very, very strong point of view. And they've created this world in allegiance with that point of w of view. And so I think and and and by no means are they a luxury brand, right? So I think appreciating that it's as much about a understanding what kind of feeling are you trying to create. And in the case of your own taste, you're probably trying to create spaces and outfits around you that express who you are at your best. And being mindful, that's going to be a factor of silhouettes, it's going to be a factor of colors. Obviously, it'd be nice to do great quality, and some things will be worth spending for, and other things are not. I mean, it is not worth, in my opinion, I said before I don't like fashion, it is not worth spending on something for a name. And there are many ways, if you develop your eye, that you can get at quality much cheaper than a big name would suggest. So real taste is about trusting your own ability to deliver on a vision and a value system, not needing anyone else to validate that. And to do it within whatever constraints you have as well as you can, and to let it happen over time as well. It doesn't have to be perfect. The people I know who do this really well, they're constantly curating, they're constantly tweaking. You know, it's a process. And it's a little bit like developing who you are as a person. You let it happen and let it happen authentically and do the best you can with what you have to work with.
SPEAKER_01I love that answer. And I think that's a great segue to the closing speed round questions because we have been talking quite high-level big brands, big budget, but knowing that you have that power to make those choices to showcase your taste is empowering, dare I say. Okay. I want to ask if you have a fashion hot take.
SPEAKER_00So I would say think less uh in terms of fashion and a lot more in terms of
style.
SPEAKER_01Is there an industry misconception that you noticed once you entered into LVM H. Stay Lauder, being in that world?
SPEAKER_00I think it looks a lot more glamorous than it really is. These are big businesses, they're difficult businesses, particularly fashion. Of all the luxury sectors, I think fashion is that the most grueling and the most unforgiving. So I would say people who are in it and people who stay in it, you know, they have to really care about the product and they have to have a commitment that goes beyond the glitz and the glamour, because most of the time it's not that glamorous. It's a business.
SPEAKER_01What is the best piece of advice you've received?
SPEAKER_00I mean, one that I always abide by, you know, and my mother used to say when I was very young, like to above all, to thine own self be true. And I I feel like I'm my my real allegiance is to my truth. I'd rather people not like me for who I am than they like me for who I'm not. And so I'm I'm always fighting to get closer and closer to what I really feel and to how I can really express that. I'm a truth seeker.
SPEAKER_01Do you have a resource recommendation for people listening?
SPEAKER_00Oh, this is my shameless promotion. So last October, I I launched my Substack. It's under the aesthetic intelligence banner, and I'm really using it as a sort of test lab for ideas I have that are going to feed into my next book, which is all about actually decoding taste. So I would say for those who want to stay with me and join me on this journey, subscribe to my Substack, Aesthetic Intelligence.
SPEAKER_01And I mean, you taught the course on it. This is a differentiator if someone wants to work in luxury.
SPEAKER_00So Yeah, yeah, yeah. It really was a big unlock for me when I when I realized that I was never really in the luxury world. I was in the world of aesthetic expression and desirability. And I that had to be captured through an umbrella concept that was bigger than the way maybe Wall Street analysts would describe it.
SPEAKER_01Is there a question that you would pose to people listening to reflect on after finishing this episode to maybe journal on, to just reflect on maybe their personal career, their brand, their business?
SPEAKER_00I don't know if it's a question so much as a challenge. One of the things that makes us all different and special and unique is this confluence of factors that make us who we are. And some of it is just straight biological, right? We're born with certain parentage and certain makeup, but that's kind of a small portion of what makes us really who we are. And then a big portion of that is sort of where we came of age and how old we are, what stage in life we're in, sort of culture and society around us. And then the third is the relationships we have and how that has molded what we like and what we don't like. And I think the more that people can connect the dots between sort of who they are, what has shaped how they see the world and how they move through the world, and what they still aspire to be, the more kind of coherent their whole presentation and aspirations will be for them. So it's just a journey, it's not psychoanalytic, it's really more, but it is introspective. And I do think that in the world we live in, that really owning that which is uniquely you, doing the one thing that you do better than anyone else can ever do in the world, which is being you, being even a better version of you, is what I would challenge all of the listeners.
You now are working for yourself. Going from chairwoman of LVMH, professor, and now you. What has that transition been like and how does it change your everyday and how you're showing up?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um, well, one of the reasons I do it is I I really, really am thriving with the freedom that I have at this stage in life. And I mentioned earlier in the conversation that, you know, the more senior I got in these big corporate environments, the less free, the less agency I felt I had. So I love the idea that in any given day or moment in the day that I'm doing what I've chosen to do and I know why I'm doing it. Of course, I miss the resources, I miss the at times, you know, the camaraderie that comes from being with a big organization and one that, you know, has such a geographic and cultural diversity of people. But I'm finding community in other ways. And I really think this is the most creative I've ever been in my career because I have landed on an idea that I'm just beginning in. I sort of say when it comes to aesthetic intelligence and decoding taste and and this idea of archetypes, I'm like in the first inning of a baseball game. And it's all I'll be doing forever more. So I I'm really very happy.
SPEAKER_01I feel like I could keep talking to you for a couple more hours. But you have this whole career behind you. Now you're working for yourself. I think a lot of young people want to go jump into creating their own company and kind of want to skip working in a corporation. What would you recommend?
SPEAKER_00Well, know why you want to start the company. Starting a company for the sake of being an entrepreneur is probably not a good recipe because it's a hard path. That's a much higher risk factor than doing something more established and more predictable. But if you have a great idea and if you are fairly uniquely positioned to drive that concept, I'm all for it. I think the three questions to ask yourself if you want to go in that path is number one, is it really a good idea? Is anyone else doing it? And if others are already doing some version of it, are they better equipped than I am? Then don't do it. Number two, if it's a really good idea and I do seem well, well suited, and really maybe even uniquely well suited, who else do I need to surround myself with? Because anything you can do to de-risk what is already a pretty risky proposition is critically important. And having the right skills and the right influences is going to be critical. And third is the time right? You know, you got to be tireless. There's no shutting it down because you decided you needed a beach day. If you're about to launch a product or do anything that is time sensitive, and most new businesses are incredibly time sensitive. So are you prepared with all that's going on in your life? Because you are not just about your career. The career is very much a part of all that you are. And so does it fit? Does it fit with where you are right now? And are you prepared to make the sacrifices? And are you excited to make those sacrifices? And if not, I think not feeling defeat, but saying maybe this is just not the window.
SPEAKER_01Those are really good questions to ask yourself. Well, thank you so much. Been such an honor to have you. Thank you. Thank you.
SPEAKER_00Where can everyone find you, follow your work? Thank you. Well, as mentioned before, my Substack comes out every week. It's a combination of essays, of master classes, videotape masterclasses, and then I have a Sirius XM show, which I do post many of them on Spotify, but I also will links the Sirius XM show, which is called Aesthetic Intelligence, to my my weekly Substacks. So that would be one. Or on Instagram, I'm Pauline Garris Brown. The Garrus is my maiden name, G-A-R-R-I-S. And I often will use that to sort of share other things that are going on in my life and in my career. Amazing. Well, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you very much. It's been a pleasure.