YouSaid · the spoken record

Sandy Chilewich

lines on the record: 68
first: 2020-08-31
most recent: 2020-08-31
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

“I don't think luck had anything to do with it. I don't. I think it has to do with endurance. It's constantly testing yourself, being open-minded, hugely listening to negative feedback. You've got to be able to listen. You have to listen and you have to make sure when people say they like something that they really, really like it, you've got to constantly test the value of your product. And I think I did that. I think I did that very intuitively”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, no, that has been. I mean, actually my master weaver, she actually wove all of our small samples that we're going to do for fall 21 in her home. And we all met for the first time, all with masks to look at all the things that we had Pfifer do. You know, it's not ideal, but we're functioning and we actually did a season. And also given that the sales are definitely down, we don't have to have. Every skew, so many new skews. I mean, who knows if the world's going to come back like it was, you know. But we're doing okay. You know, we cut expenses. We had to furlough a little bit, but I hired pretty much 99% of the people that we furloughed for a couple of months back. But we have to rethink everything. It's just, it's tough. But I don't know. I feel very bullish. Our product is really good. It's just damn good, you know?”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, my design team, first of all, we're nowhere near as big as one, two, four people in my. Yeah, but you still need to.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I mean, the lucky thing is that all the big stores like Crane Barrel, let's say, is our biggest customer or Sir Le Tab or any of these big people, they all have web sales. And we've been building those businesses with these stores for a long time. So we're not dependent on brick and mortar. And in addition to that, because we have our own factory, when somebody orders, you know, placemats from West Elm, we can ship it directly from our factory to the customer.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, at first, you know, at first it feels terrible, but at the end of the day, at this point, you know, and it's all about how quickly we really saturated the segment of the marketplace that we really wanted to saturate. Copies over the years in general are viewed, and they are, in fact, cheap knockoffs from China. You know, we have very, very strict trademark and copyright protection. And we've sued people and we've made big companies stop when they get too close to our designs. You can't copyright a simple basket weave. But when people get close to really our more graphic designs and certain other things, we can Don't know in America we don't have any competition, to be honest. I mean, within the stores that we're in, if they carry somebody else's, we've told them, if you carry this, we're pulling out. And nobody lets us pull out.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right. So all the also we make it into products, but also we laminate different backings to the materials. Laminating machines that Joe helped design that are very specific to our needs.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and it's our factory, and you know, it's grown like crazy, and we employ a lot of people and it's, you know. It's all made here.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, everything is woven for us in Alabama and pretty much everything we make is finished either backed with different materials for different flooring or wall covering all the ultrasonic equipment is in, I mean, he built a factory. That's what he did.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't think I was nervous before. It's hard though. I mean, I don't, you know, there's no separation and, you know, it's not so easy working with your spouse. I don't think it's so easy. I don't think either Joe or I would say it's so easy. I mean, it certainly has some good things, and we've done great things together. But all the turmoil that you have at the office, it's hard to cut it off, and you continue the arguments or the controversies at home. It's not so easy.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Faster was a slow burn? No, no. Oh my God. You know, I've had so much experience, you know, at Hugh. You know, it's like selling in versus selling through are two different things. It's great that you got the order, but did it sell to the customer or did it sell to the ultimate party that's going to use it? When I sold the Ray Balls to MoMA, I was in their store every day counting the stock because I wanted to know whether or not it was selling to the point where the buyers actually physically pushed me out there or said, But the same thing with. The place mats, I mean, you know, it's really about sell through. I would call the stores and say how many did you sell this week? And I knew before they did that we had a winner.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, it's probably that hunger that I had that was left over from Hugh where I feel. So the Ray Balls, you know, that was my, they proved to me that I was a designer. That was hugely important to me because I Really, kind of lost that identity. And I wanted to know if I'd still had it in me. And a product is not a business. The Raybles was a great product. And it was not a business. Once the place mats, when that happened, I could see it, I could see the future there, that, you know, it could be rugs, it could be this or that. And I wanted my name attached. I was very proud of it and was time to do that.