Unveiling the World of Fashion (ft. Alla Eizenberg)

**SPEAKER_1** (0:02)
Welcome to DGTL Voices where health care and life science leaders explore the real work behind transformation. This podcast is about people, leadership and the conversations that move health care forward. Now your host, Ed Marx.

**Ed Marx** (0:17)
Welcome to another edition of DGTL Voices. I love changing things up every couple of weeks and having guests that aren't necessarily health care technology or health care digital transformation. But in other industries and today we have a good friend of mine, Professor Alla Eizenberg from Parsons School of Fashion. Alla, welcome to DGTL Voices.

**Alla Eizenberg** (0:41)
Thank you for having me. Very happy to be here.

**Ed Marx** (0:44)
Yeah, this is so much fun because I think some of my audience knows my background in fashion. Although they would never know it by how I dress, but they might know it from some history of me speaking about it previously. And so when the two of us met, so we have your husband is awesome.
Rom, he's with Contact IO. And so we were having dinner in New York City. Fabulous experience. And I got to meet you. And we just connected because of this fashion thing. I'm like, oh my gosh, Parsons. That's like the top four fashion school in the world. It's right up there with London, Milan and Paris. If I got the three other ones right. And it's like there in New York City. And it's like, wow, professor is so amazing. So Alla, thank you for being on DGTL Voices.

**Alla Eizenberg** (1:33)
Absolutely. It's my pleasure. And here I am in Parsons School of Design. And right here on 13th Street. And very happy to talk. I don't know what I can contribute, but I will try.

**Ed Marx** (1:47)
Well, I think all of us always, well, one, you're just a fabulous person. So that's first and foremost. But secondly, I think all of us always have questions. I think all of us have some insecurity when it comes to fashion, when it comes to clothes. And so I hope by having you, we'll demystify fashion a little bit and help give people greater confidence. But Alla, before we go further, the most important question is what songs are on your playlist? What kind of music do you like to listen to?

**Alla Eizenberg** (2:13)
Well, my playlist is very broad. From Bach and Beethoven to Chemical Brothers and LCD Soundsystem. And I do change it quite frequently. So yeah, I know that's probably my top ones.

**Ed Marx** (2:31)
I love, so Chemical Brothers, that's new. And you mentioned another one right after that. What was that one?

**Alla Eizenberg** (2:35)
LCD Soundsystem. It's a fabulous New York band. They've been around since I think very late 90s.
And we're still happy to join the concerts, usually they have like, you know, they do a small tour before the holidays. So almost every year we go to see them. Yeah. And it's fun.

**Ed Marx** (3:00)
And being a New Yorker, I should ask you also about Broadway. Like what's the favorite play you ever saw on Broadway?

**Alla Eizenberg** (3:07)
Oh, that's not a good one to me. I'm less of a theater person. And if yes, then like more like repertoire theater. So I would go to watch, I don't know, Brecht or Ibsen. I got you. Classics. But we do go a lot more to Lincoln Center.

**Ed Marx** (3:26)
Yeah.

**Alla Eizenberg** (3:26)
And we kind of like attend the Philharmonic and the New York Ballet and sometimes opera. So yeah, a lot more there.

**Ed Marx** (3:37)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get it. That's very cool. So tell us about yourself. Obviously, your accent is different than mine. Tell us a little bit about who you are. Where did you grow up? How did you get to the United States? All that kind of stuff.

**Alla Eizenberg** (3:49)
Well, my background right now can be summarized by the few hot dots on the map. I was born in Ukraine. My family immigrated to Israel when I was 14 And that's where I basically finished my high school and I went to fashion school, which, without me expecting it, turned out to be a very serious fashion school. It was very much founded by the British Jewish community that were in textile and fashion businesses. And that's why we were very much aligned with Central Saint Martin. We had many professors coming and it was a great education. And after that, I started my career in women's wear. I designed for another designer's brand in Israel. And later, Rom and I, we went to Milan because Rom continued his studies. And I thought for me, it will be an awesome place to deepen my knowledge of fashion and also my ambition to become a menswear designer. So that's exactly what happened in Milan for me. Two things, basically. One, that I started my own brand, which I never actually planned for, but it just happened that way. And second, that I could dive into traditional menswear. And I did a lot of kind of apprenticeship work, starting with the shirting, like small workshops for shirting, like custom-made shirts, and then tailoring ateliers. And after I kind of felt that I have enough foundation to start my own, I started my own brand that was called Maison Rouge Homme. And it was menswear, and it was very kind of like innovative for that moment.