Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - Sunday Nice Things： She Pivots with Stacy London

00:00:00.000 Hello! Happy Sunday, my loves. I hope that you're listening to this while you're doing

00:00:12.420 something nice for yourself. Or maybe this is the something nice for yourself and you

00:00:18.300 have your AirPods in while you're doing the dishes or going for a run or watching your

00:00:25.000 toddler knock over a stack of blocks. So as I said before, for Sunday Nice Things, I'm going to be

00:00:30.860 doing a bunch of different things. I'm going to be dropping other people's podcasts, other women's 1.00

00:00:36.320 podcasts into your feed so you can have someone else tickle your ears and maybe discover something 1.00

00:00:42.780 else that you love. I'll also be interviewing some great authors about their books because

00:00:48.260 I get to meet so many authors and I want to introduce them to you too. It's just a nice way

00:00:54.800 to get to widen our circle, widen this coven that we're creating. Thank you again to everyone who

00:01:02.820 has pre-ordered The Sicilian Inheritance. So many of you. We're going to have to have

00:01:08.000 a crazy book club where we have everyone on virtually. And I guess I'm just going to have

00:01:13.800 to travel all over the world to thank you all individually and bring you all a cannoli.

00:01:18.340 You can still pre-order. And when you do, you will get a lifetime subscription to the

00:01:22.480 Over the Influence newsletter, Marketing Monster, coming in hot. But again, I just appreciate all

00:01:28.860 of you so much. I cry when I think about it because this community is so strong and you're

00:01:36.040 all so wonderful. Today, I am dropping someone, two great women, I'm dropping two great women

00:01:43.560 into your feed. And I think you're going to love this. You're going to love them.

00:01:48.340 Today we have an episode of the She Pivots podcast. This is the third season of She Pivots and it was created by my friend Emily Tish Sussman. She created it out of what she calls her own personal failure, her own decision to try to reinvent herself, which I think that a lot of women are constantly trying to figure out how to do.

00:02:11.760 I feel like I'm in a constant state of reinvention. I'm like, what am I going to do next?

00:02:16.860 What's my next thing? And that's exhausting, right? So Emily interviews women that have gone

00:02:23.160 through that pivot point and talks to them about how they got through it, what they learned,

00:02:29.080 and then what was on the other side. She's talked to incredible, incredible women like Bobby Brown 0.99

00:02:35.800 and Misty Copeland and Neha Roosh, who we just had on the podcast. I mean, we all love us some

00:02:43.020 Neha. I love the episode where she talks to Lo Bosworth about taking charge of her life after

00:02:49.380 reality TV. And yeah, more of that, please. That reminds me of the time that I interviewed Spencer

00:02:56.600 Pratt, by the way, for Celebrity Inc. And that was a weird fucking day. I'm going to get into that 0.95

00:03:02.300 on the newsletter one of these days. Anyway, anyway, this episode is with another one of my

00:03:09.720 friends, Stacey London, who I actually just ran into at the She Pivots launch party. And I think

00:03:17.280 that I hugged her so hard. I almost like broke a bone and I was hot and sweaty and I smelled weird

00:03:24.420 because I was wearing a shearling, shearling jacket. And so I just, I got her wet, probably

00:03:29.960 stinky and I might have broken her, but I love me some Stacey London. She is, I mean, she's been

00:03:38.960 so many things. Stacey is a fashion icon first and foremost, but she is a very well-known

00:03:46.300 television personality, a stylist, a fashion consultant, an author, a best-selling author,

00:03:52.280 and a magazine editor. Stacey has been all of the things and she is also constantly reinventing

00:03:58.480 herself. And that is exactly what today's episode of She Pivots is all about. You're

00:04:03.660 going to love it. If you want more like this, you can find She Pivots anywhere that you

00:04:07.540 get your podcasts. I hope you enjoy it.

00:04:16.620 And the idea that we are holding on to what is static or the status quo about ourselves

00:04:23.860 disallows for the beauty of evolution and certainly the beauty of pivoting.

00:04:34.980 Welcome to She Pivots, the podcast where we talk with women who dared to pivot out of one career

00:04:41.940 and into something new and explore how their personal lives impacted these decisions.

00:04:47.820 I'm your host, Emily Tish Sussman. I'm so excited to introduce this episode.

00:04:53.460 it was our first ever live podcast in front of an audience. I had the honor to interview

00:04:59.720 the Stacey London. Yes, that Stacey London. I spent my college days obsessed with what not to 0.93

00:05:08.220 wear, wishing somewhat ironically that I too could be made over by the illustrious Stacey and Clinton.

00:05:15.020 To say this interview is a dream come true is not far off. And to do it where I grew up

00:05:21.220 and then sent my kids for school was surreal. Thank you so much to the Marlene Myers JCC

00:05:27.720 in New York for hosting us and for Stacey for being the perfect first She Pivots live guest.

00:05:34.960 I also just want to note that since our interview, Stacey's company that she references,

00:05:40.420 State of Menopause, did their own pivot. Now they're no longer selling product,

00:05:45.400 but still doing important work around menopause. Let's get into it.

00:05:51.220 I am so excited to introduce one of tonight's speakers, Emily Tish Sussman.

00:06:00.580 Emily is truly a force in every sense of the word.

00:06:03.800 A podcast host, women's empowerment and family policy advocate, leading political strategist, contributor to Marie Claire and Parent Magazine.

00:06:12.580 Please give a warm welcome to Emily Tish Sussman.

00:06:17.960 Thank you.

00:06:19.200 So this is our first ever podcast, live taping of She Pivots. 0.78

00:06:26.160 Stacey London is truly a woman who needs no introduction.

00:06:30.660 Stacey has had a huge impact on unscripted TV, on the way that we think about fashion,

00:06:36.580 on showing empathy towards people that we may not know or necessarily agree with.

00:06:42.160 Stacey has paved the way in so many ways.

00:06:44.480 And now she's moved on to a new venture, starting state of taking on something that we were just

00:06:51.040 talking about this backstage. We don't have an education and how to begin thinking about

00:06:55.600 menopause, how to begin thinking about the next phase of our reproductive lives. Stacey is paving 0.99

00:07:01.280 the way in that way now. So I am so excited to be joined by Stacey London. Please give her a huge

00:07:07.020 round of applause. Hello. Hello, everybody. Well, Stacey, thank you so much for joining us.

00:07:15.100 I want to start at the beginning. Did you always know that you were going to be in fashion? Like,

00:07:19.180 were you a really stylish kid? I really knew that I wanted to go into fashion around 16.

00:07:25.560 I was diagnosed at three and a half with psoriasis. I had a skin disease. I still have it. I just have

00:07:31.140 it under control. But by the time I was 11, I was covered in scales from my neck down. I had it in

00:07:36.260 my scalp. So I had terrible dandruff. So I only wore long sleeve, white turtlenecks and corduroy

00:07:42.000 pants, even in the summer. And there was something so confining about that, that I used to envy the

00:07:49.280 beauty of people who could wear whatever they wanted and show off their skin or even not just

00:07:54.740 have style and look beautiful. Right. But I very much believe that I gravitated towards fashion

00:08:02.340 out of insecurity. But I went to Vogue straight out of college, which is also a total fluke.

00:08:08.900 And really, it was just luck. At the time, Advanced Publications, which was Newhouse

00:08:13.900 Family's company, the Newhouses, they had Random House. And I got an interview to be an assistant

00:08:22.480 to a book editor. And I didn't realize you had to take a typing test and see how many words you

00:08:28.860 could type a minute. Well, I am here to tell you that I, not to brag, typed seven words and five

00:08:35.100 of them are misspelled. And this guy took one look at my typing test and he was like, I wonder if you

00:08:41.900 would be better in magazines. But he called his counterpart at Condé Nast and said, I really,

00:08:48.180 you know, I like this girl. She's sweet. She's funny. And she really does seem to be interested 0.67

00:08:52.460 in fashion. And I remember the woman at the time who was the head of HR said, we don't have any

00:08:58.120 positions, but okay, she can come do like a trial interview and we'll see how it goes. Well,

00:09:02.440 turns out we went to the same college. And that was, let me tell you, this is why like

00:09:08.440 staying in touch with alumni is always a good idea. And she liked me. And it was February of

00:09:15.100 my senior year of college. I hadn't even graduated. And she called me just after I graduated in June

00:09:21.920 and said, we have a job at Vogue. Do you want it? So she started at Vogue just three years after

00:09:27.660 Anna Wintour took the helm, truly the height of magazines. You know, this was like the golden age

00:09:34.260 of print. My first week of working at Vogue, I was wearing my teal stirrup stretch pants from

00:09:41.960 Express. Thank you. And a brown and black houndstooth blouse from Agnes B that had silver

00:09:49.140 buttons. And nobody told me that you don't get into an elevator alone with Anna. Nobody told me.

00:09:58.800 So I get into this elevator. She is standing in the corner with these huge sunglasses on, 0.99

00:10:03.600 and yet you can feel her, like eyes, scanning my outfit head to toe and back up again. It was the

00:10:10.980 longest ride from the 13th floor. Have you seen her since? I have. And she's actually quite lovely.

00:10:16.140 It really, you know, I was.

00:10:17.580 But did she remember that outfit?

00:10:18.860 No, she did not remember that outfit. 0.98

00:10:21.220 Like most first jobs, Stacey grew out of Vogue, looking for more upward mobility and a chance to find her voice in the fashion industry.

00:10:30.760 I was really excited.

00:10:31.980 I went to Mademoiselle twice.

00:10:33.660 I went, I was a fashion assistant at Vogue for Andre Leon Talley, Phyllis Posnick and Bronna Wolfe all at the same time.

00:10:39.880 So I had a color coded office and a lot to remember.

00:10:42.300 And then I went when Gabby Dupheld became the editor in chief of Mademoiselle at the same time that James Truman was the editor in chief of details.

00:10:50.040 Elizabeth Saltzman was the creative director and I went to see her because I had been friendly with her at Vogue.

00:10:54.300 And I said, you know, I'm not very happy and I would love to do something else.

00:10:59.480 And they had hired a new fashion director from England named Debbie Mason, who to this day I simply adore,

00:11:06.740 who was the first person sort of not to treat me as like a kid who didn't know anything asked my

00:11:12.460 opinion. You know, I mean, it was just, it was such a revelation. So I went to work there for

00:11:17.560 a couple of years. And then when Gabby was fired, pretty much everybody left. And I went, again,

00:11:24.040 went freelance and thought, okay, I'll just assist all the great freelance stylists, which I did.

00:11:30.340 But at some point, I had to decide, like, either I'm going to be the best freelance first assistant for fashion stylists, or I'm going to do it on my own.

00:11:40.020 And I asked my dad in advance if he would help me with rent.

00:11:44.380 I said, give me six months.

00:11:45.640 Let me see if I can start styling on my own.

00:11:48.140 So I stopped taking assistant jobs.

00:11:50.620 And slowly but surely, photographers like Wayne Mazur helped me out.

