Transcript - Vasumathi Soundararajan
Joshua Williams: [00:00:00] 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 longterm 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 ar Assistant Professors in the School of Fashion at Parsons.
[00:00:47] Christopher: [00:00:47] Welcome to our summer semester series of Retail Revolution. If you've been a fan of the series, we thank you, and if you're new, please feel free to subscribe and rate on your preferred streaming platform. You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn or Stitcher. You can also stay up to date with retail revolution at RetailRevolutionPodcast.com.
[00:01:10] All right. I am extremely pleased to welcome a human interest story teller and entrepreneur, turned UX designer and experienced strategist. She has successfully built, launched and scaled businesses. She is an empathetic, detailed-oriented problem solver using design as a tool to drive change, growth, and positive impact.
[00:01:32] Welcome to the show. Vasumathi Soundararajan.
[00:01:36] Vasumathi: [00:01:36] Hey. Hi Chris. Thanks for your kind words. Excited to be here and chat with you.
[00:01:41]Christopher: [00:01:41] I'm super excited. I've been looking forward to this for two weeks from when we spoke, so very excited. So Vasu, tell us about, you know, really your career trajectory and just about you and who you are and what you've been doing in the industry.
[00:01:59] Vasumathi: [00:01:59] Sure. Definitely. I'm Vasumathi, I'm from India, from Bangalore, the IP capita or possibly, the place that holds the call center to your bank. I lived in the US for 10 years now, and pretty much, I mean, I've lived only New York actually, so came here for school to study at FIT, and then I ended up staying back and, you know, trying things out in America.
[00:02:21] I've done a bunch of different things as career. I think, for me, career was never a linear part. I think from the day I decided not to do engineering and try other things out, it was already a big decision I had made a way back then.
[00:02:36] The highlights have been, I started my career in journalism. So my very first job was for a news channel in Bombay where I was reporter and show producer. And if you've done any kind of production, either in film or TV, I think it sets you up for life to manage teams, to manage complexities.
[00:02:56] After that, I ended up in fashion. It's because I, I think I was more interested in design, making things, creating things. But, I want to say about 10 years back, especially in India, design meant fashion design. It sort of went together. It was not other kinds of design as we discuss today. But, that's kind of how I landed in fashion, enjoyed it for some time, which brought me to this cross section of wanting to do something in part of a peer to peer conversation, which is why I launched my company because I wanted to, make, create a product that connects with my friends, connects with my lifestyle, which was my men's underwear band.
[00:03:34]So, I had it for five years, but it, it had an opportunity to exit through acquisition. Took that, and it's when it struck me, design has been a common theme or a common thing all throughout my life. And somehow these experiences map to it, I thought, and I ended up being a service and interaction designer. And which is what I'm doing right now at Fjord a creative consultancy with Accenture. That's a long answer to your one question.
[00:04:03] Christopher: [00:04:03] You know, it, it should be right because, you have experiences that have occurred over time. So I actually wouldn't expect for it to be short, but definitely exciting, I'm sure.
[00:04:14]So, you have worked with multiple startups in the design and technology space. And one of the things we've noticed is startups often seek some guidance from time to time and support and levels of process from legacy or heritage brands or established brands. You've helped these startups out from a design and technology space. What could legacy and established brands stand to learn from startups?
[00:04:45] Vasumathi: [00:04:45] Absolutely. I think that's a very interesting question, and more and more people have become open to it, especially I think in the East Coast where we see start-ups of different nature, like the Casper, Harry's of the world who are not startups anymorem as of 2020, but they were kind of pegged as these hot cool startups. So, I think we began to learn from not just a technology driven startups or SAS products from the Silicon Valley. This spirit has been creeping into other verticals of industry.
[00:05:15] The two aspects, I think, which legacy brands will really benefit from the number one being, having an end-to-end view. From the companies I work for, I never had that view. Like, if I was a designer, or if I'm a pattern maker in a fashion house, that's all I did. I don't know how other departments work. I do not know how the product and designing is being marketed that season. I do not know, how is the PR telling that story, beyond me scrolling down on Instagram. I don't have an insider view. I'm not benefiting from knowing what is it that I'm making. Why am I designing this? What is the goal of this fashion business? You know, what are the trying to do with this piece of clothing that I'm designing?
