A Fool Is Known By His Speech, A Wise Man By His Silence

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This show is produced and hosted by Mark Webber.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
The show is sponsored by G three of Parow.

Speaker 1 (00:05):
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the sponsor and not necessarily the opinion of seven tenor
or iHeartMedia. Who is Mark Webber. He's a self made
business executive here to help you find your success, from
the New York City projects to the Avenue Montaigne in Paris.
His global success story in the luxury world of fashion

(00:28):
is inspirational.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
He's gone from clerk to CEO twice.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
Mark is classic proof that the American dream is alive.
And well, here's your host of Always in Fashion, Mark Weber.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
Mark Weber. Good evening. I have to start by saying
something that I read. A fool is known by his speech,
a wise man by his silence. This is what's been
on my mind this week. I'm trying to be silent.
I'm trying real hard to be silent. There is so
much stupidity in our country right now, and yet it

(01:04):
should have been a better times. But there's travesty in California,
and that's wreaking havoc with everyone. It's sadly funny and
it's plain to see that fools known by the speech,
wise men by the silence. For whatever reason, this year
to date, I'm drawn to quiet. I've noticed people, the
most prominent to the least well known, just don't know

(01:27):
when to say it nicely. Steak silent from Biden rooting
the Trump transition and insisting he would have won the
election to Gavin Newsom. Great smile, great looking guy, poised,
but everything that comes out of his mouth seems to
be nonsense. He's so well spoken that everything he does
is bad. His policies finally are under attack, and his

(01:50):
closest advocates are starting to wonder what are they doing
there because of the fire words excuses. Please be quiet,
Golden my favorite President Donald Trump. Right now, if I
could whisper in his ear, I'd love to tell him
wise man is silent. Mister President, You're about to start

(02:11):
negotiations for the future of America, frankly, the future of
the world. Everything as you know in this world is
a negotiation. Can I advise you to let the fools talk?
They're obvious fools. You let Biden talk and he was out.
You'll let Kamala talk and she lost. Please consider toning
it down. I love the Greenland idea, I love Canada

(02:34):
joining the United States. I love the Gulf of America.
But it's all in negotiation, and you're the best, Frankly,
Chapter seventeen in my book. As you know, mister president,
always in fashion is negotiating with the master, and you
with the master. You have your own chapter and when
he did it long before you were being considered for
president in two thousand and five, and it was chronicled

(02:57):
in twenty fifteen before you announced that you were going
to take office. You can notion negotiate and win. Tone
it down, mister president. Hey, I have to say this
to all of us. The minute we were born, we
were crying for our milk. Our position was feed me
or I refuse to be quiet? Could it be that's
the smartest moment in our lives, knowing how to apply pressure,

(03:19):
how to negotiate, when to talk and when to be silent,
when to talk, when to listen. It seems we all
struggle with this throughout our lives. It's so hard trying
to be silent. In my personal life. I've noticed I've
been quieter this year, yet here on the radio, I
have no choice. On podcasts, I have to speak, and speak,

(03:39):
I will perhaps softer, let the words have more meaning.
I try not to be a fool talking. And once
again I quote Benjamin Franklin, my favorite business quote, well
done is better than well said. I'm not interested in
what you say will do. I'm interested only in that
which you do and get done. Please, mister President, don't
let fools trap you into being a fool. It's a

(04:03):
week of could have, should have and would haves in life,
Miss the President. I love the Golden Age of America.
Now I must have my lawyer, my co host, my
son Jesse Weber.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
Hey, what's going on? Good to be here. I tell
you a very important lesson in listening, right.

Speaker 3 (04:23):
Yeah, oh my god. You know where would you be
if you haven't had my lessons?