00:11:56.420 Then Mademoiselle came calling.

00:11:58.780 She had the opportunity to work there for a second time. 0.92

00:12:02.060 They were looking for a New York editor.

00:12:04.160 I was the senior fashion editor at Mademoiselle magazine, for those of you who remember her.

00:12:09.140 May she rest.

00:12:09.840 And I was fired by the editor-in-chief that destroyed that magazine, so I feel pretty smarmy about it all.

00:12:18.660 I had a lot of success early on in magazines, and it was kind of a punch in the face to be fired,

00:12:25.720 but at the same time, incredibly humbling. And I do say that that was one of the most pivotal

00:12:31.500 and important experiences of my life. I really spent a lot of my life trying to be an overachiever

00:12:37.200 and the idea that somebody would fire me just literally never occurred to me. I thought if

00:12:41.980 you do a good job, you get to keep your job. And it was very eyeopening and I really do recommend

00:12:48.120 it. And I say that knowing that it sounds very privileged to say, go get yourself fired. Why

00:12:52.700 not? You don't have bills to pay. But really what I mean by that is it is sometimes essential

00:12:58.260 for someone or something out of your control to shut a door on you in order for you to find your

00:13:05.300 path, in order for you to find the door that opens or the window or whatever metaphor really

00:13:10.260 does it for you. But when I got fired, I really didn't know what I wanted to do, but I did have

00:13:15.040 an agent. So I would take jobs, but they weren't fashion styling jobs. They were like, you know,

00:13:19.720 dress a dad and his daughter on their way to go to a bank commercial, right? Or a high C commercial

00:13:26.020 where I was like up till, you know, three o'clock in the morning, like sewing patches on, you know,

00:13:31.340 denim overalls, things that felt much more like real life. It was about how do you make something

00:13:37.100 believable? How do you make something feel real? How do you show off what somebody is trying to

00:13:42.940 say about themselves? It was a very different experience. Like it could be that I put, you know,

00:13:47.800 a mom in crop jeans and a buttoned down shirt. But the fact that I distressed those jeans or

00:13:54.080 that I learned how to make that shirt look worn and yet crisp or all the different things to make

00:13:59.240 that mom as believable as if she had dressed herself that day became really interesting to

00:14:05.400 me. And the idea of personality expressed through style became interesting to me. How am I conveying

00:14:10.780 the message that this client wants you to see in this commercial or this ad? When did you start to

00:14:16.860 see yourself as a player in those narratives moving to the screen in what not to wear like

00:14:23.440 did you there was no plan here guys let me just be clear I had no idea that I was going to go

00:14:28.080 into television my agents got a phone call from someone okay all I know is that there was a C

00:14:33.100 involved it was either ABC NBC TLC BBC they were looking for hosts they wanted somebody who had

00:14:40.640 worked with celebrities which I had done a lot of covers at Mademoiselle and they wanted somebody

00:14:45.400 who had dressed real people, somebody who had editorial experience, and somebody who could talk

00:14:50.620 a lot without a script. And my agent said, I know exactly who you need to meet. And I did eight,

00:14:57.600 maybe eight screen tests. I've told the story several times. The last one, I was on vacation

00:15:03.980 with my family in Spain, and I got a phone call from my agent. She said, you've got to come back.

00:15:08.540 they're doing one last like meet and greet with the top 27 candidates. And I was so offended.

00:15:15.980 I mean, I don't know. I was like 27. They couldn't knock it down to 10. Like, and at that point,

00:15:21.780 there had been a running joke. I mean, almost every stylist in New York auditioned for that show

00:15:26.440 or said they'd already gotten the part. So I really didn't take it very seriously anymore.

00:15:31.320 And I said to my agent, they have me on camera. Like, what more do they want? You know, they asked

00:15:36.640 me one day in the middle of a park to pretend that I was commenting on like the Oscars red carpet

00:15:42.240 and to talk, imagine just imaginary talk to, Oh, Angelina Jolie, who are you wearing? Love that

00:15:49.080 dress really emphasizes your curves. How'd you choose green this season? Like make it up as you

00:15:54.440 go. Right. I mean, it was crazy. So I was like, they know me if they don't, I don't know what I

00:15:58.420 have to come back for. I'm not coming. And my stepmother, I got off the phone and I, you know,

00:16:04.000 we went to dinner. I was saying it, telling my stepmother and my dad what happened. And my

00:16:08.180 stepmother said, okay, you're an idiot. We're getting you on a plane tomorrow. You're going 1.00

00:16:13.640 home. You're going to that last screen test because you are going to get this job and it

00:16:17.900 is going to change your life. And she was 1000% right. I got the job and it totally changed my

00:16:24.500 life. I thought I'm going to do 11 episodes, which is how many were in the first season.

00:16:28.960 And I will be able to charge clients more because I'll be able to say I was once on television.

00:16:34.000 12 years later today's show access hollywood oprah pantene wool light dr scholls i mean

00:16:43.120 lee jeans the list went on it was a much bigger opportunity than i recognized when it first

00:16:49.080 happened hi courtney hi i'm clinton and i'm stacy and we're from tlc's what not to wear

00:16:56.020 and now a tlc summer sneak peek of the season premiere of what not to wear

00:17:01.180 It's her. It's Blossom. It's Mayim Bialik, all grown up.

00:17:05.460 And this summer, it's more than just styles that are changing.

00:17:08.940 So today, the two is helping us surprise Tanya.

00:17:12.120 Tanya thinks she's going to have a seat at our coveted tasting table to sample Stacey's soup. 0.72

00:17:17.360 I mean, every episode was basically about changing these women's lives and helping them into their pivot, like helping them figure out their own confidence.

00:17:28.880 What helped you prepare for that?

00:17:31.140 I was very lucky, right?

00:17:32.860 And I do believe very much in connecting the dots backwards.

00:17:35.620 You can always connect the dots backwards.

00:17:37.940 I went to college and I could not decide on a major.

00:17:41.660 And I had a dad who was a professor

00:17:43.400 and the founding dean of a college at NYU called Gallatin.

00:17:47.860 And Gallatin's only requirement is one course on great books.

00:17:52.420 You can decide your major.

00:17:53.740 You can decide every course that you're going to take

00:17:55.900 from any other college at NYU.

00:17:58.320 So I declared an independent major in philosophy, psychology, and literature with an emphasis on

00:18:04.620 the creation of self in character. And I have been obsessed with the concept of self for as

00:18:11.440 long as I can remember, even in high school. And I had no idea that studying philosophy,

00:18:18.200 especially German philosophy, German existentialism, would have such an impact

00:18:23.280 at like something so completely different. So here I'd been trained by stylists to really

00:18:29.900 understand how to style photography and film for high fashion. And then I'd gone on to learn how

00:18:36.460 to dress real people and men and children and all walks of life, basically. And then I had this

00:18:44.020 really funny background in understanding human psychology and philosophy. I honestly walked

00:18:51.540 onto the set of What Not to Wear, and I thought, oh, I'm home. I knew exactly, I'm getting emotional

00:18:56.940 even just thinking about it. I knew exactly what to do. And the most amazing thing to come out of

00:19:04.260 that show for me was that the reason I was good at being snarky was because like, guess what?

00:19:10.180 You know, I'm like the most self-critical person you could possibly imagine. That's where criticism,

00:19:15.120 great criticism comes from being, you know, having an inner critic. But working with all of those

00:19:21.300 people, which was well over 600 individuals. What I really took away from it was most of the people

00:19:28.320 that we made over were women. To hear the way they thought about themselves, to hear the mean 1.00

00:19:34.000 things that they would say to themselves, I couldn't bear it. I mean, I saw the potential

00:19:39.200 in every single one of our guests. I saw things in them that they clearly could not see.

00:19:46.800 and I couldn't believe it and I had such empathy and such compassion for them and it really made

00:19:53.860 me realize like how can I be so awful how can I have this inner bitchy malignant critic in my head

00:20:01.480 about me if I am going to spend all this time and energy really getting to know people to empathize

00:20:08.400 with them to have compassion for them why can't I do that for myself you have got to give yourself

00:20:13.840 a little bit of credit. You've done some great things here. You've, you've managed to create a

00:20:18.460 career out of nothing and nowhere. And it really was quite meaningful to me. It changed my sense

00:20:24.620 of self-esteem by being able to help others. How did you manage all of that emotion as you were,

00:20:29.920 I mean, you were on that show for a very long time and I, you know, you did story after story

00:20:36.360 after a story. Some were harder than others. For every minute that was aired, it took at least an

00:20:43.520 hour to shoot. So there was a lot of stuff that happened that was incredibly emotional.

00:20:49.460 And I have to say my co-host and a lot of the crew, they were very good at separating

00:20:54.640 what happened on set as opposed to like what happened when you left set.

00:20:59.260 There were a lot of episodes that really like stuck with me that were hard for me to let go of.

00:21:03.960 I feel like what's an extra complication about it is that you didn't go through that emotional

00:21:08.840 toll yourself, but that you had to do it with someone else because you had a co-host.

00:21:14.620 I mean, it was like being married, you know, like, I mean, I had a work husband. It was very

00:21:19.020 difficult. And we were, we were both under a lot of pressure in similar and different ways,

00:21:24.760 you know, and we both had very big side hustles. So, you know, it was a lot of work. It was a lot

00:21:30.800 of time and there were days where we wanted to kill each other and there were days where we were

00:21:35.060 a complete united front against you know the man um and uh the system but we both i think had real

00:21:43.720 highs and lows on that show i really do i i think we both understood in retrospect how meaningful

00:21:49.880 and important it was in terms of like the dawn of unscripted television and i think we also

00:21:56.680 recognize that it was really important because we made style accessible. That was the thing that

00:22:02.740 also made me so proud is we made part of your everyday vernacular to talk about what you wanted

00:22:08.600 to wear or what you wanted to express about yourself and what you wore or what was right

00:22:12.820 for your body shape in a way that, you know, you only got from how-to pages in magazines before

00:22:17.660 that. We really were a very revolutionary show and I still hold my head high. And, you know,

00:22:22.980 the great thing about what not to wear was that, yeah, it was meant to be entertaining. I hope that

00:22:27.340 you were entertained. We just didn't expect how emotional it was going to be. Honestly,

00:22:33.020 we didn't realize how quickly it would become so educational that people would actually like

00:22:37.900 take our rules and go shopping with them. I watched a couple of the English shows and I

00:22:43.420 thought, why are these women like grabbing their fat and their boobs? And it was very different. 0.99

00:22:47.580 And we had a very different mandate as the American show. The first few seasons, we were

00:22:52.220 told to be nasty. And guess what? That doesn't really work if you don't have a British accent.

00:22:57.380 And also we were finding it really hard to be so mean, even though the idea was to break you down,

00:23:03.480 to build you back up better, right? Even our snarkiness got more empathetic. And, you know,

00:23:08.920 there were so many different heads of Discovery, which was the parent company. So many different

00:23:13.700 heads of TLC in the years that I was there that we got a different mandate every couple of seasons.

00:23:18.920 And we just basically did what we wanted because we just were like, all right, somebody else has another opinion.

00:23:26.180 As the seasons of What Not to Wear came and went, Stacey found a world of opportunities.

00:23:31.240 But from sponsorships to speaking engagements, also with the demands of hosting the show, it all became overwhelming, especially after struggling with chronic illness for years.

00:23:43.920 But, you know, when I got psoriasis, I was four.

00:23:48.060 There was nothing that people knew about the disease then.

00:23:51.480 I mean, I had it so severely.

00:23:53.260 I was in medical journals.

00:23:54.860 Nobody knew what to do then. 0.50

00:23:56.440 They were throwing, you know, crap at the wall and just trying to see what stuck.

00:24:01.060 I have to say, if you watch that show, if you ever watched it, if you're fans of it, 0.93

00:24:06.620 you will see in that last season how much I was struggling.

00:24:10.000 I was really ill and I did not know why.

00:24:13.380 I was in pain all the time physically.

00:24:16.080 I would be able to fit into a pair of shoes one day and the next I couldn't. I was exhausted

00:24:22.260 constantly. I would gain weight overnight for no reason. I mean, I was like swelling up and

00:24:29.200 I felt awful, just awful. And I even went to TLC and I said, you know, I, I've got to stop.

00:24:36.460 Whatever is happening, this, this has just all become too much. And 10 years seems like

00:24:41.620 a good long run and you're going to get 12 seasons out of it. And they asked me, you know,

00:24:45.860 I said, I want to do 12 episodes for the last season. And they asked me to do 26. We went back

00:24:50.600 and forth and back and forth and back and forth. I finally was like, okay, I will do it. I'll make

00:24:53.780 it through. But I look back at those episodes and I feel so crazy because it doesn't even

00:25:00.180 remind me of me. I was so tired and I was so relieved, really, honestly, when they originally

00:25:09.560 said they were going to keep going with the show. They were just going to recast me. And I think

00:25:13.680 that the final decision really to cancel the show came from, well, what are we going to do? We're

00:25:18.140 going to spend all this money to promote a new show. And the only thing that will be different

00:25:22.360 is the original host will be gone. And we don't know how that's going to play. And also after 10

00:25:28.420 years, I think the show was kind of getting rote. You know, we were pretty steady in the ratings,

00:25:33.080 but not going up and we would have had to do something anyway. So I really felt like it was

00:25:39.100 a very natural, organic ending to the show. I mean, that those 10 years that you were on

00:25:46.040 the world around you really did change. Like you were really at the forefront of unscripted.

00:25:52.040 And by the time you went off, it's, I actually think it's, it's pretty interesting that your

00:25:56.300 ratings stayed consistent. Yeah, they did. Which I think says a lot for you as the personalities

00:26:01.220 because the format of TV and the rise of social media

00:26:06.300 had changed so much by the time you were off.

00:26:10.600 I remember sitting at a dinner with my agents

00:26:14.080 and they were telling me how they were signing bloggers.

00:26:17.680 And I was like, what is a blogger?

00:26:20.380 And then, you know, bloggers became influencers.

00:26:23.220 And now everybody has a personal brand

00:26:25.360 if they have a social media account.

00:26:26.720 And I don't know anything about personal branding, frankly.

00:26:29.940 That's not my jam.

00:26:31.840 So, you know, it's funny.

00:26:33.540 I don't feel like the jump to social media was very easy for me at all.

00:26:39.220 I have a really hard time with, it's very easy for me to be in front of a camera,

00:26:44.180 but like talking to my phone, all of a sudden I feel very self-conscious.

00:26:48.660 Well, you've said that we've gone from a how-to culture to a me-to culture.

00:26:53.360 That is correct.

00:26:54.020 Yes. Tell us more about that.

00:26:55.760 So I love that you know that quote.

00:26:58.060 I think that back in the day when, you know, sort of unscripted television was just on the rise, that was 2002 when I started on What Not To Wear, we were looking for experts.

00:27:08.640 We loved being told what to do by experts.

00:27:11.600 We had a real interest in that, right?

00:27:13.840 How to culture, how to dress, how to style your room, trading spaces, you know, we were on the forefront of that kind of television.

00:27:21.980 The learning channel is what TLC was, right?

00:27:26.180 And then I think as the advent of social media and just the rise of the internet started,

00:27:31.920 right, one of the things was that you didn't need appointment television.

00:27:35.820 That's one thing.

00:27:36.700 You know, you didn't have to wait until Friday to watch us at nine o'clock, but also you

00:27:41.320 had access to people in a very different way.

00:27:44.080 Whereas you could not just only write to people you'd seen on television, you could start

00:27:48.440 following people on Instagram who just looked cool.

00:27:51.320 And that wasn't about them being experts, right?

00:27:53.500 Maybe you still want somebody who has 10,000 hours or more of experience if they're like

00:27:57.620 your pilot, but not if you are just already interested in the way somebody appears because

00:28:04.560 that appeals to you.

00:28:06.300 To me, we started to value shared experience and value our own opinions over those of being

00:28:13.560 taught to us by an expert.

00:28:15.800 That social media allowed for us to all be our own authorities in a way.

00:28:20.560 And we didn't have to look to people for that same kind of how-to, certainly when it came to style, certainly when it came to personal expression.

00:28:29.080 And it became much more about this is who I am, not this is what somebody told me to be.

00:28:36.200 And look, if I could do What Not to Wear again, it would not be What Not to Wear.

00:28:41.220 One, I would never have the gotcha.

00:28:43.140 I would never let friends and family secretly nominate somebody.

00:28:46.400 and you know I briefly did another show on TLC called Love Luster Run where everyone self-nominated

00:28:52.100 and part of the reason for that was because I wanted people to come to me and say what am I

00:28:57.540 doing wrong how do I get what I want what is the message that I am giving transmission versus

00:29:04.440 translation what do you think you're transmitting to the world and what is the world translating

00:29:09.940 and there's a big disconnect sometimes and people can get very frustrated but that to me was not the

00:29:16.200 same thing as making somebody over. That to me was sort of trying to sharpen and hone what somebody

00:29:22.460 already knew they wanted. That felt more in keeping with the way I'd like to work with people.

00:29:29.240 You do speak a lot about your midlife crisis, like what you call your midlife crisis.

00:29:33.800 Crises. Let's be clear, there were multiples. Yeah. Well, the way you talk about it resonates

00:29:40.740 a lot with me when I think about what is leading to a pivot, like a pivot in somebody's life.

00:29:46.160 Sure.

00:29:46.660 That you have, you kind of have to go down. Like you have to feel like you don't have other options

00:29:51.820 to force it. I think a little bit, like I like to think of, you can't get to the midlife

00:29:57.260 renaissance without the midlife crisis. At, you know, around 47, I had done what not to wear,

00:30:04.080 burned out, took a bunch of time off, developed a series that I sold that was a talk show for

00:30:09.800 syndication that never got made. Then I did Love Luster Run. And then I guest hosted on The View

00:30:15.920 for about a year. And slowly but surely, I stopped getting as many phone calls. And people wanted me

00:30:23.040 to do things that I found distasteful and not in keeping with the ethos that I'd already had around

00:30:29.840 television and who I wanted to be on television. And it just didn't appeal to me. The kinds of

00:30:35.900 things that were coming felt a little crass and television was turning into something else.

00:30:41.660 And I realized also like my phone just isn't ringing. Maybe I'm aging out of TV. Maybe I'm

00:30:49.620 just not the flavor of the month anymore, which is pretty painful. Sure. And I had to kind of look

00:30:55.000 at that, but I also thought, oh, well, this is really interesting. I can't be the only one who

00:31:00.820 feels completely crazy and out of control, right? I mean, here I am 47, like all of a sudden I'm

00:31:05.980 starting to look a little bit different. I don't feel the same. What did you think was more

00:31:10.980 surprising to you as you started to go through menopause? Well, I didn't know that I was in

00:31:17.120 menopause. I thought menopause happened to old people and I thought it was optional. I thought 0.96

00:31:21.900 my career was falling apart and therefore I was falling apart. I was not married. I did not have

00:31:27.460 children, so many people were like, well, you're married to your career. Nobody marries their

00:31:32.400 career. You can love your career. You can want your career. You can prioritize your career over

00:31:37.700 a family or close relationships. You can do all of that, but you can't marry your career. And I

00:31:43.760 found it really insulting because I don't want to be married to my career. I wanted a career that I

00:31:49.460 loved and I pursued it at the expense of maybe other things. But recognizing that that career

00:31:55.920 was kind of slowing down, really made me feel very lonely, very isolated. And I had a real

00:32:02.300 identity crisis. And I thought, okay, well then let's go make a show about that. And so I went

00:32:08.200 to pitch a show about midlife, about midlife transformation, about what a midlife crisis

00:32:14.440 could be in something amazing. And I didn't just want to do it in fashion because I really think

00:32:19.980 midlife is an amazing time to reinvent yourself in terms of style. And we don't actually look at

00:32:25.540 that enough, but also everything else that comes with midlife. What is happening to us hormonally?

00:32:32.260 Because I thought I was batshit crazy. I mean, I was like ready to commit myself. I was like,

00:32:38.020 how are all of these things happening? What is happening to me? Am I sick? What is wrong?

00:32:43.880 Let's talk about all of the things that are happening in midlife. Maybe you're going through

00:32:48.200 childcare or empty nesting. Maybe you're dealing with elder care or dying parents. Maybe you're

00:32:53.280 45 to 55, highest rate of decreased earning potential in women, highest rate of depression,

00:32:58.940 highest rate of divorce. What if we talk about a jumpstart for the rest of your life? Not the 0.75

00:33:05.300 second half, the third act, right? We're not dying in our 60s, we're dying in our 90s. And I thought,

00:33:11.760 what an incredible show. Crickets. No network, no streamer. Everybody said to me, nobody wants to

00:33:19.740 watch a show about middle-aged women in crisis. We need to learn how to revere age by sharing that

00:33:29.340 with younger people. What can we learn from younger generations? And what can we still teach

00:33:34.720 them, right? This idea that we have nothing to teach them because we grew up with rotary phones

00:33:39.300 does not, it just doesn't make any sense. I was like, there's a real multi-generational

00:33:43.820 mentorship aspect to this. I am open about what kind of crisis I'm having. I'm open when I found

00:33:51.020 out what I was experiencing with menopause because I've been taught by younger generations

00:33:54.860 who are so open and systemically breaking down ideas about race and gender and sexuality.

00:34:02.380 Why am I not doing that about age? Why are we not all doing that about age? It is the one bias we

00:34:08.920 don't seem to be able to get rid of that easily or really shine a light on. And ageism is separate

00:34:15.660 from menopause, right? We conflate aging and menopause all the time. Menopause can happen at

00:34:21.680 any age, surgical and medical, but chronological is the most common, which is that you arrive at

00:34:29.260 menopause or perimenopause somewhere between 40 and 60. And that's the one you know about with

00:34:35.020 the hot flashes and the night sweats and the vaginal dryness and the insomnia and the joint

00:34:40.620 pain and the food allergies and the brain fog. And I could go on and on and on and on. And any one of

00:34:47.460 those things you might dismiss. You might not even connect them. You might not realize that your

00:34:52.780 anxiety is going through the roof because your hormones are in chaos. You might be prescribed

00:34:58.740 antidepressants instead of looking at the whole picture and understanding that this is a natural

00:35:04.720 transition. We are ashamed of menopause because we've been taught to be ashamed of aging, right?

00:35:11.400 Culturally, there is an invalidation that happens to women as they age. And the one-two ha-ha punch 0.99

00:35:18.640 of it all is that you start to feel crazy at the same time culture starts to ignore you,

00:35:23.640 which makes you feel even crazier. So I was experiencing all of that and really looking

00:35:29.100 for a way to make that meaningful, which is basically what I've tried to do at every stage

00:35:34.760 of my career. How do we find meaning and purpose in who we are and where we are at every stage of

00:35:40.720 life, knowing that things don't always stay the same. And the idea that we are holding on

00:35:46.780 to what is static or the status quo about ourselves disallows for the beauty of evolution

00:35:54.720 and certainly the beauty of pivoting. And I just had to decide, you know what,

00:36:00.120 I'm not going to be Stacey from What Not to Wear anymore. I'm going to be Stacey New,

00:36:04.480 New 2.0 Stacey, New 3.0 Stacey. It was nearly perfect timing when she was then asked to be a

00:36:11.540 beta tester for State of Menopause, a company that supports women as they go through it.

00:36:17.680 Oh my God. Yes, yes, yes. Let me be a beta tester. I don't know what it's like to have products

00:36:23.620 that address anything in menopause because I didn't even know that's what was happening to me.

00:36:28.760 And all my doctors were saying, you know, it might be menopause, you'll get through it. And I thought

00:36:33.000 I was like, I must be overreacting, but I wasn't. And I wasn't informed. And because I wasn't

00:36:40.020 informed, I felt afraid. And the last thing I thought was, if I feel this way, I can't be the

00:36:45.840 only one. And now 1 billion people are going to be in some stage of menopause by 2025. That's a lot

00:36:55.020 of people who might feel alone. And I wanted to get the jump on 12% of the population, and certainly

00:37:01.720 the 52% of the population who will go through this, and make sure that you are educated and

00:37:07.720 that you don't feel alone, that you know what your solutions are, that there are a spectrum of

00:37:12.220 answers that everybody may experience this differently. And, you know, 52% of the population

00:37:17.480 will experience it, but 100% of the population will be impacted by people going through this

00:37:23.000 and not knowing anything about it or how your body is going to change or how you're going to 0.99

00:37:28.180 feel psychologically just feels like another iniquity that women or those who identify as

00:37:34.420 women have had to face forever. So where do you want to take it? Is it building communities? Is

00:37:40.300 it specific product? How do you think we're going to get at it? Great question. I have been running

00:37:45.940 this company now for almost 18 months. They were going to close the entire company. They wanted to

00:37:53.320 pivot away from consumer product goods and go into technology. And so I bought the majority share

00:37:59.620 of the brand and decided that I would start to look at the products and see which ones were

00:38:06.540 most essential because I thought it was a little short-sighted to think of menopause as a beauty

00:38:11.020 brand. I think menopause is its own vertical. It does not belong in beauty. It certainly belongs

00:38:16.700 much more in health and wellness, but there are beauty aspects to it, right? We want our skin not 1.00

00:38:22.380 to feel dry as sandpaper. We don't want brittle hair. A lot of things that do change about us

00:38:27.980 physically can be mitigated, certainly by products that, you know, we might put in a

00:38:34.020 beauty category. But I thought, no, it needs to be more than that. And what can, what can we offer

00:38:39.740 that can be over the counter, non-hormonal, something that if you feel like you can't take

00:38:45.220 hormones, don't want to take hormones, are afraid of hormones, which by the way, you don't have to

00:38:49.880 be really truly. There was a study that villainized hormones in the nineties or early aughts. So where

00:38:56.260 are the over-the-counter products that mitigate some of these more annoying issues or symptoms,

00:39:02.780 I might say, in menopause that interfere with the quality of your daily life. It is hard to

00:39:07.840 be in a meeting if you are having a massive hot flash or panic attack or anxiety or headaches

00:39:14.960 or joint pain or breast tenderness or muscle fatigue or any of the things that can happen.

00:39:21.460 So one, we have to educate people, but two, we need to have product so that we're not just

00:39:26.560 coming to this conversation to say, hey, we know you're suffering. No, it's not about suffering.

00:39:32.060 We want to make sure that we are improving this time in your life so that you can make more of

00:39:37.300 it than you ever thought possible. I think it's astounding. We would never let a child go through

00:39:42.880 puberty without telling them what was going to happen. We don't let people go and get pregnant 1.00

00:39:48.800 without knowing about the birds and the bees for the most part. But it is also about what are we

00:39:54.240 talking about now and not, you know, being perfect, that pregnancy can be hard, that it can be

00:40:00.140 difficult, that raising children is hard, that postpartum depression is real, infertility is

00:40:05.680 painful. And yet if we talk about these things, then we create community, we create safe spaces,

00:40:11.480 and we create a way in which to move forward from things that are hard. And I will never sugarcoat

00:40:16.840 but the fact that I think menopause and midlife is a very hard stage of life

00:40:22.320 for really mostly women to accept, truly, right?

00:40:27.000 Men have a midlife crisis, and I'm being very binary and gendered here, 0.82

00:40:31.440 you know, and they get hair plugs and Viagra and maybe a bomber jacket,

00:40:34.520 a Porsche, and a new girlfriend. 1.00

00:40:37.940 With women, it is much more complicated in terms of how we transcend 1.00

00:40:43.340 the last version of ourselves, how we let go of who we were to become who we are. 1.00

00:40:48.720 And I will tell you, I spent all my time on What Not to Wear trying to get people to see

00:40:54.780 themselves for who they are now.

00:40:57.260 And that's really what I want to do with State of Menopause.

00:41:00.020 We want education and product selection and community, places where you can go to find

00:41:06.400 out the best doctors in your area, first-person accounts of people who have experienced menopause

00:41:12.320 in surgical or medical when they were in their 20s or people who experienced it late in their 60s.

00:41:19.100 We want you to hear from physicians. We want you to hear from care practitioners. There are so many

00:41:25.160 opportunities at this stage of life, right? And I think you said this so eloquently, Emily, like

00:41:30.680 some of the best ideas or some of the most incredible pivots start because we are in some

00:41:37.560 sort of crisis ourselves, that we need the kind of help that we then go out and create for other

00:41:43.380 people. And that's certainly, I think, what's been the through line of my career. How can I make

00:41:49.940 somebody see themselves in a new light, in a better light, in a more anticipatory way for

00:41:56.360 what's coming instead of being afraid of what's coming, right? We're always afraid of what's in

00:42:01.720 the dark. And I always say that innovating for menopause is like innovating for the darkness,

00:42:05.740 right? It's like, if you don't know what's under the bed, then it looks like a monster.

00:42:10.840 Then that's what you see. But if you shine a flashlight, you're like, oh, dust bunnies,

00:42:15.820 easy. I can take care of those. And that's what this is about. How do we give you more agency?

00:42:21.380 How do we give you more agency over style? How do we give you more agency over wellness?

00:42:26.500 How do we give you more agency so that you always feel like you are in control of the narrative of

00:42:32.800 your life. How do we turn that crisis into the midlife renaissance? I mean, I think it starts

00:42:39.660 with acknowledging the crisis, right? If you fight that, which I really tried to do, I was like,

00:42:45.320 I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. The more that you kind of box yourself in,

00:42:51.080 I think the harder it becomes. And the more that you stay attached to whatever version of yourself

00:42:57.540 you're holding onto so tightly is probably what's going to keep you stuck, right? I really had to

00:43:04.360 say it's okay to feel like I'm in pain. It's okay to feel like this is hard. I think anytime that

00:43:11.360 our perception of ourselves is attached to something that is past, we are doing ourselves

00:43:17.320 a disservice. The Renaissance is when you are like, come at me, let me have it. And really,

00:43:22.840 look, I didn't think I was going to change careers until COVID, until I was like, I am not getting

00:43:29.800 anywhere. I do not want to talk about like what white blouse you should buy this week. Something

00:43:36.180 needs to mean more to me. And what was underneath style was more about concept of self and self

00:43:42.920 confidence and self esteem and self love and self acceptance. And here I was in midlife,

00:43:48.180 destroying, like tearing myself apart. And I thought, I cannot be the only one who feels this

00:43:54.320 way. If you are feeling stuck, remember you are not the only one. And the one thing, again,

00:44:01.420 I keep saying, and the one thing, the other thing, there's many things, is that I invite you

00:44:07.160 when you start to really, you know, if you do feel like you're in crisis, what is your kernel

00:44:12.160 of truth? Because it may not be the thing that you think it is. It wasn't about style for me.

00:44:18.180 That's not what it was.

00:44:20.200 What not to wear was never about the clothes.

00:44:23.500 It was never about the clothes.

00:44:25.240 So for me, menopause, strangely enough,

00:44:29.120 I call it the mercury and retrograde phase of life.

00:44:31.940 It is the time to listen, to receive, to pause,

00:44:36.400 to focus on your needs and then pivot,

00:44:40.960 then decide how to move forward.

00:44:43.760 Thank you so much, Stacey, for coming here.

00:44:45.940 Thank you to J.C. Free, the women of the J.

00:44:48.180 Thank you guys so much.

00:44:49.900 Thank you for having me.

00:44:50.840 Thank you so much, everyone.

00:44:54.720 Stacey is tirelessly worked to build community and understanding about this new and, dare I say, exciting stage of life.

00:45:03.420 She runs events with other like-minded companies, embracing changing the narrative around women's health and wellness.

00:45:10.320 A New York City native, she lives in Brooklyn with her partner, Kat.

00:45:14.260 Thanks for listening to this episode of She Pivots.

00:45:18.180 where I talk with women about how their experiences and significant personal events

00:45:23.140 led to their pivot and eventually their success.

00:45:27.540 To learn more about Stacey, follow her on Instagram at StaceyLondonReal.

00:45:33.960 Leave a rating and comment if you enjoyed this episode to help others learn about it.

00:45:39.060 A special thank you to our partner Marie Claire and the team that made this episode possible.

00:45:44.700 Talk to you next week.

00:45:48.180 She Pivots is hosted by me, Emily Tish Sussman, produced by Emily Eda Velocik, with sound editing and mixing from Nina Pollack, and research and planning from Christine Dickinson and Hannah Cousins.

00:46:02.380 I endorse She Pivots.

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Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - January 28, 2024

Sunday Nice Things： She Pivots with Stacy London

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