Transcript - Jon Harari

Joshua Williams: Retail Revolution is a special, limited podcast created specifically for "Retailing and Service Design," a unique course that is part of the Fashion Management graduate program at Parsons School of Design in New York City. Each episode features in depth conversations with guest experts in omnichannel retailing with myriad perspectives: technology, consumer engagement, data analytics, merchandising, and more. We pay special attention to the short- and long- term challenges and implications of COVID-19 and potential opportunities to rethink retail's future. Retail Revolution is produced by Joshua Williams and hosted by Christopher Lacy, both are Assistant Professors in the School of Fashion at Parsons.

Christopher Lacy: Welcome to Retail Revolution podcast, where we discuss everything pertaining to retail and service design. I'm your host, Christopher Lacy and joining me today is Jon Harari, CEO of Windows Wear, the world's largest and most comprehensive visual database of retail and eCommerce. Welcome to the show, Jon.

Jon Harari: Thank you. Thank you for having me. 

Christopher Lacy: I appreciate you making time for us today. I know it's a little crazy as we continue in the weeks of self-isolation and uncertainty. So, I really do appreciate it. 

Jon Harari: Good to be here. 

Christopher Lacy: So, I want to kick it off to you with, I'd love for you to tell our listeners about you. I, you know, you and I have met before and been able to chat briefly, but you didn't come from the fashion industry like that. Wasn't really your vibe to start with. So can you talk to us about that.

Jon Harari:  Sure. Born and raised in North Potomac, Maryland went to school, Indiana University, studied business, studied finance.

Always wants to do something entrepreneurially. Never knew what that was going to be. That's why I chose finance because at the very least in finance and in business, you learn about many different companies within many different industries. And ultimately every company and every business, it all boils down to its financial statements and, you know, being able to be trained and knowing how to analyze and look at accounting statements, financial statements, learning how to raise money, ultimately can be applied to any company that I would eventually start from the ground up. My first job out of college, I was investment banking analyst at Lehman brothers. That's actually where I became interested in fashion. Lehman brothers had a very conservative dress code.

You could only wear as a guy, a suit. And the suit had to either be navy, black or gray in color. You could only wear a white or blue dress shirt. And you…most people were very conservative tie. The only ways that I noticed men would differentiate themselves from a fashion standpoint in this very conservative global investment bank was some of the men in the office would wear pop colored ties. So, ties with a very pop color live in green, very bright orange, and they would always have a matching cufflink. And that was like trendy. That was like being on the edge.

Another way that guys would be edgy or fashionable how to differentiate themselves in fashion would be to, if you have a Ferragamo or an Hermes tie, basically, if you were to take the top flap and put it over your shoulder, the bottom flat has little logo of Hermes or Ferragamo. And these guys would be walking around the entire day throughout the office, like this, basically walking around with their Ferragamo or Hermes logo right here.

For all the world to see. And that was like edgy. That was how people differentiate themselves from a fashion standpoint. My first day, walking into Lehman, everyone looked the same, talk the same and dress the same. And it was at that moment that I felt that I needed to physically do something different about the way that I looked, because ultimately, I didn't feel like I needed to, I wanted to conform to what everyone else was doing. For me, a person who had studied business and finance went to school and learn that, and then got hired by Lehman Brothers, which is a big global investment bank, very prestigious at the time. Even though fashion and what you wear is so important, there was no one course, there was no one teacher, there was nothing that was ever taught to me at all about what you should wear, how you should think about different dress codes, how you can match colors, None of that. For me being at this moment where I felt like I needed to physically do something about the way that I look, but I didn't really know what I should do.

What did I do? I went to Google and I typed in men's formal dress code. And when I did that, I discovered that wearing suspenders was part of a men's formal dress code. It's just that at Lehman brothers, no one wore suspenders. And I'm like, you know what? I can wear this. This is what makes me different.

And you know, it's very like 1980s wall street, but it's in the year in the 2000s, no one was doing it. And I said to myself, I'm like, you know what? I actually look at and suspenders, and I'm going to wear them. And ultimately, no one can say that I can't, because I am still, you know, conforming to the formal dress code that Lehman brothers had at that time.