Speaker 2 (04:28):
Happier Listen, listen, Listening to your business advice has been
incredibly valuable. And you have been through a lot. You
have been through it all. But I will tell you
you know, my profession is particularly interviewing on TV. Time
is precious, so you got to make sure your guests

(04:49):
answer the questions in a timely basis. You have to
hear what they're saying, you know, do follow up questions,
just don't let them talk. So, you know, listening is
an incredibly it's an incredible skill. It's a skill not
everybody has it. You have to be thinking about that.
You have to know when to cut people off, ask
the next question, follow up. So two guests talking over
each other can be very dramatic, but most times you

(05:09):
have to shut it down. It's interesting and podcasts are very,
very different, different thing because that is all unless there's
a video podcast, it's all audio. You have to engage
people through the sound of your voice primarily, so you're
not rushed for time. With podcasts, you have a little
bit more time to let things marinate and you know,
have more smart, intelligent answers or conversations. Hopefully the guest delivers.

(05:30):
But the key is interviewing or the law. You never
ask a question you don't know the answer to. So
if the guest is off for running or boring, or
maybe saying something incorrectly, you got to step in and
correct the situation. You got to give him an example
of what together.

Speaker 3 (05:44):
Fools like to talk too much, there's no question about it.
And wise men, as I'm saying tonight, i'd like to
be silent well, coming up on the inauguration, I guess
I have to ask before we go, though, what's with
this Jack Smith? What did he do to the president?
What did he what's the point?

Speaker 2 (05:59):
Well, look, he was the one who was prosecuting Donald
Trump before Donald Trump became the president elect. He announced
after the president, after Donald Trump won the election, that
he was going to be dismissing the case and he
was going to be stepping aside and he was going
to be leaving, but not unexpectedly. I didn't think he
was not going to do this. He released a report

(06:21):
about the investigation about the case, and he wanted to
put it on the record about what they had and
what they found, and the basic conclusion was it wasn't
anything new that we didn't know. But he basically said
he was very confident that Donald Trump would have been
convicted at a trial with respect to interfering in the election,
the twenty twenty election or election interference crimes if it

(06:42):
went to trial. And the only reason he dismissed it
is because under the law, you can't prosecute a sitting president.
So that's why it was dismissed, not on substantive grounds,
not on the evidence, but because he had no choice
but to throw it up in his state, and.

Speaker 3 (06:53):
He couldn't just shut his mouth and walk away.

Speaker 2 (06:55):
He believes Donald Trump committed a series of crimes and
he wanted to put on the record that this is
what he did. And if you think about it, the
work that he and his team did, he didn't want
it to be for naught.

Speaker 3 (07:07):
I don't even want to hear this. I can't deal
with this. But I do have an important question for you.
Have you listened at all to what Jimmy Kimmel has
been saying.

Speaker 2 (07:15):
Jimmy Kimmel used to be very funny, and then he's
gotten so political and this it's kind of hard to
listen to him at times.

Speaker 3 (07:23):
Yeah, look, I'm still a fan. I think he's a
smart guy. I think he's very entertaining, and of all
the late night hosts, I think he'd be my favorite.
Of course, Jimmy Fallon. When he sings and does this thing,
it's very interesting. But I want to go there. I
was listening to him the other night and I want
to I have a transcript of what he said, and
I have a question I have to ask you. This

(07:44):
is Jimmy Kimmel tonight, I don't want to get into
all the vile and irresponsible and stupid things are future
president and his gaggle of scumbaggs choose to say during
our darkest and most terrifying hour. And then he added
the fact he chose to attack our firefighters who are
out there risking their lives on our behalf. It's disgusting,

(08:05):
but not surprising. Instead, I want to focus on thanking
these men and women, because that's what we all should
be doing now. First of all, Donald Trump didn't attack
the firefighters. He's been very complimentary. He's very much against
the politicians who are responsible, in his view, for the
fire getting out of control. But what I want to
know from you from the law, can anybody arrest Jimmy Kimmel.

(08:26):
Does there any consequence for the way he's calling and
talking about the president and calling him a scumbag and
all of.

Speaker 2 (08:31):
That in this country, in this country or North Korea,
if it's North Korea, you'd be jailed in a second. Look,
that's the beauty of our country. You're allowed to criticize anybody,
You're allowed, You're supposed to criticize our politicians, our leaders,
you're supposed to that's the point. You're supposed to hold
them accountable. No, he can't get in trouble for what
he says. Now, if he were to free speech is

(08:54):
not unlimited right. He can't if he were to say,
if he were to say, look, Donald Trump just committed
murder on Fifth Avenue, I have the evidence to prove it,
and there's no evidence. That's called defamation. He could be
sued for defamation. He can't be legally charged with unless
he filed a false report. People have freedom to say
what they want to say. They can't yell fire, he

(09:16):
said Donald Trump.

Speaker 3 (09:17):
If he said Donald Trump should be killed though, somebody
should shoot.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
Him, well, that's where you get into murky territory, because
if he's advocating for violence against somebody else and somebody
commits it, you know, there's one there's a separation between
free speech and opinion, and you're, you know, advocating for violence.
That's where you could get yourself into a lot of trouble. Yes,
that that's something he would avoid. But criticizing the president,
calling him names, he's totally free to do it.

Speaker 3 (09:42):
Now.

Speaker 2 (09:42):
There was an interesting conversation about whether or not Donald
Trump would have the power to revoke broadcast licenses. Have
you heard about this? So that he doesn't love what
certain networks are doing under the law. The FCC is
supposed to be independent from the President of the United States,
and they've gone on record and say they always want
to adhere and uphold the First Amendment. There is talk

(10:05):
about whether or not Donald Trump would try to have
the authority to control the FCC and whether or not
he can mount the legal challenge. We'll see if that happens.
There is something that I thought was very interesting, and
that is the idea that there are certain provisions that
would suggest that in a time of emergency, let's say,
a war or national crisis.

Speaker 3 (10:26):
Or buyers out of control.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
Could the president have the power to take control of
the airwaves. That's a little bit of an unprecedented issue.
There could be a legal argument for it. I'm not
saying it would be successful, but I wonder whether or
not that is something that could be explored in the
future and what that emergency would be and whether or
not the president has to do it. But generally speaking,

(10:50):
he's just going to have to live with the people
criticizing him and comedians criticizing him.

Speaker 3 (10:55):
Well, I figured you'd say that. I figured i'd ask anyway,
I didn't Madonna get arrested or the FBI came to
see you one time she was talking badly about Was
it Trump?

Speaker 2 (11:06):
I don't know Madonna. I haven't thought about Madonna in
a long time. I don't know.

Speaker 3 (11:10):
I think so all right. Anyway, I'm not advocating for
him to be arrested. I'm not advocating I will.

Speaker 2 (11:17):
I will say Jimmy Kimmel, aside from when he gets
doesn't get to the politics. I think he's a great interviewer.
I think he's very funny, but man, when he gets
into kind of politics, I know people love it. But
I always thought, I always thought, wouldn't you agree that
if you're in the media and you see actors do
this too, wouldn't you want to have the best, most
broad audience possible and not try to say things that

(11:39):
would just alienate a whole section of the public. That's
why you see like a do you even know whether
Tom Cruise voted? Do you even know if Tom Cruise
is a Republican or a Democrat or whatever. No, he
just makes movies and everybody sees them right on the left.
That's don't you want that? If you're an entertainment.

Speaker 3 (11:55):
Well, I would think with the results of the current election,
why why is this bothering me? We have a new president.
Seventy seven million people voted for him. There is a
lot of enthusiasm in this country right now. A lot
of good things are happening right now. There is overnight
it looks like Israel and Hamas are going to come
to terms overnight. There are new people looking at the

(12:17):
way this fire is going overnight, this conversation's about stopping
illegal immigration. All these things are happening, and the president
has any come in. It bothers me the way people
are starting up again and talking so disrespectfully for the president.
My view is no matter who the president ever was,
you would never know. I didn't like them. I thought

(12:38):
Biden's policies were horrendous. Obama to this day is my
favorite president, but I don't think he did things that
were necessarily good for the country, let alone unite the country.
But he was my favorite. I would never say bad
words about him. And the the lack of disrespect here
going on. When I heard Jimmy Kimmel do it I
only got my backup and of of course out in

