In a truly shocking moment, powerhouse CEO Marissa Mayer sported a colorful rainbow of neon chunks in her cropped blonde hair for the Metropolitan Gala. No fashion insider expected the Yahoo scion to be walking the red carpet, much less with such a bold coif. Yet there is more and more talk in the news and in living rooms and over martinis about having it all: being a mother, sometimes a wife, and always a successful entrepreneur or career woman simultaneously.
"Lean In" (2013) author Sheryl Sandberg states, "I want to change the conversation from what women can't do to what we can do." Another group of women, specifically in the fashion industry, promoted the same message during an event in New York City right before Mother's Day.
Though the Hallmark holiday aggressively sinks its claws into the guilty conscious of consumers, Mother's Day also provides a moment to reflect on how women work and raise families, and how that superhuman task has changed over the years. More Magazine's Mom Mogul Breakfast invited a panel of seven women in the fashion industry to talk about their experiences as leaders in the workplace and also mother's at home. There was general career advice from influencers like designer Rebecca Minkoff and Gilt Groupe founder Alexandra Wilkis Wilson. Over an assortment of fruits and pastries at midtown restaurant Bond 45, the panelists pored their hearts out and even shed a few tears dishing out advice on starting a business from scratch in the cutthroat fashion industry, and the sacrifices and rewards that come along with that fearlessness.
Lyss Stern, the publisher of More, moderated the panel, asking questions of the seven chic women. Wilson, arguably the most high-profile panelist, spoke about the breadth and diversity of the original five Gilt founders: "Get over asking for help. Surround yourself with people who are good at things that you're not good at. I can't code, I'm not engineer but I did have experience with retail and fashion," she advised.
Several of the women on the panel, including Wilson and jewelry designer Jennifer Fisher, attended business school. Former model Veronica Webb, the first African-American woman to land a leading cosmetics contract with Revlon, lamented her lack of knowledge on the business side of things, saying that she has had to rely on other people to help her draft business plans, balance the books, and keep the accounting in line.
The effusive Mary Alice Stephenson, a well-known fashion stylist and founder of recent non-profit Glam for Good, emphasized women's ability to connect through emotion. Instead of trying to play like the boys do and keep things cold and impersonal, she stresses using emotion to connect with potential customers and collaborators. "It's possible to be beautiful, sexy, and fashionable and still rule the world. In the fashion business we've had to learn to own that too," Stephenson said.
Towards the end of the morning discussion, Fisher surprised the attendees by opening up about her struggle with chemotherapy rounds, a medical situation that should theoretically have left her barren. Her miraculous pregnancy was the inspiration for her jewelry line: she wanted to make unique jewels that celebrated the life of her son every single day. Her love for jewelry and her new child have helped turn her into one of the hottest jewelry designers with an international presence in Hong Kong and Tokyo.
The discussion fluxed from more specific advice for mothers to career direction for women interested in the fashion industry and beyond. But the over-arching theme was one of empowerment for smart women with big dreams, a message that is increasingly finding itself in the forefront of conversations in this country, from the White House to the Garment District factories in Manhattan.
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Elizabeth Landers graduates today with a degree in political science. She can be reached at Elizabeth.Landers@tufts.edu.
