YouSaid · the spoken record

Kenneth Cole

lines on the record: 111
first: 2020-11-16
most recent: 2020-11-16
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Yeah, he decided the inside of the troll. And he designed the inside of our showroom. And David was a gay man in New York. And that wasn't something you wore on your sleeve in those days. And what I would do at the beginning of every season is I would essentially, as I said, put myself in people's shoes. And I would try what is on people's minds? What are people thinking about? And in many ways, it was me, I was speaking to myself, what was consuming me, what was on my mind, what was I?”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So David didn't because David never really acknowledged to me that he had AIDS. He never even told me he had AIDS. But I knew he did. And this was, again, the mid-80s. I adored David. David actually was an interior designer, is what he was. He actually designed the trailer. I think I had originally met him from Sam. I think Sam knew him.”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But fashion, men's fashion was just finding its stride at that time. Up until that point, men basically had suits and then they had torn jeans and t-shirts and sneakers. That's what guys had. That's what every guy we were like. We wore the same uniform. And at that point, people were almost being encouraged and motivated to express themselves. And that vehicle was first really becoming accessible.”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was for me, because I would put myself in my shoes. I would look at it much more critically look at it and say, does this shoe need to exist in the world?”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I would offer a little overpriced point and there would be a little less extreme in their design and execution. And I could have done that. But instead, I chose to keep the essence of the brand the way it was and create more products for the same person and then not that much later, including the male complement to the women's shoes, which is myself. So I made shoes for me, shoes I wish I was there. What I often say is I put myself in the customer's shoes to try to get them to want to put themselves in mine.”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I started with women's shoes, and at the time, there's a company called Nine West that started about the same time that we did. And they were making and selling a lot more shoes quickly than we were. And I had a choice. I could, there was clearly an opportunity to make more shoes and sell them to more people, or as opposed to the one I took, which is to sell similar accessories to the same person I was selling to. But I was trying to sell the coolest person in town, and there's only so many of them. And I knew that if I was going to sell more shoes, I was in the very beginning have to change my relationship with the customer and I was going to have to be a little less cool and produce maybe them in a little more accessible manner”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sowing nationally in 1982. My first season I sold. I remember I saw Fred Siegel in California. I sold Bergdoffs in New York. We sold most of the better stores in the country. We worked very hard to, and Sam was a great salesman, and we worked very hard to get the product placed in the best stores. And the company, its first year in business, did $5 million”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“My job isn't to tell people what they should wear. My job is to give them what they want, but not how they expect it. And I have to be sensitive to it and I have to interpret it and I have to give it to them in a way that doesn't exist in the competitive universe. But I need to listen better. And the best salesman I learned early on were not the best speakers. They were the best listeners.”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I often would go out at night. These are also the studio 54 days. So I would go to the nightclubs and I would kind of get a drink and I'd sit in a lit corner and I'd see what people would wear when they were trying to look their best for whoever it was they were trying to dress for. And I learned also that what are they wearing, but what do they wish they could be wearing? And people have to choose from what the universe would exist. So I had to be aware of what existed in the market, not so that I could make what existed, but how I could make what doesn't.”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“82 Was a recession, and then in tough times, I've always said, are the greatest opportunities because people, you know, when things are good, people want to just do what they're doing and do more of it. And it's only when things are difficult that they're looking to kind of reinvent and re-engage. So in tough times, the issues were different. There was nothing like them in the marketplace. And people were intrigued and everybody felt they should have some. We got off to a really great start.”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Choose well, but denim friendly footwear. Some of the shoes were made in stonewashed canvas which looked like denim. And then some of them were in stonewashed suede, which also kind of looked like how people were dressing at the time. And I think people just, they like it because it was new and different. But it was, we were going through interestingly a downturn in the economy in the 80s.”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They were very different from other things in the market. They were. They had a very distinctive look, a very high heel, pointy toe pump, and then also a flat pump. And then it was a convertible boot that had the ability to become, you could wear it at any height and it was made in canvas. And in the early 80s, Denham was, you know, it became a big fashion statement at about that time.”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A coin, and I think Donna Kim But that was about the time the rise of the New York designers and American designers became a credible pursuit. And people were, they liked the shoes. People were, they bought them and I had them flown in from Italy and I would then turn around and ship them before I had to pay for them. And then I got paid before I had to pay the factories. So I had positive cash flow like three months into business.”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Why were they so hot? Well, they were different and street fashion was really just starting to happen at that point in time. In a fashion up until that point had emanated from the runways of Mars.”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He did. He was very proud, and he came to the truck, to the trailer, and saw it. And we lost him a couple years after that, unfortunately. He didn't really get to see how the business evolved over the years. He was very proud of it.”