Transcript - Jordana Guimarães
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: I am your host, Christopher Lacy, and welcome to another episode of Retail Revolution podcast. Please be sure to subscribe to Retail Revolution podcast on your preferred streaming platform. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, and TuneIn. You can also access the Retail Revolution podcast, blog, transcripts, and previous episodes at retailrevolutionpodcast.com.
Okay. I'm extremely excited that we have asked back cofounder of FashInnovation and founder of the Nylon Project, a community builder extraordinaire Jordanna Guimaraes to join us again for a more in-depth conversation. Welcome back to the show Jordana.
Jordana Guimaraes: Thank you so much, Christopher for having me.
Christopher Lacy: I was looking forward to this and I think I still ruined your last name. I don't know how I do that every time. I even practiced. I don't know what's wrong with my Portuguese.
Jordana Guimaraes: It sounded good. It sounded good.
Christopher Lacy: Okay. So, for our listeners, we spoke with Jordana, it's almost been two, three months ago, as we were in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic Jordana had just launched her organization and company Fashionnovation right at the start of COVID. But Jordanna, it was such an amazing conversation we had, and it was really kind of just a quick thing we put together, I wanted to bring you back on, because I want to know where you are now, as we're segueing through it, kind of, coming out of this, experiencing the next normal, also with the social unrest, and social movements that we have going forward. But then also to talk a bit about your trajectory on a personal level, cause I think you have such a beautiful story. So, thank you.
The tagline line for Fashinnovation is fashion is to love. And I want to ask you, why was it important for that to be the message for you of all things that fashion could be?
Jordana Guimaraes: First, I'm a big believer that love is really what everything stems from when it's done for like the good or when it makes it comes to making people feel good or, you know, fulfilled. Love is super important.
I think you can have everything in the world, but if you don't have love, I really don't think it's possible to be happy. And that goes for any part of life. And funny enough somebody just brought it to my attention recently that, Albert Einstein actually wrote a letter to his daughter, telling her out of all of his studies and everything that he like looked into throughout his life, that the one he had the answer.
The answer that he was looking for and he did an equation for it. And I'll be happy to share this letter with you after, but actually the answer to happiness in life, after everything he looked until was love. And it's a beautiful letter when someone brought it to my attention and I was like, wow, I can't believe I never even knew of this. And so, I really do believe that.
And I think passion, you know, it can be looked at as superficial; there's a lot of negativity around fashion, but at the end of the day, I think quite the opposite. I think the community behind fashion is such a strong and powerful and united one. , because everybody wears clothing to showcase what they're feeling on that day and all of that, you know, encompasses like loving yourself, feeling good about yourself and also being a huge platform to really get messaging out to the world. I think what better word than love, plugging it to the biggest industry, in a role that can really impact others.
So, that's the long answer why the" fashion is to love" and the word being love is this so important?
Christopher Lacy: Awesome. And yes, please send me that Einstein letter.
Jordana Guimaraes: I will.
Christopher Lacy: Speaking of retailers and why we wear clothing, you've been building communities, and having these just phenomenal virtual conferences with amazing information coming in from different backgrounds, different points of view. And as you've listened to it all, and being someone who has engaged in the retail sphere, what do you think retailers in the fashion space need to be doing in this current climate of social unrest?
Jordana Guimaraes: So, it's a really hard, loaded question. It's a hard one to answer really. But what I can say is people have always looked for a lifestyle, an experience. People now they pay more for an experience rather than for an item. They want to spend their money on like travel and experiences and new things that will excite them and all of that. So, it's a shame, but the reality is there are going to be tons of retailers that are going to shut its stores or go bankrupt, or all of that is just it's going to happen, just because of the reality of the climate in which we're living in. And I don't think it's going to dissipate so fast. I think it's going to remain, unfortunately a while longer. But with that being said, I think that people now, they're starting to come out and things are starting to open back up. I think they want to be able to go into a place where they can make that purchase, but they can also feel good about being in that space.
So, I think that now it's always been great to innovate and create experiences for the consumer. I think now more than ever, that's super important, if you're going to remain afloat. Because it's going to be a space, a place where people feel like they can go for its original purpose or where they can also know that, or you know, stepping out of their house for the first time or going back out into whatever this dual reality is and feel good about doing that because of X, Y, Z.
So, I think innovating is super important for retailers right now, more so than ever before.
Christopher Lacy: I love that you said, you know, mentioning feeling comfortable in a space because in the beginning of your career, you focused a lot on popup stores. And we've seen this explosion of popup stores over the last eight to 10 years. With this being the next normal, popup stores were designed to kind of give this new experience, right, that wasn't around product. So, do you see the popup store evolving? Do you see retailers that maybe pulling back from that in the future? Will it still be relevant?
Jordana Guimaraes: I think that it's gonna still be relevant, but I think it's going to change up a little bit. I think that a lot of like the small businesses maybe that have their retail locations or small shops in their area in which they live in... because collaboration is another key word that I think is necessary now to survive in anything that you do. And this is just a thought that I think makes sense is if people can get together and share a retail space and have that pop up feeling, but have it be an eternal pop up or it's not just a one-time thing. Because I think that through doing that, you're collaborating, you're bringing brands together to share the same mission, the same value with brings the same target audience. But it puts them all within a space where they can make it almost like a home, because at the end of the day, like a home is now what we're all kind of saying, okay, this is where I can do a lot of the things that maybe I don't need to go out for all of the things that I was going out for before. And I can do them just as successful, if not even more. And that can be correlated into the retail space with different verbiage, but the same type of value system. So, I think that through collaboration of like different people that are in retail coming together into one space and having that be like the next popup or like the next, what the popups should be or look like, I think that that would make sense.
Christopher Lacy: It makes sense because when I look at the things you do, the first thing that comes to my mind is you think about community. You are very good at understanding how pieces need to fit together to do something more than just revenue. Right? And I think that's a true talent, because now we see that community is extremely important and you have new entrepreneurs that will arise from this next normal. While we will lose some, there will definitely be new ones. And I would love to hear your thoughts on, what do you think those entrepreneurs need to do to support community, or even try to build a new community?
I think when you're trying to start your own business, most of the time, you're like, it's about product. I need to make sure that I have the right product. I need to make sure I have the right space. And then there's also that other part of community. So, how should they go about that?
Jordana Guimaraes: t's interesting you ask this question because recently one of my really good friends just decided to launch a new business, a new brand, a new product. And he reached out to me and he's like, this is my product, and this is my shoe. It's a sneaker brand. He's like, but don't look at the sneaker as like a product. I want you to look at the overall mission behind a sneaker, rather than just a sneaker. I want for the people that see this sneaker; I don't want them to just see a product. I want them to see the value system, everything that we stand for and what we're giving back to the world to make the world a better place through this sneaker.
So, that was super important to him. And I love the way that he said said that, because this is how I think if you're going to start a new brand, are you going to become an entrepreneur in a fashion space? I really believe it's how you have to look at it. And he said, who can we reach out to? And I said, it's not who, it's the group of the who. So, like the institutions that can support and shared the same value system. And it all goes back to like the collaboration aspect of it. And I started reaching out to some individuals that are in that ecosystem of an institution, because I very much believe in the brand he's building because it's like fully sustainable and it has all these incredible components to it. And I told them, I said, forget about the product, forget about the brand, think of community, how are we going to build your community? So, I think that's super important. And I think the brands that are already in existence, if they've always focused on community, I think they're going to be okay at the end of the day, because they're going to have that support system, which is what everybody needs right now. And people that have seen that they've always been there from the get-go, making sure the community was key and number one. Because at the end of the day, I think this whole COVID thing has taught us that, and it goes back to the whole love thing, but it taught us that it is about each other. It's not about the product or the hotel or the place you're going to, it's about who you're with, who's around you, who’s supporting? And it's always been about that, but I think it's becoming more relevant now. And of course, at the end of the day, you have to have a great product and it has to be right in the times that you're living in it, everything has to make sense. The whole supply chain has to make sense. But if you have both, then I think success is the only thing that will happen. So, does that answer your question?
Christopher Lacy: Yeah, totally. Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, I think that the biggest thing is, is that product is there, but what's the why behind the product now.
You started your process shortly before COVID and you were like we're ready to go, this is amazing, it's an amazing project. And then that happened. So, understanding that that was a challenge for you. Were there other challenges with you wanting to build this community out that you didn't expect to have and then even still, how have you navigated this space during COVID?
Jordana Guimaraes: So, it's been really interesting. I will say that the last event that we did, which was the second online talks that we put together; four days before the date of the event, the protests and everything started with the horrible thing that's happening all over the country now. And the great thing too, because we're finally standing up for justice. But with that being said, It was a really challenging thing because, you know, we were already trying to focus, how do we navigate COVID and the businesses and sustainability. And then when that happened, we always have diversity and we always have inclusion in our events, is super important to us. And, we either want to make sure to build that more of it because I know how important and how it's a pivotal thing to have in any business, if you're going to be successful. And if you're doing the right thing and if you have the right heart. But with that being said, when that happened right before this last event, we got a lot of people that were emailing us, and it wasn't coming from a place of like anger or aggression. It was coming from a place of trying to understand, a lot of people reached out and they said, why don't you have more representation of people of color? And it was never done intentionally where that didn't happen. It was just a matter of, we invited just as many people of color as not, but the people that were available weren't necessarily the people that we wanted. And that was something we really struggled with the size of the event and what I did is I came from a place of, like "genuin-ity" and transparency. And I said, listen, this is how we work. This is what we try to do. Unfortunately, it didn't work out, but I would love for the next event that we're doing in September for you, particularly to be a part of the process and help us, because we can always learn. We can always adapt and we're always willing to grow our community and people like you or people that we want because you're voicing your opinion. And through responding in that manner, the responses were phenomenal. They came back saying, thank you so much for taking your time to reply to this. I would love to help you for your next event. And all of a sudden it became where we were like friends, like exchanging ideas.
There's been a lot of challenges in these last few months, just navigating and making sure that we're building up our community in the way that it should be built up and bringing people in to assist, maybe in points that we were not so strong in, but always wanted to have as part of our communities. So, all of those things have been learning lessons for sure.
And then the challenges aside from those, when it came to the actual businesses that we signed growing the community, is of course, everything that you do now, more than likely you have other people that are doing similar things or crossover things. I don't call them competitors because I don't believe in competition. I just believe in people being able to be even bigger by working together. But it's been a little bit challenging in the sense of trying to find out where do we differentiate? How can we keep bringing value in a way which people are not already receiving from other sources?
But then it all goes back to, I think the whole passion is to love component of things that we do. But also, I think the fact that we bring in the startups and we put them under the same limelight as we do the keynotes, and everybody is in the same playing field. We don't separate one or the other, because one is quote unquote bigger than the other. We believe they're all the same. And they all bring values from different reasons. I think that in itself is something we've gotten a lot of people emailing us and saying, I love that you do this. And we don't see this often enough because usually the highlights go to the bigger individuals or the more established companies.
We're still learning, but those have been some of the challenges for sure.
Christopher Lacy: I really appreciate how you mentioned the challenges relative to inclusivity. But I more appreciate your response to it.
Jordana Guimaraes: Ah, thank you.
Christopher Lacy: that's what's important and in all fairness, it's kind of difficult to find, I mean, you'd be pretty hard pressed to find at this point, a black male in our industry, who's an executive, because I know I was one of the few. And I'm part of the network and it's hard to find us because the representation wasn't there in the fashion industry. So you really do have to do your work. It's not saying the people aren't there, it is that the representation of it is so small that it does make it difficult to find, find us and. And then being available for that. so I, you know, and I appreciate you saying, you know what, you're the, you're also a person that I need to have in this conversation to help me find those people.
You know, that's something that I wish more people would do I'm in for this, help us, help me out. And I think you you're able to do that because you also come from a perspective of being an immigrant from Brazil.
Jordana Guimaraes: Yes.
Christopher Lacy: And a woman.
Jordana Guimaraes: Both my parents are Egyptian.
Christopher Lacy: I mean, here we go. it's the challenge of it.
Jordana Guimaraes: Yeah.
Christopher Lacy: This is an important question for me because our student cohort population is 70% international. 96% female. So, how did you get people to take you seriously? Because remember when we go back to your original conversation, you were like, yeah, I learned how to do PR and marketing by reading a book. Like, that's not what I went to school for.
