Fashion & Founders The Podcast · Victoria Smith

Rebecca Minkoff: Building a Household Name Fashion Label

·37 min·2 clips

Rebecca says a fashion show can cost at least $250,000 and last only 10 minutes.

1. Fashion & Founders The Podcast features Rebecca Minkoff on building a household-name fashion label. 2. Victoria Smith hosts Rebecca Minkoff, the designer behind Rebecca Minkoff and the founder of Female Founder Collective. 3. The episode asks how a founder turns an early DIY fashion idea into a durable brand and business. 4. Rebecca says she moved to New York at 18 for a paid internship that paid $3 an hour and skipped college. 5. She worked there for about three years, then started making her own pieces on the side because she wanted her own projects. 6. A cut-up I Love New York shirt with rhinestones went to Jenna Elfman, who wore it on Jay Leno after 9/11. 7. Rebecca says that TV appearance kept people from hanging up on her when she called about her clothing line. 8. The bag did not launch until 2005, four years after the shirt made the brand visible. 9. Rebecca says she had already been sewing since age 8 and spent four years sewing in a performing arts high school costume department. 10. She says learning craft, AI design tools, garment costing, and P&L basics matters more than a fashion degree alone. 11. Rebecca says Female Founder Collective grew out of feeling lonely as a female founder with few peers to ask about business problems. 12. She says the group now has more than 2,000 members, a wider community of over 30,000, and programs including workshops and events. 13. She describes Female Founders Day in March as a 90-minute, nitty-gritty workshop format rather than a self-congratulation stage. 14. Rebecca says her company projected its first profitable year when the first round of tariffs hit and the business lost money. 15. She also says the second round of tariffs hit during fall market, so apparel orders disappeared because retailers did not know whether a blouse would cost $100 more. 16. During COVID, Rebecca says 70% of the business evaporated overnight, but the team chose to fight because employees and families depended on it. 17. Her tone is blunt and practical, and the interview stays focused on operational lessons instead of brand mythology. 18. She moves between founder advice, business breakdowns, and personal examples, with Victoria Smith pressing for specifics. 19. People building fashion brands, especially founders and operators, would get the most from this. 20. Listeners wanting vague style talk or celebrity gossip should skip it.

As heard by us

A founder story that keeps one eye on brand and the other on the numbers.

Rebecca Minkoff's conversation with Victoria Smith reads as a grounded founder story, moving from starting at 18 and heading to New York City to building a brand into a household name.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Want the origin story behind a fashion label that became a household name?

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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