Episode 9 – Fern Mallis, the godmother of fashion

Fern Mallis, the godmother of fashion

In conversation with Brendan Drewniany

For this week’s episode, we were honored to sit down with Fern Mallis – the celebrated creator of New York Fashion Week who, through her own Fashion Icons conversation series, has bent the ear of the titans of fashion.

So, turning the tables, we talked about the feelings that motivate her travels. Along the way, she shared her insights and experiences from a lifetime spent at the top of the industry, offering tips and recommendations on everything from her native New York to India – a country she’s visited an astonishing 50 times.


“See the world with your own eyes, not through somebody else’s and not through a three inch picture.”

Fern Mallis

Transcript

Owen Vince: 0:01
You’re listening to the Pursuit of Feeling, a podcast by Black Tomato. In this new series, we want to explore not only the world of travel, but the world of emotion and what it ultimately means to feel our way through the world. In each episode, you’ll also get a Rolodex of recommendations from our guests on where to go, what to do and where to stay all around the world.

Brendan Drewniany: 0:25
On today’s episode, I’m joined by the award-winning, legendary Fern Malice, an industry titan, described by many as the Doyenne and the godmother of New York Fashion Week, known for her celebrated fashion icon series at the prestigious 92nd Street Y, where she sets intimate dialogues with industry legends from Tom Ford to Victoria Beckham, to Bill Cunningham and Diane Wittenfelsenberg. She has shaped how we experience fashion today and around the world. Her global outlook and inspiration has been shaped by her many adventures, including India, and she brings her distinctive perspective to our podcast. We’re here with Fern Malice, who’s, among many things, the godmother of New York Fashion Week and a true icon, and we couldn’t be more grateful to have you here. So thank you so much for coming, fern.

Fern Mallis: 1:07
My pleasure.

Brendan Drewniany: 1:08
So I wanted to kind of get into a bit about your upbringing and connection to the city. You’re a native New Yorker. How have you seen kind of with your family in the business of textiles and being in the garment district? How have you seen that space change or even New York more generally?

Fern Mallis: 1:22
Well, New York has changed a lot since I grew up in Brooklyn, many, many decades ago. But it’s changed like everything else has changed in the world. When I was a kid and went to work with my dad, and every day off from school and vacation, this garment center was filled with garmentos the men on the street who worked in the showrooms and I say garmentos lovingly, but they also wear all the deliveries and the trucks and the trolleys with bolts and bolts of fabric and racks and racks of clothing coming out of showrooms onto trucks and you could see the industry physically happening. You can see the factories where things were being made and then you could see them put on hangers. You could see them getting in trucks going to stores.

Fern Mallis: 2:03
You don’t see any of that anymore. All of that is offshore now. All of that’s in Bangladesh or India or Vietnam. Most of the showrooms, the factories that were in the garment center, are now office spaces. Many, many buildings are hotels. It’s completely changed the dynamic of the business. You know, you used to go up and down the streets and you’d know God, that’s 557th Avenue. That’s where Oscar is and Bill Blass is and Donna’s business and this one and that one and Carolina.

Fern Mallis: 2:35
You know all that’s kind of changed now when I was at the CFDA. Our offices are right in the heart of that, at 1412 Broadway. They’re not there anymore. They eventually moved down to Soho and now they don’t even have an office. So the Garment Center doesn’t have that exciting pulse of oh my God, I want to be part of this industry. It’s just another bunch of blocks in New York.

Brendan Drewniany: 2:53
Sure, I imagine that’s just quite jarring, or interesting, though, to see that kind of evolution. Looking a little bit further afield from New York, you have a special connection to the Hamptons. We’d just love to hear about how that is for you. Connection to the Hamptons, we’d just love to hear about how that is for you. Is it an escape? Great groups of friends Like what does it mean to you as a destination?

Fern Mallis: 3:08
I don’t think I’d still be alive if I didn’t have my house in South Hampton. It’s where I go, and it’s like putting your phone on the charger. I’m there and I get my battery refilled.

Brendan Drewniany: 3:18
Absolutely.

Fern Mallis: 3:20
I’m on a beautiful lake and I’ve been in a particular house I’m have. Now it’s like 28 years wow and before that I rented for six years on the lake I’m on, and before that I rented all through since I got out of college in different places, but I wound up buying the house and renting on that lake when I joined CFDA in 1991 and uh, with Stan Herman who had has a house there for 60-some-odd years.

Brendan Drewniany: 3:44
Okay.