[00:06:01] I think having that internal view empowers every person in that process. Whether you're a pattern maker, you're a cutter, you're a sewer, or you're the PR person. It would be fantastic if the culture embraced that and allowed for everyone to kind of work together in a true sense. That's one.
[00:06:20] Second is rapid experimentation. Right? Like, what I mean by that is, it's a little heavy with fashion, because the cycles are pretty long and which is changing the new business models emerging. But that six months or three month cycle doesn't allow for you to try and test anything. And by the time you have made a product, you've a launch date and you've gotten the feedback, and often the designers don't get qualitative feedback. They only get feedback like, Oh, change this cut , this didn't sell very well this season . Make a change. But, they don't understand the why part of it, because they are never really talking to the customers. So, getting that view and then being able to experiment based off of that would be very valuable. I think it will remove that kind of fatigue that sets in after a while of doing six collections a year. Or, like you don't know where this is going . And sort of the sub-bullet point under rapid experimentation is momentum. Like keeping things flowing is sort of the more fancier view of a startup. You imagine things you can identify, prioritize, and move forward more swiftly. So, if there is a way that we can push for this rapid experimentation, I think it would be great for legacy bands.
[00:07:29]Christopher: [00:07:29] You said momentum, which is a great word, and then we say, experimentation. And when we look at the fashion industry, it's interesting because we set trends, right? That's, that's fashion, that's retail. We, we set trends, but there are some areas where we remain slow.
[00:07:48] Vasumathi: [00:07:48] Oh totally.
[00:07:49] Christopher: [00:07:49] When we talk about things like momentum and experimentation, old systems, new systems, business models, what areas do you think fashion needs to focus on to really catch up?
[00:08:02]Vasumathi: [00:08:02] Sure. This is coming back to those two points. I want to kind of talk about one of my favorite case studies here, to give an example, to make it more illustrative. Of course, please take this with a pinch of salt. We are in times where many things we are seeing that statistics don't hold good as of, you know, 10:00 AM today, right? Like it's changing on a 24 hour basis.
[00:08:23]But , this case studie is of AirBnb. Like one of the reasons that they encountered a pretty early success was because they understood that they kind of had to shake some of the ways of working and were ready to experiment. So, the experiment they did was, typically a SAS business, or typically a technology business is made to scale. And this comes from a code based company. The idea is if the code works for one person, it works for 10,000 people, it works for 10 million people. So just getting the piece of code right means you could scale, but it doesn't translate to other kinds of products. And coming back to AirBnb, they had to try things out before understanding what could scale and how could this Airbnb, which is sort of a cultural revolution their bringing about, can make sense. So, the company began to allow the employees to behave like pirates. They were able to experiment with maybe tiny budgets and you know, try some products out, try an idea out. Like if someone had an idea, like, hey, people are not able to rent their places because they don't take good photos. They could actually get a budget and go test that out. What we offer this as a service and photograph. And in fact, that's what they did. Initially, they just photographed a few houses and put that up and realize when the photographs are better the place got rented faster, so then they began to scale it. But, before scaling anything, they first tried and this trial came from within, it wasn't just like the head designer or the CEO or someone said, okay, this is, this is what I'm going to do with the season. But everybody who was part of that company was able to try things out. And I think because fashion houses are again, a little cumbersome and heavy, this kind of, you know, nimble way of working and experimentation, they could find a way to do that, I think.