(13:00):
favor of censory. But I wouldn't have a problem if
Donald Trump went to CBS and said, look, you have
a choice here. If you're going to continue to run,
you're going to have a very poor reputation or access
to this network with me, And I want you to
know that. Either tell him to behave and apologize for
the way he talks. If he wants to criticize me,
that's one thing, but to call me vile, to call

(13:22):
the people I'm bringing to this government scumbags? Who the
hell is he to talk that way on national television.
So with that in mind, I'll get off this subject
and get onto the fire. I do want to talk
about California, anything you want to say about it.

Speaker 2 (13:36):
It's like a horror scene. I can't believe what is
going on, and it's shocking. It came out of nowhere
and how quickly the fire spread. And I know there's
a whole conversation about what caused it, who's to blame.
Those are fair questions, but I think the immediate thing
you have to be thinking about is how to prevent
loss of life and prevent the loss of further destruction

(13:58):
because so many people's lives have been devastated. It is
shocking to see what has happened. I don't know how
you rebuild two things. I don't know how you rebuild LA.
And if you live in La, do you stay in La?
Do would you ever risk this happening again?

Speaker 3 (14:11):
Well, that's where Trump and the team comes in. What
you know, history repeats itself, and from my point of view,
I remember reading back in the day. If it was
at the time that everyone was emulating the Japanese economy,
how brilliant they were, and how they dealt with people,
and their strategy was they don't have fixed blame. They

(14:33):
fix problems. And we have a lot of problems right
now in California. And there is an answer a question.
There's a lot of blame to go around. It's a
force masure, it's an act of God. Nobody could stop it.
I hope we don't find out anyone started this fire,
but even if they did, there should be mechanisms in

(14:54):
place to correct it. And I think that's what we're
up to and that's what I want to talk about.
I want to talk about the California fires. It's time
I'll be back in a minute. Always spent a lifetime
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(15:15):
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(15:38):
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(16:24):
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(16:45):
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(17:08):
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Speaker 2 (19:10):
Welcome back to it always in fashion. Here's your host,
Mark Webber.

Speaker 3 (19:15):
Thank you for being here tonight. I try and avoid
nasty subjects, but I am, like all Americans, devastated by
what's happened and what continues to be going on in California.
It is an act of God. Legal terms is called
force majeure. You can't legislate what God has in mind
for us here and whatever is going on with this fire.

(19:38):
I hope it's not arson, but even if it was,
what's happened is inexplicable. There are answers that have to
be found. They say, history repeats and therefore we need
to know why this is happening and frankly, speaking from history,
we know that it does, and there's been pretty widespread

(19:58):
understanding of what should be involved in fixing it. Jack Welsh,
one of America's famous and most successful business people, was
known for saying, I planned for the worst and hope
for the best. Where were the plans for the worst?
In California? All that thought a little interesting. I spent

(20:19):
in my career a lot of time in California. Actually,
until I was in my thirties, I really never had
been to California. I came up in my career. I
had many different responsibilities, and at one point in time,
I was the president of the shirt division at Venues
and shirts, particularly dress shirts. With my expertise, and interesting

(20:41):
thing happened. The largest trade show in the world was
called Magic for Men's Apparel. Eighty ninety thousand people would
come to the show and it was generally considered the
Magic the Men's Apparel Guild in California, But it was
a sportswear show. It was to sell sportswear to people
all around the country, on the West Coast in particular,

(21:02):
who couldn't get to New York or the New England
side or Dallas. They put on a show for them there,
and everyone came and showed sports with her. But it
grew and grew and grew, and one day my boss
came to me and said, you are to represent the
company and go there for dress shirts. I said, I
thought that an interested in dress shirts. He said, well,
you think about it. Every retailer of consequence in America
is coming to California. They're there anyway. Why not capture