Fern Mallis: 3:44
And I rented one of his cottages and I fell in love with being there, and six years later it was a house on the lake that I wound up buying.

Brendan Drewniany: 3:52
Ah, I love that.

Fern Mallis: 3:53
And it’s been transformative. For me it’s really special, and the Hamptons has changed like everything else.

Brendan Drewniany: 3:59
Indeed.

Fern Mallis: 4:00
There’s way too much traffic, way too many people there Bad drivers.

Fern Mallis: 4:03
Everything has gotten so expensive, little houses that you could find cottages, I mean, are multi-millions of dollars now. I mean, when I was there the beginning and through the years growing up, artists and writers, all were in the Hamptons, all the artists I mean artists unless you’re In the Springs especially too.

Fern Mallis: 4:22
Yeah, unless you’re like at the Gozian Gallery you can’t afford to live there and work there it’s true, and that’s what’s happened in New York. Young, creative talent from all over the world and all over the country. All they ever wanted to do was graduate and go to New York.

Brendan Drewniany: 4:36
Right.

Fern Mallis: 4:37
I don’t know where they live, can’t even afford Brooklyn anymore.

Brendan Drewniany: 4:39
Queens is expensive.

Fern Mallis: 4:40
Queens is expensive I mean maybe some are going to the Bronx. I don’t know it could be I mean I don’t think they’re going to Staten Island, but you know, we’ll see. That’s what’s changed. But that’s, the world has changed and I don’t want to sound like a curmudgeon. You know you have to just kind of roll with it.

Brendan Drewniany: 4:55
Yeah, it’s very true. I think it’s interesting. Traveled the world, but also you’ve traveled the States, and when you were a young editor, Mademoiselle. We’d love to hear more about that, because you were exposed to many different markets throughout the US and I think even have some upcoming travels to domestically. We’d just love to hear a little bit more about that.

Fern Mallis: 5:14
When I was at Mademoiselle, one of the jobs I had was in the merchandising department, which meant that we would go to big department stores everywhere and do promotions with the magazine. So if it was a month where body fashions were featured, you know we do an event in that department in the store. One year I traveled with this incredible Russian gymnast, nick Kronowski. He would show people how to do all these extraordinary things and we’d clear the department, put on a little show and you know we do all these different events all over the country. We did events called On Location.

Fern Mallis: 5:51
We do makeovers in the store and clear, you know, a floor in the clothing department and send people to the bathrooms to get their hair washed and do hair and makeup and dress them up, and we did all sorts of events that tied into the magazine’s themes. I mean you name it. I went to every city, from Peoria to Chicago and Dallas and Houston and Austin and in the country I was at a very young age and I used to have to go and rent cars sometimes in these cities and I was almost too young to even rent a car. It was an extraordinary experience and all the stores that we did events in all were regional department stores. There was Meijer and Frank Higby’s and Perdine’s, and I mean I can’t remember all the names now. Now they’re all Macy’s. Right At a certain point, macy’s bought every store and became homogenized and not anymore the local store that you grew up with, marshall Fields in Chicago. Right yeah, marshall Fields doesn’t exist anymore, the local store that you grew up with, marshall Fields in Chicago.

Brendan Drewniany: 6:44
Right yeah, marshall Fields doesn’t exist anymore.

Fern Mallis: 6:47
That’s kind of sad.

Brendan Drewniany: 6:48
It is.

Fern Mallis: 6:48
But it was an extraordinary experience traveling around the country and seeing all those places.

Brendan Drewniany: 6:53
Yeah.

Fern Mallis: 6:54
And I still in the last bunch of years when I left IMG and left Fashion Week, I was advisor and consultant to Charleston Fashion Week for like six, seven years and to Philadelphia, you know, and I’d been done trips to Gadd and Savannah.

Brendan Drewniany: 7:09
Sure.

Fern Mallis: 7:10
And you know, and then we do San Antonio Fashion Week once and Omaha, and it was great. And I, Charleston is one of my favorite cities, two stores there that I buy more than anything that I buy in New York.

Brendan Drewniany: 7:22
I really, which stores that I buy more than?

Fern Mallis: 7:23
anything that I buy in New York Really, which stores RTW owned by a woman, janice McNaminen, who’s like a Geraldine Stutz character from the Bendel days like a real old merchant and another store called Worthwhile which is very edgy European kind of brands and I love those stores.

Brendan Drewniany: 7:39
What do you think about Charleston too? What draws you to it Is it has a sort of European sensibility, but it’s very much its own.