[00:10:10] A few other things on my mind here is, the areas that we sort of slow in catching up is transparency. When I say transparency, I don't just mean about sustainability and sort of the green angle, but just really show us who you are because gone are the days where there is one designer who represents a fashion house and that person, he or she, dictates and designs, for you. Today, all of us are micro-influencers in our own way. We want to connect with the company and know really about the company from inside out, right? We want to know who's this person? Who's the pattern maker? Like, what's happening in this company? And for me personally, the more and more I'm consuming, of course, I'm in my thirties, you know, I'm, I'm asking all these questions, I'm looking for this other experience, and I'm not just buying things because it looks cute. I want to know how is this company envisioning the world. Like what kind of human experiences mattered to this company? Like, I want to know, like, you know, why are you adding this other pretty thing to this planet? Just really the why aspect. And I think those conversations have been tackled in a very marketing sense before and now it's not just marketing, it's, it's really the raison d'etres, or reason to be, for a company.
[00:11:19]Christopher: [00:11:19] I want to dive in a little bit on human experience, because we've talked quite a bit about transparency with other guests and, and understanding, and even our students talk a lot about transparency outside of the scope of sustainability, but really this understanding of who are you and what are you about?
[00:11:38] Vasumathi: [00:11:38] Yeah.
[00:11:38] Christopher: [00:11:38] So, you design human experiences. How do you see this evolving, you know, one, in a Covid-19 situation. But even if Covid-19 hadn't happened...
[00:11:52] Vasumathi: [00:11:52] Yep.
[00:11:53]Christopher: [00:11:53] How does the human experience need to evolve for, for brands and retailers to capture this moment in a better way?
[00:12:01]Vasumathi: [00:12:01] Sure. I think I've sort of more and more going towards that notion that design is storytelling, right? This might sound pretty stale, it's not anything new that I'm saying, it's been around. But, it's been dictated by saying social media limitations. So, you are telling a story because Instagram allows you to say it a certain way, right? Now we're at a point where everything is beginning to look homogenous. Like everything looks pretty, everything looks perfect. Like it's, there's going to be this other way where the storytelling is going to shift. It's going to be maybe about more technical aspects of making a garment, or maybe it's because people are hungry for new understanding of this piece. Or it's maybe about giving a notion of not just a factory in India that's making this, but actually you're going to the factory and connecting with these people and not just seeing it as like a documentary level. There could be, I think, many other nuances like supply chain for example, was like the biggest paradigm that I hit when I was running my business. And the human experience of supply chain is I think the least told story of the fashion industry. Like those angles I think can be teased out. They can be human experiences off me consuming. Like, I mean, we know that the consumption rate has gone up online right now with Covid-19, but what does that mean? Does it mean these companies can take more responsibility for the product they're making? And what does that mean actually?
[00:13:30] So, there are sort of lot of questions that are coming out and I think a company can, a brand, can pick one of those pieces and try to go after it. Basically, I'm looking for that. I think we're all looking for depth at this point.
[00:13:44]Christopher: [00:13:44] I often wonder when it comes to how we look at the supply chain, and then when we look at the end result with the consumer in a store, one of the most beautiful things about fashion and why we typically select to buy a particular piece of clothing or a particular accessory, even even a car, right? When they talk about the hand quality or the craftsmanship of the piece, the artists and work that goes behind it. And even if I mentioned a car, what's interesting is, you know, when someone gets a luxury car and it's told to them that the stitching on the seats of the leather, you know, it's hand stitched, right? It's, it becomes so much more meaningful.
[00:14:26] Vasumathi: [00:14:26] Yep.
[00:14:26]Christopher: [00:14:26] Does this really matter now for the end result consumer you think? Or is it more like these things need to be replaced with technology, more so because of how you've treated the human experience in the supply chain, right? Does that matter to the end consumer? And this is something that, I mean to some, it might in some it might not, but I would love your thoughts on it.
[00:14:52] Vasumathi: [00:14:52] Sure. I'm going to talk of myself as a consumer, right? Like that's more powerful to tell you, like honestly, what I would feel as a consumer than guessing what a consumer feels like.
[00:15:03] Christopher: [00:15:03] Right.