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh, God. It was so instant. And, you know, it's a humble product. That's the thing. But what goes into it when you see the designs that we're doing now, people get to own such a beautiful, thoughtful product that's, you know, $14 and they get to see it every day. But let me just say one funny thing about the, when I first told people, when they say it, when the store would ask me, well, how much is these going to retail for? And I said like $12 and they said, that's a dozen, right? And it was like, no, that's one place, Matt. And so that I changed that whole idea.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In general, it was, I mean, it was amazing how quickly people got it. It's like, I mean, I remember the first international show that I did in Paris for the EU. And I'm standing there when we introduced it. And I went to the ladies room. And then I'm walking back and literally there's like a wall of people around our booth and in the booth. I couldn't even get in. And they're all speaking multilingual. And they're all staring at the placemats. And what it is is that you don't even have to touch this thing. You can have it on the table beautifully set, and you know exactly what it is, what it can do, and how to maintain it. You don't even have to touch it. And it was like everyone's talking about it. It was like instant.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely I went everywhere that I sold the Raybows. We're going to buy this because it's kind of a home design product. So I already have in a way and already a built in, it's small distribution, but I have a distribution channel.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So you basically get them to make you some exclusive designs that you design them and colors and you decide to make a go of this. I'm assuming you used the proceeds from the sale of your previous business to fund this. Absolutely. And you get the first delivery. Did you also go back to the Museum of Modern Art Shop? Absolutely.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, that's a good question because seriously, I'm telling you, I don't understand how I think it was just one of these dumb moments where like it's sitting on my table and I think I said, you know, this is a really good placement. It looks good. It looks good on my table to frame something. It looks great. It's a barrier of some sort. And I have to do so little. I don't know how I came to that moment. I really don't. I think it was very, very organic. Just looking at it, and like this looks good on my table. I think that's what happened.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Knew the brand. The women there certainly did Once I told them what I said, look, you're not dealing with a complete rookie here. I know what I'm talking about, you know. And a lot of what they showed me was more interesting and interesting enough for me to start making some prototypes of placemats, which is how I started.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sling chairs, you know, like. Whatever it's like outdoor abound a And I just became intrigued with the material. And so honestly, I don't understand why, in a way, how placemats even entered my brain, because honestly, I don't remember even eating on a place mat. But all I know is that I tried to get more of the fabric. So I called them and I badgered to speak to somebody important down at Pfeiffer, which is a Tuscaloosa, Alabama. It's a big weaving mill. And I told them, you know, look, I want to come down there. I want to talk to you guys. And so I did. So I go down there. It's a really big factory.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, this guy that started, his name is George Valerium. He's kind of iconic in the design business. But I thought I'll go to them. Maybe I can find something. And I found this factory in Tuscaloosa, Alabama that made outdoor furniture pulstery. So I got some of the material. I'm looking at this material and it's pretty ugly. And yet it's waterproof. It's stain resistant. It's like it's woven. It's got opportunities.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely, because everyone was coming to me and saying, you know, it's such a great concept because I did the bulls and the boxes. Why don't you do lighting? Why don't you do furniture? And actually, I did like small prototypes. And I realized, you know, that's just pushing it. I hit the note here. It's perfect. That's all this is. And so I, but in this whole process of kind of expanding the ray balls, I started to experiment with other materials that I could create a concavity with. And I found it just accidentally, this outdoor furniture material that I found at this library called Material Connection, which it had just opened their doors. And I was probably one of their first customers.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, the Rebels are very cool. It's a wireframe bowl with a stretched material that looks cool. But it's not something that, it's not like stockings that people need. It's a real niche product, like the Museum of Modern Art. Gift shop is the place to sell it. This was not going to turn into a scalable business.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, and they never even had a website before. And when they promoted the e-commerce site, they have this great photographer took a picture of my bowls flying in the air. And that was what they used to sell and tell everybody that they had of a website. And there was a poster of my bowls, so like flying through the air in front of the museum, the actual museum of art, like right at the entrance. It was like, I mean, nothing made me more proud. It's like I couldn't believe it was there. But then I did. I did everything that I would have done and that I did do in a little business. I always, that's what I liked. You know, start with one store, then learn more. So that's what I did. I did it again with Rayballs.