VUE Long Island

VUENJ.COM 77 myself, leading a team, and having the courage to put your work out into the world. VUE: What !rst made you want to become a fashion designer and, ultimately, build your own business? I come from three generations of tailors. My mother and her mother-in-law were both master tailors and seamstresses. As a child, I fell asleep many nights on piles of fabric, listening to my mother sew late into the night. I always wanted to follow in their footsteps. Fashion was simply part of my life from the beginning. I always joke that I have one skill—design. Well, that and I make a mean coconut cake. VUE: You built your name during a very di"erent era in fashion. What did the industry teach you then that has stayed with you throughout your career? It taught me the importance of being free creatively and expressing yourself in your own way. It was also the beginning of seeing these incredibly strong female archetypes emerge in fashion, women who were con!dent, individual, and unapologetically themselves. #at has always stayed with me. VUE: Your collections were carried by some of the most prestigious retailers in the country. What did reaching that level of recognition mean to you at the time? It was such an honor. I'll never forget seeing my clothes at Barneys or walking into Max!eld in Los Angeles and immediately worrying that everything wasn't absolutely perfect. Inside, though, I was incredibly proud, and honestly, a little bit in shock. To see something that started as an idea in my head hanging in those stores was an extraordinary feeling. VUE: You eventually stepped away from your namesake brand and moved into a leadership role at Levi Strauss & Co. What did that chapter teach you about leadership, scale, and running a major fashion business? It taught me so much. Suddenly, I was seeing !rsthand how a truly global company operated. I remember meeting someone when I !rst started whose entire job was buying buttons. I couldn't believe it! Coming from my own company, where you were involved in everything, it completely opened my eyes to the scale and specialization of a business like Levi Strauss. I had incredible mentors and worked alongside enormously talented people, many of whom I'm still friends with today. To suddenly have that level of talent and resources at your !ngertips was extraordinary. Richard Avedon shot my advertising campaigns. Who gets to say that? Seeing my name on billboards was surreal. It was a wonderful, exhilarating chapter of my career. THE COMEBACK VUE: A#er more than a decade away from your namesake collection, what inspired you to bring Janet Howard New York back and why now? It simply felt like the right time. I still had so much I wanted to say creatively, and I realized I wasn't !nished. I wanted to come back to designing under my own name, but with everything I had learned and experienced since the !rst time around. VUE: How is this new chapter di"erent from the brand you built in the '90s? It's a fresher look at the way women dress and present themselves today. I stay true to my tailoring background, that will always be part of who I am as a designer, but now I'm looking at it through a di"erent lens. I want to o"er women of all ages clothes that make them feel con!dent, feminine, and beautiful. I think style becomes even more interesting when you stop putting an age on it. WOMEN & LEADERSHIP VUE: Was there a woman in your own career who opened a door for you, challenged you, or fundamentally changed the way you approached business? #ere were two women in particular. Tracy King, my merchandising partner at Levi Strauss, taught me how to pare things down, edit, and focus. #at was incredibly valuable for me as a designer. Bobbi Silten, who was president at the time, taught me to believe in myself and in my vision. Both women in$uenced me in very di"erent ways, and I'm incredibly grateful for what they taught me. VUE: You've also spent time mentoring emerging designers. What is something you !nd yourself telling young women over and over again? Stay true to yourself, to what you believe in, and what you love. #ere will always be people with opinions about what you should or shouldn't do. Listen, learn,

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