[00:15:03] Vasumathi: [00:15:03] To me, I think those have become just words, like handcrafted, hand stitched doesn't mean much. And also because culturally, think about it. For someone who comes from cultures where that's the norm, the hand stitching is the norm for me. Like I stitch, I sew right? What is so different about hand sewing? Like, why is it a selling point? It's not a selling point to me, for example. Like handpicked. Like handpicked salad, like all these things just to sound like a marketing gimmick almost. How else would you pick? Because I don't know, like I'm trying to think about it like, like just to make it gourmet-sounding like haute couture. What is powerful for me is to show it. Like, don't tell me, just show me. Like, I will figure it out. Just show me what you're doing and then I let me be the judge of it.
[00:15:49] There are two schools of thought. One school of thought is you define your story. If not, the consumers will define it for you. I think that's one way of doing it. The other way is let's go define it. Let's make this together, and those models are like Glossier and all these companies where they're defining it together like they haven't set it up and then launched. For example, Glossier's model was to launch a product every few weeks, and it gives, again, they're testing, they are able to understand, get consumer feedback, but also they're letting the consumers make sense out of it a little bit. So, there is some room for like this conversational, you know, launch. Or conversational creation, organizational design rather. So, I think that's, for me, that's more interesting and makes a better experience for me as a consumer. Like I feel more attracted to, and empowered,being part of this, you know, brand.
[00:16:44] Christopher: [00:16:44] So, as you think about your experiences engaging, and you consider what your role is. And, then knowing that before you were a designer who had your own company, what's been really challenging in your role, and also what's been the most fulfilling part in your current role as a user experience designer and thinking about strategic experiences?
[00:17:08]Vasumathi: [00:17:08] How I understood my consumer in my company?
[00:17:11] Christopher: [00:17:11] Yeah. How did you take that and like translate it and then are you in a spot where you're like, I don't even know how to translate that now.That's a challenge. You know, how do I make this work now in my current role?
[00:17:22] Vasumathi: [00:17:22] Sure. So, first step about my business, right?
[00:17:25] I had a men's underwear brand, honestly, understanding my customer was the toughest thing, right? It took me at least a couple of years to, to make several guesses and then identify who it is. And only after I did that actually the business got interesting. Because if not, I was just shooting in the dark and just trying to sell to all these cool places and it takes forever to even get a meeting and convert something, right?
[00:17:51] And then you have this moment of like, Oh the store doesn't want me. But it's not about that. It's more about does the consumer want you, right? Like that. Then you do the new design differently. So for that, the turning point in my business was, I actually was doing, some night bazaars. They used to be this Brooklyn night bazaar. You remember coming to that?
[00:18:13] Christopher: [00:18:13] I do.
[00:18:15] Vasumathi: [00:18:15] You do, yeah right? It's pretty fun. They had live music and they had food and you know, it starts at like 9:00 PM and goes on to like one or 2:00 AM.
[00:18:23] Christopher: [00:18:23] Like back when I used to stay up until 1:00 AM!
[00:18:27] Vasumathi: [00:18:27] Exactly right? I was settling there and now I'm thinking about it, why did I choose to sell underwear when there's live music and food, like that doesn't really go together, right? But it, that's kind of where I learned who my customer was. Because I wasn't in this lifestyle. I sold enough to just make money to keep up the stall. Right? But I would watch people, and by the end of those two months of that one summer I did it, I could even tell like by racial division, which guy will buy which pair of underwear or not.
[00:19:00] Christopher: [00:19:00] Interesting.
[00:19:01] Vasumathi: [00:19:01] That taught me so much. I could give you an example. So, there is a guy and the girlfriend walks from like three feet distance. The girl will like elbow the guy and be like, Hey dude, like you need to get some new fun underwear. And the guy would like give the side look to my stall and kind of contemplate, do I need to buy new underwear? How embarrassing it is to buy and turn off his girlfriend. Like all these things I can see going on in his head and they'll come make a pause at my stall. And the guy will just take a look and the girl would grab the business card and they would walk away. And, this taught me that I had to sell to my customer in a different space. I shouldn't catch my customer when they are with their family because it's underwear. It was all this complexity. So it was interesting. And if the couple bought the underwear, it meant that it was a gift, which means that that won't have a repeat customer because when it's a gift, the guy's not going to come back and buy it from your brand.
[00:19:54] So, these were all these nuances that I really learned. And then there were like Australians and Danish and Swedish. These men just love shopping, even with their family. So it also taught me like how culture affects, influences how you shop and how you consume. They would come together, to kind of like shop together and in their cultures, underwear is like swim bed. It's very relaxed. It's like a, you know, it's a fun thing. It's not anything necessarily sexual and things like that. So this kind of new learning helped me understand the experience of my customer when they saw my product. Until then I think I hadn't thought about it. I was just so caught up in making a beautiful product that I kind of didn't think about experience of it in a very human way. Right, like it's, it's something someone's touching and wearing. And I think all that's translated to what I do today, today we approach it. Of course we use design thinking as a structure and thinking methodology and which has a lot of, you know, principles and the way you could approach it, it's a way for me to say, for example, use like it's a problem solving methodology and if you were to apply it, like what I do now, back to retail or fashion, I would definitely would have spent much more time of researching and learning my customer, which I think we don't do beyond just mood boards, right? Like we don't go out there. We don't hang out and target and do ethnographic research and understand who is this person buying my product. And if it's done, it's done not by the designers of the company, so it doesn't translate back to the drawing board.
[00:21:28] The second thing, I want to know like what people say versus how they behave with the product. I want to be able to see that and learn from it. And then second is finding patterns in data, right? So I did this other project where I'm just going to tell you what happened in it. Like, how people describe themselves with describing themselves as original. But, they were shopping at Ikea, so it was a little confusing. Right. They're like, wait, but okay, if I just went by what you told me, then I will think that you consume this cool original, avant garde underwear, but the data shows that they shop at Ikea, which means that its original is just the word you're using, but it doesn't translate to the product experience I'm giving you. There's not a match, right?
[00:22:17] And you can make alterations, then you can understand, okay, this customer possibly then shops for more basics and then you can, you know, build on it, and you're able to make informed decisions for your business, right? Either you make the underwear less original, in my case, for if this customer. Or you find that customer whose truly original. Things like that.
[00:22:37]Christopher: [00:22:37] That's interesting. It's funny because you make the great point of how we think of ourselves, but then how we engage with the outside world. And then there's this, this part of our psyche that retail and fashion does for us that's amazing. It is. It allows that person who really might have an original spirit, but they are in a rat race of having to be part of what the norm is, that they might experience,, or experiment in different ways through their clothing.
[00:23:12] So it could be that person who dresses in beige every day, but their socks and underwear are like bright red. Do you know what I mean? It's how do they, how do they express this other side and say, you know, there, there isn't an original part of me. I just have been consumed by what is thought to be the norm.
[00:23:32] Vasumathi: [00:23:32] Totally. And actually that's exactly what happened to me. So I realized that is maybe in my third year, I began to have some audience online and I would constantly connect with these men, ask them simple questions, and then I found out who truly my customer was. And, and yeah, it's a huge challenge in fashion, right? Because it's not black and white, like data's hard to interpret. And also it's more psychographic? So it's hard. The age group can be different, but what if they're connected by a way of thinking and how would you put your finger on that? And how do, you know, qualify that isn't, isn't definitely not an easy task, but you would have to start somewhere and keep kind of building off of that.
[00:24:14]Christopher: [00:24:14] I love that we're talking about the consumer group and markets and understanding who your client is. I want to talk about this other area. And then I want to say they're the underserved markets. And so, I think what's happened is there's this idea that's always existed of what the customer is, or you know, the customer's lifestyle, skin color, or gender, whatever that is, physical attributes. So, how do you think that brands can really start to approach engaging with underserved markets? And, I mean, markets such as people who consider themselves, you know, non-binary, you know, that's an emerging underserved market. Those with physical disabilities, that's definitely a huge market in the US alone, you know, there's 30 million people who fall into a physically challenged, area of, of the market.