Fern Mallis: 7:45
Southern charm. You know, it’s just everybody’s polite.

Brendan Drewniany: 7:48
Yeah.

Fern Mallis: 7:55
Everybody’s nice and Charleston, I love King street. I mean, it’s so many independent brands and shops. It’s not like what East Hampton has become.

Brendan Drewniany: 7:59
Right.

Fern Mallis: 8:00
I mean, now you go to East Hampton and it’s Prada and Vuitton and Chanel and. Balenciaga, and I hate that you know, that’s not what the Hamptons should be. All those people can buy and afford that.

Brendan Drewniany: 8:12
Get it in New.

Owen Vince: 8:12
York or get it in Europe, you know.

Fern Mallis: 8:14
I mean, but Charleston has maintained that kind of charming what you always find, like there’s a great shirt shop and a great cowboy boot store.

Brendan Drewniany: 8:22
And.

Fern Mallis: 8:23
I mean. Everything there is lovely and the food is spectacular.

Brendan Drewniany: 8:30
Now looking a bit further afield with India, like you have a pretty personal connection to India and is there some sort of emotional pull? You know you’ve been really paramount with bringing Indian fashion into focus and would love to hear just about trip that they told me I’m going on is to India.

Fern Mallis: 8:55
And I went. Really, I was not crazy about going.

Brendan Drewniany: 8:58
Yeah.

Fern Mallis: 8:59
I have an older sister who’s an architect and when she graduated from Harvard, the GSD, she won a Fulbright and she spent a year in India and she was the Indian one in the family, you know, and traveled and lived in Ahmedabad and all over the place and I was like I’m going to Italy, you could stay in India. But then this trip happened. I literally I got off the plane in the middle of the night. You land there like three in the morning, you know, and you get a smell of India, of earth, when you get off. First trip. The airport was a real old airport and you know lines of people and one guy with mountains of papers stamping real old airport. And you know lines of people and one guy with mountains of papers stamping things. Now it’s one of the most sophisticated, gorgeous global airports in the world.

Fern Mallis: 9:39
But I remember getting in the car and driving to the taj mahal palace, you know, by the gateway of india, one of the most fabulous hotels in the world and probably still to this day my favorite hotel. Arrived there in the crack of dawn and in the middle of the night and it felt like Grand Central Station. There was so many. I mean the whole ride. There were people on the streets everywhere and the animals on the street and little shops and things. Where you go. How do people be so resourceful in these like tiny spaces?

Brendan Drewniany: 10:08
Right.

Fern Mallis: 10:09
It’s an extraordinary country and the hotel was spectacular and the next day I met all the designers that were part of the upcoming first fashion week in Mumbai and I fell in love with all of them and we had a fabulous week. I shared lots of expertise of how to tighten this up and make this better and how to do this this way and that way, and you know, and that became the first of some 50, 60 trips to India.

Brendan Drewniany: 10:35
Wow.

Fern Mallis: 10:36
You know I was going several times a year and then we did it in Delhi and then back to Mumbai and then Delhi and subsequently you know I would try to carve out time there to go to Rajasthan and Hardivar and then, into the South, to Kerala. And I mean I’ve covered a fair amount of the country and Goa. Lots of friends who’s had houses in Goa. That’s their Hamptons. If you live in Mumbai, you have a house in Goa.

Fern Mallis: 10:59
And you know you take a quick flight there and that was always fabulous. It was like their Hamptons or it felt like Indian St Barts. Oh, that’s a great description, it’s wonderful and I have so many friends there. I and I have so many friends there. I mean, I go to shops and jewelry stores where the necklaces I’m wearing are from and.

Fern Mallis: 11:16
I walk in and they’re like hi, Fern, welcome back. You know, they all know me. I send friends to go to those places and I say ask for Fern’s price. I always get Fern’s price everywhere and you know, and it’s great, and I’ve had many, many birthdays in India because Fashion Week would fall many times in into March sure and many parties at the Taj Hotel, you know, and I’d come in and I’d have my pillows on my bed were monogrammed by them.

Fern Mallis: 11:42
I’d come back to the room and there were balloons and rose petals everywhere and cakes and buckets of red roses.

Brendan Drewniany: 11:48
I mean, they just know how to treat their guests royally they do, they really know hospitality, and it’s from a place of warmth and authenticity and everybody.