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And the first thing I had to do is to see if people actually would buy this thing. So I was connected to somebody that was the head of the MOMA design store. And they saw it and they launched, literally launched their whole website with an image of that bowl.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, that was where it started. So, you know, my husband's an architect. He had his own practice at that time. And he helped me build this prototype. And it was like very organic. We're using wire. And then I go out because you have to have fabric and because I was in hosiery, I was always drawn to stretch materials. So I bought the stretch netting. It's like what people use for girdles, you know. So playing around with it, if you stretched it around this structure, it's like a trampoline because it's stretchy. It's bingy. So the only way to make it a concavity is to pull it down in the center It's so hard to explain this without seeing it. But ultimately, I called this the Rabel after my older son”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Okay. So I always loved the chair, extremely uncomfortable, but I always loved it. And I love that idea of the canvas and the wire and blah, blah, blah. And I had this idea, like, wouldn't that be great as a bull? I mean, that whole concept of having a fabric.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A kind of a room of my own, you know. And one idea that I had, which for the life of me, I don't understand where it came from. But you know the butterfly chair, you know? Yeah, sure.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So it's this very organic kind of intuitive process and I decided I'm just going to explore ideas and see where I land. And I got a studio downtown, just a one-room. It was on Lafayette and Spring. It was like so inspiring down there then.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and she, I mean, I definitely had my hand and a couple of designs I can say 100% they were mine, but in general she did amazing things. She was very good at it. And I wanted to do that, not with hosiery, but I needed to do that for myself. I loved what I did, but then it just wasn't as much fun anymore. And I wanted to change.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I would say it was a little, I mean, it wasn't horrible or anything, but we were fighting. I think I also more and more I wasn't designing, you know, and then it became kind of difficult for me to kind of get back in.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think that to be honest, I think my relationship with Kathy, she and I both, I think we're both kind of just hard to work together. And I, you know, so it was time and we were together, we were doing this for a long time. So it was time to move on.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Probably. I mean, I wouldn't have lived, you know, the, we're not like the billion dollar business. So like it's not that kind of money. But it was nice, it was a really nice sum of money, and it didn't put any panic in me.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, and you have to kill a bunch of things while you're growing, in my opinion. And a big one that we did was back then there were two sections in a women's, if a woman wants a sock or a tight or a pantyhose. Back in those days, there were different sections within the hosiery or the legware area. And one was kind of casual socks and tights, and the others were pantyhose. And we were trying to sell both of them. And it was definitely my thing is like, no, let's be the best in one area or another because it's splitting us up. And that's what we did. And I tend to, that's something that I learned on my own. And it's carried me through in general.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, I think it's like it's something that I've certainly learned and really believe in is that you got to narrow your focus and be clear on what you're doing. It's a different, you have to look at your avenues of distribution and who you're selling to. It just wasn't going to work. I wasn't going to be able to sell these shoes in a hosiery department. I identified this like.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I hear it, I mean I definitely hear it and I've spoken very often especially at schools and art schools and everything that they want to get a more practical idea of what one can do with it or whatever. Yeah, I'm always a little uncomfortable about that part. I mean, but I actually, this is the first time that I've ever said publicly to anybody, as I did with you today, to tell you literally exactly how much I got from my dad. And at the end of the day, you know, it is what it is. I mean, I know I was lucky.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I can be quite specific. My father had lent us three hundred thousand dollars, and he gave it to us as we needed it. You know, I would ask him, look, we really need $10,000. We need $20,000. So that's what capitalized it, plus at the beginning, I kind of didn't take a salary out probably for several years, but then I did. And it was able to pay both Kathy and I.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Go to the Hosier department and you see it. We had great packaging and we did very unconventional photography at that time. All of our products had a picture of a woman with the product and they were kind of way more fashionable. You know, the Hoshwee departments were a commodity department in most stores. They were so basic. Panty hose, really ugly socks. I mean, just nothing. And when we came aboard and there was another company called Hot Socks at that time, but they were a huge part of the Hosier department. We still are at some of these big stores.