(21:26):
their attention and sit with you instead of sitting with
the competitors, even if it's talking dress shirts. Chose to
be a brilliant idea, and I went to California and
I started spending time there, and sure enough, every retail
in America did come. And because I was there, and
because we had our presentation, because we were so powerful
in the shirt business, we owned venues and dressers, Calvin Klein,
tress Shirts, a bunch of other brands. People came to

(21:48):
see us. And I spent a lot of time in California,
twice a year, and it was a wonderful, wonderful experience.
I got to love it. I remember I used to
stay in Century City, which had the only I think
of the Hilton, only hotel in californ at the time
that had a helipad, so dating back to Ronald reg
and helicopters would fly there and land on the roof
and it was a very fun, prestigious thing. The other

(22:09):
thing that I loved California for is when you are
trying to advertise, when you need to do photo shoots
pictures of your products that are for spring. It's cold
in New York, cold here when we need to shoot spring,
and therefore you need to find warm weather climates where
you could emulate spring even though it's winter, and California
was perfect. They had an area near a Century Plaza

(22:31):
that had some low level skyscrapers that had bridges and
had some things you could walk on shoot the videos
in front of. And we did some beautiful advertising in
California and I found it amazing. But I also needed
to do sportswear. I owned the Gant brand, I owned
the Azad brand Venus and it had a sportswear brand.
Gh Bess and Shoe Company had Spring Shoes and Spring Apparel.

(22:54):
Had all these brands and we needed Spring and I
found Malibu, or should I say my head of mark
getting found Malibu and said this would be a great
place to shoot, and I went to Malibu multiple occasions.
We rented houses on the beach that we could film
summer during the winter, and it was a remarkable place
to be and I learned to love it. Also, during

(23:17):
this period I call my Blue Period, which was the
most creative period in my life, I spent time in
California because I started supporting celebrity golf tournaments. We had
the Iszid Golf Club, and we had a lot of
Isart brand and we were in the golf business and
we looked for ways to promote the brand. I never forget.

(23:37):
Early on, when Tiger Woods was still an amateur, my
guys in the golf division came to me and said,
there's a new guy coming out. He's just won the
three years in a row the amateur in the United States.
We'd like to bid on him to be our spokesman,
wear our clothes. What do you think? I said, Okay,
who are going to bin against? And they said everyone.

(23:57):
I said, what are we prepared to spend? What do
you think we should offer? I said, how about a
million dollars. I don't think it'll do it, Mark, but
that's a good number. Well, we lost by thirty nine million.
I think Nike he paid forty million to Tiger right
out of the box, and of course gave him his
own line and blah blah. But I did spend time
in California, and it brings me to what's going on

(24:19):
here right now. It is a travestic and yes, there's
a lot of conversations about why it happened and should
it happen, And the reality is, from what you're hearing
and what you're seeing, the people in charge of California
are almost buffoonish. Like I hate to say it, because

(24:42):
I could never be elected governor. I don't have the temperament,
I don't have the style. I don't understand politics. I
don't understand what it takes to manage a city or
a state, and I don't have the wherewithal. I have
tremendous respect for elected officials, whatever state, there, in whatever
position they hold. I am sure that if I became

(25:03):
a congressman, I learned how to do it, et cetera,
et cetera. But you have to respect these offices, and
I do. But when I hear what's going on that
after the brushfires they've taken place, which seems like every
year in California, and all the rhetoric that went on
with these brushfires, that they have to be cleaned up,
that you can't leave, they'll fallen, leaves to turn brown,

(25:26):
that they're on the ground, they have to be clean off,
and forest management needs to be done diligently, and nobody
did it. On top of which, they cut the firefighting
budget by one hundred million dollars in California. How could
they do this when they have so many problems. By
the way, it's one hundred million, one hundred billion, I

(25:47):
think it's one hundred million. And they did it with
their eyes wide open. How could they let the reservoirs
run dry. They're accusing Trump of not stating what's loud
or not allowed legally. I don't care whether he knows
what's legal or not. There's something to be said for
the water's draining and not allowing it to happen to
protect extinct fish types. I think this is a little

(26:11):
on the walk side. And even if it's not, what's
more important protecting our citizens' life or some fish called
the smelt that somehow lives in the waters there, and
because of that, our reservoirs are not full. How could
it be that our fire hydrants in these areas are
not filled with water, don't have access to the water.
How can it be that we have a system in

(26:34):
this country for dealing with emergencies. It is run by
I guess the Federal Trade Commission. I'm not even sure
I apologize. I'm not our news reporter. But to send
out erroneous messages, you get wrong messages. It's like the
Boy who crieth Wolf. Do you remember that story. There's
a little boy and every once in a while he
would say the wolf is coming, the wolf is coming.