[00:25:13] What do you think brands need to be doing at this point?
[00:25:16]Vasumathi: [00:25:16] I think what is critical here is designing with authenticity and let me explain what that is. So, initially I'm going to use my business as an example. Say I wanted to sell, I was trying to sell it to the skater board community, right? I thought it was an underserved market. They don't necessarily have the most fun underwear. They have shorts, right? And they have sneakers. But like there's an opportunity that I thought that's my audience, but I failed miserably. The reason being, I'm not a skater, so I'm Indian chick. Because, trying sell to young skater boys who are looking at me like, what do you know about my life? Like who are you? Like, what's the credibility here? Like why should I buy a product from you? Right. And it hit me hard, but now I'm laughing at it, because at least I tried to know what that means. So I think the lesson was, okay, let's say even if you were to start a brand for the market, either the person who starting the brand or some spirit of the brand should be authentic, should belong to that market. Right? Otherwise, it's like selling without any authority. Like who are you ? That's the question. Or you should either have designers or something who have empathy to that market and that can only come if you're, if you belong to it.
[00:26:30]If you want to sell to an undersold market, another example in my personal life is, I have a lot of the children in my life. I don't have kids of my own, but like a niece and nephews and friends' kids. And I'm always looking for this product for their kids and I never want it to be like what the parents already buy them. I wanted to be like the cool thing that aunt thought of and I realize there is a market for that and it's actually a thing. It's called the PANKs, professional aunts with no kids. And it's a thing. And it made so much sense because I belong to that market in some way. And the person was selling those products, I can connect with her, because I can see that she's a PANK too. So the minimum, like it's coming back to that thing where if you're trying to sell a product to somebody, the experience that comes with it is authentic is only if you belong to that, that group as well in some, some way or form. You know?
[00:27:27] Christopher: [00:27:27] That's a great story and analogy. And I'll forever remember professional aunts with no kids. So, you you are a professional aunt with no kids.
[00:27:39] Vasumathi: [00:27:39] Exactly.
[00:27:40] Christopher: [00:27:40] You are a female who started a female who started an underwear line for men. You work in the technology space. And, you grew up outside of the US. Our program population is 98% female and 68% international. So, I want to ask you, as a female who grew up outside of the US and you moved here to New York, you are working in a design and technology space, and let's be honest, the technology space is not that welcoming to women.
[00:28:17] Vasumathi: [00:28:17] Yep.
[00:28:18] Christopher: [00:28:18] How did you do it? How did you do this? How did you come in, implement, change, and have your voice?
[00:28:25] Vasumathi: [00:28:25] Sure. I think in one sentence I have a spectacular disregard for where my abilities end.
[00:28:32] Christopher: [00:28:32] Hmm.
[00:28:33]Vasumathi: [00:28:33] It took me a while to think that I need to be aware of it and now I kind of use it to my advantage, but I kind of don't worry about it, because I always think this kind of foolish courage that kind of tells me like many people might have done it, but they've not done it the way you've done it, because each of us have our own touch. So what if maybe the way I do it is the thing that this employer wants. Right? Like in that kind of situation where I'm looking for a job.
[00:29:00] So, I just do it. Like even when I did my underwear business, I had no background of a business school, nothing like that. In some way, if I had it, maybe I wouldn't have launched it, or maybe it would have done even better. I don't know. Like, like the what-if story. So I think I just, just do it. If I want to give it a shot and I gather the resources and I'm lucky to have a support system. My family, we're kind of encouraging of things. So, I think I take strength from it and I just disregard where my abilities end. All I've tried to learn, learn, right? Like to kind of bridge the gap and keep going forward.
[00:29:34]But, I also want to say it's by no means something I feel entirely awesome about. I did go through a lot of highs and lows, like it was a matter of existential crisis doing this company. But, I think it sets you up for trying. And if you do not try and experiment, then you know, no one can give you the answer. No one is able to predict. Right? So in my current role, I've become, what is called on-demand learner. I know my abilities, but it's not something I'm preoccupied at all about. I'm rather like curious to learn more. And I think one thing that technology space does is it allows for that kind of curiosity and learning. No one expects you to know everything. It's just impossible to make too many programs, way too many ways to do something or design something. But, the faster you learn how to give your rationale. And you're able to mix, articulate, and present an idea and give your rationale, I think this is what people are looking for beyond perfection. They just want you to be able to come up with an idea, back it up with evidence, rationale and present a solution. So I think that's a space that I think is level ground. iI allows people to be more creative and not necessarily just have an education. But, the thing has helped me navigate that space very well.
[00:30:55] And the female part, that's been interesting dialogue. Like I just read, Michelle Obama's "Becoming Me." It gave me a lot of themes to think about. And in my company we work a lot on inclusion and diversity, and that's when I realized, oh wait, I'm in that bucket. It wasn't a thing I was very aware of I think my, in my early days in the US and now, I think with that being sort of a everyday theme in media, I'm much more aware of it. I've been trying to very consciously have female mentors in my life as well, especially to navigate the corporate landscape.
[00:31:32] So women in tech has become a group. There's a lot of women who are trying to come together. It's given them a chance to come together and be more problem solving than having to pick a gender wa r. So, I think seeking out for help, not worrying about my abilities, just going out there and trying things has sort of been my a way to navigate.
[00:31:55] Christopher: [00:31:55] You know, I'm really glad I actually asked you that question. You didn't have a limitation on your abilities. And what's so important about that statement is I think many of us who, if you come from any background that you know, a misrepresented group or community, you have this idea that you have a limitation to your abilities. The other side of that is, is that you must, every single thing you do, you have to have the perfect answer. You need to have all the information and going, no, my ability is I can learn and I'm an on demand learner. And, that's what's amazing about that. So it really shows you have no limitation, but you also aren't going for perfection because you're recognizing that you have the ability to continue to learn, and that is phenomenal. I appreciate you saying that so much.
[00:32:51] Vasumathi: [00:32:51] Yeah, thank you.
[00:32:52] Christopher: [00:32:52] So my final question for you is, how would you complete this sentence. The future of fashion retail is...
[00:33:01]Vasumathi: [00:33:01] Purposeful experimentation.
[00:33:04] Christopher: [00:33:04] Purposeful experimentation.
[00:33:07] Vasumathi: [00:33:07] Yes.
[00:33:08] Christopher: [00:33:08] All right, there you have it, everyone.
[00:33:11]So, Vasu, if people wanted to stay up to date with what you're doing, you know, touch base with you in the future, how could they go about that? Do you have Instagram? What's your LinkedIn? Is there any way that they can connect with you?
[00:33:24] Vasumathi: [00:33:24] Totally. So LinkedIn is my favorite tool. I use it all the time. And so yeah, LinkedIn would be great and maybe just, telling me about this podcast and so that I know the reference to how someone's connecting with me would be fantastic.
[00:33:38]Christopher: [00:33:38] Thank you so much for your time today. This has been a great conversation. I'm so glad you were able to chat with us and impart your wisdom.
[00:33:47] Vasumathi: [00:33:47] Thanks Chris, this was really good. I think it may help me actually clarify and think about many of these questions, which remained as somewhere in my head, but I had never like put it in the forefront. So, this was great. And I also wanted to thank Joshua. I think I know him since my student days at FIT. So it's, it's awesome to kind of stay connected and that's kind of that support system and resource I'm talking about, like I said, to be, to have people in your life like that and to stay connected. And I have changed a lot of avatars in New York, but having those consistent faces in my life has been awesome too. So thanks to you and Joshua and "Retail Revolution."
[00:34:30] Christopher: [00:34:30] It is our pleasure. You take care.
[00:34:32] Vasumathi: [00:34:32] Thank you. Bye!
[00:34:34] Christopher: [00:34:34] Bye, bye.
[00:34:36] Joshua Williams: [00:34:36] 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 are 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