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think there was invariably people wanted 10 pair we had only agree to cell meat and the more we said no the more they wanted it and we got a lot of good editorial so Women gave me my own shoe department on the main floor”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, no, I'd already committed to the numbers. I was just adjusting them. I was aspiring and believing and dreaming that I could sell all these shoes. And we did. We sold all of the shoes”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We get delivery in four to six weeks, which was unheard of, but we committed to do this. And I've air freighted, flew everything in.”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We did, there was a banner outside of the truck. And I would stand there and Sam would stand there and we would kind of, you know, wave to people. And then we saw every buyer in New York. And after the first few days, people, it became apparent people heard about it. And then, by the way, there's a phone booth on that corner. So I had committed to the factory to buy 40,000 pursuits, but I refused to commit to which specifically which ones. But I told them I would let them know as the show was happening. So, you know, I would give a little more red, a little more on the lower heel, a less of the blue, more of the red. So I was calling from the phone booth. I had lots of quarters in my pocket. And changing and adjusting the supply chain as we were selling the shoes.”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Union job, right? And we told him we weren't really shooting. So he didn't buy that. So I just needed more security that night and they didn't bother us. I guess eventually he just accepted it. This was not a union job in that he wasn't going to be a beneficiary at some level.”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Asked that question. No, they weren't. But you know what did happen, though? We had a union guy came by after our first day of shooting.”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We had a director, sometimes it was filming his camera, sometimes It was cheaper that way. And we had stanchions and Klee lights.”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So that afternoon went to Stationary Store changed, the companies, the letterhead from Kennedy Inc. to kind of go productions inc. And then we filed for a permit sent the letter to the mayor that afternoon asking for permission to shoot a full-length motion picture called The Birth of a Shoe Company.”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Correct. So I asked him, would you end it to me and he said, you can't park a bicycle in New York for 10 minutes, let alone a truck for three days, but if you could figure out how to do it, not only will I lend it to you, I'll help you decorate it. So I called the mayor's office. So, how does one get permission to partner 40 patrol in the current 6756 Street? And the answer is some they don't. This is New York. We get permission only into two circumstances. If you are a utility company servicing the streets, or if you're a production company shooting a full-in commotion picture, because we're going through an ILO New York campaign in the early 80s.”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because I was thinking that if I maybe I could actually show the shoes in a truck on the corner because everybody was going to be on that corner at one point in the process.”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“About 1,100 of them. 34s, 30 somewhat companies per four. And the buyers would just come and they'd walk the floors, they'd go to room to room, they'd go more likely into the rooms they knew, people they had done business with. And the alternative was a big fancy showroom within a Tupac radius of the Hilton Hotel, which clearly I didn't have the money all the time to do that either. So neither alternative really worked. And on a whim, I spoke to a person who was in the trucking business. And I asked him, he said, if I could figure out how to park your truck on the corner of 6th Avenue and 56th Street on December 2nd, 1982, which you lend it to me.”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I'm doing that, but in the process, I needed to be prepared to show the shoes because at the time there were two choices. There was a room at the Hilton Hotel. Not a lot of individuality, not a lot of creativity, plus not without significant cost because you had to take a room, you had to decorate the room, you needed models.”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I did because first of all I knew that I needed to get to market quickly because I was going to run out of money if I didn't. And at the time, I think 60 plus percent of businesses, probably even more today, startup businesses fail in the first year because people underestimate the amount of time it takes before there's a return on that investment. So I knew I needed to get to market quickly and I knew in December something that was going to be a shoe show and I needed a collection by then.”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, because he had a relationship to the factory, they let him have it and use it. And he felt bad for this kid from New York who was desperate to have a collection within 30 days because we were getting close to market.”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, I couldn't take the chance of a made-up name and finding out many, many months or years later whether it was acceptable or not through the trademark process. We didn't have Google in those days. But I also knew you can usually get away with your own name as long as it's your name. I called it Kenneth Cole and I knew it would probably make my mother happy. So I did that. Then I ran to Italy because I didn't have credit and I figured I'd get credit from a shoe factory and I did. So I had a factory that agreed to do this. The factory was a single production line and then when the production line stopped at six o'clock when the workers went home is when Kaiser, who was the modalist who I worked with and I would work all night long on the collections.”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But I knew I'd figure it out. You know, people said to me when I left my father guy, they said to me, well, what would you have done if it didn't work? And what I don't tell people, and I didn't tell people often, is that I didn't know what it was. I knew I'd figure it out along the way and that it might keep changing. I wasn't sure what kinds of shoes and I wasn't sure who I was going to sell them to. And I wasn't sure what the price would be, but I knew somehow I would find product that people would want and I would deliver it in a way that people would find compelling.”