So I waited until the first day of my second year of being an analyst and I walk into the office and, you know everyone its customary that you take your blazer off, you put it on, there's a hanger in your office. And then you're walking around with your shirt and tie all day. That first week where I wore the suspenders, all eyes are on me.

Thousands of people, every floor that I was on, everyone's looking at me. In the perimeter of the building where all the senior bankers’ offices, like these are the, you know, these are the people that are making the big bucks and they're on the perimeter of the building because they have the office view.

And so, I would be sorry, they would have the window, they would have the window office. And I would be walking past these senior bankers’ offices. And you know, before that then, because you're so low on the totem pole as an analyst, you know, they would look right through you it's as if you didn't really exist.

But for the first time, every single one was looking at me and pretty much all of them as I'm walking by all called me into their office, none of them knew who I was. I didn't know who they were. And half of them said, who are you? What are you doing? You look aggressive. They never really said what I was doing was wrong.

They just said I was aggressive. Aggressive is a word of pushing the boundaries. And then the other half said to me, I don't know who you are, but you're awesome. And keep on doing what you're doing. 

Christopher Lacy: That's amazing! 

Jon Harari: And it was at that moment that I realized that fashion is so powerful right. Here, we are in this very conservative wall street, investment bank. And, you know, I take a risk of doing something and ultimately, you know, no one wants to be known for being different. People want to conform. People want to be a part of a community of other people. And ultimately, I don't want to be known for the way that I look, I'd rather be known for my work and what I contribute to the organization.

But I felt strong enough that I wanted to, you know, be an independent human being and have my own voice, shake things up a little bit and do my own thing. And you know, ultimately that's what led me to being fascinated about the fashion industry, because there's so much that goes into it. It's very creative.

And so, you're right. I didn't necessarily come from this industry, but my story very much makes me appreciate how powerful this industry is. Not only on a societal standpoint, but also on a personal standpoint, because just by changing the way that you look, changing the way that who you are can make, can completely transform you psychologically and can also transform the way that people perceive you.

And all of that I think is very powerful. So, when you think about finance, you think about money and power and big banks, but you could also think fashion and ultimately fashion has a tremendous amount of power and influence as well. And it's just doing it in different way. 

Christopher Lacy: I love that story because I think that what you just said leads to why someone loves the fashion industry so much. You know, for me, I've been in it for 24 years that wasn't my intent to be in fashion.

But to your point, when you get involved in it kind of like, it takes you over. And I love RuPaul's, you know, the statement of we're all born naked and the rest is drag because it really is like, I can wake up every day and I get to be a different person because I am not one person all the time. And so how I dress or what it is, I, you know, an accessory I put on a whatever gives you this kind of little bit of something.

Jon Harari: Yup. Absolutely

Christopher Lacy: I love creativity. Yeah. So, you go through this process, you understand you dig fashion. You're like I'm over the finance world. It's still, you know, in your core. And Windows Wear is just amazing. I mean, you know, I went to your event that you had a few your awards, which was just amazing because I think, you know, one of the things was, it was an awards event where it was amazing creative people.

And quite frankly, some people I hadn't seen in years were at this and you know, reconnecting with some of the team I had worked with at Gucci and different places in my career. And they were so pumped to be there because they were being celebrated. Right. And I think the creators of windows and packaged, and they rarely get celebrated.

Jon Harari: Yeah. 

Christopher Lacy: Right. So how did you build this community of people? Like how did that happen? What, what caused you to do that? 

Jon Harari: Yeah. Well, I have to give credit obviously to Mike Niemtzow and Raul Tovar, the two other co-founders, Mike and I actually were colleagues at Lehman brothers. That's how we originally met. And then I actually had a women's clothing store back in the day and all whose other co-founder, was the photographer for our store.

And you know, the three of us came together about eight years ago. I know Josh is listening into this and Josh was on the first people cause Josh and Mike, knew each other through Mike sister. And Josh is actually someone that I think knew of WindowsWear before we even launched the company eight years ago, which is fantastic.