Fern Mallis: 11:58
the service is extraordinary. Years later, when I went back to do a conference there for the hindustan times, I brought calvin klein and donna karen with me and we were all at the hotel and it was great. Donna had some textile guy with all the silks coming to her suite, buckets and buckets of scarves and prints and fabrics and she’s like which ones do you? I like that one, I like that. One Season later I saw them cut into things in her collection.

Brendan Drewniany: 12:25
Oh, that’s remarkable.

Fern Mallis: 12:26
I loved it. I took Calvin to this one of my favorite restaurants there, trishna in Mumbai. Oh my God, it’s like I make everybody go there. Yeah, but everybody in india is just nice, you know. I mean, they really are yeah the clothing and the jewelry there is sort of a mecca, oh it’s, it’s pandora’s box.

Brendan Drewniany: 12:44
It’s fantastic your travel style. Are you someone that’s itinerized? Are you someone that goes with the flow? Do you like to wander? Do you like to get a bit lost, like what’s?

Fern Mallis: 12:54
I think years ago I did. Now I’m not so sure about wandering and getting lost, but I don’t like being so rigid, I like having a little flexibility. I would prefer to have in my phone. I know exactly the car is coming, you know, and or the number of the driver, you know. In India you always have a car and driver, no matter what you know, and they drive you for other cities and you don’t ever have to worry about them. They stay in. It’s your first time doing that.

Fern Mallis: 13:21
You go really yeah but they’re, they’re terrific so fern.

Brendan Drewniany: 13:27
You’ve been with fashion week, new york fashion week since the beginning. You’ve been sort of this pioneer it’s so many other places now we’ve just discussed india, but paris and and how’ve been sort of this pioneer it’s so many other places now We’ve just discussed India, but Paris and how have you sort of seen the space grow? How has it changed over the years, with new destinations, emerging destinations, and how is it different? How is it kind of the same Like? What does it look like kind of today, not just necessarily New York, but perhaps fashion and other places.

Fern Mallis: 13:51
Well, when I started and put together New York Fashion Week and organized it and modernized it and centralized it, which was our mission, paris and Milan were very established, functioning fashion weeks with a destination and a central place where most of it happened, although even in Paris, with the central location, which was in the courtyard of the Louvre, and then after the pyramid was built, there was a space underneath there that was for Fashion Week, but people had shows, all you know, in various places around the city, because Paris has some extraordinary venues and places and buildings. Same in Milan, but Milan for many years had their shows at the Fiera grounds where the big trade fairs are. And London also had a smaller fashion week, new York. You know, when I started it, there were 50 shows in 50 locations. Nobody knew what was happening. It was like, you know, if you weren’t in the business, you had no idea. You know you’d go down 7th Avenue close by and you know you maybe would see a line outside. You didn’t know if it was for a sample sale or you know what was going on. You know, until we organized it and put it together in Bryant Park and it became an event that people knew. Every taxi driver knew it was happening. Everybody knew it was happening.

Fern Mallis: 15:10
You know, after the success of New York over many years there were lots of other cities that then saw that and copied that. I mean, my friends in australia came and copied it and created a fashion week in sydney and one in melbourne. Um, the india locked me fashion week in mumbai. They came here and saw that and tried to replicate it. And then img got involved and bought us. And that’s when I went over there.

Fern Mallis: 15:35
Other countries were like we could do that too. You know, like, because they saw the economic engine that it provided. It created publicity for this city in the country. It created business. People were booking hotel rooms, restaurants, parties and openings. And you know so at a certain point in my career I was going all over the world as img’s fashion week ambassador, going to dubai, going to amsterdam. We created week in berlin. We bought the australian group, we bought the um, made deals with the moscow fashion week and um, we’re going to toronto, created a fashion week. We got involved there. Mexico City, you know everybody wanted to have a fashion week in their country.

Fern Mallis: 16:19
And now, literally I don’t think there’s a country out there that doesn’t have a fashion week. Go to Africa, nairobi and Ghana, and all the countries, even in Africa. I mean, I went many times to South Africa’s fashion week in Johannesburg, which is fabulous, and then the same thing happens in America. We used to call regional fashion weeks, like I said, charleston and Boston and Nashville every city wants a piece of that and the bottom line is that there’s talented people everywhere. You don’t have to be in New York to be a designer. You know you can be anywhere and make clothing and you know, and you’re just always looking for a platform to show it to people. You know, and lots of these cities, you know, would go after corporate sponsorship. Taking the cue from what we did in New York. We were the first fashion week that had corporate sponsors to pay for things and have sponsors and lounges and all of that, and so they all looked at that and said why don’t we do that? But you know, I’ve been a huge supporter of those regional weeks because let people do it.

