Second Life

Stephanie Summerson Hall is the founder and CEO of Estelle Colored Glass—an assortment of cake stands and stemware in jewel tones and soft pastels. Currently available everywhere from West Elm to Anthropologie to Nordstrom, the entire collection is handblown in Poland by glassmakers with over a century of experience in their craft. But before Stephanie had been bitten by the entrepreneurship bug, she spent 10 years practicing business and corporate tax law in Washington, D.C. Tune in to hear her candid telling of it all.

In this episode, we bring you behind the scenes of our March beauty cover with Who What Wear beauty editor Katie Berohn and actress Rachel Zegler. Zegler is best known for her part in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story, but her career is just getting started. She’s here to talk about upcoming projects like Shazam! Fury of the Gods, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, and the new live-action adaptation of Disney’s Snow White. Plus, Zegler shares her real thoughts about social media and her favorite beauty looks of all time.

Amy Chang—or Bond en Avant, as you may know her—has made a name for herself as a massive beauty content creator. She shares reviews of various products and services with over two million followers on TikTok and Instagram. Her audience comes for the beauty and stays for the personal connection, like her recently shared adoption story, which has since garnered over 11 million views. But back before she was serving up highly engaging content, she actually began her career at a PR agency in NY and subsequently took on clients of her own as a freelance publicist in L.A. It’s been quite the journey to land where she is today, and Chang is enthusiastically candid about just what got her there.

Journalist Maggie Bullock began her career in the beauty department of Vogue before spending 13 years at Elle, where she oversaw the fashion and beauty pages and wrote her fair share of celebrity profiles. In her new book, The Kingdom of Prep: The Inside Story of the Rise and (Near) Fall of J.Crew, Bullock shares the definitive history of J.Crew, including all of its juicy internal politics and the backstories of larger-than-life characters Mickey Drexler and Jenna Lyons, plus the history of the subculture of prep and its place in the American psyche.

With the launch of Arey in 2020, Allison Conrad created an entirely new haircare category not meant to cover up gray hairs but prevent them from forming in the first place. Initially launched as a single supplement, the assortment has grown to include seven products, all formulated with a clinically efficacious peptide to help delay and re-pigment gray hair. But before Allison had an idea for her own company, she was growing many others. After an early career in fashion, she began working for early stage companies like Blushington and Erin Condren, plus consulting and advising consumer companies like Vegamour and Goodmylk.

For Who What Wear’s February cover interview, editor Jasmine Fox-Suliaman sits down with the incredible actress Storm Reid. Best known for her standout performances in projects like 12 Years a Slave, A Wrinkle in Time, and Euphoria, at just 19 years old, Storm is already a force within Hollywood. In this episode, the pair discuss the significance of the roles within Reid’s catalogue thus far; her intentionality within a notoriously challenging industry; and her newest project, HBO’s series adaptation of the video game The Last of Us.

Laura Brown, former editor in chief of InStyle, knew from a young age she was obsessed with magazines. She moved from Australia to London to New York to pursue her passion, eventually landing at Harper’s Bazaar, where she’d make a name for herself as a creative visionary. It came as no surprise when she was announced as the editor in chief of InStyle, where she steered the massive boat of both print and digital sides of the business. But since the print magazine folded in 2021, Laura has been a free agent, and at the end of last year, she announced her plans for quite a second life—founding a media company of her own. LB Media is positioned as a multi-platform media company encompassing television, podcasts, luxury collaborations, design, and nonprofit consulting. Or as Laura calls it in this episode, “an umbrella over a buffet.”

Hillary passes the show over to Who What Wear fashion editors Anna LaPlaca and Eliza Huber, who are coming to us straight off the heels of New York Fashion Week. After seeing what this season’s showing designers have in store for us for their fall/winter 2023 collections, the ladies are here to break down the trends they’re spotting and the moments that have already broken the internet.

Megan Klein is the founder and CEO of Little Saints, an assortment of “plant magic mocktails” boosted by premium-sourced functional ingredients like reishi mushroom, botanical terpenes, and CBD. Aimed at providing an elevated experience within the drinking culture, Little Saints’ offerings are modeled after popular cocktail beverages like the ginger mule, paloma, spicy margarita, and negroni. But back before Megan was creating an alcohol-free empire, she spent her early career as an environmental lawyer. Eventually, she left law behind to become president of an indoor vertical farming company which went on to create plant-based products still on the shelves of Whole Foods today. Hear how Megan found her way to her perfect fit of a career after some strategic experimentation on this week’s episode.

Celebrity stylist Thomas Christos Kikis is responsible for the incredible looks worn by women like Amelie Zilber, Zaya Wade, and the one and only Gabrielle Union. On this episode, Thomas talks about finding his way to the top of the styling industry, the incredible body of work he’s done with Union, and his tips and tricks for owning your own style—including the importance of tailoring and a good pair of loafers.

Recipe developer, cookbook author, and chef Molly Baz rose to culinary fame during her days as senior associate food editor at Bon Appétit magazine. Since departing the magazine in 2020, she’s not only taken full control of her personal brand, but she’s also expanded it tremendously. Today, Molly has one New York Times best-selling cookbook under her belt: Cook This Book. With a second book on the way, a natural wine label called Drink This Wine, and a number of product collaborations on the horizon, Baz is unstoppable. She continues to send out weekly recipes for her subscribers in The Club, releases cooking videos via her YouTube series, Hit the Kitch, and has amassed over 700,000 followers on Instagram. But before her multilayered career within food and media, Molly’s career in professional kitchens looked very different.

Danielle Sherman is the founder of the fine jewelry line Sherman Field, known for dreamy hand-linked chains, textured-gold photo lockets, and one-of-a-kind stone earrings and rings. But in addition to her reputation as one of the premier fine jewelers within the fashion industry, Sherman has a wild fashion résumé, which includes co-founding The Row with Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, working as the head designer at Alexander Wang, and serving as the creative director for Edun. She’s here to talk about it all, from how she got her start in the industry at just 16 to what to look for when investing in your own fine jewelry.

Gaëlle Drevet is the founder behind the fashion-editor beloved retailer The Frankie Shop. With a booming e-commerce presence in addition to boutiques in NYC and Paris, Gaëlle has created an expertly curated, undeniably cool retailer that cuts through a noisy industry time and time again. It’s no surprise that The Frankie Shop isn’t Gaëlle's first rodeo. In fact, the store's Lower East Side flagship store in Manhattan was once home to her first fashion venture, Pixie Market, where she brought a similar assortment of reasonably priced items to a slightly younger demographic back in 2006. But before diving into fashion at all, Gaëlle was on quite a different path as a producer for ABC News in New York and London. Tune in to hear how she made the switch from journalism to fashion entrepreneur.

Tina Leung, stylist, street style icon, and new star of Bling Empire New York, has been a mainstay of the global fashion scene for years. She’s worked with major brands like Valentino and Loewe, and during the pandemic (alongside other fashion heavy hitters Phillip Lim, Prabal Gurung, Laura Kim, and Ezra William) started the digital series and comic House of Slay, in which superheroes take on "racism, hatred, bullying and fear of the 'other.'" Tina’s here to bring us inside her world—from the designers she has her eye on to the places her crew eats in each fashion capital around the world.

Marguerite Zabar Mariscal is the woman leading all that is Momofuku: a pioneering restaurant group credited with starting the rise of contemporary Asian American cuisine in the United States, an assortment of restaurant-grade pantry staples like ramen noodles and addictive chilli crunch, and bona fide culinary empire. Over the span of 11-years, she’s worked her way up from public relations intern to brand director and chief of staff. As the trusted right hand of celebrity and James Beard Foundation Award–winning Chef David Chang for years, in 2019, at 30 years old, she was named CEO of Momofuku. On one hand, it all makes sense (after all, she was born into the family behind the specialty import emporium Zabars), but to Marguerite, the path was far from mapped out ahead of her. “I feel like anyone who grows up wanting to be a CEO is like a psychopath,” she tells Hillary on this week’s episode. Tune in to hear how Marguerite pivoted from thinking she’d find her place within the media world to leading one of the most influential restaurant groups (and beyond) of the past two decades.