Cause we're obviously still connecting and engaging and sharing and working together. You know, but ultimately, you know, where it came from was here's an industry that exists. And there's so much that goes into this industry globally. And just very simply, no one is capturing it. So just like, you know, Google looked at the earth and is like, here's an earth filled with stuff.

We got to capture this somehow. So, Google set up, drones, satellites, cars with cameras, and basically set out to capture the earth. And obviously when you capture the earth it's data, it's information and it's resourceful. People can use it for many different applications. And we said, let's do the same thing, but for retail. Retail is a trillion-dollar industry globally.

The products are always changing. The way that the merchandising is changing, the technology is changing so much is changing at all times within this industry. So, you know, if you're a Google earth, maybe you only have to capture the earth like once a year, you know, pretty much once you capture a building on a street, how many times is that going to that building going to change?

Whereas for retail, if you think about every website and every brand, and if you think about the social media, and if you think about even all their retail stores and windows and all the different products. I mean, you're, you're constantly having to capture the same thing over and over and over again, because it's so dynamic from that standpoint.

We said, okay, here's a big challenge. You know, there's all this, or here's the big opportunity. There's all this information out there. And, you know, you've been in the industry, you mentioned for 25 years and you know this and everyone else knows this. Everyone in this industry does competitive shopping. Right? So, you work at one brand or you work somewhere, and you want to check out what other people are doing.

Right. So, you're on different people's websites. You're getting other people's emails; you're checking out other people's new retail stores and shops and shop in shops and window displays. Like you're always out there constantly out there seeing what's going on, getting inspiration, getting ideas, taking notes, sharing it with your team.

And absolutely every human being in this industry does that process. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that process, but at the same time, we're like a comprehensive, competitive research service. So just like people are out there photographing, we're out there photographing. Just like people are taking notes, we're doing trends in news articles, just like people are identifying what they see and sharing it with other people, we're doing absolutely the same thing.

And so, you know, we've you mentioned like what. You know why we're successful, ultimately because everyone in this industry has this need of content, competitive research content, and you can never get enough of it. Right. You can't be at all places at all times and capture it all. It's just impossible.

Right. And so, we do that work, you know, we don't say that we've got everything cause there's still so much content out there that we're not capturing. At the same time anyway, it can be a number of windows where they can be a part of our community and they can upload content. The more and more we have the more and more grows.

And ultimately, we're very much just like with our WindowsWear awards, about showcasing the content and recognizing the people that create in this industry. Before windows, where you know, we looked at what was out there. And there wasn't anything global, comprehensive and really inspiring that we saw. And that's why we also created WindowsWear to really give credit to all the people that work in this industry, all around the world.

And the things that they do is they're only there for a certain amount of time. And that's actually the big challenge why they're not really as well-known because if you look at every other creative industry, I'm actually looking outside my apartment right now. When I see a lot of buildings, you could look up the architect, you know, the creative team behind every building that exists in New York City.

You know, the same thing for art. If you go into a museum, you know, every piece of art, you know who the actual artist is, you know, the story behind the painting. And obviously from a fashion design perspective, of course, if something's made from Ralph Lauren, you know, you assume it's Ralph Lauren, but there's all these human beings behind the scenes, right.

That created it for the brand. And the same thing is true for all the retail stores and window displays and popup shops and websites and social media and email marketing, like all behind all of these creative pieces of content are human beings and they ultimately want to be recognized too. So, the very fact that we're recognizing them on our website, through our social media, through our windows wear awards people, crave recognition.

So, the fact that you asked me to be a part of this podcast, I'm super excited by it. Why? Because I'm sharing who I am, what I do, why I do it. And the more we shine, a light behind you know, these creative people, and showcasing their work. The more excited they are to do it, as well as to share with others, the windows wear website and platform, because ultimately, we are the conduit to them getting a lot more recognition for who they are and what they do.