Fern Mallis: 17:22
And now there are fewer stores and department stores. There’s no Lord and Taylor, there’s no Barney’s, everything’s changed, and some of the even big e-commerce sites have fallen and there’s lots of new ones. But now, because of this thing you hold in your hand all day long, your iPhone and Instagram everybody can have a storefront and be in business. You know, you just need to create something that goes viral or captures somebody’s attention and from nothing you can all of a sudden have millions of followers and start a business. You know, do it in your garage, do it go to some friend’s factory. I mean, people are resourceful now. It wasn’t so easy a long time ago, but now it’s kind of easy to do something. But you have to be creative. You have to have something that people want and that fills some niche somewhere, you know. So that’s where fashion has changed. But this thing has replaced a lot of travel for everybody, and when I speak to student groups and school groups, I say get away from your computer and your iphone, get on a plane, get on a train.

Fern Mallis: 18:24
Travel absolutely travel, see the world with your own eyes, not through somebody else’s and not through a three inch picture.

Owen Vince: 18:32
That’s not it.

Brendan Drewniany: 18:34
No.

Fern Mallis: 18:34
Even on television it’s not. Go and experience it yourself and you absorb that you learn so much about other cultures and you you have to be you know Helen Keller to not come back and spoil it. Exactly.

Brendan Drewniany: 18:47
When it comes to travel, what inspires like? Is it a sense of discovery? Do you like discovering new things? Is it what draws you Fern to choose to go somewhere? Let’s say it’s Japan. Is it to source something? Is it to be with someone? Is it for a vibe, or is it Well, it’s a combination.

Fern Mallis: 19:02
Some of it is just work and it’s an opportunity for a job and an opportunity to do something. You know, I still have bills to pay, so I need to keep working. Otherwise, you want to take a trip to relax and to chill, and I mean take a vacation. I’m very jealous. My sister just came back from almost three weeks in Greece and several days in London, you know, and I was watching her pictures and her drawings that she was doing and I’m like, oh God, I want to be there. I want that Greek salad, you know, right by the harbor, and that’s what I look forward to.

Fern Mallis: 19:38
I used to go to St Bart’s a lot in the winter. Truthfully, once I got my house in the Hamptons, I don’t take vacations as much because I feel like I have the house but the house is not a vacation you get out there. You gotta get the groceries, you gotta water the this and that and take care of things. I’m in need of a nice. I want to be somewhere where somebody brings me a pina colada and just says what else can I bring you? You know, and, uh, what will you have for dinner?

Brendan Drewniany: 20:05
what is like your ideal day in new york? And if you’re not necessarily working, like where would you go to have lunch? Where would you grab a coffee? Could be your neighborhood, have a drink early dinner, like what does that look for you?

Fern Mallis: 20:17
well, I live on the Upper East Side and I have a nice apartment and I have a lovely terrace that has a lot of beautiful plants on it and it also has a nice big Harris Waltz sign on it I love it. I have one too and when I’m in the city I like sitting out there, weather permitting, and this fall has been ridiculous in new york. The weather’s just been gorgeous, so I mean I will hang out there. I have a fabulous little cafe on my corner on 68th and madison, called bellamy which um learned is a close at the end of.

Fern Mallis: 20:53
October after 15 years, because the landlord of the building is empty and is trying to sell the building, and so that’s a little bit of a heartbreak. So I’m not sure where I’m going to go for that chai latte on the corner, to find another place. But you know, I like to just relax and chill, read the papers and you know, get the weekend papers if I’m not in the country. There’s a couple of restaurants in my hood that I like going to. You know Bar Italia in Le Charleau, and you know I like going to the Polo Bar. I like Japanese food.

Fern Mallis: 21:28
You know, there’s a proposal in the works.

Brendan Drewniany: 21:30
There might be a restaurant in the future called Fern’ss very exciting so stay tuned about that absolutely we’re at a funding phase now you know, I mean you’ve interviewed some incredible people and would love to hear more about kind of how transformative that’s been for you. I mean, you obviously are personally quite close with, I’m sure, a lot of these people and also sort of you know being at at the Y 92nd Street Y um, you’re a real you know, it’s obviously a fixture. Yeah, how does it feel to sort of look back on all of these fascinating people?

Fern Mallis: 21:59
well, the series fashion icons with Fern Malice at 92 Y is has been totally transformative and it’s probably one of the things I’m most proud of in my life. You know the tents were great.

