September 27, 2024 • 47 mins
This week, Rachel Zoe is joined by Briony Raymond, a Fine Jewelry Atelier to the Stars. Her talent and expertise in creating some of the most exquisite jewelry has made her highly sought after in Hollywood and beyond. From boarding school, to a career in finance, Briony found her passion in the luxury jewelry space and never looked back. Let's just say...she's a real gem!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hi everyone, I'm Rachel Zoe and you're listening to Climbing
in Heels for your weekly dose of glamour, inspiration and fun.
My guest today is a newer friend of mine, but
it feels like I've known her honestly for my whole life.
Briannie Raymond is a fine jewelry attilie, and her expertise
in creating some of the most exquisite jewelry has made
her highly sought after in Hollywood and beyond. From boarding
(00:31):
school to a career in finance, which honestly is quite impressive,
Brianie found her passion in the luxury jewelry space and
has really never looked back since. Briani's creativity and savvy
mind for business is so inspiring, and I'm so much
in common with her as a working mom in a
high demand industry. She is truly a gem in every way.
(00:51):
So let's get right into it. It's going to be
such a fun one. I've wanted to have you on
because you're a little bit of this, in my opinion,
secret weapon. I think in the world of jewelry, and
I think I think there is a lot of you know,
you have this devoted customer you have. I would say
clientele makes more sense here, but I would say you
(01:13):
have a very loyal, devoted clientele, some that you know
nobody knows, some that many would know. But in the
world of luxury jewelry, it is pretty top secret, right,
And I think you've probably built your career in a
very top secret manner. And so I wanted to bring
you on today to sort of talk about this very
(01:36):
unknown world to most people, and how you decided to
go out on your own and create Briany Raymond, and
which is such a chic name, by the way, it's crazy.
I think I fell in love with you. We you know,
we'll get into it more later, but I do want
to say how we met was funny enough, not through jewelry,
(01:56):
but that you came up to me at the Beverly
Hills Hotel during award season and I had my boys
and you were like, oh, I have two boys, and
blah blah blah. And of course the first thing I
noticed is you're talking to me, is your pound of
jewelry you had on And I'm like, what on earth?
And you were like, yeah, I have a suite here.
I'm here like dressing people for oscars or whatever, and
(02:17):
I was like, why don't we know each Like I
was a little confused, like how come we didn't know
each other? And then I think later that year, you
were like I'm here, and you know, I just want
to show you something I created for you, and like whatever,
and then it was love at first sight. And from
that point on, I was like, we're girlfriends. I get you,
(02:39):
I see you in many ways, and I think since
that time, I feel like I've known you a long time,
but I continue to be a fan. And so I
want to talk today about your journey to the top
because it's an interesting one, for sure, and I think
it's important to share. So okay, Briany, Okay. So you
grew up where.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
I grew up in Connecticut, and I actually went to
boarding school quite young. My family, ever, always says, oh,
why did you get sent to boarding school?
Speaker 3 (03:07):
I like, no, no, it was a good thing. I
swear I wanted to go.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
I come from, you know, a long line of boarding
school kind of kids and my family and that sort
of independence and autonomy and headed up, you know, sort
of being off on your own from an early age.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
How old? How old I was fourteen?
Speaker 2 (03:23):
So whenever people talk about, you know, college being their
first foray into sort of an independent sense of running
their schedule and getting their things done and all of that,
I said, oh, well, you know, college for me was
a breeze because boarding school was not. You know, I
sort of figured out at fourteen, and so I sort
of I grew up there. And my dad actually was English,
so we spent summers in England, and all my cousins
(03:45):
and nanties and grannies and everything was all sort of
spread across England and different parts of Europe. So at
the time as a kid, you could imagine I was like,
I just want to go to Disney World.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
I don't want to be weird.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Why are we always a museums and like and then
verse as I got older, I was like, wait a minute,
that was incredible and I'm so lucky to have had
an experience.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
But you know, so I'd say it was a little
bit of a little bit of a gypsy.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Moved around a lot, lived lots of different places, and
I never actually lived at home again. After my freshman
year a boarding school, actually went to go live with
a dear friend of mine for the summer and we
lived in Atherton, and we had summer jobs and hung
out with her family, and that was literally from that
point on, I never went home again. So I actually
(04:31):
have never spent any time like at home in the
sort of common definition of that with parents since then.
And I'm forty three, so it's been a long time,
serious and so mad living all over.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Yeah, actually true. That So from fourteen, which is about
how old my eldest son is, you're telling me my
son that can't pick out his clothes nor make scrambled
eggs that I made for him this morning before school,
you were basically figuring out your life from that point.
(05:04):
And listen, I think for you, for Europeans, boarding school
is part of the upbringing. I think it is a
very big East Coast thing. Here on the West Coast,
when you say you're sending your child to boarding school,
they're like, why do you bother having children? That's like
their response, like if you're shipping them off?
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Right? And I know for us it was always, you know,
it was of course, I was such a you know,
I was so lucky to be able to go I went.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
To Hotchkiss Go Bearcats.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
I was lucky to be lucky to be at Hotchkiss
and truly my very very very best friends to this
day are the women with whom I lived. I mean
we sort of like created our own little families together.
You know, if you're suddenly thrust into this world of
sink or swim and you either show up for class
or you don't, and if you don't, you get kicked out. Yeah,
(05:53):
like my parents, definitely that was an option for me,
right so quickly you really learn I remember what actually
when the best things my mother ever said to me,
like just ever in life and just a huge influence
on me in general, but one of the sayings that
really helped me at Hotchkiss and helped me sort of
throughout my life. She always said, ninety percent of life
is just showing up.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
To show up, do the thing.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Say you're going to do it, you show up beyond time,
follow your own commitments. Just show up and boarding like boarding, school, college, life,
whatever you want to apply that to. I think it
really early on taught me about following through on commitments
and sticking to some sort of schedule and making sure
you're beholden not to someone telling you what to do,
but to yourself. Yes, you really have to take that control,
(06:37):
and that was amazing.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
So I'm like, where did I grow up?
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Well, lots of places right all over the place, right,
the common being me because there wasn't like a lot
of there was never really family around me.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
So so then what happens? You went to college?
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Are now? Yes?
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Where?
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Well it's funny I did, but I had two very
different college experiences. I went first to Rollins and Rollins
College Raleigh Colley Country Club is.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
The school, real sort of funny name.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
And I actually I went to Rollins because it felt familiar,
small middle art school in winter Park, Florida. A lot
of you know, my fellow sort of New York Palm
Beache whatever Northeast friends had spent time there. It always
seemed like a really lovely school, small class size. And
then I got there and again, imagine this whole sort
of boarding school thing. You had to go to class,
(07:28):
you had to show up. I was flabbergasted by how
many kids who were there found it so hard to
show up.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
And I got through the thing welcome to college, Yes, this.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Is what we're here for, right, and I was like,
you know, anyway, So it was a really really great
place to spend a couple of years.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
It was wonderful.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
In full transparency, I will say I was probably had
a little more fun than I should have, and I
decided I should move to a place it was also
better served to my love of fine art and art
history and all the things, which of course led me
to Paris. So I ended up transferring to school in Paris,
and I went to AUP and every division I all
(08:08):
the time people say to me, They'll.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
Say, oh Paris, oh the SBA. Like no AUP. My
classes were in English.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
I was not definitely not provision enough in French to
learn at a university level in French. So we did
have for wed to have four levels of French by
the time we graduated. And my parents wanted me to have,
you know, obviously a full, rich, wonderful education, but with
the caveat with transferring, which was I could only do
(08:35):
university for four years. So how tempting the like seven
year plan is when you're living in Paris.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Yes, but yeah, it was very yeah, and many of them.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
But I was not not afforded that luxury, and so
my parents said, you know, finish in four years whatever
you have to do. So I ended up doing I
switched my major to art history extraordinary. My love of
you know, beautiful things and textures and colors and all
the things was really fed in that environment.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
I got to do classes at you know, Muse d'lsei
and the Louver, and I mean it was the dream.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
It's actually the dream.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
The dream, like the actual dream of like all you
feel most stimulated by is design and art and culture.
To be able to go to school there was amazing.
So I ended up graduating from AP in four years.
Well wow, four years all the school combined, it.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Was wow wow. Okay, so then what have how do
you get into Like I remember you telling me you
had a totally different career prior to Jules, Right.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
I did, I did?
Speaker 2 (09:33):
And again this is I mean, as somebody who didn't
spend a lot of time physically living with my parents,
they clearly got an enormous influence on it.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
By the way, I want to talk about that for
a second. I think that's really interesting because you know,
I think as a Jahansan parent that I am and
that I know you are, Like, yeah, I know for
both of us, like the concept of shipping your young
children away is bizarre, but yet I know so many
people that you and I please no judgment, because I
(10:02):
actually I think in many ways it removes you. It
removes kids from the insanity of growing up in like
in LA or New York or whatever, where you're dealing
with all sorts of stuff, where you know, lack of
authority and all of the things that happen right that
we see over and over. But I also think it's
(10:25):
interesting because being away from the parents but yet becoming
these very driven, regimented, motivated, self starting kids because when
you're in boarding school, it's not an option, right like
when when you're home. When you're home, you can take
advantage of your parents, right like you can work them.
(10:46):
I know my kids work me. I mean, for sure
they do. And I'm not great at the tough flow.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
I think that delivers yummy mothering can be just as active.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
I say, I hope, yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
But that's why I'm saying it's interesting because you clearly
have gone the other way and and and but yet
look at the profound impact it had on your drive,
your ambition, your success. And I know there's obviously slip
ups along the way. There always are, and as you said,
by the time you got to college, you were like,
(11:20):
let this fall up the wagon right now. I need,
I need, I need to deregulate for a couple of years.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
And by the way, I had I had Streetd's.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
So just for the record, of course, I mean I
just show up, oh oh in college just you're physically there,
apparently just for a lot.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Yeah, but I do. I want to talk about showing
up because it's something that I like to talk about
a lot, because it's the one thing that I think
anyone in my life would always say, like, Rachel, you
always show up for people. You always show up for
your friends. You always But here's the thing. I want
to argue that that's should be a given. That shouldn't
(12:02):
be an accolade, that should be that should be a given.
I don't understand.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
I can literally hear my wonderful ly departed dad saying
to me, why should you or why should one be
applauded right for doing the right thing right? And that
was I think that's a shift in parenting culture kind
of in general a little bit, which again isn't right
(12:28):
or wrong, but I don't definitely what people are Oh
my god, Rachel, you said you'd be there, and you
were you and by the way, I can say that
obviously as a very lucky recipient of your following nereness,
as somebody who's very grateful for your incredible support and friendship.
But to have that be sort of something that isn't
(12:52):
necessarily the norm. You're like, no, no, right, that's we
say the thing and then we do the thing.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
We do the thing, we do.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
That so important and it's I'm totally with you. So yes,
it is a very important thing to me.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Is and I try and tell sort of young people
that I mentor now it's like the value of doing
what you say and the value of showing up for people.
By the way, showing up for a boss that you
hate still is important, you know. I really want to
touch on on your ability to continue to show up
(13:26):
and learning that at a young age and how valuable
that is in your career. Okay, So you graduate the
American University of Paris, you go, Okay, you major in
art history. But I believe didn't you do finance first?
Or did I make that up?
Speaker 3 (13:43):
You didn't make it up.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
And it sounds as if it were because it's so ridiculous,
But my trajectory is.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Not as ridiculous. As me doing finance, I assure.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
You highly unconventional my trajectory. But again back to these
wonderful parents of mine who had such enormous influence on me,
and their four year plan for me, not their seven
year plan, which was once I graduated.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
They had said, you know, we've done.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
All we can to give you the most and they
did the best education we possibly can, the you know,
most amazing experiences that we possibly could to set you
up to be on your own twenty two years old,
to go out into the world and be a productive,
functioning member of society. Right.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
That was so they're like, okay, go for you.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Yeah, I know, but also if you're twenty fourth on
your terrorist list in Paris, terrified but madly in love
with a city in which I had become.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
Very comfortable living, didn't want to leave.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
And the truth was they they completely cut me off.
I mean again with I say, this is like at
the time, you could imagine being like my god mean
cruel parents.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
I just want to, you know, be a gallery called
Tough Lafe.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Yeah, And they said, well, excuse me, They said, well,
if you want to stay in Paris, figure it out,
go do get a job that can allow you to
stay there and in France and mostly you know, in
Paris in general, the entry level jobs in major corporations.
I can't speak to trade jobs as which I don't know,
(15:16):
but I obviously am banking and an architecture and any
sort of roles like that. You start with what's called
a stage. A stage is basically an internship. So the
first year in theory after graduation.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
Every time a stage, you know who pays banks thanks.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
So I said, okay, well, if I want to stay
in Paris and I need to be able to support
myself to make this possible, why don't I go into finance.
And you know, so many people with whom I worked,
and I was sorry, with whom I you know, spent
time and family, friends and people I really admired and respected.
Of course, to finance, well, I know all these wonderful, lovely,
(15:54):
kind people who work in this world.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
I mean, I didn't figure this out. I want to
stay in Paris.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
And it's like it was such a sort of me
thing in the sense of I really really wanted something,
and so I was like, well, I'll figure it out, right,
I'll make it up. I will will myself into being
in a bank with a paid stash, I.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Will stay in there.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
And I was lucky enough to have a really great
job offered to me. Actually having at the time an
EU passport also really helped back to having the dad,
the English dad. So I was really lucky able to
be hired by a French company. I worked for associateatione AHA.
I was with Femats, which is their derivative brokerage ARM
and I was able to get this job which typically
(16:37):
I obviously not to get into all the rules and
regulations of hiring non French nationalism. But because it was
an EU, I had new passport, and I was the
only native speaker in my department of English. And let
me tell you, at twenty two going with quite literally
no experience at all in finance, and then here I
(16:58):
was helping the CEO of the company right speeches because no.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
One else spoke English.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
I mean, of course they spoke English, but nobody was
a true English speaker, the beautiful English, but not native
I had. It was the wildest like entree into a
world that I mean to say, I felt like unqualified,
sort of to a like a level you it's like
hard to explain. I literally went from like student in
(17:24):
Paris art history, the Louver bar, you know, clubbing and platine,
to like, oh, I'm a banker. Now I'm like incredibly intelligent,
like esteemed people and.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Was it all men? Was it all men?
Speaker 2 (17:41):
It wasn't actually mostly men, mostly men? Where were some wonderful,
wonderful women. I could also say it was as a
how do I say? It's a very perky American, high
energy American who genuinely like really loves to work, and
I mean I really love to work. That was also
a little bit of an interesting moment to have a
(18:05):
lot of grown ups whom I again looked up to
and reported to sort of say.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
Like, relax, take it down a notch, right, you don't
have to how many hours go home?
Speaker 2 (18:16):
And I'd be like, no, no, no, Like I want
to be here, I want to learn. This is all
new for me. So I ended up having it was
an amazing experience. And then from there I again sort
of tried. I was like, I had this finance thing.
I have to figure it out, because it wasn't I
really enjoyed being in a communications department, but I realized
that there was this other incredible world we worked really
(18:36):
closely with a lot of brokerage houses. So I ended
up being hired away by Man Financial and I was
an FX trader. So again, imagine it's like trading, like
I can trade. I'll figure this out. I mean, how
parkkings this be?
Speaker 1 (18:49):
That would like never happen. Now you have to have
like finance major, You've got to go to you you
have to get your MBA. You've got to get like
you have to major in finance. You have to have
ten interns ships prior. Like it's so wild.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
I'm so grateful. You want to know actually that you
didn't even have not like I.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Miss that, by the way, Like I miss that you
can do that, Like I didn't, by the way, I
didn't go to fashion school. Like now, it's just it's
so different, Like I missed the days of just pulling
people in that they thought were stars and that were great.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Well, one of the proudest accomplishments of my life, which
I swear was harder than probably anything other than maybe childbirth,
which was the FSA regulations. So the one thing I
did have to have was obviously it's the equivalent of
like Series seven or Series sixty three in the States,
but obviously the Financial Services Authority in England had its
(19:44):
own set of regulatory you know exercises through which you
had to go take the tests.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
It was so fucking hard.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
I've never literally never been challenged the way that I
was with this because I was learning an entirely new vernacular, right,
this is like a language I didn't speak, and it
was so gratifying to actually pass first time and to
like get all of these different sort of regulatory you know,
things that permitted me to actually legally be able to
(20:12):
trade and to prove people wrong who sort of were like,
you know, definitely had a few sort of like.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
Oh what is she doing here?
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Why were you alone? Like el Woods. It was like
a little like legally bland thing where they were like
actually like they were like oh, they were like is
she okay? Like does she really think she's going to
be able to do this?
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Nice? And then it was literally me like what loo,
it's hard but it was so hard. Ache, it was
so hard, but I did it.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
I did it, and that was probably like again my
next thing of like I really want this and I
can do hard things, like let me figure it out.
So I figured it out. But anyway, finance was the
FX thing was also really hard. But I ended up
moving to New York, and funnily enough, my last job
in finance I can see out my window. I'm on
fifty seventh in Madison as Wolly. My last job in
(21:03):
finance was there, and I was a I worked in
private wealth management and work for a fund of funds
with family offices.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
So I was like, Okay, three different markets, three different
facets of finance, this is all kind of like not
bringing me joy. It's interesting and intellectually stimulating, but like
not joyful.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Yeah, so I ended up. But that was my That
was my career before my jewelry career.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
And then what and then your first jewelry career was
vancleeve or no Wednesday which vanguiv.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
So fifty seventh.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Yeah, Literally I can see my last finance job through
one window and my first how I got into jewelry
out my other window, and I'm right on the corner.
So it's this wild kind of confluence of my world's
colliding that my talier where I'm talking to you here
is right in between my two worlds on the seventh floor.
I mean, I don't know how it's getting into like
(21:53):
numerology and everything. But it's it is interesting, the sort
of why way the universe can throws some some funny
things at you.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
But yes, I was very lucky to get to work
at Bankleefland our Pells.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
So I think it's important to talk about that because
then you end up in luxury jewelry. I was on
the other side of that luxury jewelry, like I had
private clients, I had my club clients. I was pulling
from archives and whatever. It's a world that I have
been long in love and obsessed with. Probably could work
(22:24):
in that if I quit whatever I was doing now,
just because.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
It's anything you are, Rachel.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
You don't want to know what I couldn't do finance.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Yours.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
I mean nope, nope, like like a like a black
automatic blackout shade goes down in my brain the minute
I'd start looking at numbers, It's like what. But I
would venture to say that all of that experience absolutely
helped you every minute of every day of how you
(23:00):
built your current business. I tell anyone who will listen
from any mountaintop, I can stand on that learning fashion
or like entering fashion without any knowledge of business and
how it works and some finance and how money works.
I would say in this life now is the most
(23:24):
important gift you could ever give to yourself entering any
creative business because it arms you with a skill set
where you don't need to rely on another brain and
body to carry that part for you and trust someone
else to carry that. And so I think you, without
(23:47):
knowing it, armed yourself with the skill set to then
do what you love and build what you love. And
so after Van Cleeve, so you amasked all these incredible
clients that just were obsessed with you, right like just
trusted you. I mean, you're not going to say that,
but that's what happened.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
I'm very lucky that the experience that I had there
was what it was. I also think to your point
of the more traditional path now that I think so
many people need to take from well I say need
I guess feel that they need to or you know,
environmentally sort of felt like it needs to be the
way of having a formal training in something, then going
into that field, then perhaps having a specialty.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
Then.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
The coolest thing about going from Van Cleef, sorry, going
from finance to Van Cleef, there's so many things about
it that are so cool. But for me, if you
imagine almost having a blank slate, like, of course I
have a colloquial understanding of jewelry.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
My mother loves jewelry. I've always loved jelry. I love
beautiful things like fine, but.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Like a formal training and jewelry I did not have
when I was offered this unbelievable opportunity to be at
Van Cleef. So imagine learning everything there is to know
about a really specific niche world from arguably, I would say,
one of, if not the top house in the world.
You know, it's like learning clothing working at you know,
(25:12):
a York COATORI.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Or in Paris with like the part it was world like.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
We to learn about diamonds, I was being taught by
you know, people who'd been at Van Cleef buying the
most important stones for the most important house for thirty years.
When it came to watchmaking, we were like in Geneva,
like watching watches be made. When it came to the
you know, mystery setting, we were literally standing which is
(25:38):
you know, the invisible at Rubies.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
Standing in the.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
Workshop in Paris in place vendor watching. You know, one
of two people in the world do how to do it.
They're like, here's what this is. And it was to
learn well and also, you know, missagu like the way
things are made way, you know, the Romance House, the
heritage of a brit all of this. But because I
had a sort of blank slate, so to speak, I
(26:03):
hadn't sort of been in a wholesale diamond role.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
In a different brand.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
And all of my training was with this incredibly rarefied
house where I was able to have access to such
extraordinary mentors and teachers. And it was a spectacular way
to learn about something, obviously about which I'm wildly excited
and passionate.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
Even talking about it, I'm starting to be.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Like, yeah, I get it, I get it. I've seen
it be done, I've seen stones beset. And it was
like watching I mean, it was like watching science Like
it was literally just the most amazing thing ever. And
so how long were you there? How long were you
at Vancleef?
Speaker 2 (26:45):
I was there for almost ten years And yeah, and
I was actually in I was in the fifth Avenue
boutique in hyjewelry sales, and it was I used to explain,
it was like a cocktail party all.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Day, but not really.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
It was sort of like getting to all day talk
to people, get to know people while you're talking and
showing them like the most extraordinarily beautiful jewelry, but also
it's the people. It's so cheesy, but you know me,
I love people. I love getting to know but I
love we mean, you know, hearing their stories and the
extra energy and what brought them in and what you know,
(27:21):
what sad thing, what happy thing?
Speaker 3 (27:22):
What the intimacy and the sort of personal nature.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
The psychology of yes, I mean, my god, it gets
we go deep. It's and it's it's a privilege, you know,
how lucky to get to have people open up about
some so many things that are so personal. And also
when I think about jewelry from that perspective, I mean,
it's it's sitting on your skin, you know, it's like
on your body. It's like those talismans are. It's so intimate.
(27:50):
So that was Fanklee.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
It was incredible. That was an incredible time in my life.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
And so what gives you the uh like actual courage
to be like in I'm going to go and do
my own like that's because people ask me that a lot,
like how did you go freelance at twenty five, and
I'm like, I don't know. I just closed my eyes
and jumped. I don't know what to say, Like, so,
was it the same kind of feeling a little bit?
Speaker 2 (28:18):
It's funny that you say it that it's funny that
that's what you your response. It's so true because I
often get asked it in a slightly different way, which is,
you know, my clients are friends or Whomember will say,
wasn't it so.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
Scary to lead leaf? And I'll say, what what do
you mean?
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Right, I'll say, well, how did you have the You know,
it must have been terrifying, because you know, I'm very
lucky I did well there. I had to wonder if
it was a very comfortable, happy environment with obviously hugely supported,
well known brand, et cetera, et cetera. And I was like, no, truly,
and I don't mean this in a self congratulatory like,
it actually wasn't scary because I felt so clear about
(29:00):
what was next, and I felt so sure that it
was the right thing for me that it felt exciting
and also just very sort of let's go, let's get
on with it. Another one of my dad's for this,
but like, let's do this. Once I decide something, I'm
very very decisive for better or for work. But I'm
like a highly decisive person. I do not dither on decisions. Like,
(29:21):
once I make a decision, I'm like, let's go.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Also a gift. Also a gift, by the way, also
a gift. What if you make the wrong decision? How
do you deal with that?
Speaker 3 (29:33):
I figure it out?
Speaker 2 (29:34):
I always there's always a way, And in fact, by
the way, there certainly when things go a little bit sideways,
which of course they do, or all the time, my
first question is have we fix them right?
Speaker 3 (29:46):
There's always a way. There's always a way.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
I also always tell my team there's never until we
have all of the information. It's not necessarily the wrong decision.
So sometimes I'm like, initially something can present as perhaps
not the.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
Best right right.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
To actually gather all the facts, gather all the information,
and then let's figure it out.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Okay, there's always there's always.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
So do you ever deal with regret or like getting
mad at yourself? Because I deal with that.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
That's a really good question. I think I probably am
more critical of myself, I guess than I will be.
But also that's what drives me. Yeah, like I feel like,
so do I feel regret? Not necessarily, I guess, you know,
And actually the only thing I ever really feel regret
(30:36):
about is not being able to be in two places
at the same.
Speaker 4 (30:39):
Time, saying that's something yeah, well, especially when you're in
a service business where you're providing clients and they want
you present, and it's really hard, as we witnessed last week,
as we saw Oops.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Literally, yes, I take what I do obviously being in
client service, I take, you know, my client's happiness and
satisfaction and their experience with me and with my brand,
like I hold it so here, I care so very much.
I also obviously am a mother of two boys, I
am a wife, I am a daughter, I am a friend,
I am an aunt, I am you know.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
It's so that's to me.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
I think the biggest regret ever is that if I
was one place, I couldn't have been in the other place,
Like I always want.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
To be every all the time, and that's tough to manage.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
And why did you so, what ultimately was the driver
for you to be Like Nope, jumping out of my
own like what actually were you? Just like I feel
I've done all I can here and it's time or
what was the empetus.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
There were two, i'd say two really clear catalysts for
this change, one being I had become a mother in
the middle of all of this. So my eldest who
is now eleven, his name is Reese, so Reese too,
and at the time of the sort of decision, and
(32:05):
you could imagine obviously being in a client service business
that is non traditional in terms of hours.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
Obviously, if it's christ even missus Smith wants to see me, well,
Christmas plans be dammed, and of course I would be there.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Of course, you show up that hole if you're going
to do something, to do it all the way.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
So that was really I found. It started to just.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Be really really challenging to not have control over my
schedule in a way that I could also show up
the very best way I.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
Could for my clients.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
So even about of course I could have had flexible schedule,
of course, but then I would have been letting people
down meeted me not have a flexible So that was
one thing, and then really the biggest piece of all
of it was feeling like there was more that I
could do to meet the needs of my clients as
pertained to the various aspects of the jewelry world that
(33:00):
currently aren't present when one is obviously representing one.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Of course, of course you wanted to diversify for your clients. Yeah,
bring them everything, literally, like the best of everything, and
whether that's estate, vintage Cartier or Tiffany or whatever or
custom Briany or blah blah blah. Right, Okay, I got it.
That makes that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Yeah, And I wanted to be able to you know,
both sort of flex my or scratch my design itch
which I'd always been very creative person, always had, you know,
sort of my own things, you know that I was
working on from a design perspective, but it was also
as someone who always say, I'm like a little greedy
with my love of jewelry in the sense of.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
I love all of it.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
I love jar I love Cartier, I love unsigned Retro,
I love antique Victorian, I love brand new chunky gold
that I designed and made. I also, you know, want
you came to me and said, I'd like, you know,
a birthstone medallion for my baby boys.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
And every single day, every single day, I sleep in it.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
Aurora Zodiac medallion looks so good on you.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
I love it so much. I love it so much,
and it is just I like hold it while I
talk to you know, like I just I play with it.
It's just the best. But but I but I also
I think I think that, you know, with the risk
of sounding like a grandmother like I, I you really
(34:35):
weirdly remind me a lot of myself as a stylist.
Meaning I see the way you light up when you
talk about what you do. There's a clear, over like
polarizing passion that you have with jewelry. And I think, truthfully,
I think that's why we connected it hello, because it
was sort of like I was piled in jewels, you
(34:57):
were piled in jewels. We were like, how do our me?
Speaker 2 (35:00):
Like? You know.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
But also I think it's it is that, you know,
I compare it to when I was styling and you know,
certain design houses wanting me to work only for them.
It was never an option for me because I was like,
I need to touch all of it, I need to
pull all of it, you know. And I think it's
(35:24):
I think it's I don't know. I think it's the
spice of life. And I think certainly any industry is
being able to see touch create your own amidst that,
and I, you know, I think it's it's funny because
people will say, oh, well, Briany, so is it just
her collection or I'm like, it's literally everything. It's the
(35:44):
best of everything, And that's sort of what I always
that's how I describe what your business is. Honestly, I
was like, yes, she makes incredible bespoke, this, that and
the other thing and all this incredible Briany pieces herself,
but she really deals and sells also so much in
(36:05):
just rare vintage estate and just the most special pieces.
So I think it's really the best of all worlds.
But I know that you are a mom to young boys,
but you're also you work like crazy, and I want
to talk about that because there are challenges with that.
(36:26):
So it's interesting because it's like you left something that
was sort of like this, Okay, I can't, you know,
dictate my life my schedule. But meanwhile, if someone's like
Evangelina A. Julie is like I need you on a plane,
or somebody whoever it is, is like I need you
on a plane in La like there is not one
breath you wouldn't take where you're not getting on that plane,
(36:47):
Like there isn't a thought, it's you're going to sort
everything out before you go, but you will be on
that plane. And I think that's the blessing and curse
of your name being on the door.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
Correct, So true, No, it's absolutely true. It's like out
of the frying pan into the fire, right the phrases.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
So, how do you deal with that? How do you
deal is that? Do you find the struggle with being
a really hard working but really hands on mom, because
it's real.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
It is quite literally my greatest greatest struggle ever in
my life is reconciling.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
The sincere.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
True I feel like I can't emphasize enough like passion
and gratification and confidence and pure visceral joy I get
from building this brand and working with my clients and
being surrounded by beautiful jewelry and being trusted with these
(37:51):
incredibly intimate personal projects with the most incredible people ever.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
And at the same time.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Obviously, nothing ever, possibly could matter more to me than
those boys, and it is so I literally I don't
think that there's like a cliche in the world that
I haven't heard, you know, for better or for worse again,
of people saying or it's you know, God, it's like
(38:20):
it's so hard. I have so many like thoughts and
feelings that all are so it's like waves crashing against
each other. This like hide of almost like competing conflicting
thoughts and feelings. One which is how proud I am,
how very proud I am to model for my boys,
(38:41):
just as you do a strong, confident, you know, brand building,
hard working person who you know absolutely loves they do.
At the same time, I also really really miss them.
I get like really really sad when I'm away from them,
And such a wild contradiction to be so excited and
(39:05):
happy about the thing that also almost like Paul heartache. Yeah,
it's such a wild contradictions. And one doesn't negate the other,
and they tye literally do co exist at the same time.
I will say one thing that really did make a
huge difference is my amazing husband, Luke, who is a
(39:29):
stay at home dad, and having Luke used to work
in the city.
Speaker 3 (39:32):
We both worked in the city.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
He sold his business a few years ago and you know,
sort of COVID adjacent and all of that. He was
in the advertising world, and having him there really helps.
Having their grandparents live two houses away my kids, they
have the same I always call our nanny or their
third parent. We've had the same amazing nanny since before
I was pregnant with Reese, so for eleven years they've
(39:55):
had you know, they have all of these wonderful, loving
people forming a commune around them, and that has really helped
me to feel like they have so much love. And
obviously every single second, whether it's a red eye home
or it's you know, getting home late at night after
an event, to see them for twenty minutes in the
morning before they go to school to then come back.
Speaker 3 (40:16):
I'll do it. I want it in the twenty minutes
of snuggle time. Again.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
I know I'm being to this snuggling preaching to the
choir here, but having that time like I eke out
every single second I can, and it is so divine
to have that time with them, and I also it
is so divine to have this incredible world that I
that I work in and love and brings me so
(40:41):
much joy.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
And you, honestly, you don't have to choose. It's just
as women, that's just what we live with. It just
is it just is you literally want to be all
things to both and I think, but I think you're
doing it beautifully and I think that you know, I
love watching you when it makes me happy. I'm excited
(41:05):
to see as you, lady, I'm excited to see what's
what's next for you? What so like what is the
plan forward? Like you have so much going on? Like
but as you're building the brand, like what where do
you see it?
Speaker 2 (41:20):
Like?
Speaker 1 (41:20):
Do you want to lean more into your own? Do
you want to keep it like equal?
Speaker 3 (41:25):
Do you like?
Speaker 1 (41:26):
What do you or don't you even? You just take
it day by day and you just take it as
it comes, like well, because that's okay too, But I mean,
I'm curious.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
No, it's it's it's a wonderful question, I feel like,
because everything is so intense and so prenetic, and we're
literally I'm always sort of moving at such a fast pace.
Speaker 3 (41:46):
I also always laugh that I.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
Can only ever deal I'm sure my team finds it
less funny, but bless them for being so extraordinarily supportive.
But I literally only deal with this what's like right
in front of me as it's happening the same And
I think that's part right, And I say, that's why
you and I are both all same so.
Speaker 3 (42:04):
So present, so ourselves so decisive.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
But also it's sometimes it's one of those thingsverson's like, well,
what about the thing in three hours?
Speaker 1 (42:13):
I can't tell you. I can't tell you, not that.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
I'll know. I'll know in three hours. I will.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
I will figure it out, I swear. But yes, I
think the plan would be to keep doing what I'm doing.
And I really, I really feel I don't know's I
would love to have, like a really eloquent response to this.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
There isn't one a lot of the time, truthfully, I
mean I don't just one.
Speaker 3 (42:40):
I just yes, I guess.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
I would be so so happy if I could tell
you any year in five years and ten years that
I still feel as excited and invigorated and creatively inspired
as I do now. It has never waned yet. As
I sit touching, knocking on wood, I designed to in
my sleep. I designed jewelry while I'm ching my makeup.
I designed jewelry while I'm talking to people. I also
(43:06):
am always thinking about, you know, when I go to
vintage shows, for instance, I'll think about a piece that
I saw four years ago.
Speaker 3 (43:13):
When you call me and you're like, heybe of course
I'm thinking.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
I want nineteen sixties Tuba gossp but I'd like it
to have you know, pink staffires in the front.
Speaker 3 (43:20):
And I'm like, there was that piece four yars ago, but.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
By the way, I mean this year's Oscars. I think.
I text you like I'm thinking like black white, Emerald,
Da da da, like I don't even remember. And you
were like like this and I was like, yeah, like
that exactly.
Speaker 3 (43:37):
Jewelry so well, my mag I spirit animal.
Speaker 2 (43:41):
The two of us about seventeen pieces of jewelry all
at the same time.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
Would you say in the business your like your best
spoke collections are like, what is it thirty percent to
seventy vintage in a state or is it fifty fifth?
Like how are you?
Speaker 2 (43:59):
It's actually it's wild. It's exactly fifty to fifty and
you know, it's so wild, not by and this has
been year after year. It's so crazy. And I every
time we talk about, you know, with our accountants, and honestly,
as much as yes, I am a numbers person, yes,
I weirdly do also have a business brain. I actually
(44:19):
don't day to day pay much attention to like skills
and this and that. I'm really focused more on getting
through the day. But whenever we do have any type
of sort of perspective and have that moment where we're
talking about the breakdown of how different you know, sort
of where focus and energy and resources should be designated,
(44:41):
it is so wild to me how evenly split they
are between the kind of and I combine you know,
Briany Raymond's collection and bespoke basically anything that we make.
And also I have to note, just because I'm so
proud of it, but our workshop is here in New York,
so all of our kind of all in New York,
and it's really important to meet, to us support our
wonderful New York workshop and our New York dory industry,
(45:03):
and to keep things here where I can my interperfectionist
I can see things and touch them and see the
castings and all that. But it is truly half and
half so and and by the way, again, like with pleasure,
I'm so glad it's that because I could never be
I would. It would be really hard for me if
somebody said, oh, well, well not that I not that
I I can take advice.
Speaker 3 (45:23):
I love advice. I also at the end of the
day we.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
Say, like my decisions you can tell me all you want,
but like I will make my own decisions.
Speaker 3 (45:29):
It would be really hard to choose.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
And both, thankfully and half continuous play equal equal roles
in the business.
Speaker 1 (45:36):
Well, I love you a whole lot. I loved having
you on. I love keeping it real, and I love
watching you continue to win and I will continue to
wear and I will continue to be dripping and Brian
Raymond for the rest of.
Speaker 3 (45:53):
My Oh, thank you for the support. Thank you for
having me on my very first podcast.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
I mean, I love you. I'm so glad it was
your That's so exciting.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
I love you madly.
Speaker 3 (46:04):
I love you, babe.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
Thank you so much to Briani for coming on the
pod today. She's so smart and so glamorous. Again, I
hate to sound like a grandparent, but she reminds me
of myself as a stylist, where someone would ask me
a question about a designer, why I loved a certain
trend or why I love fashion, and it was like
I couldn't stop spewing. Why my eyes would light up,
(46:29):
my whole body would get up straight. I would have
this like huge East to West smile on my face
when I spoke about it. And for me, just getting
to interview people that are so passionate, so deeply passionate
about what they do is always just really fun for me.
And also I deeply feel her struggles about, you know,
wanting to provide her clients with the best there is
(46:51):
and also wanting to show up for her kids every
minute of every day and not being able to literally
cut yourself in half. It's a real struggle and one
I think many of us and most on Climbing and
Heels have to deal with on the daily. So doesn't
go underappreciated that you do. Thank you so much for
listening to Climbing and Heels. If you haven't already, please
(47:12):
subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the iHeart app,
or wherever you get your podcasts. You don't miss a
single episode this season, and be sure to follow me
on Instagram on at Rachel Zo and the show at
Clembing and hills Pod for the latest episodes and updates.
I will talk to you soon.
Hi everyone, I'm Rachel Zoe and you're listening to Climbing
in Heels for your weekly dose of glamour, inspiration and fun.
My guest today is a newer friend of mine, but
it feels like I've known her honestly for my whole life.
Briannie Raymond is a fine jewelry attilie, and her expertise
in creating some of the most exquisite jewelry has made
her highly sought after in Hollywood and beyond. From boarding
(00:31):
school to a career in finance, which honestly is quite impressive,
Brianie found her passion in the luxury jewelry space and
has really never looked back since. Briani's creativity and savvy
mind for business is so inspiring, and I'm so much
in common with her as a working mom in a
high demand industry. She is truly a gem in every way.
(00:51):
So let's get right into it. It's going to be
such a fun one. I've wanted to have you on
because you're a little bit of this, in my opinion,
secret weapon. I think in the world of jewelry, and
I think I think there is a lot of you know,
you have this devoted customer you have. I would say
clientele makes more sense here, but I would say you
(01:13):
have a very loyal, devoted clientele, some that you know
nobody knows, some that many would know. But in the
world of luxury jewelry, it is pretty top secret, right,
And I think you've probably built your career in a
very top secret manner. And so I wanted to bring
you on today to sort of talk about this very
(01:36):
unknown world to most people, and how you decided to
go out on your own and create Briany Raymond, and
which is such a chic name, by the way, it's crazy.
I think I fell in love with you. We you know,
we'll get into it more later, but I do want
to say how we met was funny enough, not through jewelry,
(01:56):
but that you came up to me at the Beverly
Hills Hotel during award season and I had my boys
and you were like, oh, I have two boys, and
blah blah blah. And of course the first thing I
noticed is you're talking to me, is your pound of
jewelry you had on And I'm like, what on earth?
And you were like, yeah, I have a suite here.
I'm here like dressing people for oscars or whatever, and
(02:17):
I was like, why don't we know each Like I
was a little confused, like how come we didn't know
each other? And then I think later that year, you
were like I'm here, and you know, I just want
to show you something I created for you, and like whatever,
and then it was love at first sight. And from
that point on, I was like, we're girlfriends. I get you,
(02:39):
I see you in many ways, and I think since
that time, I feel like I've known you a long time,
but I continue to be a fan. And so I
want to talk today about your journey to the top
because it's an interesting one, for sure, and I think
it's important to share. So okay, Briany, Okay. So you
grew up where.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
I grew up in Connecticut, and I actually went to
boarding school quite young. My family, ever, always says, oh,
why did you get sent to boarding school?
Speaker 3 (03:07):
I like, no, no, it was a good thing. I
swear I wanted to go.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
I come from, you know, a long line of boarding
school kind of kids and my family and that sort
of independence and autonomy and headed up, you know, sort
of being off on your own from an early age.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
How old? How old I was fourteen?
Speaker 2 (03:23):
So whenever people talk about, you know, college being their
first foray into sort of an independent sense of running
their schedule and getting their things done and all of that,
I said, oh, well, you know, college for me was
a breeze because boarding school was not. You know, I
sort of figured out at fourteen, and so I sort
of I grew up there. And my dad actually was English,
so we spent summers in England, and all my cousins
(03:45):
and nanties and grannies and everything was all sort of
spread across England and different parts of Europe. So at
the time as a kid, you could imagine I was like,
I just want to go to Disney World.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
I don't want to be weird.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Why are we always a museums and like and then
verse as I got older, I was like, wait a minute,
that was incredible and I'm so lucky to have had
an experience.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
But you know, so I'd say it was a little
bit of a little bit of a gypsy.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Moved around a lot, lived lots of different places, and
I never actually lived at home again. After my freshman
year a boarding school, actually went to go live with
a dear friend of mine for the summer and we
lived in Atherton, and we had summer jobs and hung
out with her family, and that was literally from that
point on, I never went home again. So I actually
(04:31):
have never spent any time like at home in the
sort of common definition of that with parents since then.
And I'm forty three, so it's been a long time,
serious and so mad living all over.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Yeah, actually true. That So from fourteen, which is about
how old my eldest son is, you're telling me my
son that can't pick out his clothes nor make scrambled
eggs that I made for him this morning before school,
you were basically figuring out your life from that point.
(05:04):
And listen, I think for you, for Europeans, boarding school
is part of the upbringing. I think it is a
very big East Coast thing. Here on the West Coast,
when you say you're sending your child to boarding school,
they're like, why do you bother having children? That's like
their response, like if you're shipping them off?
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Right? And I know for us it was always, you know,
it was of course, I was such a you know,
I was so lucky to be able to go I went.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
To Hotchkiss Go Bearcats.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
I was lucky to be lucky to be at Hotchkiss
and truly my very very very best friends to this
day are the women with whom I lived. I mean
we sort of like created our own little families together.
You know, if you're suddenly thrust into this world of
sink or swim and you either show up for class
or you don't, and if you don't, you get kicked out. Yeah,
(05:53):
like my parents, definitely that was an option for me,
right so quickly you really learn I remember what actually
when the best things my mother ever said to me,
like just ever in life and just a huge influence
on me in general, but one of the sayings that
really helped me at Hotchkiss and helped me sort of
throughout my life. She always said, ninety percent of life
is just showing up.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
To show up, do the thing.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Say you're going to do it, you show up beyond time,
follow your own commitments. Just show up and boarding like boarding, school, college, life,
whatever you want to apply that to. I think it
really early on taught me about following through on commitments
and sticking to some sort of schedule and making sure
you're beholden not to someone telling you what to do,
but to yourself. Yes, you really have to take that control,
(06:37):
and that was amazing.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
So I'm like, where did I grow up?
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Well, lots of places right all over the place, right,
the common being me because there wasn't like a lot
of there was never really family around me.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
So so then what happens? You went to college?
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Are now? Yes?
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Where?
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Well it's funny I did, but I had two very
different college experiences. I went first to Rollins and Rollins
College Raleigh Colley Country Club is.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
The school, real sort of funny name.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
And I actually I went to Rollins because it felt familiar,
small middle art school in winter Park, Florida. A lot
of you know, my fellow sort of New York Palm
Beache whatever Northeast friends had spent time there. It always
seemed like a really lovely school, small class size. And
then I got there and again, imagine this whole sort
of boarding school thing. You had to go to class,
(07:28):
you had to show up. I was flabbergasted by how
many kids who were there found it so hard to
show up.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
And I got through the thing welcome to college, Yes, this.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Is what we're here for, right, and I was like,
you know, anyway, So it was a really really great
place to spend a couple of years.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
It was wonderful.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
In full transparency, I will say I was probably had
a little more fun than I should have, and I
decided I should move to a place it was also
better served to my love of fine art and art
history and all the things, which of course led me
to Paris. So I ended up transferring to school in Paris,
and I went to AUP and every division I all
(08:08):
the time people say to me, They'll.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
Say, oh Paris, oh the SBA. Like no AUP. My
classes were in English.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
I was not definitely not provision enough in French to
learn at a university level in French. So we did
have for wed to have four levels of French by
the time we graduated. And my parents wanted me to have,
you know, obviously a full, rich, wonderful education, but with
the caveat with transferring, which was I could only do
(08:35):
university for four years. So how tempting the like seven
year plan is when you're living in Paris.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Yes, but yeah, it was very yeah, and many of them.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
But I was not not afforded that luxury, and so
my parents said, you know, finish in four years whatever
you have to do. So I ended up doing I
switched my major to art history extraordinary. My love of
you know, beautiful things and textures and colors and all
the things was really fed in that environment.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
I got to do classes at you know, Muse d'lsei
and the Louver, and I mean it was the dream.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
It's actually the dream.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
The dream, like the actual dream of like all you
feel most stimulated by is design and art and culture.
To be able to go to school there was amazing.
So I ended up graduating from AP in four years.
Well wow, four years all the school combined, it.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Was wow wow. Okay, so then what have how do
you get into Like I remember you telling me you
had a totally different career prior to Jules, Right.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
I did, I did?
Speaker 2 (09:33):
And again this is I mean, as somebody who didn't
spend a lot of time physically living with my parents,
they clearly got an enormous influence on it.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
By the way, I want to talk about that for
a second. I think that's really interesting because you know,
I think as a Jahansan parent that I am and
that I know you are, Like, yeah, I know for
both of us, like the concept of shipping your young
children away is bizarre, but yet I know so many
people that you and I please no judgment, because I
(10:02):
actually I think in many ways it removes you. It
removes kids from the insanity of growing up in like
in LA or New York or whatever, where you're dealing
with all sorts of stuff, where you know, lack of
authority and all of the things that happen right that
we see over and over. But I also think it's
(10:25):
interesting because being away from the parents but yet becoming
these very driven, regimented, motivated, self starting kids because when
you're in boarding school, it's not an option, right like
when when you're home. When you're home, you can take
advantage of your parents, right like you can work them.
(10:46):
I know my kids work me. I mean, for sure
they do. And I'm not great at the tough flow.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
I think that delivers yummy mothering can be just as active.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
I say, I hope, yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
But that's why I'm saying it's interesting because you clearly
have gone the other way and and and but yet
look at the profound impact it had on your drive,
your ambition, your success. And I know there's obviously slip
ups along the way. There always are, and as you said,
by the time you got to college, you were like,
(11:20):
let this fall up the wagon right now. I need,
I need, I need to deregulate for a couple of years.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
And by the way, I had I had Streetd's.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
So just for the record, of course, I mean I
just show up, oh oh in college just you're physically there,
apparently just for a lot.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Yeah, but I do. I want to talk about showing
up because it's something that I like to talk about
a lot, because it's the one thing that I think
anyone in my life would always say, like, Rachel, you
always show up for people. You always show up for
your friends. You always But here's the thing. I want
to argue that that's should be a given. That shouldn't
(12:02):
be an accolade, that should be that should be a given.
I don't understand.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
I can literally hear my wonderful ly departed dad saying
to me, why should you or why should one be
applauded right for doing the right thing right? And that
was I think that's a shift in parenting culture kind
of in general a little bit, which again isn't right
(12:28):
or wrong, but I don't definitely what people are Oh
my god, Rachel, you said you'd be there, and you
were you and by the way, I can say that
obviously as a very lucky recipient of your following nereness,
as somebody who's very grateful for your incredible support and friendship.
But to have that be sort of something that isn't
(12:52):
necessarily the norm. You're like, no, no, right, that's we
say the thing and then we do the thing.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
We do the thing, we do.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
That so important and it's I'm totally with you. So yes,
it is a very important thing to me.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Is and I try and tell sort of young people
that I mentor now it's like the value of doing
what you say and the value of showing up for people.
By the way, showing up for a boss that you
hate still is important, you know. I really want to
touch on on your ability to continue to show up
(13:26):
and learning that at a young age and how valuable
that is in your career. Okay, So you graduate the
American University of Paris, you go, Okay, you major in
art history. But I believe didn't you do finance first?
Or did I make that up?
Speaker 3 (13:43):
You didn't make it up.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
And it sounds as if it were because it's so ridiculous,
But my trajectory is.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Not as ridiculous. As me doing finance, I assure.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
You highly unconventional my trajectory. But again back to these
wonderful parents of mine who had such enormous influence on me,
and their four year plan for me, not their seven
year plan, which was once I graduated.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
They had said, you know, we've done.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
All we can to give you the most and they
did the best education we possibly can, the you know,
most amazing experiences that we possibly could to set you
up to be on your own twenty two years old,
to go out into the world and be a productive,
functioning member of society. Right.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
That was so they're like, okay, go for you.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Yeah, I know, but also if you're twenty fourth on
your terrorist list in Paris, terrified but madly in love
with a city in which I had become.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
Very comfortable living, didn't want to leave.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
And the truth was they they completely cut me off.
I mean again with I say, this is like at
the time, you could imagine being like my god mean
cruel parents.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
I just want to, you know, be a gallery called
Tough Lafe.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Yeah, And they said, well, excuse me, They said, well,
if you want to stay in Paris, figure it out,
go do get a job that can allow you to
stay there and in France and mostly you know, in
Paris in general, the entry level jobs in major corporations.
I can't speak to trade jobs as which I don't know,
(15:16):
but I obviously am banking and an architecture and any
sort of roles like that. You start with what's called
a stage. A stage is basically an internship. So the
first year in theory after graduation.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
Every time a stage, you know who pays banks thanks.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
So I said, okay, well, if I want to stay
in Paris and I need to be able to support
myself to make this possible, why don't I go into finance.
And you know, so many people with whom I worked,
and I was sorry, with whom I you know, spent
time and family, friends and people I really admired and respected.
Of course, to finance, well, I know all these wonderful, lovely,
(15:54):
kind people who work in this world.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
I mean, I didn't figure this out. I want to
stay in Paris.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
And it's like it was such a sort of me
thing in the sense of I really really wanted something,
and so I was like, well, I'll figure it out, right,
I'll make it up. I will will myself into being
in a bank with a paid stash, I.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Will stay in there.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
And I was lucky enough to have a really great
job offered to me. Actually having at the time an
EU passport also really helped back to having the dad,
the English dad. So I was really lucky able to
be hired by a French company. I worked for associateatione AHA.
I was with Femats, which is their derivative brokerage ARM
and I was able to get this job which typically
(16:37):
I obviously not to get into all the rules and
regulations of hiring non French nationalism. But because it was
an EU, I had new passport, and I was the
only native speaker in my department of English. And let
me tell you, at twenty two going with quite literally
no experience at all in finance, and then here I
(16:58):
was helping the CEO of the company right speeches because no.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
One else spoke English.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
I mean, of course they spoke English, but nobody was
a true English speaker, the beautiful English, but not native
I had. It was the wildest like entree into a
world that I mean to say, I felt like unqualified,
sort of to a like a level you it's like
hard to explain. I literally went from like student in
(17:24):
Paris art history, the Louver bar, you know, clubbing and platine,
to like, oh, I'm a banker. Now I'm like incredibly intelligent,
like esteemed people and.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Was it all men? Was it all men?
Speaker 2 (17:41):
It wasn't actually mostly men, mostly men? Where were some wonderful,
wonderful women. I could also say it was as a
how do I say? It's a very perky American, high
energy American who genuinely like really loves to work, and
I mean I really love to work. That was also
a little bit of an interesting moment to have a
(18:05):
lot of grown ups whom I again looked up to
and reported to sort of say.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
Like, relax, take it down a notch, right, you don't
have to how many hours go home?
Speaker 2 (18:16):
And I'd be like, no, no, no, Like I want
to be here, I want to learn. This is all
new for me. So I ended up having it was
an amazing experience. And then from there I again sort
of tried. I was like, I had this finance thing.
I have to figure it out, because it wasn't I
really enjoyed being in a communications department, but I realized
that there was this other incredible world we worked really
(18:36):
closely with a lot of brokerage houses. So I ended
up being hired away by Man Financial and I was
an FX trader. So again, imagine it's like trading, like
I can trade. I'll figure this out. I mean, how
parkkings this be?
Speaker 1 (18:49):
That would like never happen. Now you have to have
like finance major, You've got to go to you you
have to get your MBA. You've got to get like
you have to major in finance. You have to have
ten interns ships prior. Like it's so wild.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
I'm so grateful. You want to know actually that you
didn't even have not like I.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Miss that, by the way, Like I miss that you
can do that, Like I didn't, by the way, I
didn't go to fashion school. Like now, it's just it's
so different, Like I missed the days of just pulling
people in that they thought were stars and that were great.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Well, one of the proudest accomplishments of my life, which
I swear was harder than probably anything other than maybe childbirth,
which was the FSA regulations. So the one thing I
did have to have was obviously it's the equivalent of
like Series seven or Series sixty three in the States,
but obviously the Financial Services Authority in England had its
(19:44):
own set of regulatory you know exercises through which you
had to go take the tests.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
It was so fucking hard.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
I've never literally never been challenged the way that I
was with this because I was learning an entirely new vernacular, right,
this is like a language I didn't speak, and it
was so gratifying to actually pass first time and to
like get all of these different sort of regulatory you know,
things that permitted me to actually legally be able to
(20:12):
trade and to prove people wrong who sort of were like,
you know, definitely had a few sort of like.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
Oh what is she doing here?
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Why were you alone? Like el Woods. It was like
a little like legally bland thing where they were like
actually like they were like oh, they were like is
she okay? Like does she really think she's going to
be able to do this?
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Nice? And then it was literally me like what loo,
it's hard but it was so hard. Ache, it was
so hard, but I did it.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
I did it, and that was probably like again my
next thing of like I really want this and I
can do hard things, like let me figure it out.
So I figured it out. But anyway, finance was the
FX thing was also really hard. But I ended up
moving to New York, and funnily enough, my last job
in finance I can see out my window. I'm on
fifty seventh in Madison as Wolly. My last job in
(21:03):
finance was there, and I was a I worked in
private wealth management and work for a fund of funds
with family offices.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
So I was like, Okay, three different markets, three different
facets of finance, this is all kind of like not
bringing me joy. It's interesting and intellectually stimulating, but like
not joyful.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Yeah, so I ended up. But that was my That
was my career before my jewelry career.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
And then what and then your first jewelry career was
vancleeve or no Wednesday which vanguiv.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
So fifty seventh.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Yeah, Literally I can see my last finance job through
one window and my first how I got into jewelry
out my other window, and I'm right on the corner.
So it's this wild kind of confluence of my world's
colliding that my talier where I'm talking to you here
is right in between my two worlds on the seventh floor.
I mean, I don't know how it's getting into like
(21:53):
numerology and everything. But it's it is interesting, the sort
of why way the universe can throws some some funny
things at you.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
But yes, I was very lucky to get to work
at Bankleefland our Pells.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
So I think it's important to talk about that because
then you end up in luxury jewelry. I was on
the other side of that luxury jewelry, like I had
private clients, I had my club clients. I was pulling
from archives and whatever. It's a world that I have
been long in love and obsessed with. Probably could work
(22:24):
in that if I quit whatever I was doing now,
just because.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
It's anything you are, Rachel.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
You don't want to know what I couldn't do finance.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Yours.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
I mean nope, nope, like like a like a black
automatic blackout shade goes down in my brain the minute
I'd start looking at numbers, It's like what. But I
would venture to say that all of that experience absolutely
helped you every minute of every day of how you
(23:00):
built your current business. I tell anyone who will listen
from any mountaintop, I can stand on that learning fashion
or like entering fashion without any knowledge of business and
how it works and some finance and how money works.
I would say in this life now is the most
(23:24):
important gift you could ever give to yourself entering any
creative business because it arms you with a skill set
where you don't need to rely on another brain and
body to carry that part for you and trust someone
else to carry that. And so I think you, without
(23:47):
knowing it, armed yourself with the skill set to then
do what you love and build what you love. And
so after Van Cleeve, so you amasked all these incredible
clients that just were obsessed with you, right like just
trusted you. I mean, you're not going to say that,
but that's what happened.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
I'm very lucky that the experience that I had there
was what it was. I also think to your point
of the more traditional path now that I think so
many people need to take from well I say need
I guess feel that they need to or you know,
environmentally sort of felt like it needs to be the
way of having a formal training in something, then going
into that field, then perhaps having a specialty.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
Then.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
The coolest thing about going from Van Cleef, sorry, going
from finance to Van Cleef, there's so many things about
it that are so cool. But for me, if you
imagine almost having a blank slate, like, of course I
have a colloquial understanding of jewelry.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
My mother loves jewelry. I've always loved jelry. I love
beautiful things like fine, but.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Like a formal training and jewelry I did not have
when I was offered this unbelievable opportunity to be at
Van Cleef. So imagine learning everything there is to know
about a really specific niche world from arguably, I would say,
one of, if not the top house in the world.
You know, it's like learning clothing working at you know,
(25:12):
a York COATORI.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Or in Paris with like the part it was world like.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
We to learn about diamonds, I was being taught by
you know, people who'd been at Van Cleef buying the
most important stones for the most important house for thirty years.
When it came to watchmaking, we were like in Geneva,
like watching watches be made. When it came to the
you know, mystery setting, we were literally standing which is
(25:38):
you know, the invisible at Rubies.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
Standing in the.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
Workshop in Paris in place vendor watching. You know, one
of two people in the world do how to do it.
They're like, here's what this is. And it was to
learn well and also, you know, missagu like the way
things are made way, you know, the Romance House, the
heritage of a brit all of this. But because I
had a sort of blank slate, so to speak, I
(26:03):
hadn't sort of been in a wholesale diamond role.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
In a different brand.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
And all of my training was with this incredibly rarefied
house where I was able to have access to such
extraordinary mentors and teachers. And it was a spectacular way
to learn about something, obviously about which I'm wildly excited
and passionate.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
Even talking about it, I'm starting to be.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Like, yeah, I get it, I get it. I've seen
it be done, I've seen stones beset. And it was
like watching I mean, it was like watching science Like
it was literally just the most amazing thing ever. And
so how long were you there? How long were you
at Vancleef?
Speaker 2 (26:45):
I was there for almost ten years And yeah, and
I was actually in I was in the fifth Avenue
boutique in hyjewelry sales, and it was I used to explain,
it was like a cocktail party all.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Day, but not really.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
It was sort of like getting to all day talk
to people, get to know people while you're talking and
showing them like the most extraordinarily beautiful jewelry, but also
it's the people. It's so cheesy, but you know me,
I love people. I love getting to know but I
love we mean, you know, hearing their stories and the
extra energy and what brought them in and what you know,
(27:21):
what sad thing, what happy thing?
Speaker 3 (27:22):
What the intimacy and the sort of personal nature.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
The psychology of yes, I mean, my god, it gets
we go deep. It's and it's it's a privilege, you know,
how lucky to get to have people open up about
some so many things that are so personal. And also
when I think about jewelry from that perspective, I mean,
it's it's sitting on your skin, you know, it's like
on your body. It's like those talismans are. It's so intimate.
(27:50):
So that was Fanklee.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
It was incredible. That was an incredible time in my life.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
And so what gives you the uh like actual courage
to be like in I'm going to go and do
my own like that's because people ask me that a lot,
like how did you go freelance at twenty five, and
I'm like, I don't know. I just closed my eyes
and jumped. I don't know what to say, Like, so,
was it the same kind of feeling a little bit?
Speaker 2 (28:18):
It's funny that you say it that it's funny that
that's what you your response. It's so true because I
often get asked it in a slightly different way, which is,
you know, my clients are friends or Whomember will say,
wasn't it so.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
Scary to lead leaf? And I'll say, what what do
you mean?
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Right, I'll say, well, how did you have the You know,
it must have been terrifying, because you know, I'm very
lucky I did well there. I had to wonder if
it was a very comfortable, happy environment with obviously hugely supported,
well known brand, et cetera, et cetera. And I was like, no, truly,
and I don't mean this in a self congratulatory like,
it actually wasn't scary because I felt so clear about
(29:00):
what was next, and I felt so sure that it
was the right thing for me that it felt exciting
and also just very sort of let's go, let's get
on with it. Another one of my dad's for this,
but like, let's do this. Once I decide something, I'm
very very decisive for better or for work. But I'm
like a highly decisive person. I do not dither on decisions. Like,
(29:21):
once I make a decision, I'm like, let's go.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Also a gift. Also a gift, by the way, also
a gift. What if you make the wrong decision? How
do you deal with that?
Speaker 3 (29:33):
I figure it out?
Speaker 2 (29:34):
I always there's always a way, And in fact, by
the way, there certainly when things go a little bit sideways,
which of course they do, or all the time, my
first question is have we fix them right?
Speaker 3 (29:46):
There's always a way. There's always a way.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
I also always tell my team there's never until we
have all of the information. It's not necessarily the wrong decision.
So sometimes I'm like, initially something can present as perhaps
not the.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
Best right right.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
To actually gather all the facts, gather all the information,
and then let's figure it out.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Okay, there's always there's always.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
So do you ever deal with regret or like getting
mad at yourself? Because I deal with that.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
That's a really good question. I think I probably am
more critical of myself, I guess than I will be.
But also that's what drives me. Yeah, like I feel like,
so do I feel regret? Not necessarily, I guess, you know,
And actually the only thing I ever really feel regret
(30:36):
about is not being able to be in two places
at the same.
Speaker 4 (30:39):
Time, saying that's something yeah, well, especially when you're in
a service business where you're providing clients and they want
you present, and it's really hard, as we witnessed last week,
as we saw Oops.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Literally, yes, I take what I do obviously being in
client service, I take, you know, my client's happiness and
satisfaction and their experience with me and with my brand,
like I hold it so here, I care so very much.
I also obviously am a mother of two boys, I
am a wife, I am a daughter, I am a friend,
I am an aunt, I am you know.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
It's so that's to me.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
I think the biggest regret ever is that if I
was one place, I couldn't have been in the other place,
Like I always want.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
To be every all the time, and that's tough to manage.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
And why did you so, what ultimately was the driver
for you to be Like Nope, jumping out of my
own like what actually were you? Just like I feel
I've done all I can here and it's time or
what was the empetus.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
There were two, i'd say two really clear catalysts for
this change, one being I had become a mother in
the middle of all of this. So my eldest who
is now eleven, his name is Reese, so Reese too,
and at the time of the sort of decision, and
(32:05):
you could imagine obviously being in a client service business
that is non traditional in terms of hours.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
Obviously, if it's christ even missus Smith wants to see me, well,
Christmas plans be dammed, and of course I would be there.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Of course, you show up that hole if you're going
to do something, to do it all the way.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
So that was really I found. It started to just.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Be really really challenging to not have control over my
schedule in a way that I could also show up
the very best way I.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
Could for my clients.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
So even about of course I could have had flexible schedule,
of course, but then I would have been letting people
down meeted me not have a flexible So that was
one thing, and then really the biggest piece of all
of it was feeling like there was more that I
could do to meet the needs of my clients as
pertained to the various aspects of the jewelry world that
(33:00):
currently aren't present when one is obviously representing one.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Of course, of course you wanted to diversify for your clients. Yeah,
bring them everything, literally, like the best of everything, and
whether that's estate, vintage Cartier or Tiffany or whatever or
custom Briany or blah blah blah. Right, Okay, I got it.
That makes that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Yeah, And I wanted to be able to you know,
both sort of flex my or scratch my design itch
which I'd always been very creative person, always had, you know,
sort of my own things, you know that I was
working on from a design perspective, but it was also
as someone who always say, I'm like a little greedy
with my love of jewelry in the sense of.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
I love all of it.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
I love jar I love Cartier, I love unsigned Retro,
I love antique Victorian, I love brand new chunky gold
that I designed and made. I also, you know, want
you came to me and said, I'd like, you know,
a birthstone medallion for my baby boys.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
And every single day, every single day, I sleep in it.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
Aurora Zodiac medallion looks so good on you.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
I love it so much. I love it so much,
and it is just I like hold it while I
talk to you know, like I just I play with it.
It's just the best. But but I but I also
I think I think that, you know, with the risk
of sounding like a grandmother like I, I you really
(34:35):
weirdly remind me a lot of myself as a stylist.
Meaning I see the way you light up when you
talk about what you do. There's a clear, over like
polarizing passion that you have with jewelry. And I think, truthfully,
I think that's why we connected it hello, because it
was sort of like I was piled in jewels, you
(34:57):
were piled in jewels. We were like, how do our me?
Speaker 2 (35:00):
Like? You know.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
But also I think it's it is that, you know,
I compare it to when I was styling and you know,
certain design houses wanting me to work only for them.
It was never an option for me because I was like,
I need to touch all of it, I need to
pull all of it, you know. And I think it's
(35:24):
I think it's I don't know. I think it's the
spice of life. And I think certainly any industry is
being able to see touch create your own amidst that,
and I, you know, I think it's it's funny because
people will say, oh, well, Briany, so is it just
her collection or I'm like, it's literally everything. It's the
(35:44):
best of everything, And that's sort of what I always
that's how I describe what your business is. Honestly, I
was like, yes, she makes incredible bespoke, this, that and
the other thing and all this incredible Briany pieces herself,
but she really deals and sells also so much in
(36:05):
just rare vintage estate and just the most special pieces.
So I think it's really the best of all worlds.
But I know that you are a mom to young boys,
but you're also you work like crazy, and I want
to talk about that because there are challenges with that.
(36:26):
So it's interesting because it's like you left something that
was sort of like this, Okay, I can't, you know,
dictate my life my schedule. But meanwhile, if someone's like
Evangelina A. Julie is like I need you on a plane,
or somebody whoever it is, is like I need you
on a plane in La like there is not one
breath you wouldn't take where you're not getting on that plane,
(36:47):
Like there isn't a thought, it's you're going to sort
everything out before you go, but you will be on
that plane. And I think that's the blessing and curse
of your name being on the door.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
Correct, So true, No, it's absolutely true. It's like out
of the frying pan into the fire, right the phrases.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
So, how do you deal with that? How do you
deal is that? Do you find the struggle with being
a really hard working but really hands on mom, because
it's real.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
It is quite literally my greatest greatest struggle ever in
my life is reconciling.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
The sincere.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
True I feel like I can't emphasize enough like passion
and gratification and confidence and pure visceral joy I get
from building this brand and working with my clients and
being surrounded by beautiful jewelry and being trusted with these
(37:51):
incredibly intimate personal projects with the most incredible people ever.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
And at the same time.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Obviously, nothing ever, possibly could matter more to me than
those boys, and it is so I literally I don't
think that there's like a cliche in the world that
I haven't heard, you know, for better or for worse again,
of people saying or it's you know, God, it's like
(38:20):
it's so hard. I have so many like thoughts and
feelings that all are so it's like waves crashing against
each other. This like hide of almost like competing conflicting
thoughts and feelings. One which is how proud I am,
how very proud I am to model for my boys,
(38:41):
just as you do a strong, confident, you know, brand building,
hard working person who you know absolutely loves they do.
At the same time, I also really really miss them.
I get like really really sad when I'm away from them,
And such a wild contradiction to be so excited and
(39:05):
happy about the thing that also almost like Paul heartache. Yeah,
it's such a wild contradictions. And one doesn't negate the other,
and they tye literally do co exist at the same time.
I will say one thing that really did make a
huge difference is my amazing husband, Luke, who is a
(39:29):
stay at home dad, and having Luke used to work
in the city.
Speaker 3 (39:32):
We both worked in the city.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
He sold his business a few years ago and you know,
sort of COVID adjacent and all of that. He was
in the advertising world, and having him there really helps.
Having their grandparents live two houses away my kids, they
have the same I always call our nanny or their
third parent. We've had the same amazing nanny since before
I was pregnant with Reese, so for eleven years they've
(39:55):
had you know, they have all of these wonderful, loving
people forming a commune around them, and that has really helped
me to feel like they have so much love. And
obviously every single second, whether it's a red eye home
or it's you know, getting home late at night after
an event, to see them for twenty minutes in the
morning before they go to school to then come back.
Speaker 3 (40:16):
I'll do it. I want it in the twenty minutes
of snuggle time. Again.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
I know I'm being to this snuggling preaching to the
choir here, but having that time like I eke out
every single second I can, and it is so divine
to have that time with them, and I also it
is so divine to have this incredible world that I
that I work in and love and brings me so
(40:41):
much joy.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
And you, honestly, you don't have to choose. It's just
as women, that's just what we live with. It just
is it just is you literally want to be all
things to both and I think, but I think you're
doing it beautifully and I think that you know, I
love watching you when it makes me happy. I'm excited
(41:05):
to see as you, lady, I'm excited to see what's
what's next for you? What so like what is the
plan forward? Like you have so much going on? Like
but as you're building the brand, like what where do
you see it?
Speaker 2 (41:20):
Like?
Speaker 1 (41:20):
Do you want to lean more into your own? Do
you want to keep it like equal?
Speaker 3 (41:25):
Do you like?
Speaker 1 (41:26):
What do you or don't you even? You just take
it day by day and you just take it as
it comes, like well, because that's okay too, But I mean,
I'm curious.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
No, it's it's it's a wonderful question, I feel like,
because everything is so intense and so prenetic, and we're
literally I'm always sort of moving at such a fast pace.
Speaker 3 (41:46):
I also always laugh that I.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
Can only ever deal I'm sure my team finds it
less funny, but bless them for being so extraordinarily supportive.
But I literally only deal with this what's like right
in front of me as it's happening the same And
I think that's part right, And I say, that's why
you and I are both all same so.
Speaker 3 (42:04):
So present, so ourselves so decisive.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
But also it's sometimes it's one of those thingsverson's like, well,
what about the thing in three hours?
Speaker 1 (42:13):
I can't tell you. I can't tell you, not that.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
I'll know. I'll know in three hours. I will.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
I will figure it out, I swear. But yes, I
think the plan would be to keep doing what I'm doing.
And I really, I really feel I don't know's I
would love to have, like a really eloquent response to this.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
There isn't one a lot of the time, truthfully, I
mean I don't just one.
Speaker 3 (42:40):
I just yes, I guess.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
I would be so so happy if I could tell
you any year in five years and ten years that
I still feel as excited and invigorated and creatively inspired
as I do now. It has never waned yet. As
I sit touching, knocking on wood, I designed to in
my sleep. I designed jewelry while I'm ching my makeup.
I designed jewelry while I'm talking to people. I also
(43:06):
am always thinking about, you know, when I go to
vintage shows, for instance, I'll think about a piece that
I saw four years ago.
Speaker 3 (43:13):
When you call me and you're like, heybe of course
I'm thinking.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
I want nineteen sixties Tuba gossp but I'd like it
to have you know, pink staffires in the front.
Speaker 3 (43:20):
And I'm like, there was that piece four yars ago, but.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
By the way, I mean this year's Oscars. I think.
I text you like I'm thinking like black white, Emerald,
Da da da, like I don't even remember. And you
were like like this and I was like, yeah, like
that exactly.
Speaker 3 (43:37):
Jewelry so well, my mag I spirit animal.
Speaker 2 (43:41):
The two of us about seventeen pieces of jewelry all
at the same time.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
Would you say in the business your like your best
spoke collections are like, what is it thirty percent to
seventy vintage in a state or is it fifty fifth?
Like how are you?
Speaker 2 (43:59):
It's actually it's wild. It's exactly fifty to fifty and
you know, it's so wild, not by and this has
been year after year. It's so crazy. And I every
time we talk about, you know, with our accountants, and honestly,
as much as yes, I am a numbers person, yes,
I weirdly do also have a business brain. I actually
(44:19):
don't day to day pay much attention to like skills
and this and that. I'm really focused more on getting
through the day. But whenever we do have any type
of sort of perspective and have that moment where we're
talking about the breakdown of how different you know, sort
of where focus and energy and resources should be designated,
(44:41):
it is so wild to me how evenly split they
are between the kind of and I combine you know,
Briany Raymond's collection and bespoke basically anything that we make.
And also I have to note, just because I'm so
proud of it, but our workshop is here in New York,
so all of our kind of all in New York,
and it's really important to meet, to us support our
wonderful New York workshop and our New York dory industry,
(45:03):
and to keep things here where I can my interperfectionist
I can see things and touch them and see the
castings and all that. But it is truly half and
half so and and by the way, again, like with pleasure,
I'm so glad it's that because I could never be
I would. It would be really hard for me if
somebody said, oh, well, well not that I not that
I I can take advice.
Speaker 3 (45:23):
I love advice. I also at the end of the
day we.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
Say, like my decisions you can tell me all you want,
but like I will make my own decisions.
Speaker 3 (45:29):
It would be really hard to choose.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
And both, thankfully and half continuous play equal equal roles
in the business.
Speaker 1 (45:36):
Well, I love you a whole lot. I loved having
you on. I love keeping it real, and I love
watching you continue to win and I will continue to
wear and I will continue to be dripping and Brian
Raymond for the rest of.
Speaker 3 (45:53):
My Oh, thank you for the support. Thank you for
having me on my very first podcast.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
I mean, I love you. I'm so glad it was
your That's so exciting.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
I love you madly.
Speaker 3 (46:04):
I love you, babe.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
Thank you so much to Briani for coming on the
pod today. She's so smart and so glamorous. Again, I
hate to sound like a grandparent, but she reminds me
of myself as a stylist, where someone would ask me
a question about a designer, why I loved a certain
trend or why I love fashion, and it was like
I couldn't stop spewing. Why my eyes would light up,
(46:29):
my whole body would get up straight. I would have
this like huge East to West smile on my face
when I spoke about it. And for me, just getting
to interview people that are so passionate, so deeply passionate
about what they do is always just really fun for me.
And also I deeply feel her struggles about, you know,
wanting to provide her clients with the best there is
(46:51):
and also wanting to show up for her kids every
minute of every day and not being able to literally
cut yourself in half. It's a real struggle and one
I think many of us and most on Climbing and
Heels have to deal with on the daily. So doesn't
go underappreciated that you do. Thank you so much for
listening to Climbing and Heels. If you haven't already, please
(47:12):
subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the iHeart app,
or wherever you get your podcasts. You don't miss a
single episode this season, and be sure to follow me
on Instagram on at Rachel Zo and the show at
Clembing and hills Pod for the latest episodes and updates.
I will talk to you soon.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!