to sales, to design, to quality control. We were drowning. I would see the look on everyone’s faces. I could see that everyone was overwhelmed, every day. So I came in one day and said, “We’re going to stop doing womenswear.” It was the biggest thing ego-wise that I’ve ever had to do. It was too absorbing with a small team. They didn’t want me to give it up, so I said I would come back to it in a couple years, but that was twelve years ago. I was at a footwear industry event last night and everybody asked me when I was doing womenswear. The thing that intrigues me about that question is that people must think that we have something to offer in women’s. I hear all these women, who I admire, tell me that they can’t find something like what I’m making. We used to do skirts and dresses; I wouldn’t do that today. I would take all the elements that women are talking about today like leather, coats, sweaters and boots and I would go after those things. The one thing I’ve really learned is about being true to yourself: you’ve gotta go with your DNA, you have to go with who you are. I was in a shoe meeting yesterday, and one of the shoe designers was presenting me with an idea and I said, “I get it, it’s not even that I don’t like it, it’s that it doesn’t connect with the DNA,” and in some regard we have to have a very strong message to our
consumer. People have said that I should be doing some athleisure. My customer doesn’t do that. They don’t just wake up one morning and want to change their look completely. So, (if I went back) to womenswear, I would be really focused on my core DNA and what we really do exceptionally: the way we finish things, our yarns, our leathers, our fabrications . . . that is the handwriting of the brand, so I would try to implement that. NA: WHAT’S YOUR ADVICE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE THAT WANT TO PUSH THE WALLS OUT? JV: I always say be true to yourself, of course, because it’s such good advice. But I also always say “be a sponge.” Absorb everything you can absorb. Never think you’ve learned it all or you know it all; I’m still learning things now. I got to where I am now to some degree, because I was always curious, and still am. I wanted to learn about making shoes, I wanted to know about underwear, suits, socks, outerwear—I wanted to know about it all. I wanted to know how to knit them, weave them, make them, sell them, finish the leather. I always want to know every single detail, and know why we’re having an issue with certain things. The smartest thing to do is to be the sponge.
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