Fern Mallis: 22:11
They’ve come, come and gone, disappeared, and fashion week’s a mess now it’s all over the place. You know, like you forget that it was ever organized, although everybody begs me to please come back and do it and that’s not going to happen. Yeah, but the Y series, you know that’s real content and so far there’s two books out of it, hopefully a third coming. You know that’s real content and so far there’s two books out of it, hopefully a third coming, you know, and books are in the library of Congress and they did. They did definitive interviews with these iconic lives and everybody from Calvin Klein and Tom Ford and Mark Jacobs, andre Leon Talley and DVF and Veer Wang and Bill Cunningham, the Valentino and Victoria Beckham and the Missonis and DeSondra Rhodes, and it goes on and on and on.

Fern Mallis: 22:59
I just did Laura Roach, the stylist. It was 700 people, over 700 people screaming and loving and clapping and laughing. I love it. They tell the story of these people’s lives. I ask questions that dig deep and you know, you walk out of there and you feel like I know this person. I like them. How did they do that? I’ve always said that the designers are more than a name on a label. Who are you? How did you build a business. How did you start from nothing? None of the people I’ve interviewed were given the keys to the kingdom, dad’s retiring you know dad’s retiring, you take it over honey Right.

Fern Mallis: 23:35
They all started from a dream and a passion. You know, even Leonard Lauder I interviewed and you know he started with his mom in Corona, queens, I think, making formulas in their kitchen and, you know, eventually packaging them up and going to a counter at Saks and, you know, to the biggest global beauty business, you know, in the world.

Fern Mallis: 23:56
You know these people are remarkable to learn how they did that and I love that about them and I love you know it’s a curiosity and it’s sharing their stories and it’s a hugely successful series going on 14 years. It’s amazing. And some 65 interviews. Content is remarkable.

Brendan Drewniany: 24:18
Yeah.

Fern Mallis: 24:19
I’m very, very proud of it.

Brendan Drewniany: 24:20
You should be, and what would you say is just a piece of advice for someone that is a young entrepreneur who wants to start something Like what is sort of like your golden rule of success my golden rule is to be nice.

Fern Mallis: 24:33
That’s the first advice I give everybody. No matter what you’re going to do, be nice, because nobody wants to work with somebody who’s as entitled or thinks they’re entitled, or as a diva or a pain in the ass. You know you have to work with people and there’s a lot of talent out there. You know everybody’s competing with talented people. You want to make the choice to be with people that are nice, you know. And then if you’re starting up a new business, you know be focused, be clear. Don’t try to do everything. You can’t just stay narrow.

Fern Mallis: 25:04
You know, hire an attorney at the very beginning of your business. You know, don’t wait until you’re in trouble and need to hire somebody. Get it all worked out first. And also, it’s financial, you know. I mean I don’t think anybody realizes how much money you go through to start a business, whether it’s your friends and family or a good financial institution or banks that you’re working with. You know get the money. And you know and learn that If I had to do one thing over again growing up, I mean I would have spent more time learning about finances.

Fern Mallis: 25:36
It’s easy to ignore and you know reading spreadsheets and I mean I always said no, somebody else will do that, Let me be the creative part. Well, no, you know, you need to know it and take responsibility for it.

Brendan Drewniany: 25:48
I love that. So, yeah, where are you off to next?

Fern Mallis: 25:50
Actually for it. I love that. So, yeah, where are you off to next? Actually, this weekend I’m off to Florence. Alabama and I’ve never been there, and it’s Billy Reed’s 20th anniversary.

Brendan Drewniany: 25:57
Fantastic.

Fern Mallis: 26:05
And he’s having a shindig which is his big celebration with music and food and fashion and tours around the city. And you know, I have to sign up for the Frank Lloyd Wright house tour and you know, and lots of great food. And Ioyd wright house tour and um, you know, and lots of great food, and I’m going to do an interview with billy to talk about how he started that business and what it means, and um, so that should be a fun trip.

Brendan Drewniany: 26:20
Yeah, wonderful I love that, fern. Thank you so much for being with us and, uh, it’s been an absolute pleasure you’ve been listening to the pursuit of feeling, a podcast by black tomato.

Owen Vince: 26:32
If you’ve enjoyed this episode, then please hit the subscribe button. We’ve got a lot more episodes on the way and if you’re feeling inspired by what you’ve heard today, then visit blacktomatocom. We’ll help you to travel where your heart is. Thanks for listening.

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