Fashion Mogul Says Working Moms Need to Stop Apologizing

Jessica Mendoza (0:05)

Last week, we hosted a live show in New York City in front of a great audience of Journal super fans. On stage, I sat down with fashion mogul Emma Grede. She helped found a number of businesses, including the apparel brand Skims and Good American, with Kim and Khloe Kardashian respectively. Emma and I talked about starting successful businesses, working with celebrities, and saying no to mom guilt. You can watch the interview on Spotify.

Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Jessica Mendoza. Coming up on the show, Emma Grede on the business of fashion, making millions, and the trade-offs it takes to succeed.

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Jessica Mendoza (2:40)

Well, Emma, I'm so glad you're here tonight. I'm so excited to talk to you, partly because I think you're the perfect guest for us. I've read your book. I've listened to your podcast. You heard the tagline, money, business, power. I feel like this is your jam.

Emma Grede (2:52)

This is my area.

Jessica Mendoza (2:53)

This is it. This is my area.

Emma Grede (2:54)

All the things I like the most.

Jessica Mendoza (2:57)

Well, I want to start with the fact that we're in New York City. At a time when the power brokers of fashion are coming into town for New York Fashion Week, as somebody who's really plugged into the industry, I am curious, where is the money in fashion going right now?

Emma Grede (3:13)

The money in fashion? I mean, that's a really great question.

Jessica Mendoza (3:18)

Where should it go?

Emma Grede (3:18)

I mean, where should it go? It should go to the things that we all love the most. It's really interesting, actually, because being somebody that came from more the business side of fashion, I started my career in production, working for the great and the good of the European fashion business, and quite frankly spent my entire 20s going, where's the money? What is happening here?

So decided to come to America, where the money was, and sort it out with feverish intention. And so I'm coming up on the 10-year anniversary of Good American, which for me is just crazy to think about. And I think about how many companies in that time have come and gone, and how many things I did before that company, how many things I've done in between that. And you get this one golden goose moment, which for me has been really around Skims. And so it's kind of amazing and quite interesting to look back on the last 10 years and understand what has actually happened.

Jessica Mendoza (4:18)

And I actually want to talk to you about both those companies. As you said, they've both had real staying power in the industry.

And you built these companies by partnering with celebrities like the Kardashians and not just partnering as an endorsing, which is typically what we see, but bringing them on as business partners. Can you talk about that distinction? Why was that so important to you?

Emma Grede (4:40)

Well, it's not even a distinction. It's the way those partnerships come about. And I think that anybody that believes that putting talent together with a brand is an opportunity either to make money or create a credible brand will learn very, very quickly that that is just simply not the case. I think we can all count way more businesses that have failed than have succeeded. And so you have to come back to what it really is. Talent can be an incredible accelerator to popularity, to visibility.