So, work to like social media, right? Social media is a great way for people to showcase who they are. And before social media, it was kind of difficult to do that. So, but now social media is here, and we're all connected, and we are doing the same thing, but for all the people in this retail industry, 

Christopher Lacy: And I love that you do that. And I think you know, absolutely to your point that recognition, most people do have no idea when it goes into window display and in store setup, the absolute man hours that entails, especially when we talk about things like holiday windows. I mean, and I, and I think there's also this idea.

Like there's always a huge budget behind these initiatives. And a lot of time, the most creative that you've seen of things that happen, there was like no budget. And you have a group of 20 people in a warehouse, like hand crafting things and making these things that go up for the world to kind of experience this creativity.

And it's this moment in time. And so, I appreciate windows wearing that way. When we think of windows, there's also the other side of it, where there are people who are like, Oh my gosh, you know, they used all these materials and this was used in this got used. And so, you know, and now it's all being thrown away.

Because as you know, we've talked about this, you know the fashion industry is constantly, speaking of sustainability at this time is as we should be, will fashion ever fully be sustainable? No. Are there things we need to do in our supply chain and in our process? Absolutely. But one of the things I always think about when we talk about sustainability and retail and service design, there are the windows and the things that go into that.

And I know that there are a few companies that actually they donate some of their products to art schools and things like that, so that they can use them for set design and cool things like that. But I also want to talk about packaging because you see a lot of the packaging that goes out and in that creative design.  Do you think that they're finally going to be some movement in speed to implement more eco-friendly packaging designs?

Like what you've seen happen? You know, Samsung. Now when, when you get your Samsung boxes, QR code, and it tells you like different ways you can use your Samsung box at, in your home. Do you see this happening in the fashion industry at all? 

Jon Harari: That's a great question. You know and we were both at that panel that made C's Parsons paddle about a month ago. There was kind of a similar question about sustainability. I always think it's a funny when this industry talks about sustainability, because as you know, this is like the the most unsustainable industry as far as everything that it produces at all levels. And I will say that the key to sustainability is information.

The more that we know, the actual sizes and the products. That our consumers want to wear and how they shop the more sustainable as an industry will be, will become at all levels. And ultimately with windows wear we're just trying to provide as much information to retailers as possible to help them.

And, you know, you mentioned the visual displays and how they get thrown away. Now we have the museum and it's an initiative that we have, and ultimately very soon love to be in a position where we actually sell the pieces as one-of-a-kind of art pieces to people around the world. That way we are generating more revenue for the people that work in this industry and also generate more scholarship opportunities because we do have a student scholarship initiative.

So, we're actually speaking to retailers about that right now. And we want to implement something like that this year, but obviously given the challenges, we'll probably be implementing it next year. So, we're actually very excited by that. 

Sustainability, we might think of it like to the consumer, right? Okay. Maybe the package that I then buy doesn't have plastic wrapping in it and maybe it's all cardboard or purely recycled paper, which is great. But then how did that product get to me, like, look at the entire process from the raw materials that were used to produce this product, but got to me. And then if you're not being sustainable throughout the entire value chain, then you're really not solving the problem here.

You can make a cute press release and you can put it out there. And yet the consumer's not going to know the difference because you know, they're just seeing, something that's wrapped in a recyclable material, but like they have no clue how it got there. I'm a huge fan of shining the light because once you shine the light, once you just show how things are made, once you provide information to people, this is actually what's happening.

I think we're gonna, you know, we're gonna be empowered to make better decisions and actually be more mindful. So similar to having the nutrition facts on every single product that we consume for food makes us much more knowledgeable and aware of what we're putting into our bodies. This industry needs to think about doing similar things, to really give people a true understanding of what they're actually doing. Because right now, the consumer has no clue, and you know, we can. I wouldn't say that we can care less because I think naturally as human beings, we want to be sustainable. And I think we all value sustainability, but then if we see something horrific, we will change our behavior because, you know, we know, and we can see the result of our actions. But I don't think the industry is doing that.

Christopher Lacy:  I think to your point, I think what we will see, especially you know, as we start to come around and you know, six months after, you know, this current pandemic because we were, we were headed in a direction of going how transparent we need to start being about our value chains and our supply chains.

And I think there's going to be a desire from the consumer to understand from an ethical and sustainable standpoint of what is happening and how is this getting to me and how has it made and who are the hands that made it. And I think that's going to come light more and more. I think, you know, even after watching, it's so funny, I watched the movie, Dark water.

I don't know if you've seen it, but it's about it's about DuPont and Teflon and what Teflon does to your body and how for 40 years they poisoned an entire town and how once Teflon cracks, it literally goes into your blood stream and employs you and the whole big thing. And it's so funny. Cause after I saw it and I was like.

Jon Harari:  Like forever material, like basically a material that stays in your body forever. 

Christopher Lacy: Forever. I'm like, Oh, great. And so, what do I do? I am talking to my friend and then it's like, by all ceramic, I'm now ordering all ceramic pots and pans, because now that I know it changed me so adequately, right?

Jon Harari: Yup. 

Christopher Lacy: And because things change too dramatically. We're in this situation, obviously there's fear with it. Right. You know, because that's what we do. We become afraid of a situation and how we start engaging with our environment changes. I think about the physical space for retailers after this is once we start reopening our cities and start really engaging with physical space, not in a grocery store. Right. What is that going to look like? And how is that experiential design going to change? How do you see the future of it changing if at all? 

Jon Harari: Change comes quickly, and it comes rapidly, but also change takes a long time. You know, both those things are true. So, you know, do I see systematic crazy shifts? No. You know, other people might, I don't. Do I see things that should have been changed long ago, that this will accelerate them to change? Yes. What I mean by that are the department stores, do we need 200,000 square feet of shopping space filled with products? I don't think so. 

Christopher Lacy: So, wait, you know, I'm not letting you move from that, right. Because I want to, I want to go because I agree. I, you know, look, I do think that this is about to definitely become a less as more situation, right. Because everyone's going to really start being far more conscious about what they buy and the quality of what they buy. Right. And so it won't be about you having the space with tons of products in it, moving around, you know, 2,500 square foot of space for that, or, you know, 30,000 square foot of space. So, what, why do you feel that way? 

Jon Harari: Yeah, look, I don't look what I was saying. It was like 200,000 square feet because I do think if you're a global brand Gucci, Adidas, Nike. Could you take over a fifth Avenue flagship with 50,000 square feet of space and make that like your, you know, your experience, a flagship store. Absolutely. 

Christopher Lacy: Right.

Jon Harari: I don't think that this is going to change that. I'm talking about the department stores where it's multi-brand, you're not necessarily selling your own merchandise. You're strictly a retailer. And you're just talking about a massive, essentially a massive warehouse filled with tons of merchandise, right?

Because ultimately a website like Amazon or even your own company's website is essentially that service. You don't, you might not necessarily need that in 200,000 plus square foot space in order to accommodate that. And I think that that's been a trend anyway, with department stores. You know, if you look at the history of department stores, you actually would have seen, you know, back a hundred years ago when all the department stores first started.

Yes. It was very much convenience in the sense that in one place, you had all the options and all the merchandise was there at your fingertips. But it was also experience. Yes, a hundred years ago, the department stores were amazing. They had the best restaurants; they had the best barbers. They had theaters, they had showers, they had lockers.

It was the place to see and to be seen. Our department store is now a place to see and to be seen. I'm not sure. I think that there's other places that people want to go to. That that is more the case where, you know, where you're just like where you're posting on Instagram, where you're at. It dictates what is your brand and people are going to the restaurants. They're going to the place. Places are going to the museums. They're going to the exhibits. They're going to the shopping destinations that they know that when they post that on social media, they are aligning their brand with something trendy and cool and relevant, and that will never change. And you know, these department stores haven't really fulfilled that need in that way.

And even if they have. They're still way too big than what they should be. So, I do think you'll see that. And then the second thing is online fashion shows. If you look at the history of fashion week, doing the fashion shows was a great way of getting the latest products, the latest fashions, the latest trends, the latest styles to be seen by the right target audience.

In a very private, not really a marketing way, just more of a way of communicating what the latest styles are to the right buyers and to the right, you know, influencers of the time. You know, now we see, you know, fashion week splattered all over the internet, splattered all over social media. 

And it's very expensive to produce a show and it's time consuming. And it only happens X amount of times per year in major cities. And it takes a lot of coordination. Who said that a fashion week or a fashion show is the right model? It's been a model for maybe a century, but who's to say that’s the right model going forward. And I think you're going to see designers really for the first time embrace because of that they have to. It's really not necessarily by choice. More like by force that they now have to implement digitally forward opportunities of experiencing the latest products. And leading with digital, leading with online. And, you know, once we get back to the physical world and physical fashion shows and all that, I think that could nicely compliment it. But those are the two things that I could see out of all this. 

Christopher Lacy: Right. Fantastic. So now I get to ask you a question. I've been wanting to ask you this actually, since we first met. 

Jon Harari: Okay. 

Christopher Lacy: What is your favorite physical space installation and why? 

Jon Harari: All right. I will tell you my personal favorite. Because I think it just speaks a lot about my personality and it as well as the value that I see it does Saks during the holidays, they turn their whole facade, a Christmas winter Wonderland for, I think from 4:00 PM till about midnight, every 10 minutes, they do the spectacular light show on the facade of their building.

That to me, I think throughout the entire year is something that I think is an amazing thing that Saks does to give back to the city, to create such a spectacle on fifth Avenue because where they're physically located, it's pretty much like right in the center of fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan.

An, you know, right across the street is the, you know, the Rockefeller center and the Christmas tree, you know, no one is telling Saks, they have to do this. It's doing the whole thing on the exterior of the building, right? So they're not even doing it inside the store where it actually be generating a lot of sales and sales opportunities.

But obviously they're doing it for other reasons, for marketing, for engagement, for social media, for giving back to the city. They really maintain the magic of shopping and Christmas and holiday in New York city and especially all the lights that they put on the facade of their building, in making it an absolutely spectacular, show and performance.

Christopher Lacy: I agree with you. I think that's one of those things where they do exactly what a holiday window is intended and holiday installation is intended to do, which is really especially in New York, because you've got so much tourism that happens at that time is you set yourself as this light and this beacon of a moment and an experience that people had when they were in New York at, you know, Christmas time at holiday time.

And that that's stands in their memory for me, Hunter boots. The outerwear brand from Scotland did a popup location in grand central station. And it was small, but it was so memorable to me because I you know, wouldn't hop on grand central to take the Metro North. And so, in all of this pandemonium of moving very quickly, they established this popup store where when you walked into it, they put a Hunter coat on you raincoat, and you walked on Moss and they had this mist. And so. They made it smell and feel as if you were walking through the Scottish Highlands. 

Jon Harari: That's cool. 

Christopher Lacy: It was insane to me. And I was like, I needed this at this moment. So, you know, I like Hunter. I really do. But now, like after that one experience, I was like, every time I think of Hunter, I think the Scottish Highlands.

And so, you know, of course what's crazy is, but I'm also a retail guy. I got on the train and I was like, Oh, really check out what Hunter has, you know? And so now I'm like on their website while I'm on the Metro North by stopping Hunter. And I thought, you know, this was amazing because it really wasn't even about selling something.

They, what they wanted to do was create nature in such a busy city atmosphere. And have you experienced what Hunter was all about and its history? And I, I think that was a great popup experience 

Jon Harari: Look, with digital and online right now, the way that it is e-commerce is great when it comes to, you know, buying merchandise and accessing the product.

But it's very difficult to experience the brand in the Internet's current form, the internet and digital in the future. Will be completely different, but the internet and digital right now, it's great. It's like a two-dimensional thumbnail catalog of images, which is a great way of accessing product, but it's very difficult to understand the brand and the identity of the brand and also establish an emotional connection with the brand and that's where the physical pop-up comes in. Right? Which you mentioned, and brick and mortar is a great way to experience both. Right? You can experience the brand. You can also experience the product and as we move digitally, we'll see digital, not just being a tool to access the product.

Cause I think we can all agree. We've done that. It's every product is accessible right now, online. But we'll certainly see digital, being able to communicate the brand, more effectively. Retail is just about where is your consumer, right. If your consumer is spending half of their time online, well then there's your retail moment.

If your consumer is out and about New York city. There's your retail moment. If your consumer is at the Madison square garden for three hours watching a basketball game, there's your retail moment, right? It's just about where's the consumer, where are they at and how to effectively sell things to that consumer that they need, or that they desire at that moment?

And you know, as we're as human beings spending more and more time online brands will have to create more and more strategies to engage those consumers. But also understanding that everything that we do online is still in a physical world, somewhere at windows wear with technology, with digital content engagement, you know, we just see the future as infinite.

We. Many more ways and opportunities for brands to engage with their consumers. Right? If you just think about how many more things in the future will have a microchip connected to it. So, every device in your house will be communicating with everything else and, shopping for you, suggesting products for you.

Everything will be personalized more to you. And if you're a brand, you've got so many more options at your fingertips and you're going to need to stay even more ahead of the curve because things are going to be happening much quicker than they're currently happening and also information, right?

Like right now we're all stuck in our apartments or at our houses because of information. Right. If everyone knew. If there was proper testing and testing of every human being, we would all know who had, who has COVID, who doesn't have COVID and then you could create strategies around people that have it, make sure that they're quarantined.

If you don't have it, you know, you have to, you can only engage with people that don't have it, but you can only know that with information. So ultimately, you know, having information, obviously having a cure is the ultimate thing. But you know, before we get there, just having proper information is something that we can all make better use of if we all had it, because the information is out there, it's just a matter of identifying it and sharing it.

And you know, ultimately at windows wear we still have that same business model is just that our information is for retailers. And, you know, the information that we provide is you look it's exclusive and you know, it's only going to grow in importance as things become more complicated in the world.

Christopher Lacy: Awesome. Jon, I appreciate that as that's the perfect last thought, I think for what we've talked about and what windows wear does and what it's all about. It's information to create shared experiences and knowledge amongst creative people. And even those who are not in the creative field at the moment, but maybe who want to get into that space.

What I'd like to know is, you know, for our listeners, last question is how do they stay abreast of what's happening with windows wear and if any of our listeners wanted to even reach out to you, is there a way they could do that? 

Jon Harari: Yeah, so absolutely. So, you know, anyone who's listening can sign up for an account at WindowsWear.com.  It's www.windowswear.com. For me personally, John Harare, J O N H A R A R I.com. That's my personal website. My WindowsWear email is Jon.harari@windowswear.com. All of the windows wear social media is at windows wear and then my personal. Social media is @JonHarari. 

Anyone can connect with me, share content with me, you know, share any way that I can help them. I'm happy to, but I'll also say everyone is digitally connected, right? You can reach any human being right now at your fingertips and they're probably going to be available. So now is the best time for networking, right?

To reach out to people that you're inspired by. Connect with people that you think maybe one day, sometime in the future, you would want to be where they're at. And I would be very direct. Let them know. Hey, you're someone that I think is awesome. You're someone that I would aspire to be. Do you have five or ten minutes to talk to me?

Everyone at this moment can value connecting with other people because you never know where people are going to be. And, you know, the more people that you connect to the better. So, I appreciate that you had that you guys had me on this. Cause obviously this is all an opportunity for people to share their stories and connect with others.

And ultimately the more that we do that, the more that we're better off. So, I believe that as a final, you know, lasting thought for anyone that's listening. 

Christopher Lacy: Thank you so much, Jon, for your time. You've been amazing. Thank you for the advice. Thank you for giving us insight into windows wear. And we look forward to speaking to you again soon. Take care. 

Jon Harari: Thank you, Chris. Thank you, Josh. Take care. Bye.

Joshua Williams: Thank you for listening to this episode of Retail Revolution. A very special thank you to everyone who has helped make this podcast possible, our guests, our students and fellow faculty at Parsons School of Design, especially in such an extraordinary and unprecedented time. Our theme music was composed by Spencer Powell. 

Be well and stay tuned for our next episode.

www.RetailRevolutionPodcast.com