(26:55):
Every would run out and they bring their rifles and
guns to protect everyone from the wolves. And it kept
doing and it was a farce. He was making it up.
And then one time the wolf was there when he
called a No One game and the wolf adum. How
could you send out messages that aren't right? And when
you hear Gavin Newsom, he's taking the bureautic position. I
did everything right. I don't understand why this happened. I

(27:16):
have to find out for my people. When you listen
to what's gone on with that mayor from originally apologizing,
she would never go out of the country, should focus
on her job right here in California where she needs
to to the fact that she did nothing to manage
this process in the beginning to avoid it. I said
it earlier. I don't want to fix blame. I want

(27:37):
to fix problems. Albert Einstein said, if you do the
same thing over and over and expect a different result,
you're crazy. Everyone seems to be crazy, everyone seems to
have an excuse, and everyone is on the wrong path.
Now I sound like an art and Trump's supporter right now,

(27:58):
and I don't want to do that. Throughout the show,
I am excited that the country is enthusiastic. I am
excited that we need change. There's so many bad things
that have taken place under the Biden administration, including a
president who wasn't fit to earn, who wasn't fit to govern,
and all of his counterparts wouldn't call it out until
they had no choice and they saw it on national

(28:20):
TV during the debates. A terrible situation to have put
the country in, to have lied to created this distrust
with the government. It is beyond crazy Trump. I don't
want him fixing blame. I want him fixing the problems,
he'll find out and those people are responsible should be responsible.
What does it mean to take responsibility? I should have

(28:42):
would have done it. It means that you don't belong
in those jobs anymore. In corporate America, when you're the CEO,
when you're the president, when you're a vice president, whatever
position you hold, you are assigned responsibilities. If you don't prefer,
you lose your job. The worst thing that I've ever

(29:04):
done in my corporate life is having to fire people.
The only time that I was able to deal with
it without a bad conscience was when people stole from
the company and I had to look them in the eye,
present the tapes, all the transcripts, all their emails, and
show them we caught them. It was the ugliest time.

(29:25):
I hated doing it. I still felt sorry for that.
But other than that, anytime people don't do the jobs
and they're not capable of doing their jobs, or they
have excuses, or they don't understand what happened, you have
to let them go and heads should roll. People should
be held accountable in California, and people should never vote

(29:47):
for the people they put in place if they don't
perform the number one job of a politician is to
keep the people safe. It's such a travesty, the idea
of people losing their homes. Thank god, we never really
think about that. In rare occasions, in hurricanes or in tornadoes,
we see it, but it seems a little further removed.

(30:09):
It shouldn't be. But you're talking about Hollywood, the Capitol,
movies and television. Everybody feels connected. Everyone should be grateful
to California for entertaining us and making us happy, or
making us say, or teaching us lessons about life for
entirety of our lives, and we have to feel connected.
This has to be fixed and people have to be

(30:29):
held accountable. Before I leave this subject, I want to
talk about David Muir, the anchorman for I think NBC
or was it ABC. I think it might have been ABC.
I was not happy with he and his compatriot when
they had the debates on his station. They seem biased.
They did all this fact checking only on Trump. Everybody

(30:50):
knows that nobody agreed. They made it easier for the
Democratic candidate than the Republican candidate. Should never be the
You want to talk about the media losing credibility, that
was part of it. But David Muir is under huge
what's the right word, criticism for the fact that he

(31:12):
put clothespins on the back of his fire coat, rain suit,
whatever you want to call it. During his interview and
coverage of the fires. He's having to explain he's disgraced,
he's embarrassed. They talk about whether he will or will
not stay and I have to say, this is the
stupidest thing I ever heard. All you men in the media,

(31:37):
all you men criticizing him, all you men writing articles
about him. I ask you, when you get up in
the morning, do you comb your hair, do you shave,
do you brush your teeth? Do you put on the
makeup you have to put on before you get on
the screen? Do you think about what you're going to wear?
Do you think about how you're packaging yourself that day?

(31:59):
The answer is yes, and every one of you gave
thought to what you will wear during your coverage. To you, ladies,
is there any one of you who hasn't put on
makeup before getting in front of the camera, hasn't put
on lipstick, hasn't thought about how their eyes look, hasn't
worn the right nails or nail polish, hasn't given and
spent time in the selection of your outfits, even if

(32:23):
it's outdoors during a fire, with the hat you choose,
the outerwear jacket you choose, or the boots you wear,
whatever it is, you've given it thought. There's not a
time you've ever been in front of the camera where
you've got any control whatsoever without trying to look your best.
David Muir tried to look his best, and in that

(32:43):
this show is called always in Fashion. I have to
point out that packaging yourself is as important as the
products you package. And if he felt by tapering his
cloat using those clothes pins to give a better appearance
and maybe give him credibility in the conversations, he was
about to have the coverage he was giving, so be it.
Nobody is any different than him. And the point is

(33:05):
it doesn't change the coverage. He is entitled to look
his best because looking his best makes you feel your best.
And if you feel your best in front of the camera,
behind the microphone, at your typewriter or at your computer,
why would it be criticized? And it's ridiculous, it's stupid.
I feel for him. I don't like what he did
on the debate but I have no problem whatsoever, and

(33:28):
you are all all full of baloney. You're all hypocrites
because you all do the same thing. Unfortunately for him,
he got caught. So in terms of California, terrible, what's
going on. I've read that they're considering canceling the oscars.
I'm not sure that's right or wrong. It's terrible what
people are going through. I don't know how it ever

(33:48):
would be built. I have a funny feeling if you
sent Donald Trump to Malibu said to him, what would
you do, mister president, to build this thing in the
next two years? Build it back up, might come up
with a solution. Having said that, I can't help but
think about what people have had to say this week.
A fool is known by his speech, a wise man

(34:08):
by his silence. I'll be silent for a minute until
you come back after commercial.

Speaker 2 (34:14):
Always in fashion.

Speaker 3 (34:17):
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(34:40):
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dot com. But it's more than that. I have, for one,
love to shop. I love going around and seeing what's
happening and what catches my attention, what would make me
feel good to wear now. I don't wear the women's
wear obviously, but I can appreciate it and they look amazed.
If you want to look right, you want to have

(35:02):
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(35:25):
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I want to look the way I want to feel.
I go out at night, I'm in black and Carlago
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and they have little tweaks and touches, whether it's a
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(35:47):
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Speaker 2 (36:06):
Welcome back to Always in Fashion. Here's your host, Mark Webber.

Speaker 3 (36:11):
Tonight, I really want to be silent because the title
of the show, A fool is known by his speech,
a wise man by his silence, and I'd like to
be a wise man. I've talked a great deal about California,
but before I let it go, I have one more
thing to say. I want to talk about brands on California.
When I was involved with procurement for a company, where

(36:31):
do you buy your products to ensure that you get
delivery and how do you plan it so if there's
a problem, your silks can survive. Your company won't suffer,
you won't disappear, you won't go back round. You might
have a hip, you may lose some money here or there,
but you'll still be around to survive. I go back
to California. They're a fail safe. There's the brush that

(36:52):
should be cleaned up. They're the reservoirs that should have
been filled. There are hydrants that should have been operating,
the fool proof systems that are in place, the checks
and balances, all the inspections that needed to take place.
I know, when I was manufacturing around the world in products,
I could have put all my products in China. China
was cheaper than any other country, almost twice as cheap