Jordana Guimaraes: Yeah.
Christopher Lacy: So, how'd you do that?
Jordana Guimaraes: Honestly, in the very beginning when I was younger, like when I started at 24, 23, 24, I had some like horrific stories. If I shared them, you'll be like, Whoa, like really older men in the fashion industry, not only not taking me seriously, but saying really like things that I can't even repeat because they were so offensive. And just, I went through a lot with that and just people kind of looking at me and pretending they were listening and just being like, Oh, she's a cute girl. It got so bad to a point that I had a really big executive in the industry actually take out a lot of money from his pocket at the end of our meeting and asked me how much for a kiss. No joke. And all of that then happened. I was just like, so disgusted at them, but I almost, if I wasn't strong enough mentally, I could have seen it where I would have been like this guy's like, I would have been like, where did I do wrong? Did I like say something wrong, am my acting the wrong way. Should I change the way that I dress? I definitely could have put it all on me when in fact it was all them. So, I think the way that I did it honestly is just through proving people that I not only said what I was going to do but do what I said I was going to do. So with that being said, unfortunately, I wish, I'm such an optimist, and I wish that I could sit here and say, Oh, you know, you just have to make sure to like set a tone and don't take it seriously, because unfortunately it's really hard to do that just based on experience that I've had to kind of go through and I'm sure a lot of women and people, like just minorities in general, I'm sure. And just people in general. I think everybody goes through it, especially being a woman though, I believe. But with that being said, I think that the only way that I was able to do it is when I started acting and people started seeing results. And then they said, okay.
I remember one guy, I was at a meeting, it was an older gentleman again, that owned a few private labels in the fashion industry. And we were speaking, and then at the end he looks at me and he goes, where do you get your confidence from? Why are you so confident? And I was like, such a weird question. Yeah, it's interesting because, and I think it all has to do at the end of the day with you, how much do you believe in yourself? Because at the end of the day, no one can take that away from you. Regardless of the experiences that you are going to face and people that are going to be biased and people, they're not going to take you seriously, if inside you, you know who you are, you know the value you bring and you know that you're strong, just pretty much knowing who you are. I think that at the end of the day, that's the main secret to it all. Because it's unfortunate. But I think having people take you seriously when it comes to being a female, minority and all of those things, I really think it's difficult. I don't know. You know, I wish I could be very optimistic about this answer, but I think you just really have to be true to who you are and know who you are. Not let anyone have you think twice about that. And really like show people, start acting and show results and then people have to take this seriously. Their forced to.
Christopher Lacy: There's three different types of flexibility that leans into adaptability, right? And one is called dispositional flexibility. And in that practice of it, it is being able to maintain optimism, but also being realistic. And I think that's what you've just done. I would say, and I don't know if you had this experience because you’re part of the growing majority. Your parents are immigrants, but I know for me growing up, one of the things that my parents told me is work harder and smarter. Right? And so, you have that in you to be like, I need to do it faster. I need to be more efficient.
Jordana Guimaraes: Mhm.
Christopher Lacy: Don't call out sick. it was all these things that were in my head to make sure that to what you're saying is when you act, it is with intention when you act, it gets done. And so, what you do is never halfhearted, right? So, you have that kind of level of stress that's on you as well. But I think confidence comes with that. A great work ethic comes with that; I think also is the ability to also see the plights of others. And you were able to make your platform, you were able to gain respect, but also within it, you became a voice for a group of people through the Nylon Project. And from that you wrote a book...
Jordana Guimaraes: Hmm.
Christopher Lacy: ...that you mentioned before, I think, and now I think it's about to come out. Right?
Jordana Guimaraes: Yeah, so it's coming out in about six weeks.
Christopher Lacy: And it's called "It Can Be You."
Jordana Guimaraes: Yes.
Christopher Lacy: And what's it about?
Jordana Guimaraes: So, it's to give a face to homelessness, using the voices of the fashion industry. And then there's also entertainment, beauty, but I feel like it all kind of combines nowadays. And it's really to showcase to people that being homeless, sometimes it can be a decision, or a choice, but most times it's not. It's really circumstances in life that maybe someone doesn't have, that someone more privileged does, or just circumstances in general. And it really is correlating the stories of people that are homeless today with stories of people in the fashion, entertainment, beauty space of struggles that they've overcome in their lives and that circumstance that separates the two individuals. Because when you look at the two stories in the book, side-by-side for each of the pages, you see that the struggles are very similar in detail, but the circumstance at the end is what separates the two individuals. And it's for people to have more compassion. At the end of the day it's about compassion, empathy behind those homeless individuals that maybe you'll walk by as if though they don't exist, which I think is horrifying to see the things I've seen with that. It just like breaks my heart and blows my mind. And just treating them as human beings, which they are, and they're just like any of us. And it's just all a matter of circumstance. So, that really is what the project is in general, but the book is going to be stories of people that we, when I say we, I created a street team a few years back and we went around Manhattan and give out meals and socks, cause we worked with a brand that gave socks to give along to those meals and we would sit with them, give them the gift and then ask them, you know, can you share with me what happened?
And we got so many incredible stories and then we were able to do the same with fashion influencers, who also shared their stories, lots of them for the first time. And they're all going to be in this book, and that's really the whole way can be you premise is behind.
Christopher Lacy: Jordanna, I am extremely excited to read this book.
Jordana Guimaraes: Thank you.
Christopher Lacy: I love that what you've decided to do really is a retail revolution in what you're doing, which is how do we really change what we do as retailers, as people in the fashion industry. And what are we doing to give voices to those who have not had a voice, and to pull back a curtain. I appreciate you for doing that.
Christopher Lacy: I think it's extremely commendable. How do our listeners stay, up to date with what you're doing? I know you have many websites.
Jordana Guimaraes: So, I would say, the two, so Fashinnovation, It's at F A S H innovation.nyc, and then the NylonProject.com. I would say those are the two right now that I'm fully focused on and making sure that not only do, we keep bringing in the mission of community building and knowledge sharing and inspiring and hope and all of that. But it's also, I truly believe, with the voices that we have in both of those projects, going to change the way people think, but also, we're going to see action behind those thoughts. And that's my hope for everything that I do. Right? Because, if you have just thoughts with no action, it doesn’t go anywhere. So, that's what I'm hoping for, for sure.
Christopher Lacy: Fantastic. When is the next conference?
Jordana Guimaraes: It's September 10th. When we started Fashinnovation, our whole value system behind it, aside from always, obviously talking and sharing good, was to bring together technology and fashion to talk about innovations when it came to the industry. And so in the last two online talks, we didn't steer away from it, but we focused 90% on obviously equality and justice and sustainability and all of the things that we're going to maintain, but our focus, with making sure, especially now with the next normal and people really going back out there and trying to see what are they going to do so that it can survive through all of this and continue stronger, is going to be to bring back that technology and innovation component to it. So, we're excited, and that will be September 10th.
Awesome. I'm looking forward to it.
Thank you. I hope that you'll be there and hopefully you can participate again. You were so great at the one that you participated in.
Christopher Lacy: Ah thanks. I had a lot of fun doing that one, and ended up meeting quite a few, really cool designers from it, that reached out to me afterwards.
So, for me it was a great experience and I loved the content that I heard, cause I joined a few of the other panels just to listen in.
Jordana Guimaraes: Ah, thank you. That means a lot.
Christopher Lacy: You're putting together a great stuff. Jordana, thank you so much. I'm so glad you had time to speak with us again today.
Jordana Guimaraes: Oh, me too. This is so great. And every time I talk to you guys, I always literally like, I hang up feeling like I want to do more like, feeling like what else can I implement.
And I also love the fact that you, you give such an open space to be like vulnerable and honest with like thoughts. a lot of things that maybe, you know, I'm kind of like hesitant to say out loud to other people. I feel like with you, I can just be really honest, because I feel like you are coming from a very genuine and like open space. And so keep doing that, because it's really incredible. And I think people need that space to feel comfortable, to really be able to share their thoughts. And you're doing an amazing job at that. So, I really appreciate you.
Christopher Lacy: Oh, my gosh, I heart you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
You take care.
Jordana Guimaraes: You too. Bye
Christopher Lacy: Bye, 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.