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, I've always been, and in the later businesses I did, designing a loan is not kind of enough for me. I do like the business side and I do like The marketing side, and I am a very, very interested in that. And I didn't know it at the time, but I volunteered for that position and I really learned how to sell, which I think I had a talent for anyway. So I do like that combination of art and commerce.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely, and also not every color you make is going to sound. Now, what are you going to do with all those pink? Things that you just made, you know, where does that go? You're making the wrong things and you're not selling to enough people, or people are not paying you fast enough. I mean, they're just basic parts of the business and how to deal with cash flow and how to deal with receivables and collecting. So we're definitely losing money, but we knew we had something great. And somebody, a mentor of mine, who was a friend of my brother's who went to business school and had been out in the world. And he came over and looked at both of us and he appreciated what we were doing. He looked at us and he said, let me just tell you right now, one of you has to stop designing and you have to sell full time. There's nothing else. That's what you have to do. And that's what I did.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We didn't know what we were doing from a business standpoint. I mean, we're making all this inventory. We don't realize like, hey, you have to sell your inventory before you make more stuff. I mean, didn't know what we're doing and”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, it was identifying how to combine a stretchy material with the cotton to make it tight. And this had very much, I think, to do with Kathy. I think the nylon pantyhose, there was nylon wrapped around a stretch fiber. So what she was saying is why can't we find somebody to take cotton and wrap it around a stretch so that we can make a stretch tight made out of cotton?”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, because people were saying we love the fact that it's cotton, we don't want to wear nylon, but we don't want to wear a garter belt. Can't you make it cotton tight for us, you know? So that was what we did. We did a couple of things like that that kind of changed the world of legwear. That was one of them.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, honestly, the stockings didn't become the big thing. It's what we did based on the feedback we got from customers and us making a stretch cotton tight.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, nobody wears stockings anymore Because it's a guarda belt, it's like, you know, they were called nurse's stockings. What we were buying, because nurses had to wear, I think, cotton in their uniforms, not an island, because that was uncomfortable. So they would wear a garter belt to hold them up. So nobody, we weren't saying, hey, let's wear stockings. It was more like we're just trying to feed the market with color and something that was always so boring.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because every editor, I mean, we were like the darlings of the press because of color and all the editors were saying, well, what else do you guys do in color? So we were looking for things that were kind of cool that were never available in colors. And one of them were these cotton nurses stockings, which is kind of hard to believe that we even picked them up because neither one of us wore stockings. And some other products too, these cotton gloves that were sold in Chinatown, some of these cool garter belts, all these kind of weird accessories. And we put them into the same dyeing manufacturing. And again, we would get like two pages in Mademoiselle magazine. And we were at the beginning called Hugh Shoes, and then we just became Hugh.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Just colors, you know, it was like all these colors because that's really what we were doing. We were just offering something that was kind of a Very pedestrian product and offering it in tons of colors.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, it was my home, and it was a big loft, and it was very open, and I had the whole back area was really nothing. It was an old studio. And that's where all the washing machines and dryers were. Plus the place to kind of lay the shoes out and store the shoes. I mean, I had 3,600 square feet in this loft was huge.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I would think we were selling a lot. I don't remember the quantities, but we were selling a lot. And we had to work all night long. I mean, we had people that came in and were dying and bleaching through the night.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, I know ultimately they were like $16. We started to buy them in quantities. We went to Macy's. We went to other stores at that point and showed people. And then we're buying all these big boxes, but we weren't using all the sizes because some of them were tiny. I mean, none of it made any sense economically.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Know it was certainly quite a long time before it went into the magazine, but when they came back, they knew that they shot them and this will be, they told us, a two-page spread. And it said shoes by Kathy and Sandy because we didn't even have a company name. And they can't take a credit unless their customers can buy it in a store. So we went to Bergdruff Goodman. We told them we had a credit in Vogue. Would they look at this product? And would they buy it so that we can cover the credit? And they did.”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There's gonna be a lag time between the photo shoot and when this probably six months later it's gonna be in the magazine. So, at that point, what do you do? I mean, do you decide to make this a business? Do you and Kathy say, you know, I think we got something here?”
2020-08-31 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT