September 24, 2021 • 39 mins
In this episode, host Geoffrey Zakarian speaks with retail executive Mickey Drexler. The two longtime friends share reflections on what it takes to build an ambitious career from the ground up, as well as what makes for successful customer interactions and company leadership.
Learn more about Mickey Drexler’s clothing company, Alex Mill, on its website: https://www.alexmill.com
For more information on "Four Courses With Geoffrey Zakarian" follow Geoffrey on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/geoffreyzakarian"
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
My name is Jeffers Carrion, and you're listening to four
Courses with Jeffrey Z. Carrion from I Heart Radio and
four Courses, I'll be taking you along for the ride
while I talk with the top talent of our time.
In each conversation, I focused on four different areas from
my guests life and career, and during those four courses,
I'm gonna dig deep and cover new insights and inspirations
(00:26):
that we can all use to fuel ourselves to push forward.
My guest for this episode is the man who many
credit with putting the clothing brand Gap on the map.
He went on to found Old Navy, run J Crew,
and even designed the first Apple store for Steve Jobs.
His success in turning around clothing companies earned him the
nickname the Merchant Prince. Without further delay, let's get into
(00:50):
my conversation with my good friend Mickey Drexler. You're looking
good man, Thank you. I'm wearing Alex Mills. Can you
see this? For our first course, I wanted to learn
about Mickey's upbringing in the Bronx and how the flavors
of his childhood home helps shape his taste in clothing.
Years later, I know you love food and I knew
(01:11):
you as the boss of Gap first, but then I
realized you're a foodie. Um, so where did that come from?
Like when you were in your house? Well, I know
your mom passed it, um tragically when you're sixteen, But like,
what was the smells, I mean any out of your
house that it came from somewhere, just like your love
of clothes came from somewhere. What do you remember about
like sort of the visceral smells of the food cooking
(01:33):
in your house and who was cooking. Basically that's a
funny question. No, no one ever asked me that. But
you know what I remember most, and I'm not even
sure I have the right name sweet and sour meatballs.
And they smelled my grandmother made them, and that's what
I remember most. But you know, when you say of foodie,
(01:55):
I did. When I was a kid. My my aunts
cooked for me, mostly after my mother passed and then
my mom before everything came out of the freezer. Everything
would come out of the freezer. So I I really wasn't.
I think as I got older, I just like quality.
(02:15):
I always wanted quality in my life, so liking good
food is part of liking clothes or cars or people. Uh,
it's a standard I have. When I started to change gap,
it was always a matter of good taste should not
cost anything extra. Now maybe in food it does because
(02:39):
the cut of the steak is maybe important. But it's
just the way I changed, I evolved in my life.
Who doesn't love I don't know anyone doesn't love good
food really, And it's harder and harder sometimes to find
good food. Um, but it was not my family cooking
for me, guarantee. But you remember sweet and sour? Yeah,
(03:02):
I guess the soup smelled nice. It was a homie smell.
It was you know, the the emotion that emanated from
a good smell was more important than the food itself.
And that was always important to me, So as anyone
in that time that you remember, say after your mom passed,
that that critical time in your life that really sort
(03:24):
of put their arm around you and sort of guided you,
your dad or someone who was there to sort of
like help you succeed, help you become an adult. Well,
my dad frankly didn't pay much attention to me, never
did he Uh was self centered. Uh, he wasn't a
kind easy affectionate person, and my mother was ill for
(03:48):
many years before she passed on, so I never had
a father who really did that. I was always kind
of self driven. My aunts, my three aunts who took
care of me, were wonderful and I love them. But
the irony in a family like mine, with eight cousins
growing up in the Bronx, I was the only one
(04:10):
who went to college, which was very surprising to this day.
But I I was driven partly because my dad, I
was the opposite. I didn't want to be him. And
when I didn't want to be him, that means I
had to be successful. I had to have a much
better job, and a lot of that drove me because
(04:32):
I'd work with him, and he worked in a coat
manufacturing company, and I used to work in the shipping room,
and I took the payroll one day to the bank,
and of course I went through the entire payroll for
the whole company, and I saw that he was among
(04:52):
one of the lowest paid people in the company. And
it devastated me because he would always try to be
big shots. Maybe the wrong word, but it might be
the right word. And I'll never forget that day in
my life, and it was all very motivating to get
out of here and do something else and not be
(05:13):
with him per se. So no one really guided me.
I guess I was an ambitious kid, you know, it's
hard to explain certain things, and I wanted to be successful,
and that I think was partially him not being and
not being the kindest, nicest person in the world. I
guess you're not supposed to say things like this on podcasts,
(05:35):
but you know that was my father, and you know
that was the hand I was dealt. Thank God for
my aunts who who mothered me incredibly well for the
rest of my teenage years, etcetera. Well, you certainly went,
I believe, from the Bronx to Buffalo to Boston to
blew me the four Bees. So so so your dad
(06:01):
was in He was in the rag business also. He
he was in the co business and the button business.
So it wasn't I mean the apple was there, maybe,
you know, not the exact apple, right, I think that's true.
He bought buttons and piece goods. And I worked in
the garment business as a kid on on Saturdays, holidays
and all that, and I took it seriously. I find
(06:24):
a lot of people, you know, the apple doesn't fall
far from the tree. I ask all the young people
and older people who I meet an interview, what did
their parents do? And you do see a trend in
the creative sense, which I include your world, then, is
that someone would play music, they danced, they cooked, they
(06:47):
did art, and more likely than not, the apple does
not fall far from the tree, which is I don't
know if that's true in in the food world, but
definitely I find it true in other world. Well, my smell,
Mickey was rice peel off, because I was raised by
three ounce as well, and all they did was cook.
(07:08):
At breakfast, they talked about lunch. At lunch, they talked
about dinner, and at dinner they talked about the next day.
That smell I can I remember to this day. If
I close my eyes, I know what the house smells like,
the rug smells like. And I asked that question because
I think, like you said, it's more important than the apple.
(07:28):
It's really it is what you know. You can't help
not feel that and suck it in. It just comes
back somehow. Right in our second course, I had to
hear how Mickey transformed his drive for success into a
thriving retail career. It turns out Mickey discovered his knack
for fashion almost by accident when he took a job
(07:49):
as a buyer from Bloomingdale's after getting passed over elsewhere.
And you know, you start looking at your life and
you look back and you say, all these moments change
you dramatically. I was very, very lucky, and I do
believe that all of us are given a certain skill
that we have to live our lives. For me, I
(08:12):
went to Bloomingdale's interestingly enough, because when I worked at
A and S, they offered my good friend five dollars
more in salary. And I was furious because I worked
at A and S for summer job and they knew me,
So I was really upset. I went to work at Bloomingdale's.
I was very lucky. I worked and worked for this woman,
(08:33):
Katie Murphy. She was a fashion director. Katie Uh and
I hung out for two years. We go to Europe together,
we go to the markets. She would have probably been
the CEO if she weren't a woman in those days.
She had a great eye, a great instinct, and I
loved her dearly. Um and so uh it a lot
(08:55):
of it came naturally. My first my second day at Bloomingdale's,
they assigned me to be a buyer and I loved
what I did, and it was I was very successful.
I went to the market every day and I picked
goods out. I had a budget. My boss, Stanley's during
a wonderful guy. But it wasn't like bosses then paid
attention to what you did per se. But he was
(09:17):
a great guy. I I just it just took off
in terms of my career. But after two years or
three years, I got bored. I didn't like everyone getting
promoted around me. But that's corporations, and you know, corporations
aren't the most creative places in the world ever. And
so I made a move to a year and a
(09:39):
half at Macy's. Didn't like it there, but I had
to make a living. I had a wife to support,
I had a rent to pay, and so Macy's a
year and a half, I left a and s four years,
I quit, and I'm saying, I don't like this anymore.
I spent six or seven years and not liking what
I did. And then I met the own is of
(10:00):
and Taylor, and I kept saying, no, I didn't want
to do that. I was a little nervous about giving
up my safe job. Which forget about being nervous about that.
I went to become the CEO of Ann Taylor for
four years. And how old were you? I was thirty
five and just incredible. Yeah, that was the beginning of
of my career. And what was nice about it was
(10:23):
great about it. I just did it. And then we
had about twenty five stores losing a lot of money.
We turned it around dramatically, being a very hip store,
and so I switched the company to and Taylor Studio
just when I got there, and then we were taken
over by an awful, big, bureaucratic company. I stayed for
(10:44):
four years, learned how to do my job, and then
I moved to California to run Gap. Did that for
eighteen years. You know, the rest is history. So a
lot of people like Gap boys just the ads and
Gap I remember the advertising almost more than I remember
the clothes. But what was the premise that made you
(11:07):
think that you could have a remarkable effect on how
people dressed with this company rather than doing your own
thing at that time? Well, it's it's a good question.
I'm basically a conservative person, and in nineteen eighty three
own things were not like today, you go out, you
(11:29):
raised five million, you raised three million. I didn't think
of that. Plus it wasn't what people did as often.
You know, I grew up without any money and I
was would be nervous not to have a salary, which
is what I had. And now here I am, fifty
years later, doing my own thing. But by the way,
(11:51):
own thing is an interesting comment. If you don't know
in fifty one percent, it ain't your own thing. People
ought to know that. So at Gap I owned five
or six percent and I left. I went to J Crew.
I was the biggest shareholder with my own money, but
still not the same because private equity owned ent with
(12:15):
their money, which is everyone's money I owned. I bought
ten percent of the company with my own money. So
the funny thing is again I controlled ten percent, but
they control. So your own thing. People ought to remember
is only your own thing when you control the financial
percent of the company. But I learned at a late age.
(12:40):
Now I have a company that my son and I
own with some sack who is our designer. I'll listen
to anyone who's smart and gives us feedback, but I
don't have to listen to someone who has a short
term view of making a profit, especially in the restaurant business.
I think is this same back and forth and up
(13:02):
and down, you hit a wall, you come back, and
so at this later stage of my life, uh, this
is kind of what I've wanted for many years. To
your question of doing your own thing. Yeah, and I
I mean I do my own thing. And it's people say, oh,
you're an owner, you're this, you have all this. I'm like,
(13:22):
you have no idea. It's just like you know, at
the end of the day on Monday, if there's a
cash call, guess what they call. They call you, and
of course you know they don't call the owner, and
you're like, it's the almost beauty. I always tell people
stay on salary and so you're absolutely certain that you
have another vein of cash to live off for a
certain amount of time, because it ain't as easy as
(13:44):
you think. And the press makes it seem very easy
because they wanted to be good. They wanted to succeed
because they need something to write about. And when I
learned that these critics and critiquing goes, they need something
to write about it, otherwise they be out of a job.
It was sort of like a lightning bolt came down
and then it was like I felt free, So right,
you must be. I feel much freer that you don't
(14:07):
need approval of anybody. You just need to do great
stuff and if it doesn't work, you do some other
stuff until it works. I don't have any need for
any investors. And uh, it's what I worked my life
for is probably to do this. I didn't think this
was my grand plan. My son's story at the company
six or seven years ago, and he's a terrific person
(14:30):
and works his butt off, but he needed a CEO.
And then I said, geez, I'm gonna work now, I'm
going to have a job again. So because I have
to be busy, I have to work, I have to
do and all that. So I love doing and I
love the fashion business. So being in Alex Mills, which
is your son, it's a great story. I wear all
of his clothes um and and I'm not saying that
(14:53):
because I have to say it. A lot of American designers.
I love to wear, but I love to mix and match.
But I think Alex Mills does great is give you
the ability to do that, And so is how do
you at that level and your your son is dealing
with both hip and trend. How do you discover hip
(15:15):
and trend? And how do you marry that? It's a
really good question, and uh, how do I answer that?
You know, going there, it's if it's too trendy, it's
gone gone. What you really want a day in, day
out classics ish with a twist. My wardrobe is always
(15:36):
things that around forever and ever and ever. And I
think most men dressed pretty much the same way since
they were ten years old, you know, kind of classic ish,
the same thing. But we are always evaluating the life
of a garment. You know, it's an art. It's an art,
(15:56):
not a science on what has life to it. But
for example, this is our number one T shirt in
the company. It's just a blue T shirt, comes in
six or eight colors. In fact, we had an issue
today the prices of shipping goods. I don't know if
your world's affected by my pants and pots, it's insane,
(16:19):
it's a killer. So we went from forty five to
forty eight dollars on this and now the accountants here,
I want to raise it to fifty five dollars, And
I said, you raise this to fifty five dollars and
everyone's gonna notice. They're not going to notice other things
(16:40):
like this jacket here, they'll notice. So I said, I
don't want to change it. I don't want to raise
the price. He said, well the margins low. I said,
let it be low on the number one T shirt
because that's a signal. It's a signal to customers that
the prices were raised because they're gonna remember this. They're
(17:02):
not going to remember a few bucks. It's just a
call we make. It's very exciting when you ring the
register up every day for something customers want. So you know,
that's why a micromanage. You've got a micromanage. You've got
to make sure things are right and take risks by
the way, always taking a risk, and if you lose,
(17:22):
you lose. Now, the stupid things we did this year,
we're buying too much fleece when we should have figured
out with COVID coming to an end, fleece will not
be what it was. And everyone was in the fleece
business and we're not a fleece seller, so we ended
up owning too much of that. That was a big
mistake we made. But on the classics. We're good at it. Well,
(17:45):
we have to be good at it. That's what That's
what I've done my whole career, is you know, trying
to sell things that don't have an expiration date. For
our third course, I knew Mickey would have unique reflection
(18:06):
on what makes a good leader. He was famous at
JA Crew for not having his own office, instead using
a loudspeaker to congratulate colleagues or just share thoughts about
the weather. Even at the pinnacle of his career, giving
that personal touch mattered, And I wanted to know why.
You know, there's all kinds of schools on leadership. If
you if you click the internet now, there's maybe two
(18:28):
thousand courses on leadership and hip and trending and direction.
It's very hard to pass out sort of how you
run a business and how you lead people. I know
you have a specific way that's pretty unique, that's been
very good to you even to today. So what would
you say is the best way? How do you act
(18:50):
like an owner without acting like an owner? Well, it's
a really good question, and I can tell your leadership
is it's very hard to put it into words. It's
hard to explain, but it's having a point of view.
It's having a vision, it's sticking with it. It's being
able to say to someone you're not doing a good job,
(19:11):
or you've got to change this. It's telling them what
you think. And it's also having an ability to teach
by example. So for me, I could do I could
do the jobs here of any buyer, so to speak.
I've been practicing my craft for many years, and part
(19:32):
of my craft is people and an energy, and and
you feel it. I think, I guess you're born with
it to a degree. You have to feel the energy
and the leadership and the excitement and the passion. And
there by the way, there are people who don't necessarily
(19:53):
do that are great leaders. But I was with Steve
Jobs for sixteen years and felt You've felt him feeling it,
You've felt him and Steve's you know, people always could
criticize Steve, the smartest, most exciting person I've ever worked
with in my life. But there's something there that you
(20:14):
can't really teach and learn. In my opinion, he of
course is an easy one to choose as the best
because he was by far the best. But I think
you're turning people on, You're getting him excited, you're leading
him forward, you're taking the right risks, and they respect
that and treating people well. Needless to say that goes
(20:36):
first always, like like coming to the major D. But
I also think what I heard from you is the
habit of communicating all the time, because I find most
people in my world don't communicate well because they're too
addicted to the one forty word tweet or small texts
are simple that that's not communication. That is telling the
(20:59):
people your location. It's not communicating. You've got to sit
down in front of someone and like, let me this
is what I feel, and they have to even if
it's inaccurate communication. You need to show some of that.
I can. I can fail too, but you're gonna fail
with me and we're both gonna learn absolutely and um.
And people also feel b s all the time or
(21:23):
they feel that it's so you've got to be a
bullshit detector always, and most people are that, except I
will say growing up and I tell the young people this,
I said, forget what the title is, look at the
human being, look at the person, and whatever you're thinking
about them is true. Because you know, when I started working,
(21:47):
i'd see fancy titles, big shots here and big shots there,
and you say, gee, I don't get it. I'm not
sure why they have this job. Well, you know something,
if you think it, you're usually right. And I always
say even in business, every day, even picking merchandise, you're
usually right. You know who the winners are you feeling.
(22:08):
I did a short stint working for you, and but
what I knew about you from some of the executives
and the team was that you would answer your phone
calls all the time yourself, which is almost unheard of. Um,
and I wondered, like where that came from? It did
it come from sort of like an early sense of
connection that you felt was so important that it never
(22:31):
left you because you do it to this day. I mean,
you're very hands on to the point where it's almost
like you would call people back when people used to
leave messages back then, you would call them back where
they come from. It's it's an interesting question. I'll tell
you where I think it came from, because you know,
we kind of developed into being who we are from
(22:52):
who we were. And I grew up, you know, kid
in the Bronx, you know, not important. But the point
was when I started to work and people didn't say
hello at work or where I was ignored or things
like that. I I found that I left a message
(23:16):
today at seven o'clock this morning, quite important text, and
I haven't heard back yet from the CEO of this company.
And uh, it tells me so much when I don't
hear back from people. And I don't want to be
the person who is too important, who ignores someone or
(23:40):
who doesn't get back to them. It's very respectful. I
don't want to be the person who doesn't say hello
to people. I am who I am and if I
know how I feel when people don't return my calls
or they wait a day or two, and to me,
it's just being a mention. It's doing the right thing.
(24:04):
I love that and I so agree with you, and
I think that it's really important. And this is what
Eli's Abart does. So he told me said, you know,
if you don't if you don't know your customer, in
one split second, they're gone and if you think they're
coming back, you're wrong. And you need to treat them
like they feel like you're part of the family. And
family messes up. Family screws up, and you can screw up.
(24:26):
You can screw up many times like I have. And
he said, I screw up all the time. But I'm
part of a family and those are my customers, and
they'll come back and they give me another break and
another break in another break, And I thought that was
It was austere, yet so like it. The perspective is rare.
And I don't know whether it's a sense of patience
or a sense of honesty, but I loved his honesty.
(24:48):
You're right about customers and if you respond quick well,
you can respond the same way to a customer as
you do to a CEO or anyone else. That's the
way it should be, and especially with customers, because they're
shocked when you answer your phone or you chat with
(25:09):
them the second they call, and they tell fifty friends said, wow,
the this big company cares is what it is. And
I'm allergic to rude people. I'm allergic to stores that
aren't nice, but restaurants, you know, with attitude, I just
will never go back. And uh, well, you know that
you always had friendly restaurants. It is at some point
(25:32):
in time the business that you're in, which is I
always say clothes and rags and whatever do you want
to call it. And my business is the same business
where wooing customers, we're telling what to wear and what
to eat, and we want them to listen or at
least try us. So you can't be rate them, right,
That's the first step is not to be rate them.
(25:52):
The first step is to sort of like welcome them
and like what do you think? Right? Isn't that what
you want to hear? It's almost I mean, my ex
wife was a therapist and your wife's a therapist, and
she would always tell me said, stop and listen and
ask someone what they think. If you do that first,
all that ship that they have in their brain goes
(26:13):
away momentarily. Right. For sure. It's just just I mean,
always be nice and it just always be nice if
you feel it. It does work. Fake nice doesn't work.
I didn't mention that the best people to speak to
the staff in the stores or online. I go into
the stores. I spent my whole career I never speak
(26:36):
to I listened to what they say in headquarters. But
you go into a store where you speak to people,
you'll learn more than anything. Listen, tell them what they
listen to what they say. And that's true of customers anywhere,
you know, there's restaurants I go to. I was in
a restaurant the other day and the guy walks by.
(26:56):
He says, how is everything. Well, the bread on my
avocado and toast was so hard a crust I needed
a sort of to cut it. He says, how is everything?
I said, well, to tell you the truth? Um, and
he walked away. Because it's called touching at table. They
(27:21):
don't want to really hear the truth. He didn't want
to hear anything. And now when I go in, I
for avocado toasted toast, but no crust, please. He didn't.
He just walked away. It was the funniest thing I've
ever seen. And that's because he's been trained not to listen,
which is a big deal. I mean, just you you.
(27:41):
I think you got something right there. You hit it
on the head. You listen. You want to hear bad things.
Tell me the negative. Of course, don't tell me everything
is fabulous because it's bullshit, right, Just tell me, tell
me what's wrong. And if you tell someone what's wrong,
you correct the problem. That's a customer for life. It's
it's a simple equation. And what economic stratus you are
(28:02):
if you're fifteen or fifty or seventy five. If someone
has a problem, you listen to them and you solve
the problem, or you apologize. You know, an apology goes
a long way if it's sincere. I think that those
habits you said are just it's so true to who
you've always been. And just listen. You treat people well
and you don't ignore the criticism. If I get a letter,
(28:25):
if someone sits and writes me a letter, the amount
of effort it takes to write a letter is astounding.
First of all, you have to you have to not
get over your anger. You have to get home maybe
you're buzzed. You have to think about it the next day,
and you have to get up in penel letter, I mean,
you better listen to that customer, and I tell everybody
you respond within twenty four hours. You invite them in,
(28:46):
fall all over yourself and say we made a terrible mistake,
We're so sorry. Coming as my guests bring two extra people.
It's on us. Not one time in my forty year
career has that person not become either a friend or
the best customer ever. And when I tell that story,
they're like, you're kidding me. Aren't you scared? I'm like,
what am I scared of? These people? Are? They're telling
you what's wrong? Right, it's a favor. Well, it's a
(29:09):
gift to consultant to come in and write a see
the two they deal with every return right here, we're
we're not a we have one store. We have you know,
mostly online or opening another store. But they tell all
I have to do is what are the returns about today?
What are people returning? You know, if you find out
(29:30):
a pants not fitting in this set and the other thing,
you gotta fix it. It's a hard business, your business
and and my business. Yours is probably more difficult because
you gotta be on on every dish, you know. Yeah,
but the problem with my business is it's stuff. The
stuff goes bad and in two hours it's gonna be friend.
We were like, we're manufacturers. Their carrot looks like this
(29:51):
when it comes in at five in the morning, and
it's like this, it's six and the next day there's
no more carrots. You're gonna do it again. Imagine if
you have to make the clothes every day and they
you sold out. You gotta make up every day unbelieved.
It's tough. It's incredible. For our fourth and final course,
(30:19):
I got to hear what advice Mickey would pass on
to the next generation of leaders, and as we kept learning,
his world of fashion is not so different from my
world of food. What keeps you at the top of
the heap? What are some of the things that you know? Work?
You know? Time sites terrific? Uh? You know, I joined
a company at Bloomingdale's. I was really lucky. I had
(30:42):
Katie as my boss. I would say, if you can
pick your boss, not the corporation per se. You know
when I was when I was young, you kind of
didn't switch jobs. I did, but most people didn't try
to choose a great boss. Who are you going to
report to? You can't really do that at such a
huge difference. Uh. And whether they're not great or great,
(31:04):
you're gonna learn as much from weak or bad bosses
as you will from a good boss. And you're gonna
follow your instinct. And I was a shy kid. I
never had a chance to do what I did. But
when I got my first job at Bloomingdale's, it was
like I was a changed human being because I had
(31:26):
a responsibility and I was hugely driven to do well,
and so you're gonna make yourself successful unless you get
into one of these companies where I don't know if
it's hedge funds, where a lot of people have the
right jobs and they get very rich, so to speak,
not necessarily successful, but rich. But I think the thing
is try to get into a high quality company that's
(31:47):
driven with good management, and if you don't, you make
a mistake. Big deal today, and take every interview you can. Always.
I used to do that, even when I liked my
job at Blooms. Every into they call me I want
to learn from someone else. I always walked away most
of the time saying, where where are the people that
impress me? And they weren't a lot um. Do your job,
(32:10):
take the risks if you can. You've got to suck
up a little, I guess, But don't be a wise guy.
Don't be a know it all. I remember when I
was twenty three and twenty two and with the I'm
going to be vice president is joined from whoever said it.
Be humble, be likable, don't play the competitive card at all.
For me, you never want to me because sending an
(32:33):
alienate people in a sense. So I was and by
the way, I had no reason to play it. In hindsight,
I did really well in my career, but I never
was that guy out there or the woman out there
playing the competitive card because I think most people are
a bit insecure. Good leaders no matter what they tell you,
they're insecure or worried about the next year, the next day.
(32:56):
None of us don't worry. I've never seen anyone not worry.
So worry about your job every day like it means everything. Uh.
And if you get to a point of being bored
or I quit Blooming Deals because I didn't respect who
was being promoted. I didn't have great respect for the leadership.
I left Ditto from Macy's. I left Ditto for A
(33:21):
and S. And I guess I was destined maybe not
to work for someone, although I always did and have
a skill set. You know, I have to say, if
you're a great salesman, you might just be a great salesman,
which is okay. I happened to be fortunate that I
had an intuition about apparel, I an instinct, a feel,
(33:43):
and I also had a vision that GAP would become
the affordable version of nice clothes because I always said
good clothes don't have to cost anything extra. And that
was me. But I always like nice I like nice things.
But you have to be hugely focused. Also, focus, focus, focus.
(34:05):
If you're running a piece of a business, just try
to eliminate all the wasted stuff you have on your desk.
You know the books, I don't. I don't read the
books because I just don't read the books. I read
the people. I listen, and I've learned most from people
who are good or not good. So I mean it's
again L TIB comes down to what you're saying is
(34:27):
sort of this such a focus on communicating with people
every day, and they will communicate back by so that
they inform you what works and what doesn't work without
telling you. They just they buy things because they like
the way you think about them. That's what I found.
(34:49):
I never cooked for a person. I would cook for
myself what I like to eat, what I found delicious
and yummy, and I would like explain it and just
present it and then people will. You know, people like
to be told what to do. I don't know if
that's a fashion the USA. Tell me what to drink,
tell me what cocktails you're drinking, and I'll be happy
(35:10):
with that, and I find that it was almost very
easy to satisfy people if you have this sense of vision.
But it has to be really kind of homespun and
if you just stick to it, you're gonna catch a
lot of people. And I know you as a person
in this incredible retail business, but I also know you
as a person who loves the the pace of restaurants, right,
(35:34):
that's certain. Shouldn't say choa that that like ZEITGEI used
of walking into a restaurant that's busy and buzzing and happy.
You want to be a part of this. You feel
it the second you go in. Second you go in,
you do you feel it? And of course the front
desk has got to be nice and gracious or else
(35:56):
you feel that too. I felt that when I used
to go into the old Barneys downtown. I felt it
was the same thing. And that's why I love fashion
so much, because I think it's so mirrors our world
of food, my wilder food, because we just recreate food
(36:16):
from twenty years ago every twenty years or five years ago.
And I feel fashion there's a lot of parallels, don't
you think fashion? Absolutely? Yeah, It's like French pastros now
are all the rage your night in French peast has
been around since god knows when, and now it's like
on fire, which I find like kind of wonderful because
it's a twenty year old discovering that never saw it.
(36:37):
So why isn't that great? Right? Yeah? So, speaking of food,
how do you stay how do you stay fit? What
do you eat? Which I know you love Italian coffee shops,
but what do you what do you do to stay fit?
I go to Soul Psycho every morning at seven am.
That's amazing. Uh, That's what I do every morning. I
(36:58):
do that, come rain or shine. Uh. And I'm also
the godfather of soul, so that helps. That's my that's
my official title. And I do that every day. And
I watch what I eat now like crazy. And I
had this thing. It's interesting. About two weeks ago, I'm
(37:19):
sitting next to a woman at dinner who knew a
lot about cancer and everything else. She sees me put
the splendor in and she says, don't you dare have
artificial sweetness? I never met this woman, and then she
starts giving me some bad news on artificial sweeteners. I
stopped drinking diet coke. That next day. I grew up
(37:43):
on cream, soda, root beer, and cola with a Stevia.
That's what I drink. That's my food. And I just
try to eat light, try to not eat lunch if
I can, and I don't try to eat a lot
of food. I have a weakness on ice cream. I
love ice scream, but I work out and I watched
my waight and well, you're entitled to like. I mean,
(38:06):
it's good to have a little ice scream. I think
I could have. I could eat it all day long. Mickey,
thank you so much. I'll see you real soon. I
appreciate your time. This was fun. I appreciate it. By bye,
thank you, I appreciate it. Thanks very much for listening
to Four Courses with Jeffrey Zacarrion, a production of I
Heart Radio and Corner Table Entertainment. Four Courses is created
(38:29):
by Jeffrey Zacarrion, Margaret Secarrion, Jared Keller, and Tara Helper.
Our executive producer is Christopher Hesiotis. Four Courses is produced
by Jonathan Haws Dressler. Our research is conducted by Jesselyn Shields.
Our talent booking is by Pamela Bauer at Dogtown talent.
This episode was edited and written by Priya Madavan and
(38:52):
mixed by Joe Tistle. Special thanks to Katie Fellman for
help as recording engineer. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio,
visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows. H
My name is Jeffers Carrion, and you're listening to four
Courses with Jeffrey Z. Carrion from I Heart Radio and
four Courses, I'll be taking you along for the ride
while I talk with the top talent of our time.
In each conversation, I focused on four different areas from
my guests life and career, and during those four courses,
I'm gonna dig deep and cover new insights and inspirations
(00:26):
that we can all use to fuel ourselves to push forward.
My guest for this episode is the man who many
credit with putting the clothing brand Gap on the map.
He went on to found Old Navy, run J Crew,
and even designed the first Apple store for Steve Jobs.
His success in turning around clothing companies earned him the
nickname the Merchant Prince. Without further delay, let's get into
(00:50):
my conversation with my good friend Mickey Drexler. You're looking
good man, Thank you. I'm wearing Alex Mills. Can you
see this? For our first course, I wanted to learn
about Mickey's upbringing in the Bronx and how the flavors
of his childhood home helps shape his taste in clothing.
Years later, I know you love food and I knew
(01:11):
you as the boss of Gap first, but then I
realized you're a foodie. Um, so where did that come from?
Like when you were in your house? Well, I know
your mom passed it, um tragically when you're sixteen, But like,
what was the smells, I mean any out of your
house that it came from somewhere, just like your love
of clothes came from somewhere. What do you remember about
like sort of the visceral smells of the food cooking
(01:33):
in your house and who was cooking. Basically that's a
funny question. No, no one ever asked me that. But
you know what I remember most, and I'm not even
sure I have the right name sweet and sour meatballs.
And they smelled my grandmother made them, and that's what
I remember most. But you know, when you say of foodie,
(01:55):
I did. When I was a kid. My my aunts
cooked for me, mostly after my mother passed and then
my mom before everything came out of the freezer. Everything
would come out of the freezer. So I I really wasn't.
I think as I got older, I just like quality.
(02:15):
I always wanted quality in my life, so liking good
food is part of liking clothes or cars or people. Uh,
it's a standard I have. When I started to change gap,
it was always a matter of good taste should not
cost anything extra. Now maybe in food it does because
(02:39):
the cut of the steak is maybe important. But it's
just the way I changed, I evolved in my life.
Who doesn't love I don't know anyone doesn't love good
food really, And it's harder and harder sometimes to find
good food. Um, but it was not my family cooking
for me, guarantee. But you remember sweet and sour? Yeah,
(03:02):
I guess the soup smelled nice. It was a homie smell.
It was you know, the the emotion that emanated from
a good smell was more important than the food itself.
And that was always important to me, So as anyone
in that time that you remember, say after your mom passed,
that that critical time in your life that really sort
(03:24):
of put their arm around you and sort of guided you,
your dad or someone who was there to sort of
like help you succeed, help you become an adult. Well,
my dad frankly didn't pay much attention to me, never
did he Uh was self centered. Uh, he wasn't a
kind easy affectionate person, and my mother was ill for
(03:48):
many years before she passed on, so I never had
a father who really did that. I was always kind
of self driven. My aunts, my three aunts who took
care of me, were wonderful and I love them. But
the irony in a family like mine, with eight cousins
growing up in the Bronx, I was the only one
(04:10):
who went to college, which was very surprising to this day.
But I I was driven partly because my dad, I
was the opposite. I didn't want to be him. And
when I didn't want to be him, that means I
had to be successful. I had to have a much
better job, and a lot of that drove me because
(04:32):
I'd work with him, and he worked in a coat
manufacturing company, and I used to work in the shipping room,
and I took the payroll one day to the bank,
and of course I went through the entire payroll for
the whole company, and I saw that he was among
(04:52):
one of the lowest paid people in the company. And
it devastated me because he would always try to be
big shots. Maybe the wrong word, but it might be
the right word. And I'll never forget that day in
my life, and it was all very motivating to get
out of here and do something else and not be
(05:13):
with him per se. So no one really guided me.
I guess I was an ambitious kid, you know, it's
hard to explain certain things, and I wanted to be successful,
and that I think was partially him not being and
not being the kindest, nicest person in the world. I
guess you're not supposed to say things like this on podcasts,
(05:35):
but you know that was my father, and you know
that was the hand I was dealt. Thank God for
my aunts who who mothered me incredibly well for the
rest of my teenage years, etcetera. Well, you certainly went,
I believe, from the Bronx to Buffalo to Boston to
blew me the four Bees. So so so your dad
(06:01):
was in He was in the rag business also. He
he was in the co business and the button business.
So it wasn't I mean the apple was there, maybe,
you know, not the exact apple, right, I think that's true.
He bought buttons and piece goods. And I worked in
the garment business as a kid on on Saturdays, holidays
and all that, and I took it seriously. I find
(06:24):
a lot of people, you know, the apple doesn't fall
far from the tree. I ask all the young people
and older people who I meet an interview, what did
their parents do? And you do see a trend in
the creative sense, which I include your world, then, is
that someone would play music, they danced, they cooked, they
(06:47):
did art, and more likely than not, the apple does
not fall far from the tree, which is I don't
know if that's true in in the food world, but
definitely I find it true in other world. Well, my smell,
Mickey was rice peel off, because I was raised by
three ounce as well, and all they did was cook.
(07:08):
At breakfast, they talked about lunch. At lunch, they talked
about dinner, and at dinner they talked about the next day.
That smell I can I remember to this day. If
I close my eyes, I know what the house smells like,
the rug smells like. And I asked that question because
I think, like you said, it's more important than the apple.
(07:28):
It's really it is what you know. You can't help
not feel that and suck it in. It just comes
back somehow. Right in our second course, I had to
hear how Mickey transformed his drive for success into a
thriving retail career. It turns out Mickey discovered his knack
for fashion almost by accident when he took a job
(07:49):
as a buyer from Bloomingdale's after getting passed over elsewhere.
And you know, you start looking at your life and
you look back and you say, all these moments change
you dramatically. I was very, very lucky, and I do
believe that all of us are given a certain skill
that we have to live our lives. For me, I
(08:12):
went to Bloomingdale's interestingly enough, because when I worked at
A and S, they offered my good friend five dollars
more in salary. And I was furious because I worked
at A and S for summer job and they knew me,
So I was really upset. I went to work at Bloomingdale's.
I was very lucky. I worked and worked for this woman,
(08:33):
Katie Murphy. She was a fashion director. Katie Uh and
I hung out for two years. We go to Europe together,
we go to the markets. She would have probably been
the CEO if she weren't a woman in those days.
She had a great eye, a great instinct, and I
loved her dearly. Um and so uh it a lot
(08:55):
of it came naturally. My first my second day at Bloomingdale's,
they assigned me to be a buyer and I loved
what I did, and it was I was very successful.
I went to the market every day and I picked
goods out. I had a budget. My boss, Stanley's during
a wonderful guy. But it wasn't like bosses then paid
attention to what you did per se. But he was
(09:17):
a great guy. I I just it just took off
in terms of my career. But after two years or
three years, I got bored. I didn't like everyone getting
promoted around me. But that's corporations, and you know, corporations
aren't the most creative places in the world ever. And
so I made a move to a year and a
(09:39):
half at Macy's. Didn't like it there, but I had
to make a living. I had a wife to support,
I had a rent to pay, and so Macy's a
year and a half, I left a and s four years,
I quit, and I'm saying, I don't like this anymore.
I spent six or seven years and not liking what
I did. And then I met the own is of
(10:00):
and Taylor, and I kept saying, no, I didn't want
to do that. I was a little nervous about giving
up my safe job. Which forget about being nervous about that.
I went to become the CEO of Ann Taylor for
four years. And how old were you? I was thirty
five and just incredible. Yeah, that was the beginning of
of my career. And what was nice about it was
(10:23):
great about it. I just did it. And then we
had about twenty five stores losing a lot of money.
We turned it around dramatically, being a very hip store,
and so I switched the company to and Taylor Studio
just when I got there, and then we were taken
over by an awful, big, bureaucratic company. I stayed for
(10:44):
four years, learned how to do my job, and then
I moved to California to run Gap. Did that for
eighteen years. You know, the rest is history. So a
lot of people like Gap boys just the ads and
Gap I remember the advertising almost more than I remember
the clothes. But what was the premise that made you
(11:07):
think that you could have a remarkable effect on how
people dressed with this company rather than doing your own
thing at that time? Well, it's it's a good question.
I'm basically a conservative person, and in nineteen eighty three
own things were not like today, you go out, you
(11:29):
raised five million, you raised three million. I didn't think
of that. Plus it wasn't what people did as often.
You know, I grew up without any money and I
was would be nervous not to have a salary, which
is what I had. And now here I am, fifty
years later, doing my own thing. But by the way,
(11:51):
own thing is an interesting comment. If you don't know
in fifty one percent, it ain't your own thing. People
ought to know that. So at Gap I owned five
or six percent and I left. I went to J Crew.
I was the biggest shareholder with my own money, but
still not the same because private equity owned ent with
(12:15):
their money, which is everyone's money I owned. I bought
ten percent of the company with my own money. So
the funny thing is again I controlled ten percent, but
they control. So your own thing. People ought to remember
is only your own thing when you control the financial
percent of the company. But I learned at a late age.
(12:40):
Now I have a company that my son and I
own with some sack who is our designer. I'll listen
to anyone who's smart and gives us feedback, but I
don't have to listen to someone who has a short
term view of making a profit, especially in the restaurant business.
I think is this same back and forth and up
(13:02):
and down, you hit a wall, you come back, and
so at this later stage of my life, uh, this
is kind of what I've wanted for many years. To
your question of doing your own thing. Yeah, and I
I mean I do my own thing. And it's people say, oh,
you're an owner, you're this, you have all this. I'm like,
(13:22):
you have no idea. It's just like you know, at
the end of the day on Monday, if there's a
cash call, guess what they call. They call you, and
of course you know they don't call the owner, and
you're like, it's the almost beauty. I always tell people
stay on salary and so you're absolutely certain that you
have another vein of cash to live off for a
certain amount of time, because it ain't as easy as
(13:44):
you think. And the press makes it seem very easy
because they wanted to be good. They wanted to succeed
because they need something to write about. And when I
learned that these critics and critiquing goes, they need something
to write about it, otherwise they be out of a job.
It was sort of like a lightning bolt came down
and then it was like I felt free, So right,
you must be. I feel much freer that you don't
(14:07):
need approval of anybody. You just need to do great
stuff and if it doesn't work, you do some other
stuff until it works. I don't have any need for
any investors. And uh, it's what I worked my life
for is probably to do this. I didn't think this
was my grand plan. My son's story at the company
six or seven years ago, and he's a terrific person
(14:30):
and works his butt off, but he needed a CEO.
And then I said, geez, I'm gonna work now, I'm
going to have a job again. So because I have
to be busy, I have to work, I have to
do and all that. So I love doing and I
love the fashion business. So being in Alex Mills, which
is your son, it's a great story. I wear all
of his clothes um and and I'm not saying that
(14:53):
because I have to say it. A lot of American designers.
I love to wear, but I love to mix and match.
But I think Alex Mills does great is give you
the ability to do that, And so is how do
you at that level and your your son is dealing
with both hip and trend. How do you discover hip
(15:15):
and trend? And how do you marry that? It's a
really good question, and uh, how do I answer that?
You know, going there, it's if it's too trendy, it's
gone gone. What you really want a day in, day
out classics ish with a twist. My wardrobe is always
(15:36):
things that around forever and ever and ever. And I
think most men dressed pretty much the same way since
they were ten years old, you know, kind of classic ish,
the same thing. But we are always evaluating the life
of a garment. You know, it's an art. It's an art,
(15:56):
not a science on what has life to it. But
for example, this is our number one T shirt in
the company. It's just a blue T shirt, comes in
six or eight colors. In fact, we had an issue
today the prices of shipping goods. I don't know if
your world's affected by my pants and pots, it's insane,
(16:19):
it's a killer. So we went from forty five to
forty eight dollars on this and now the accountants here,
I want to raise it to fifty five dollars, And
I said, you raise this to fifty five dollars and
everyone's gonna notice. They're not going to notice other things
(16:40):
like this jacket here, they'll notice. So I said, I
don't want to change it. I don't want to raise
the price. He said, well the margins low. I said,
let it be low on the number one T shirt
because that's a signal. It's a signal to customers that
the prices were raised because they're gonna remember this. They're
(17:02):
not going to remember a few bucks. It's just a
call we make. It's very exciting when you ring the
register up every day for something customers want. So you know,
that's why a micromanage. You've got a micromanage. You've got
to make sure things are right and take risks by
the way, always taking a risk, and if you lose,
(17:22):
you lose. Now, the stupid things we did this year,
we're buying too much fleece when we should have figured
out with COVID coming to an end, fleece will not
be what it was. And everyone was in the fleece
business and we're not a fleece seller, so we ended
up owning too much of that. That was a big
mistake we made. But on the classics. We're good at it. Well,
(17:45):
we have to be good at it. That's what That's
what I've done my whole career, is you know, trying
to sell things that don't have an expiration date. For
our third course, I knew Mickey would have unique reflection
(18:06):
on what makes a good leader. He was famous at
JA Crew for not having his own office, instead using
a loudspeaker to congratulate colleagues or just share thoughts about
the weather. Even at the pinnacle of his career, giving
that personal touch mattered, And I wanted to know why.
You know, there's all kinds of schools on leadership. If
you if you click the internet now, there's maybe two
(18:28):
thousand courses on leadership and hip and trending and direction.
It's very hard to pass out sort of how you
run a business and how you lead people. I know
you have a specific way that's pretty unique, that's been
very good to you even to today. So what would
you say is the best way? How do you act
(18:50):
like an owner without acting like an owner? Well, it's
a really good question, and I can tell your leadership
is it's very hard to put it into words. It's
hard to explain, but it's having a point of view.
It's having a vision, it's sticking with it. It's being
able to say to someone you're not doing a good job,
(19:11):
or you've got to change this. It's telling them what
you think. And it's also having an ability to teach
by example. So for me, I could do I could
do the jobs here of any buyer, so to speak.