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So going into this process, I didn't have a sense of how many. I just knew that I could only show what I thought was great. I just wanted to create shoes that people wanted and hopefully have less than what the demand was, but enough to make it all come together.”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We were creating the brand. We were setting up people to connect with, I guess, when I got Teroi. Lawyers, finding a lawyer, finding an accountant”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sim worked with me at Oak Greco and when I left Sam said if you leave I'm going with you because I'm not staying here so As much as I knew, because Sam was also a good friend, and how much fun it would be and how great it would be to have him. I was reluctant to do it to my father because I didn't want him to think that I took anybody or anything. So eventually, when Sam made it clear he wasn't staying, Sam joined me. And then we worked in my apartment on the east side, I don't know for like several months, I don't think we went outside except when I went to Italy to make the shoes. I took a couple of trips.”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A designer I created a little package of shoes I thought we could sell. I didn't even know how to draw yet. I've taught myself how to draw over the years, but at that point I didn't.”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I wanted to create aspirational shoes for that aspirational woman. And I also did not want to compete with him And I called a handful of customers that his current salesmen were not calling on. And then my father said, okay, take them to footwear news, which is the only industry publication at the time. And I did that as well. And I met with this woman, Vivian Infantino, who was the fashion editor. And Vivian wrote a story about these first few shoes that I ever made. And she said, by a new up-and-coming designer, Kenneth Cole. And I never looked at myself as that”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Actually, more elevated my first year in business, I sold SACS, I sold Macy's, I sold Boomindales, I sold Bergdorfs, I think.”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and I had an arrangement with the bank where they were going to give me 80% of the receivable once I invoiced it. So I would fly the goods to New York and we'd ship them out because we had pre-sold them”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Line of credit. And I learned very early on in my career that it's much easier to get credit from a factory that needs business in Italy than from an American bank that doesn't.”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And everything was, I created everything at the time to be variable. And so the agent would get paid only if I did business and to the degree of the business they would make more. To this agent, I got open account, which was a big deal”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Little, but what I did was I went over to Italy because that's where I had been working with candies and I found an agent who had a lot of credibility in the marketplace and that agent by nature of my relationship with that agent I had probably more credibility than I was entitled to in the marketplace.”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He was too proud to be visibly hurt anyway, and he wasn't supportive, but he at the same time, but he wasn't encouraging. Maybe that's a better way to put it. And when I did tell him I was going to leave one day, which was shocking to him, he had said, You'll be back. It's very hard out there, and you're going to be back. His message, at which point I knew there was no way that was going to happen. So he says, I'm going to leave your office open for you because I know you'll be back.”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I would argue but invariably he had his way that he felt things should be done. And then I'd say to myself, why am I putting him through this and why am I putting this through it? So then at a certain point I figured my Do this independently”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He and I didn't agree on a lot of things and I didn't have the right to Not be 100% compliant and supportive. Yeah. And I felt that I was young enough and probably naive enough that I could just go and do it and figure it out independently. So I woke up one day and decided that's what I'm going to do.”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exponentially and very quickly. So eventually, initially the factory became a warehouse, the existing factory, and then eventually we moved to a bigger facility and then left and vacated those offices in Williamsburg.”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We started importing them. And then it became very clear that in that sort of a business model, if you do a lot of business, you make a ton of money. If you do a little bit, you make less, but you don't have all the overhead that we had in a domestic shoe factory. And it was very compelling. So we converted the business eventually to that. That became the business because it grew very quickly.”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was a piece of leather that was stapled onto a polypropylene bottom with a high heel. And it was what Olivia Newton-John wore in the movie Gree”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So we were making shoes in Brooklyn, and there were 100 steps that went into making the most simple shoe. And the slightest thing that would go wrong, if you're missing any of those 100 plus components, were not in business anymore. And in the best case scenario, you can only make so many pairs. In the worst case, you're out of business. You have nothing. So that business model I struggled with. went over to Europe and bought some shoes and started selling them here in the United States.”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was always how big is big and how good is good. Careful with the compliments and the encouragements. But I know he was proud. And I learned how to make shoes in his factory for our company.”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think I wanted to understand not just what my father did, but what was behind the curtain and how did this work and what made it so distinctive and why was he able to do it differently than other people? So I was, and I realized very quickly that what distinguished what he did from whatever else did was what happened in the sample room. So that's where I spent much of my summer that year. And I learned how to make patterns and how shoes were constructed and how they were crafted.”
2020-11-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT