Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole

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Guy Ross.com And thanks. What happened in 94 was the landscape changed. When I started my business, there was maybe seventy or eighty departments to a chains in the United States.

All of a sudden, ten years later, this May fifteen or twenty. Consolidation. After consolidation since some bankruptcies. Yeah. And I said to myself that These guys are gonna need to find economies. I thought at a certain point They'd buy similar shoes under their own labels and I'm not in business anymore. You didn't think that they would just continue to buy Kenneth Cole shoes and sell them? I didn't. And if you don't see my designs like a tree in the forest, I'm only as good as you know me to be. Right. And if I'm not out there...

Then I don't exist. From NPR is How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements. They built. I'm Guy Roz and on the show today, how Kenneth Cole launched his shoe business out of a forty foot truck in Midtown Manhattan.

Grew the business into one of the best known brands. In the fashion industry. There's a basic principle in business when it comes to politics. Stay away. Far away. But the past four years have tested that view.

Especially because lots of consumers want the brands they support. to take a stand on issues they care about. Things like racial justice and voting rights and climate action. And it's meant that a lot of big companies have increasingly been doing that. even at the risk of alienating a certain segment of their customer base.

But long before it became fashionable to weigh in on controversial topics, The shoe company Kenneth Cole. was doing exactly that. In 1986, when the AIDS crisis was just coming into focus, Kenneth Cole began to take out full page ads and magazines promoting AIDS awareness and research.

And this was at a time when many people in America refused to even acknowledge the disease. In that same year, 1986, the company ran a campaign calling for strict gun control. In nineteen ninety two for strong abortion rights. In ninety-three?

for equal civil rights for members of the LGBTQ community. And throughout all those campaigns. The brand kept growing. In fact, by the mid two thousands. the company's revenue hit over half a billion dollars.

Kenneth Cole, the company's namesake, started out with very little money. but he managed to turn the brand into one of the best known American fashion labels. Kenneth was born in Brooklyn in the 1950s. His dad was in the shoe business, but following in those footsteps, was not part of Kenneth's plan.

Instead I was gonna be the shortstop for the New York Mets. Were you really kids in your neighborhood probably, right? And then I'd wake up every other day once a day and I realize that was not I could Happen. Yeah. Actually I don't my first job was selling peanuts at Shay Stadium. I don't know if you know that. Wow.

It was also a creative endeavor getting that job because it was during the World Series. In nineteen sixty nine. Yeah. The miracle mats. Yeah.

And there was no lights so there were no night games and they needed kids to work during the day and The city was very tough. So they insisted that the students all had notes from their principals that they could take their time off from school.

So I got my principal to give me a note saying that he thought it was a worthwhile cultural experience and he well he endorsed my employment. at chase it. So you got to see the Mets play in in the nineteen sixty nine World Series? I did. And I also, by the way, I leveraged that job to get one at Madison Square Garden where I got to see the Other Nick and Ranger games. And tell me a little bit about

Your parents. What did your parents do for a living? Did they both work? No, my mother for a little bit did some charity work. My father was um I was an entrepreneur, he was in different businesses. He was Later on he was in the shoe business he had a

Small shoe factory in a very tough part of New York at the time called Williamsburg. A tough part of New York called Williamsburg. Wow. Not so tough today. Interesting how things have changed. Yeah. And and what was the name of the factory? El Greco. Does that mean the Greek?

Yeah. And what was that name? Where'd that come from? I think He had acquired a small business and I think that's what it was and eventually he he assumed it. So He made shoes and sold them in department stores at the time.

Women's shoes. But The last thing on my mind was the last thing I would have imagine myself doing and the least masculine thing I could have imagined myself doing was going to the women's shoe business. So it wasn't something I ever contemplated. What was your relationship like with your dad?

It was good. He he was a he was a tough guy. It was a m a marine. World War II veteran. World War Two veteran. Was he deployed overseas? He was. He served in the Philippines. He was a

A g a gunner. And it was on several missions. And um He was relentless, he was very determined. I learned a lot from him in many ways. What

To do and in some cases what not to do. He was always he was working much more than he wasn't. Um and I always often reflect upon that being general,'cause I made it point to be the opposite. With with Mike. kids to the degree I was able to. But work w came first and second. And uh we were up in third.

But he was Focused. He was determined and he was uh He was relentless. So w when you set out to go to college in in the early seventies, you went to Emory, um I I take it

Uh you didn't really Contemplate eventually working with your dad? No. Truthfully, I I went to school thinking I'd probably

And I studied political science. Hm. And law was something I believed. Would Create

Interesting alternatives for me going down the road. So I was admitted to a couple of hospitals, I did a party. And then that summer my father had his superintendent who was running the factory at the time. Resigned. to go into competitions. And that factory was a the proverbial hand that fed us. So I felt an obligation

that summer to immerse myself in it. And so we're in the business to the degree that I could and What your dad said to you, he said, I need you to help me out. At the factory. He didn't say that he was too proud, but my mother kind of encouraged it. And he welcomed it.

And I wasn't thinking that this would be something I would jump in with both feet, but I knew once I started doing it, I also knew that I needed to commit to it. to to learn it and to quickly have the respect of of the people I was working with and And I did, I learned it, and I kept I was fascinated by it and I kept gravitating towards the sample room where I watched all these components as Piece of weather and Plastic.

was the heel or wood and then a metal um shape of a foot that became was the last and how all these things put together in a certain way became a shoe. And how how was it that Your whole life you were around this world and exposed to it. And then'cause I I agree, I would find it fascinating to just see the pieces of cut leather and the Wouldn't heel and people sewing the pieces together, but Why do you think you you began to see it that way at the age of twenty two?

I think I wanted to understand not just What my father did, but What was behind the curtain w and h and how how did this work and what made it so distinctive and why was he able to do it differently than other people and So I was and I realized very quickly that what distinguished what he did from what everybody else did was what happened in the sample room.

So that's where I 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. And by the way I just think of this as as a dad myself, like If my kid join my business, which I don't want them to, I want them to do their own thing, but

I'd be so proud, it would just be I'd be like just gushing, and it'd be amazing. Was your dad it d it doesn't strike me that your dad was that kind of guy, but He must have been pretty proud that his kid was there. No, he I he was, but he

Yeah, he pushed me as hard as he felt he could, in in the way that he would. Well how would he push you? always how big is big and how good is good and um he was careful with the Compliments and the uh Encouragements. But I but I know he was proud. And I and um I learned how to make shoes in his factory for

Our company. Um In that six year period where you worked for Y dad's. business um and really start to understand the business.

Like two years in you were involved in launching a whole new line of shoes call I think they're called candies designed and sort of targeting young women. What was that initiative? How'd that come about? So We were making shoes in in in Brooklyn and

And I there were a hundred steps that went into making the s most simple Shoe. And The slightest thing that would go wrong if you're missing any of those hundred push components.

We're not in business anymore. And in the best case scenario you can only make so many pair of shoes. In the worst case you're out of business, you have nothing. So So that mo business model I struggled with and then We

Went over to Europe and bought some shoes and started selling them. What was it was a Yeah, what it was it like a Mary Jane, like It was a piece of leather that was s stapled onto a polypropylene.

What Olivia New Newton John wore in the movie Greece. Oh yeah. And what you identified though like you you found those shoes in Europe and you said, Hey, we should sell shoes like these? Actually I think my father and I found them. And then We came back and I started to sell them and and um but you weren't making them. You were you were um still importing these shoes. 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 m 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 in a domestic shoe factory. And it was very compelling. So So we converted the business eventually to that. That became the business'cause it grew very quickly. So he shut down the factory part. He did. And focused on importing shoes and then reselling them. Correct.

When did that happen? Do you remember what year? So if I joined the business seventy six Maybe seventy nine, eighty? So this was the new model and you were now focused on importing shoes that you could identify mainly from Europe, I guess.

And it actually boosted the business. It the business grew as a result of that? Exponentially and very quickly. So it eventually initially the factory became a warehouse, the existing factory, and then eventually we moved to a uh a bigger facility and then left. and vacated um those offices in Williamsburg.

So Clearly you catch the bug. The shoe bug. Yeah. After six years of working with your dad.

this becomes something not just interesting, but you see this as your future, you decide to leave. In nineteen eighty two. to start your own shoe company. I guess you're around twenty eight years old at the time. Why did you decide to leave your dad's business and go off on your own? He and I didn't didn't agree on a lot of things.

And I didn't have the the right to Not The a hundred percent 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 I woke up one day and decided that's what I'm gonna do. Did you and your dad argue a lot?

Or Was it more that your dad was my way or the highway and you didn't argue with him? I would argue But invariably he had his way that he felt things should be done. And I 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 relationship is only gonna get better with him if I If I do this independently. So when you told your dad You wanna start your own thing. Uh you're leaving. Was he

Was he sad? Was he hurt? Was he supportive? He was too proud. to be visibly hurt anyway. And He

Wasn't it Supportive, but he at the same time. He he was supportive, but he wasn't encouraging. Maybe that's a better way to put it. And when I did Tell him I was gonna leave one day.

Which was Shocking. To him. He had said You'll be back.

It's very hard out there and you're gonna be back. was his message at which point I knew there was no way that was gonna happen. So he says I'm gonna leave your office open for you'cause I know you'll You'll be back. So when you said, Hey, I wanna start my own shoe thing, he didn't say hell, I'll I'll I'll write you a check to to help get you started.

No, not just the opposite. And I'm not sure I would I'm not sure I would have taken it. If either because I I became equally proud. So you you wanted to start your own shoe company. Obviously you had experience now and can some connections. to to to factories. But how did you have

W did you have any money to start it? Very little. But what I did was I went over to Italy'cause that's where I had been working with candies and 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. This is an agent who helped you find factor factories. Yeah.

I I created everything at the time to be variable. And so the agent would get paid only if I did business and And to this agent I w I got open account. Which was A big deal. Like a line of credit?

A line of credit. And and I c 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. So you go to the factory and you could say, Hey I need to make this order and I'll pay you ninety days or something like that. Yeah, and I had an arrangement with the bank where they were gonna give me eighty percent of the receivable Once I invoiced it.

So I would Fly the goods to New York and we Ship them out because we had pre sold them. And who did you by the way, who did you sell them to? The same places that you were selling candies to, the same department stores?

Actually more elevated. My first year in business I sold Sacks, I sold Macy's, I sold Bloomingdale's, I sold uh Bergdorf, I think. you wanted this to be different than your dad's business. You wanted to make like higher end shoes that you would actually design yourself.

I wanted to create Aspirational shoes for For that aspirational woman. And um and I also did not want to compete with him.

And I call the handful of customers that His current salesman we're not calling on. And then my father said, Okay, take'em to Footwear News, which was the only industry publication at the time and I did that as well and I 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 this a new up and coming designer, Kenneth Cole. And I never looked at myself as that. As a designer. As a designer, I was

I created a little package of shoes I thought we could sell. Yeah. I didn't even know how to draw yet, I've taught myself how to draw over the years, uh but I at that point I didn't. Did you ever think of yourself as a creative person? In when you were younger? I think I ha I had a an interest in

things that were creative, but I wasn't I never really looked in the mirror and saw that in me. You wouldn't look in the mirror and say, Hey, I'm a designer. I'm an artist. It wasn't something that I had ever aspired. Two Okay.

So you have this Um You're designing shoes. And by the way, you have a co founder, a guy named Sam Edelman. But tell me about Sam. Sam worked with me at

At El Creco. And when I left Sam said, If you leave I'm going with you'cause I'm not staying here. So I was as much as I had

I I knew how great how because Sam was also a good friend. I had And how much fun it would be and how how great it would be to have him. I I was reluctant to do it to my father'cause 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 if I could Uh several months I I don't think we went out. Side, except when I went to Italy to uh make the sh sh make the shoes, I took a couple of trips. You worked in your apartment building that

Like creating the business plan. We were creating You know, the brand we're setting up People to connect with I guess when I got to Italy.

Lawyers finding a lawyer, finding an accountant. And how by the way, how many shoes, how many different designs were gonna be in the first collection? And how many different Like a skews what you have. So maybe three constructions and each in maybe three or four or five colors. Right.

How many shoes did you in total did you need to make? So Go into this Process I didn't.

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. Well, the the nineteen eighty two version of Kenneth Cole is not inspiring a lot of confidence in me right now. So but I but I was but I but I knew I'd figure it out. You know, people said to me

When I left my father. Um God. 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 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 gonna sell'em 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 would people would find compelling. Yeah. Tell me about About the name, Kenneth Cole. I mean, it's a great name.

your name. Was that was that the idea from the beginning to call it chemical? No I couldn't Take the chance of of a made up name.

And finding out many, many months or years later, whether it was acceptable or not through the trademark process'cause 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. So I called the 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

From a shoe factory and I did. So I fa had a factory that agreed to do this. The factory was a s a single production line and then When the production I 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.

So once once the workers would go home, then you would basically rent out the factory for your line. Yeah. I mean they Because he had a relationship to the factory they let him have it and use it and uh He felt bad for this kid from New York who was Desperate to have a collection within

Thirty days. Because we're getting close to market. Sorry, just clarifying you had to you were to have this collection done in thirty days. I did because First of all I knew that I need it to get to market.

quickly because I was gonna run out of money if I didn't. And At the time I think sixty 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 that in December something there was gonna be a shoe show and I needed a collection by then. This was Market Week shoe show in New York, right? It was yes, it was market week. You know you've got this deadline. You wanna preview your line of shoes at Market Week, which is a s convention. in New York. This is in December of nineteen eighty two.

Yeah. So what's the story? You want to get there and do you d do you meet your deadline, do you get your shoes done on time for the show? So so I Yeah, 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 the 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 need it models.

And the buyers would just come and they'd walk the floors. They'd go to room to room to room. They'd go uh more likely into the rooms they knew, people they had done business with. Um and the alternative was a big fancy showroom. within a two block radius of the Hilton Hotel, which clearly I didn't have the money at the time. So n neither alternative really worked. And on a whim

I uh spoke to a person that was in the trucking business and I asked them if If I could figure out At a park. your truck on the corner of Sixth Avenue, Fifty Sixth Street.

On december second, nineteen eighty two, would you lend it to me? What kind of truck like a forty foot Trailer. Why? Because I was thinking that if I maybe I could

actually show the shoes in a truck on the corner because everybody was gonna be on that corner at one point. So you would so instead of being at the Hilton or in a showroom, you would just have a truck parked there, forty foot truck that people could go into the container of the truck and see your shoes. Correct. So I asked him Cool would you render to me and he said

You can't park a bicycle in New York for ten minutes, let alone a truck for three days, but if you could figure out how to do it, Not only will I go into your help be decorated. Hm. So I call the mayor's office. So how does one get permission to park the 40 patrol on the corner at 6 Avenue 56th Street? And the answer is son they don't. This is New York. We can permission only into two circumstances if you are a utility company servicing the streets.

Or if you're a production company shooting a full motion picture, because we were going through an I Love New York campaign in the early 80s. Right. So that afternoon we went to stationery store changed the company's The red and kind of throw ink, they kind of go productions ink. And then we filed for a permit sent away to the mayor's that afternoon. Ask me for permission to

Shoot a full length motion picture. The birth of a shoe company. File for a permit, yes. For a permit to shoot a film called The Birth of a Shoe Company. Correct.

Right. And we Open for business on December second. and we had two New York Bisman as a doorman compliments of the fine mayor. Wait, they gave you the permit? They believed you that you were gonna Did you shoot a film?

We did. It never quite got edit, but we did. Wait, you had k like camera people just just filming We had a director. Sometimes it was filming his camera, sometimes it wasn't. It was cheaper that way. And um we had stanches and quig lights. Was anybody from the city like permitting office there to confirm that you were a legit film company or was it just nineteen eighty two and that people were just more trusting back then?

They had no reason not to trust it. I guess. Right. I don't think anybody's gonna be a little bit. Done this before. And the cops were there like as part of your, you know, security detail provided by the city and they weren't like, Hey, are you guys making a movie? I guess they wouldn't have 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. And We told'em we weren't really shooting.

So he didn't w buy that. So I just needed more security that night. And They didn't bother us. I guess eventually he Just accepted that this was not a union job and that he wasn't gonna be a beneficiary at some level.

Film production. It was some of the footage is actually on our website if you're going to be able to do it. It was a stunt to get people to come to your trailer. to see your shoes. And by the way, how did they No to come there. Did you like paint Kenneth Cole Productions on the side?

We did. There was a banner on outside of the truck. And I would stand there and Sam would stand there and we would kinda in a wave to people and then we saw everybody in New York. And after the first few days people it became apparent people heard about it. And then there was a by the way, the there's a phone booth.

On that corner. So I had committed To buy thousand pair of shoes. But I refuse to commit to which s specifically which ones, but I told them I would let them know as the show was happening.

So you know, I keep a little more red, a little more on the lower heel. 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. This supply chain. As we were sewing the shoes. Hm. We get delivery and

Four to six weeks, which was unheard of, but we committed to do this. And I've air freighted, flew everything in. How many shoes, by the way, did you sell at the show? I sold maybe Forty thousand pair at the show. Wow. So you could call these factories

from just the corner of what was the street? Six and fifty six. Six and fifty six in in Manhattan and say, Hey, yeah. We need we need those shoes. We need twenty thousand. We need thirty thousand. Whatever it was. Well no, we I had already committed to the numbers, I was just adjusting. Yeah. Yeah, aspiring and believing and dreaming that I could sell all these shoes. Right.

And We did. We sold All of the shoes. After that show, was there buzz about Kenneth Cole, this hot young designer?

Or not quite yet. Invariably people wanted Ten pair we'd only would agree to sell them eight. And the more we said no, the more they wanted it. And um we got a lot of good editorial. So

Um Pull me Dell's cave. Okay, maybe My own shoe department on the main floor. In nineteen eighty three? In eighty three. Wow. The little niche department which was With your name on the wall and everything? With with my name on the wall. Did your dad see that?

He did. He was very proud. And he came and to the truck, to the trailer, and and saw it. And You know, we we lost him a couple years after that, unfortunately. Didn't really get to see how the business evolved over the years. But um He was very proud. W what was so different about the shoes you were making at the time? Why were they so hot?

Well they were different and And street fashion was really start just starting to happen at that point in time. In a fashion up until that point it had emanated from the runways of Modern Paris. But now it w it was all it was coming from the streets and it was coming from people like Calvin. Calvin Klein, yeah. Calvin Klein and I think Donna came with the but that was about the time the t rise of the New York designers and American designers became a uh credible pursuit. And people were They like the shoes that people would

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 flowing. But I mean the actual design of the shoes.

Was it the price point or was it the design? What what was it that I mean, do they look Very different from er other things in the market at the time. They were very different from other things in the market. They were. That a very distinctive look. A very high heel pointy toe. Pump and then also the foot.

Pump. And then uh What we c it was a convertible boot that had the ability to become you could wear it at at any height and it was made in canvas. And

In the early eighties. Denim was You know, it became f a big fashion at about. Well, but denim friendly footwear. Some of the shoes were made in Stonewashed canvas which looked like denim.

And some of them were in in wash stone washed suede, which also kinda looked like what how people were dressing at the time. And I think people just they liked it because It was new and different. But It was we were going through uh interestingly a downturn in the economy in the eighties.

Yeah, but eighty two was a was a was a slowdown. It was a recession. So and 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 that they looking to Kinda re Um reinvent and uh

So You know, in tough times. The shoes were different. There was nothing like them in the marketplace. Mm. And people were intrigued and everybody felt they should have some?

So We got off to a really great start. So where were you getting your ideas from? I often would go I would know these are also the studio fifty four days.

I would go to the nightclubs and Then I would kinda get a drink and I'd sit in a lid 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 it.

And I learned also that What are they wearing, but what do they wish they could be wearing and you know, 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 I I read a quote of yours talking about your early years where you said initially. I would make what I thought people should wear.

But then I realize that I needed to make what people wanted. Which is sort of the opposite of what Steve Jobs used to say. He would say, You don't know customers and consumers don't know what they want. They need to be told.

What they want. My job isn't to tell people what they should wear. Um, 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 him in a way that

Doesn't exist in the competitive Universe But I I need to listen better. And the best salesmen I wondered early on were not the best speakers, they were the best listeners. So essentially by nineteen eighty four

You've got this brand, you're in Bloomingdales, and I'm assuming that now your customers are mainly big department stores. Mainly in New York are you starting to sell nationally by nineteen eighty four? I'm selling nationally in nineteen eighty two. I'm selling I mean they Wow. My first season I sold. I remember I saw Fred Siegel in in uh California. I sold Bird Duffs in New York. I we sold

Most of the better stores in the in the country. You know, we worked very hard to and Sam was a great salesman and we worked very hard to get the product placed in In the best stores. And um The company, its first year in business, did five million dollars. That's unbelievable. I think about a year in San went off and started his own thing. Or he he left to go work for I think a spree or something, right? Uh correct. But you guys left on good terms. We left on good terms.

So you I guess pretty soon, you know. early on in the within the first two years. You branch out. You you move beyond just women's shoes, you go into men's shoes.

You go into women's handbags and leather goods. Presumably because you thought There was demand for this, right? Yeah. I started with women's shoes.

And I and at the time there's a company called Nine West that started about the same time that we did. Sure. And They were making a 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 just to sell similar accessories to the same person I was selling to but I was trying to sell the coolest person on in town, and there's only so many of them. And I knew that if I had to if I was going to

sell more shoes. I was invariably gonna have to change the my relationship with the customer and I was gonna have to be a little less cool and produce maybe them in a little more accessible manner. Which means that you had to offer a lower price point. I would order a little lower price point and they 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 compliment to the women she's which is myself. So I made shoes for me, shoes I wish I was there. Yeah. I w what I often say is I put myself in the customers' shoes to try to get them to want to put themselves in mine.

Let me ask you about men's. Choose right, because It seems intuitive that it would be easier to design men's shoes because they're more straightforward. Is that true? It was for me.

'cause I c would put myself in my shoes. I I would look at it I it could much more critically look at it and say is this does this shoe need to exist in the world? But Even in nineteen eighty four. the designs of men's shoes, of course they're different than they are today, but but there's some some pretty substantial similarities, right? I mean you had loafers, you had lace ups, you had

Chuka boots and and Chelsea boots. I mean those existed in nineteen eighty four. But fashion Men's fashion was just you know, finding its stride at that time. You know, 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 ev every guy we were like

We wore the same uniform. Right. And at that point people were almost being encouraged and motivated to express themselves and that there was a that vehicle was first really becoming accessible.

One of the things that you would eventually become really well known for, in some ways as well known for as your shoes, was cause of Bring attention to AIDS. AIDS crisis. And I think e in the mid eighties.

You were already really getting involved. in this because of one of your designers. Um David Brignoli was the First person that you knew who

who's H I V positive and eventually Was was it David who inspired you to become involved in in in AIDS awareness. Never really acknowledged to me that he had AIDS. He would never he never even told me he had AIDS. But um but I I knew he did and and um

And this was And again the mid eighties. I I d adore David. David actually was an interior designer is what it was. He actually designed The trailer. I think I had originally meant it from Sam. I think Sam knew him. He designed the trailer for you in nineteen eighty two. Yeah. He designed the inside of the trailer. And he designed the inside of our showroom. And

David was a gay man in New York and that was a You know, 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 and in many ways I was it was me, I was speaking to myself, you know, what was consuming me, what was on my mind, what was I you were thinking about

AID and HIV. And it was killing Countless amount of of mostly gay men. In New York and San Francisco and big cities. And intravenous drug users and then um but People were reluctant to talk about it because the stigma was so devastating.

So I always So to Find ways to make what I was doing as meaningful as I could. And uh arguably and I say this today, shoes are

Nobody needs what we sell. If every shoe store in America closed its doors tomorrow at twelve o'clock, hardly an American would go barefoot for fifteen years. And I knew early on inherently that it needed to be about more than how much money we were making. And HIV was affecting our industry.

In a disproportionate Way. And um and people were talking about it. Because they couldn't. So I decided to

Do a campaign. And and also at the time Contextually I had All these initiatives happening, we had We Are the World. Hands across America. Right. World aid, farm aid. And they were all about hunger.

Mm-hmm. So There was this looming black cloud and no one People were We're not. Comfortable.

Talking about eight. Talking about eights. Sure. People wouldn't want to be around you. People were afraid that the that they would catch it. People were afraid. And you could potentially lose your job, you can lose your neighbors, you could lose your health insurance, you could lose everything that you valued. So It was a frightening Time and maybe because I wasn't

a member of one of those at risk communities, I wasn't as fearful as others. And many women at your time were some of the biggest advocates. And I committed myself to it and and quickly quickly what I was doing was becoming meaningful to me. Hm.

And and just to be clear, I mean You launched an ad campaign. Uh to raise Awareness. Around AIDS.

I mean for people to remember, that was like a really iconic ad, right? I mean it it I mean it showed up in all these magazines Yeah. You had All these

fashion models and they were just really becoming icons at that time. So I asked Annie Liebwitz That was the little Yeah, up and coming.

designer, but I asked Annie if she would do it and she would take photographs. If she would on a pro bono basis, I didn't really have any money, if she would help me Do a campaign, do a photograph. And she agreed to do it. And then we reached out to all of the top models in the industry. Like the thing in the mid eighties. They were the top models of the time. At the time Christie Brinkley was one of them. And Christy did it, by the way, and she was eight and a half months pregnant. And Chris Christie hadn't been seen publicly in I don't know, five months, but she let herself be photographed. Um for this eight and a half months pregnant. As was Paulina and Beverly Johnson. Paulina Peroscova, or remember all these supermodels on the Joan Severance, yeah. Beverly Johnson and Joan Severance.

Kelly Amberg. So everybody said yes. And they would just be photographed what? So they were the the concept was the campaign was the message was for the future of our children. Right. And the notion was We're talking about stigma. How do you talk about what nobody would speak about? And that was

There was this silence. That was deafening. And then I had to decide what they were gonna wear and I figured I can't put'em in my shoes because then This campaign loses its purpose. It's gonna look like it's um self serving. it n I didn't want to send that message to Annie, I didn't want to send it to the the viewer or anybody else. So

I said, you know what, I'm not gonna put my sh's, I'm not gonna print anybody else's, so they'd be barefoot. And that at the end of the day turned out to be even a bigger statement. They were barefoot. They were not even wearing shoes. They were not wearing shoes. And and and how w so the idea was to take out ads and like publications and So I wasn't sure how we were gonna do it. I had a pretty small budget. And there was no such thing as pro bono advertising also in those days. So we got automastic we did do it.

And then with Children. And the these were two groups that were not stigmatized. Everybody appreciated Beautiful Woman. And we have dull children.

We didn't uh have a problem with them until they had a grew up and had opinions. So we had this beautiful Photograph that Annie took. Of All these women and the message was for the future of our children. And then in small let us support AIDS research.

And and it didn't say Kenneth Cole anywhere on it? It said Kenneth Cole in the in a list of Sponsors. Wow. And so you really were like not this was like It was a gamble.

I wanted people to know I was behind it, I wanted to know I used my limited fragile resources. For this. But I didn't carefully. My role to Arts D was creative and

And that campaign in many ways changed me. It changed the man, it changed the brand, and it changed my business in in a in a profound way. Because all of a sudden that you became more focused on a social mission. And it became meaningful. I'm looking at that ad.

It's so cool, like just seeing all these Young faces, Christie Brinkley and Andy McDowell and Paulina Poroskov and all these kids. It's really cool. Yeah. So at the time

So I now had the message. I had now had the ad and I ran and I started calling all the magazines to see if anybody would run this for us because I didn't have the budget to And I and I had Everybody had done everything pro bono and that wasn't really what you did in those days. That notion didn't really i exist out there. So the models all did it And he did it. Studated, hair makeup I think was donated. I even had cars donated so people could pick people up. And um

The magazines I think the magaz the message ran into 23 magazines, which is a lot. And um at the end and then once it ran in a couple, we had a lot of other people calling for it, orphaning to run it for free. You also I I'm curious because this was sort of a foundational moment for your career and and for you personally

Um I mean you would become the chair of Amphar, uh the the Foundation for AIDS research Um which you helped. raise hundreds of millions of dollars for You would go on to be involved in other causes that are quote unquote liberal or considered to be liberal, and you are openly

Right. Talk about that. I mean I mean is it is it I mean, you know, some some companies and some business leaders kinda hide their politics and I mean, not only do you kinda wear it on your sleeve, you're married into the Cuomo family. You're you're you're you got married in nineteen eighty seven to the sister of the current governor of New York and and daughter of the former governor of New York. I mean, did you ever think uh maybe I shouldn't be political because it could hurt my brand, or was it like a non uh non negotiable? But you know, Guy, I I have been asked that question over the years. And I and I tell people that I'm not political.

Um the my messages are not political messages. They're social messages or maybe human messages. But but they're not social they but they're social messages that have been Proticised. But I don't talk about politics. Right. And uh I mean I have on one or two occasions'cause I couldn't help myself, but for the most part I have made a very exerted effort.

Sure. Thirty plus years. Not to talk about Things that I Or certainly in ways that I thought was political.

So your business is really kind of Kinda growing in the in the eighties. And really your distribution model is still through big retailers. Right,'cause this is still the heyday of department stores and where lots of people got their clothes and

And And I guess in in like ninety four. you decide to actually make a change to actually really Focus on

Direct to consumer sales. What happened in in ninety four? Was there Like a catalyst that sort of inspires you to start to open up shops. What happened in ninety four was the landscape changed. Yeah, when I started my business there was maybe seventy

Or eighty departments to a change in the United States. All of a sudden, ten years later at this Maybe Fifteen or twenty. Consolidation.

And then I woke up one day and I think if I recall Campo was Trying to buy federated Department stores. And these are two stores that were in and of themselves

Leveraged. And questionably solvent. And I said to myself That's These guys need to find economies because they don't exist today.

And they can't sell any Cheaper so they're gonna have to buy better and invaria that was that's likely gonna mean is they're gonna take out the middleman and I'm the middleman and I didn't I didn't like the way that felt. Why were you the middleman? I mean you were selling your con your products to them. Yeah, but they could buy it directly from factories and and then take out the middleman. And and then no longer sell Kenneth Cole, just buy your shoes and not sell your label. They'd buy similar shoes under diff uh their own labels and I'm not in business anymore. Which was happening to some people. So unless I my brand was a destination. Then I was n had no reason to exist in those stores and I wouldn't. I I didn't I believe.

You didn't think that they would just continue to buy Kenneth Cole shoes and sell them? I didn't. I thought at a certain point They're going to eliminate the middlemen if they could. Yeah. So I needed to open stores.

I needed to Growth My presence. Increase my marketing. And I also knew that I couldn't

Fund that. I wasn't willing to fund that. So just to be clear, you had to to fund that. The that is Building stores. I'm just trying to understand though'cause the value proposition

Was your designs. They couldn't steal your designs. But there were other designs, and if you don't see my designs like a tree in the forest, I'm only as good as you know me to be. And if I'm not out there. Then I don't exist.

When we come back in just a moment. Why Kenneth decides to take the company public? And why he takes a big financial loss. to go private again. Stay with us.

I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This. From NPR. One more thing, the New York Times bestselling book, How I Built This, is now available. It's a great read and a great gift for anyone looking for ideas, inspiration, wisdom, and encouragement. to have the courage to put out an idea into the world.

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I'm Guy Raz. So it's nineteen ninety four. And Cath Cole decides he no longer wants to depend on selling his shoes through department stores. What he wants is a direct relationship. with his customers.

So How do I Um where I need to be, when I need to be, to the degree I need to be. You can't do that without controlling ultimately the distribution and having your own stores at the I felt at that time.

So you need the cash. You need to you need money to to to make this happen. I needed the cash. Yeah. in any more debt than I needed to be. And um I decided by going public was the best way to do that. And invariably when you go public and you ask the public's for funding,

There's a question everybody asks, which is use of proceeds, what are you gonna do with the money? Yeah. And I had a very clear use of proceeds. You were gonna expand like crazy. I was gonna grow the business to as responsibly as quickly and as responsibly as I knew how. But it isn't'cause on your own, you've taken the company from a five million dollar operation in your first year to a eighty five million dollar operation by nineteen ninety four, which is impressive, but not enough.'Cause uh that's revenue. That's sales and revenue. That's not enough cash profit. To fund the ambitions that you had. You had to go public. Presumably raised a lot of money in that IPO.

Now you get the cash to expand. So what what was the expansion plan? So the expansion plan was to open stores in Important markets which our aspirational markets. In Chicago and Los Angeles.

And Miami and Boston. And we systematically went Down that road. I mean by the by the late nineties were people flocking to Kenneth Cole? Stores?

Matter if I just were fucking it. We were We were s this sh stores were all profitable and they were driving customer engagement and the brand was doing better. Wherever it existed. it did better in the department stores and Because people would see the brick and mortar stores and that was like a an advertisement. Yeah, and then there was people I remember having a conversation with Nordstrom at the time and they were a a big customer and They were challenging the fact that we had all these stores. And I would show them.

quantifiably how to do it. Every mall that we had a store, where they had a store. They better with our shoes than Northstrom's that did not have a chemical store. And I think because there's people that wanted to buy from Nordstrom or from Boomingdales or from Sachs or wherever it was. And they're gonna do that.

And I just helped. create a cachet and elevate the brand equation. So everybody won. Do you know it's very similar.

In a strange way to um To the story of Foot Locker. I interviewed the former CO Foot Locker Ken Hicks. Whenever there was a Nike store Opened up in a mall.

Actually it increased Foot Locker's business. Right. Yeah, I believe that. Very interesting. You would think the the the opposite. Um so you had these stores. And by the way, we're um I mean

Were you licensing your name at this point in the late nineties or not yet? I was. You were licensing your name to Other products, apparel, sh men's dress shirts, things like that. I don't think I was doing apparel and dress shirts yet. I I was doing for sure I had done women's handbags and then I had done How to wear.

And I think I had done men's ties and a couple of things. Right. But was your brand. I mean your reputation was kind of aspirational, right? So

you call it higher end or aspirational, w what have you, but When you started to license your name Did that have an impact on on how the brand was perceived? Because some of those products would show up at like TJ Maxx. Well it it didn't initially because that wasn't the case initially, but I I made a One of the biggest deals I had ever made.

as a company, we licensed women's wear. The Liz Coy Born. And they agreed. Too huge. minimum sales levels. Um actually two hundred and fifty million dollars a year, which is crazy high numbers. That was a guarantee that they would pay. Guaranteed by the wow. By the fifth year of our

relationship. But it is, but until you realize that they had to make the product more accessible. More accessibly price more accessibly. Fit. design so it it it fits a a broader.

customer base and uh it's priced Which is what they wanted to do at the time. And I was as a running a public company, I was blinded by Demands and An encouragement to

Drive sales and uh Good shareholders. They wanted to make money. That was what we signed up for as uh as as chairman of public companies. I I'm sensing a hint of regret in that deal with Liz Claiborne because it sounds like maybe it started to affect the reputation of the brand. It was a good short term decision, but

I I I didn't have appropriate foresight and and it over time it did dilute The brand. Value. So it did take the product down market and and as a a fashion company, you have to keep reinventing yourself and um

And you need to r re maintain some level of aspiration, otherwise that's you'd have no re reason to exist at a certain point. So um The brand lost a little of it bit of its esteem, um, when we did that. Meantime, you reach a a a market cap of a little more than half a billion dollars in two thousand six.

And then in the subsequent years we begin to hit the financial crisis. And I guess you decide at the time. To step down.

as a CEO. W was it d you decide to step down because you felt like somebody could better manage the crisis or or were you did you feel were you under pressure from shareholders? What what was the decision behind that? If I recall, I stepped down at the same time that I agreed to be the chairman of Amphar. Uh I gotcha. Okay. I got so it had nothing to do with the financial crisis. It but it w no, it wasn't the crisis, but I also felt I needed The company needed somebody who could be a little bit more accessible. Focused, right. And more focused. And uh

Could be all in all the time. So you you had kinda stepped away from running the day to day operations for a few years. You had a a different CEO, Jill Granoff. Yeah. During that time.

Uh Revenue went down like Thirty percent. Or or more. And you decide to return to the CEO role.

I think around. Two thousand eleven. I mean I think I know why but W did you feel like you had to come it was like Howard Schultz came back to Starbucks.

after being away from it for so long. Did you feel like you had to re regain control and and try and Bring it back to life. I felt I needed to Fix the business.

Hm and it wasn't working the way it was. We've gotten too big. We're selling some of the wrong product to the wrong people. We're licensing to people maybe we shouldn't have been had maybe the wrong product indoors it shouldn't have been in. Because invariably that's what the

Public markets. will do to companies. Like ours. But You know, uh I what was happening is we as an executive team were spending most of our time talking about

How we're gonna talk about the results rather than trying to f how to fix them. You you were trying to figure out how to spin things. That's yeah, that's what you do. And how do you make what you're doing sound as good as you can. And rather than how do you make it better. So Being public is not

You know, it's a certain place to be unless you need public markets to finance and run your business. And um We need it to get smaller to get bigger. We need it to shrink.

The business Step back. And we couldn't do that as a public company. Partially because of my personal Visibility

Yeah. But as a private company, you can do those things. So we felt we needed to go private. And I needed to make that happen. So you had do you decide to come back to the company with the goal of Taking your company private.

And for anyone who doesn't understand this, and I I don't fully understand it, it is very hard to take a company private once it's gone public because you are essentially You gotta buy back the shares from shareholders, which means you have to raise a lot of money to do that. And that's very challenging. I mean I think But how did you go about doing it? I I don't remember exactly step by step, but we did what most people do and we hired a law firm and um

We retained bank advisors and uh I spoke to a lot of people in the industry. And you know, actually the process getting here is I I spoke to all these very smart people that I knew and uh and many of them were friends and I asked them You know, if I totally try to overhaul the business and

Bored and restructure and they all said to me, Well that's great but you can't do that as a public company. And then they'd say, Well, and by the way, why are you public? And I said, Well I because I don't know how to not be public. Well they said, Well just it shouldn't be that hard and they you know, looking at your balance sheet. So

'Cause I I had always maintained and held on to the So We realise that

upon analysis that I can do this Without A venture capital firm. Mm. them many will argue it's harder it's it's harder to exist in that structure than it is as a public company.

So you could do it with the shares that you already had. But the shares I had in and traditional bank financing. Right. And and From what I understand you

You bought the company uh back at fifteen and a quarter. Per share which Uh value the company like two hundred and eighty million, which Which was hundreds of millions of dollars less than it was at its peak. So was there

I mean imagine There were some shareholders who were mad about this, who who didn't want this to happen. You know, w when we announced that we were gonna do this We announced it at nine o'clock when the New York Soccer Exchange opened, we put out an announcement.

We had a class action suit filed and on our desk. By ten o'clock, an hour later. So You have this built in Process where

You know, these law firms just file suit and then they build the quest afterwards. They start a quest action suit and then they find Quest, and they sue you without knowing any of the facts. 'Cause that's irrelevant and they will attach

As part of the process. You've been quoted as calling these lawyers who file these lawsuits extortionists. And you may not be wrong here, but but uh just just play devil's advocate for for a moment. I mean, could you make the argument that some shareholders were, you know, legitimately pissed off because they bought the shares for, you know, twenty dollars or, you know, eighteen dollars and now they're gonna lose Three dollars a share. But if I

If we offer fifteen dollars and the stock at the time I th was thirteen, so we offer a premium of twel fifteen to twenty percent. So there was a benefit everybody was realizing. And then the process was going on so long we lowered our offer because The value of the company has gone down in this process. And we had basically said to the marketplace

If you And I had also said I'm happy to do this. And what can you do about? And it's called the majority of the minority. So I won't even vote my shares because my shares W more than fifty percent.

Of the outstanding vote. So my shares will not vote. And The public shares will And if the majority of the minority shares win, then we the deal will not go through. And if it does, then it will and we're h we'll accommodate that. And it did.

At the end of the day the lawsuit crest action suit continued and uh over time We prevailed. But it must have been costly. And stressful. It was costly.

But It's part of the process. It's part of the the way you have no choice, you have to do that. And uh and Uh it was one of the best

When you went private. So you go you take the company private. And Now you're you're unshackled, I guess. All of a sudden you didn't have to think about short term profits you could focus on.

the brand. You could focus on long term strategy. And it was your company think you you I think you still own about eighty percent of it. Well at that time I owned eighty percent, now I own a hundred. We we we had I brought in some outside um some of these friends and who who were advisors and invited them to buy it in at the same sh price that I did and that and they formed an advisory board.

And I should also mention that I think not long after that, um You start to close down. your stores, most of your stores. We systematically started to close the stores. And the prior

Management team had opened up a lot of outlet stores and places where we shouldn't have been. And the model had changed and we should not have been in that business. And outlet stores do outlet stores also kind of devalue a brand. I think they do, but also a change in that period of time. is the internet. You know, the outlet stores were a way to bring value to the customer.

But the internet does it effortlessly. There's a whole marketplace that Aggregates or the best existing product wherever it is and makes it available to wherever there's supply to wherever there's demand. So the outlet model in my mind anyway at that time

was obsolete and I wanted to make the brand a better brand and I I felt we it should not be in these stores. So we systematically went about closing them. You closed virtually all of your stores. I think today today there's just what I think Just one or two? Is one story, yeah.

Up until about Six years ago we had a hundred stores in the US. I mean completely. overhauled this model that you had I mean, the reason you went public was to expand the stores and expand the brand with stores and brick and mortar.

And and the reason we went private is to cause them. But really it's now you on the line. It's your Personal. Right. financial situation.

you you want a hundred percent of the company. If it goes bust, you're broke. You've assumed the risk. I'm assuming all the risk. Yes, that's correct. Which is comforting, truthfully, at some level because You know, when you're driving somebody else's car, you drive more carefully because it's somebody else's car. But

You could be uh hair more reckless if it's your own. Or you can take more risks and you know, you can explore kind of new paths that uh Others might not otherwise. You step down as CEO for the second time. Um

and then brought in Mark Schneider to run the company and the brand in twenty fifteen. Um and and together you kind of Focused on on a rebranding. Like rebranding Kenneth Cole. What what was'cause you had a bunch of different things you had Kenneth Cole, reaction and and and different

parts of Kenneth Cole. What was the rebrand supposed to signal to consumers. in twenty fifteen. Well what we wanted to do is to You can have a a label and th that could be a lot of products that have your name on it, but if you can have a brand

You have to deliver a consistent at every point of execution. And that's the h the hardest part about doing it, especially over as many years as we've been doing it. And it it's so we're on a lot of different products today. We licensed the brand and I don't know, twenty some art products. And we've been I've been a licensor for twenty five years and it's probably something we do relatively well, but

I think the brand definitely is the rooted. in the process at at some level because and you have to every day make Very difficult decisions and uh Every single business decision. has financial implications.

And it also has Brand implications. But r right now we're up running and operating the shoe business ourselves, everything else until We were o operating the clothing businesses too until recently, even then we licensed them out. So uh but right now we're running shoes.

Do you still think of your shoes in that same way, aspirational? I mean I'm looking at the website, you know, they're th this these are not this is not fast fashion. I mean you're you know, you have a pair of your women's heels are still a hundred and some of them are hundred and sixty, hundred seventy dollars, so they're not, you know, designer prices, but they're They're not the low end either. Uh the goal is to I don't think people buy price. They buy value. And people learned a long time ago you pay a dollar for something you never wear it, you pay too much. So how do you create a product that is

that looks good, that's comfortable, that will f look and feel good today as well as tonight. And that's the challenge and and That's what we try to do every day. I wanna go back to the Rebranding.

side, right? Because you you you had a very clear idea of what the brand was when you launched, and it of course evolved, because brow brands evolve. But when you rebrand it. Who who who did you want your customer to become? Who did you imagine your customer to be? The goal was to

I I m in my mind I wanted it to be me. I wanted it to be I wanted to want every one of us shoes and we want to wear every one of us shoes and I wanted it to be my wife and people who I think have great taste and um So Was it realistic? Was it a little aspirational? Did I go a little far too fast? Maybe.

But I still always believe in aiming higher. Knowing that even if you come up a little short, you're you're in a better place than you were. Are you still involved in designing? The shoes. I am

Not as involved on a day to day basis, but I ultimately see everything and approve everything. What is a uh shoe that gets you excited right now? That you guys are making. It's something that Does everything for you that checks all the boxes.

You know that today Post Covid I I talk about a P C W what's the P C world which is post Coronavirus. And what are gonna be our expectations and and how

What's our appetite. I don't think there is a closet anywhere that today isn't full. So we have to give you a reason to make room in your closet, which is in and of itself. And it's very attribute driven. And um

Right now I'm very focused on the most important new accessory, which is uh one that nobody has in their closet right now and everybody knows they need. And even if they have it, they know it could be better. The mask. I see on your website, they're nice masks. So we're trying to make the perfect mask. It doesn't just look good.

It has six layers of protection. It is temperature control, it's waterproof. So that Is it kinda getting on for resources put behind that right now.

Um one of the um benefits of our show, certainly this year has been is a source of comfort for our our audience and our listeners who um are running businesses.'Cause it's been a tough tough year for pretty much everybody unless you're Unless you're running an online productivity software that everyone seems to be using remotely, right? And I have to imagine it's been a tough year for Kenneth Cole because it's been a tough year for the entire fashion and retail industry. Full stop. Yeah.

How are you building resilience into your company this year. It must Yeah.

A slower here. It is a very slow. It's a very difficult time. Um year guy. And you know, we're better off than most because a lot of our the business model's built o is on on contractual relationships and licenses. Right. So there's guarante there's a sh some level of assured income. But this isn't sustainable and we need to partner with our Last season we do.

And the shoe business, you know, struggles into the degree is how do you variaze as much of your business as you can. So you don't have all this You know, massive overhead. Um fortunately we had closed stores. Unfortunately we had made other decisions as well too to become a a little bit leaner. And our goals to become as agile, relevant, and profitable. Those are the kind of the three. Boxes we look to check.

And we're trying to You know, stay a step ahead. Um, earlier this year launched a new initiative.

called the mental health coalition. To raise awareness about mental health and and and try to remove the stigma around it and help people get access to mental health services.

First of all, um We haven't talked about this. Have you ever um been depressed or or or gone through mental.

Mental health. Challenges. You know, uh I d I don't think I do, and I don't think I did. I know I shouldn't say I don't think I did. It wasn't w what kinda set me off down this path, but so many people in my life are living and struggling with this every day. And then I came to realise maybe I am as well in different ways. I I've been in a perpetual fog.

Since Covet happened. Yeah. Yeah. Um WHO says that one in four people will live with mental health conditions in their lifetime. We say it's four in four. We say it we say it's everybody because if it isn't you, it's somebody you love. It's somebody in your family, in your community, or in the workplace, but we're all living with it. In fact today, post Covid, I think it's five out of four people. I think it's also your pets. I think it's just so overwhelmed us. And I don't think people have a clue.

how devastating this is gonna be for Extensive. periods of time. But uh so we you know we as a company Where working with Nami, I think it's how it came back. My daughter also, Amanda, kinda encouraged this and something she's very important to her.

Nami was uh has a uh An initiative on um Anti stigma free companies is we always look to what is Nami, sorry, I'm not familiar with Nami. I'm sorry, National Alliance for Mental Illness. They're the largest grassroots Mental health. Um service provider in the country. So they say to us

Will you help us with an anti stigma campaign like you did with HIV? And that a that stigma for mental health is as bad today as it was with HIV twenty years ago. So We work on a whole new narrative. psychiatrist. Qu just out of curiosity for a definition of depression and I got five different answers.

And the r the reality is none of them are empowering. Every one of them are diminishing. So how do people talk about their circumstances and you wonder why two thirds of the people with mental health issues are in are in the shadows because they don't have a narrative they can resort to. So let's create that. And let's build the community. So we go out and we reach out to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, Bring Change to Mind, Brain and Behavior Institute, Child Mind, Crisis Text Line. Jet Foundation, Mental Health America, every one of them says we're all in. We built this

Massive coalition of mental health. Providers. And then we now set out to create this narrative. So it's a it's an inspiring journey that I've embarked upon and it's become a

And an impact, I think. And a privilege that I have to Be able to Have such Extraordinary.

organizations and individuals who've agreed to cooperate to hold hands and to uh to work together on this. Yeah. Ken, when you think about your journey.

Right. starting out, you know, kinda helping out your dad and And then you really had Incredible success. uh with this business.

Not only financial success, but you Cultural. impact me became A name.

A designer. talked about with Don Carin and Calvin Klein and Ralph Lorin and Kenneth Cole all the same? Breath. Pretty amazing achievement alone. You're very you're very cutting.

Go, thank you. Do you attribute your success to How hard you worked and and how smart you worked, or do you think More of it just happened because you got lucky.

Well, my f my father used to say to me that the harder I work, the luckier I get. But I don't think it's just brute. you know, working hard, I think it's also Having a sense of What people want.

And putting yourself in their shoes. And I I work hard. I'm Very emotionally best in what I do. And I love it. And I guess the time comes that I don't.

Um it'll be harder to keep it going. Are you comfortable calling yourself a designer now? After thirty five years. I am. I still say I'm a shoe dog. That's an expression people in the shoe in the in the shoe industry say and I I I embrace it still.

I mean you are still a young man, you got a lot a lot of life left in you, maybe you know, thirty, forty years, who knows? Uh with with genetic engineering, maybe um fifty or a hundred. But At some point you won't be around. What do you think? should happen to Kenneth Cole, do you see it as a Under your brand, do you see it?

I I I don't know. I I think if the brand Can Have a roll today, if it can make an impact. And it has a reason to exist tomorrow, then so be it. The world is uh

It's very fragile and People don't buy brands today, I don't believe any People recognize today that they are their own brands and every day they wake up and they curate their own brands on their social media. And they don't just curate the content, they also curate the audience. So uh and I'm just an accessory, I'm just I co brand with them and I hopefully they'll allow me to be part of their brand. So if my brand is a reason to exist For however long it does, then that's a privilege and it's something I'll forever be grateful for.

We have to earn the right to exist. I think after thirty some ideas I've earned the right to be considered, but every day we have to earn the right to be chosen. And that's all we can do. That's Kenneth Cole, the founder of Kenneth Cole. And by the way, remember how he registered Kenneth Cole as a film production company in the early days? and how they started to make a film called Birth of a Shoe Company.

Well, you can actually see clips from that film on the company's YouTube page, where you will also notice a young, lanky, and bearded shoe salesman Who happens to be Kenneth Cole. What kind of shoes are you wearing right now?

I'm actually wearing Kenneth Gold Sneakers. Nice. Assuming your shoe closet is only Kenneth Cole. It's not only can it go, but it's all that I admit to.

Got it. Fair enough. 'Cause I I think about my own shoe closet. I've got Six pairs of Chuck of Boots. I'm sorry to hear that guy. I've had Kenneth Gold too, of course. I respect you no less. I'm wearing Birkenstocks right now, just so you know. No, you're pushing it, but

And thanks so much for listening to the show this week. You can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can also write to us at hibtnpr.org. And if you want to follow us on Twitter, it's at how I built this or at guyRoz. And on Instagram, it's at guy.Roz. This episode was produced by JC Howard with music composed by Ramteen Arablui. Thanks also to Liz Metzger, Dereth Gales, Julia Carney, Niva Grant, and Jeff Rogers. Our intern is Farah Safari.

I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening. to how I built this. This is NPR. No

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