I've been practicing my craft for many years, and part
(19:32):
of my craft is people and an energy, and and
you feel it. I think, I guess you're born with
it to a degree. You have to feel the energy
and the leadership and the excitement and the passion. And
there by the way, there are people who don't necessarily
(19:53):
do that are great leaders. But I was with Steve
Jobs for sixteen years and felt You've felt him feeling it,
You've felt him and Steve's you know, people always could
criticize Steve, the smartest, most exciting person I've ever worked
with in my life. But there's something there that you
(20:14):
can't really teach and learn. In my opinion, he of
course is an easy one to choose as the best
because he was by far the best. But I think
you're turning people on, You're getting him excited, you're leading
him forward, you're taking the right risks, and they respect
that and treating people well. Needless to say that goes
(20:36):
first always, like like coming to the major D. But
I also think what I heard from you is the
habit of communicating all the time, because I find most
people in my world don't communicate well because they're too
addicted to the one forty word tweet or small texts
are simple that that's not communication. That is telling the
(20:59):
people your location. It's not communicating. You've got to sit
down in front of someone and like, let me this
is what I feel, and they have to even if
it's inaccurate communication. You need to show some of that.
I can. I can fail too, but you're gonna fail
with me and we're both gonna learn absolutely and um.
And people also feel b s all the time or
(21:23):
they feel that it's so you've got to be a
bullshit detector always, and most people are that, except I
will say growing up and I tell the young people this,
I said, forget what the title is, look at the
human being, look at the person, and whatever you're thinking
about them is true. Because you know, when I started working,
(21:47):
i'd see fancy titles, big shots here and big shots there,
and you say, gee, I don't get it. I'm not
sure why they have this job. Well, you know something,
if you think it, you're usually right. And I always
say even in business, every day, even picking merchandise, you're
usually right. You know who the winners are you feeling.
(22:08):
I did a short stint working for you, and but
what I knew about you from some of the executives
and the team was that you would answer your phone
calls all the time yourself, which is almost unheard of. Um,
and I wondered, like where that came from? It did
it come from sort of like an early sense of
connection that you felt was so important that it never
(22:31):
left you because you do it to this day. I mean,
you're very hands on to the point where it's almost
like you would call people back when people used to
leave messages back then, you would call them back where
they come from. It's it's an interesting question. I'll tell
you where I think it came from, because you know,
we kind of developed into being who we are from
(22:52):
who we were. And I grew up, you know, kid
in the Bronx, you know, not important. But the point
was when I started to work and people didn't say
hello at work or where I was ignored or things
like that. I I found that I left a message
(23:16):
today at seven o'clock this morning, quite important text, and
I haven't heard back yet from the CEO of this company.
And uh, it tells me so much when I don't
hear back from people. And I don't want to be
the person who is too important, who ignores someone or
(23:40):
who doesn't get back to them. It's very respectful. I
don't want to be the person who doesn't say hello
to people. I am who I am and if I
know how I feel when people don't return my calls
or they wait a day or two, and to me,
it's just being a mention. It's doing the right thing.
(24:04):
I love that and I so agree with you, and
I think that it's really important. And this is what
Eli's Abart does. So he told me said, you know,
if you don't if you don't know your customer, in
one split second, they're gone and if you think they're
coming back, you're wrong. And you need to treat them
like they feel like you're part of the family. And
family messes up. Family screws up, and you can screw up.
(24:26):
You can screw up many times like I have. And
he said, I screw up all the time. But I'm
part of a family and those are my customers, and
they'll come back and they give me another break and
another break in another break, And I thought that was
It was austere, yet so like it. The perspective is rare.
And I don't know whether it's a sense of patience
or a sense of honesty, but I loved his honesty.
(24:48):
You're right about customers and if you respond quick well,
you can respond the same way to a customer as
you do to a CEO or anyone else. That's the
way it should be, and especially with customers, because they're
shocked when you answer your phone or you chat with
(25:09):
them the second they call, and they tell fifty friends said, wow,
the this big company cares is what it is. And
I'm allergic to rude people. I'm allergic to stores that
aren't nice, but restaurants, you know, with attitude, I just
will never go back. And uh, well, you know that
you always had friendly restaurants. It is at some point
(25:32):
in time the business that you're in, which is I
always say clothes and rags and whatever do you want
to call it. And my business is the same business
where wooing customers, we're telling what to wear and what
to eat, and we want them to listen or at
least try us. So you can't be rate them, right,
That's the first step is not to be rate them.
(25:52):
The first step is to sort of like welcome them
and like what do you think? Right? Isn't that what
you want to hear? It's almost I mean, my ex
wife was a therapist and your wife's a therapist, and
she would always tell me said, stop and listen and
ask someone what they think. If you do that first,
all that ship that they have in their brain goes
(26:13):
away momentarily. Right. For sure. It's just just I mean,
always be nice and it just always be nice if
you feel it. It does work. Fake nice doesn't work.
I didn't mention that the best people to speak to
the staff in the stores or online. I go into
the stores. I spent my whole career I never speak
(26:36):
to I listened to what they say in headquarters. But
you go into a store where you speak to people,
you'll learn more than anything. Listen, tell them what they
listen to what they say. And that's true of customers anywhere,
you know, there's restaurants I go to. I was in
a restaurant the other day and the guy walks by.
(26:56):
He says, how is everything. Well, the bread on my
avocado and toast was so hard a crust I needed
a sort of to cut it. He says, how is everything?
I said, well, to tell you the truth? Um, and
he walked away. Because it's called touching at table. They
(27:21):
don't want to really hear the truth. He didn't want
to hear anything. And now when I go in, I
for avocado toasted toast, but no crust, please. He didn't.
He just walked away. It was the funniest thing I've
ever seen. And that's because he's been trained not to listen,
which is a big deal. I mean, just you you.
(27:41):
I think you got something right there. You hit it
on the head. You listen. You want to hear bad things.
Tell me the negative. Of course, don't tell me everything
is fabulous because it's bullshit, right, Just tell me, tell
me what's wrong. And if you tell someone what's wrong,
you correct the problem. That's a customer for life. It's
it's a simple equation. And what economic stratus you are
(28:02):
if you're fifteen or fifty or seventy five. If someone
has a problem, you listen to them and you solve
the problem, or you apologize. You know, an apology goes
a long way if it's sincere. I think that those
habits you said are just it's so true to who
you've always been. And just listen. You treat people well
and you don't ignore the criticism. If I get a letter,
(28:25):
if someone sits and writes me a letter, the amount
of effort it takes to write a letter is astounding.
First of all, you have to you have to not
get over your anger. You have to get home maybe
you're buzzed. You have to think about it the next day,
and you have to get up in penel letter, I mean,
you better listen to that customer, and I tell everybody
you respond within twenty four hours. You invite them in,
(28:46):
fall all over yourself and say we made a terrible mistake,
We're so sorry. Coming as my guests bring two extra people.
It's on us. Not one time in my forty year
career has that person not become either a friend or
the best customer ever. And when I tell that story,
they're like, you're kidding me. Aren't you scared? I'm like,
what am I scared of? These people? Are? They're telling
you what's wrong? Right, it's a favor. Well, it's a
(29:09):
gift to consultant to come in and write a see
the two they deal with every return right here, we're
we're not a we have one store. We have you know,
mostly online or opening another store. But they tell all
I have to do is what are the returns about today?
What are people returning? You know, if you find out
(29:30):
a pants not fitting in this set and the other thing,
you gotta fix it. It's a hard business, your business
and and my business. Yours is probably more difficult because
you gotta be on on every dish, you know. Yeah,
but the problem with my business is it's stuff. The
stuff goes bad and in two hours it's gonna be friend.
We were like, we're manufacturers. Their carrot looks like this
(29:51):
when it comes in at five in the morning, and
it's like this, it's six and the next day there's
no more carrots. You're gonna do it again. Imagine if
you have to make the clothes every day and they
you sold out. You gotta make up every day unbelieved.
It's tough. It's incredible. For our fourth and final course,
(30:19):
I got to hear what advice Mickey would pass on
to the next generation of leaders, and as we kept learning,
his world of fashion is not so different from my
world of food. What keeps you at the top of
the heap? What are some of the things that you know? Work?
You know? Time sites terrific? Uh? You know, I joined
a company at Bloomingdale's. I was really lucky. I had
(30:42):
Katie as my boss. I would say, if you can
pick your boss, not the corporation per se. You know
when I was when I was young, you kind of
didn't switch jobs. I did, but most people didn't try
to choose a great boss. Who are you going to
report to? You can't really do that at such a
huge difference. Uh. And whether they're not great or great,
(31:04):
you're gonna learn as much from weak or bad bosses
as you will from a good boss. And you're gonna
follow your instinct. And I was a shy kid. I
never had a chance to do what I did. But
when I got my first job at Bloomingdale's, it was
like I was a changed human being because I had
(31:26):
a responsibility and I was hugely driven to do well,
and so you're gonna make yourself successful unless you get
into one of these companies where I don't know if
it's hedge funds, where a lot of people have the
right jobs and they get very rich, so to speak,
not necessarily successful, but rich. But I think the thing
is try to get into a high quality company that's
(31:47):
driven with good management, and if you don't, you make
a mistake. Big deal today, and take every interview you can. Always.
I used to do that, even when I liked my
job at Blooms. Every into they call me I want
to learn from someone else. I always walked away most
of the time saying, where where are the people that
impress me? And they weren't a lot um. Do your job,
(32:10):
take the risks if you can. You've got to suck
up a little, I guess, But don't be a wise guy.
Don't be a know it all. I remember when I
was twenty three and twenty two and with the I'm
going to be vice president is joined from whoever said it.
Be humble, be likable, don't play the competitive card at all.
For me, you never want to me because sending an
(32:33):
alienate people in a sense. So I was and by
the way, I had no reason to play it. In hindsight,
I did really well in my career, but I never
was that guy out there or the woman out there
playing the competitive card because I think most people are
a bit insecure. Good leaders no matter what they tell you,
they're insecure or worried about the next year, the next day.
(32:56):
None of us don't worry. I've never seen anyone not worry.
So worry about your job every day like it means everything. Uh.
And if you get to a point of being bored
or I quit Blooming Deals because I didn't respect who
was being promoted. I didn't have great respect for the leadership.
I left Ditto from Macy's. I left Ditto for A
(33:21):
and S. And I guess I was destined maybe not
to work for someone, although I always did and have
a skill set. You know, I have to say, if
you're a great salesman, you might just be a great salesman,
which is okay. I happened to be fortunate that I
had an intuition about apparel, I an instinct, a feel,
(33:43):
and I also had a vision that GAP would become
the affordable version of nice clothes because I always said
good clothes don't have to cost anything extra. And that
was me. But I always like nice I like nice things.
But you have to be hugely focused. Also, focus, focus, focus.
(34:05):
If you're running a piece of a business, just try
to eliminate all the wasted stuff you have on your desk.
You know the books, I don't. I don't read the
books because I just don't read the books. I read
the people. I listen, and I've learned most from people
who are good or not good. So I mean it's
again L TIB comes down to what you're saying is
(34:27):
sort of this such a focus on communicating with people
every day, and they will communicate back by so that
they inform you what works and what doesn't work without
telling you. They just they buy things because they like
the way you think about them. That's what I found.
(34:49):
I never cooked for a person. I would cook for
myself what I like to eat, what I found delicious
and yummy, and I would like explain it and just
present it and then people will. You know, people like
to be told what to do. I don't know if
that's a fashion the USA. Tell me what to drink,
tell me what cocktails you're drinking, and I'll be happy
(35:10):
with that, and I find that it was almost very
easy to satisfy people if you have this sense of vision.
But it has to be really kind of homespun and
if you just stick to it, you're gonna catch a
lot of people. And I know you as a person
in this incredible retail business, but I also know you
as a person who loves the the pace of restaurants, right,
(35:34):
that's certain. Shouldn't say choa that that like ZEITGEI used
of walking into a restaurant that's busy and buzzing and happy.
You want to be a part of this. You feel
it the second you go in. Second you go in,
you do you feel it? And of course the front
desk has got to be nice and gracious or else
(35:56):
you feel that too. I felt that when I used
to go into the old Barneys downtown. I felt it
was the same thing. And that's why I love fashion
so much, because I think it's so mirrors our world
of food, my wilder food, because we just recreate food
(36:16):
from twenty years ago every twenty years or five years ago.
And I feel fashion there's a lot of parallels, don't
you think fashion? Absolutely? Yeah, It's like French pastros now
are all the rage your night in French peast has
been around since god knows when, and now it's like
on fire, which I find like kind of wonderful because
it's a twenty year old discovering that never saw it.
(36:37):
So why isn't that great? Right? Yeah? So, speaking of food,
how do you stay how do you stay fit? What
do you eat? Which I know you love Italian coffee shops,
but what do you what do you do to stay fit?
I go to Soul Psycho every morning at seven am.
That's amazing. Uh, That's what I do every morning. I
(36:58):
do that, come rain or shine. Uh. And I'm also
the godfather of soul, so that helps. That's my that's
my official title. And I do that every day. And
I watch what I eat now like crazy. And I
had this thing. It's interesting. About two weeks ago, I'm
(37:19):
sitting next to a woman at dinner who knew a
lot about cancer and everything else. She sees me put
the splendor in and she says, don't you dare have
artificial sweetness? I never met this woman, and then she
starts giving me some bad news on artificial sweeteners. I
stopped drinking diet coke. That next day. I grew up
(37:43):
on cream, soda, root beer, and cola with a Stevia.
That's what I drink. That's my food. And I just
try to eat light, try to not eat lunch if
I can, and I don't try to eat a lot
of food. I have a weakness on ice cream. I
love ice scream, but I work out and I watched
my waight and well, you're entitled to like. I mean,
(38:06):
it's good to have a little ice scream. I think
I could have. I could eat it all day long. Mickey,
thank you so much. I'll see you real soon. I
appreciate your time. This was fun. I appreciate it. By bye,
thank you, I appreciate it. Thanks very much for listening
to Four Courses with Jeffrey Zacarrion, a production of I
Heart Radio and Corner Table Entertainment. Four Courses is created
(38:29):
by Jeffrey Zacarrion, Margaret Secarrion, Jared Keller, and Tara Helper.
Our executive producer is Christopher Hesiotis. Four Courses is produced
by Jonathan Haws Dressler. Our research is conducted by Jesselyn Shields.
Our talent booking is by Pamela Bauer at Dogtown talent.
This episode was edited and written by Priya Madavan and
(38:52):
mixed by Joe Tistle. Special thanks to Katie Fellman for
help as recording engineer. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio,
visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows. H
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