(37:13):
than anywhere. But what if we had a problem with China,
We'd get nothing, We'd be out of business. So I
went to Bangladesh, I went to Indonesia, I went to Japan,
I went to Hong Kong, I went to Korea. I
went and placed orders in all these various different countries.
So if in fact, that there was force masure, the

(37:34):
act of God, if there was government intervention, if there
was a sinkage in boats, if the Panama Canal got blocked.
If IF and if I was responsible for making sure
that we had a fail safe in place, we had
checks and balances that would allow the business enterprise to
go on. California. The fire is an utter travesty. Everything

(37:57):
has broken down. Nothing is working except the break men
and women fighting those fires, and everyone in this country
willing to help out. Where there are airline pilots, where
they are planes, where their helicopter, all those things, congratulations
and thank you to all of them. But where are
the checks and balances?

Speaker 2 (38:13):
Boom?

Speaker 3 (38:14):
I don't want to talk about that anymore tonight. Everyone's
depressed as it is, and I want to talk about
good things. I want to talk about brands, and I
do have some interesting stories about brands that I noticed
either took place with me or I read about this week.
Always in fashion. Somewhere in all of that is retail
and wholesale and luxury. I want to talk about Warren Buffett.

(38:36):
He had a great quote, lose money for the firm,
and I'll be understanding, lose a shred of reputation, and
I will be ruthless. Your reputation I've done shows about.
I'll talk again there is nothing more important to you? Hell,
that's the question. First, What do you own? You can

(38:57):
think about all your possessions. You can think about all
these things, the land you live on, the government owns
you paid axes for. You know, what do you own?
The reality is you don't own really very much. The
only thing you own, and I'm sure there are other things,
but for the purpose of this exercise, I just want
to say, the only thing you own is your word.
What you say you own it. You are what you say.

(39:19):
You make promises you deliver. You've made promise, you don't
deliver it. Your word matters. And Warren Buffett's comment about
understanding if a firm loses money, you made a mistake,
but if you lose a shred of reputation, he'll be ruthless.
You can't afford to lose your word. And I want
to take that to the subject of brands. When my
company bought Calvin Klein, it was fascinating. We had three

(39:42):
major executives involved in the acquisition of Calvin Klin. Oh,
we had a lot of people helping. We had the
CEO whose idea it was to buy Calvin Kline, whose
responsibility was to convince the board and to find a finance.
Our chief financial officer acted as his partner to find
the finance and seek to buy Calvin Klin buy companies.
The money doesn't grow on trees. You have to find lenders.

(40:05):
You have to find people that will believe in your
ability to make that acquisition, to make that investment pay
off for your lenders. The worst thing a bank can
do is lend you a billion dollars and then you
can't pay it back. So you have to be convinced.
So between the CEO is idea, the chief financialized officer

(40:25):
finding the money, and me doing the due diligence on
the company. Now what did that mean? It meant that
I was the guy who spent the three months going
over to the Calvinklin offices every single day from morning tonight,
understanding how they worked, learning how they did things, understanding
what they were trying to accomplish, and whether or not

(40:47):
they had the resources in place to execute. At the
same time, if there were faulty ideas and they would
never come to fruition. I needed to understand that Calvin
Klein had a lot of licensees. Big part of this
structure was in the renting business renting the Calvin Kleine
name to other people to manufacture and product and pride

(41:07):
product to consumers. Be interesting to let you know that
the largest business at the time was Calvin Kleine genes,
and they weren't done by Calvin Klein. They were done
by another company under license and pay a royalty for
the use of the name. Calvin Klein had oversight on
the genes, but nonetheless it was licensed. The same for
Iwere and the same for Fragrance. I guess I should

(41:29):
say maybe the biggest business of all was Fragrance. All
those famous clones, Eternity, moment k one, those were under
license with Unilever. And I went there to look, learn, listen, comment,
so that when we bought the company. If we bought
the company, we would know exactly what to do. We

(41:50):
had had a running start. There were no blips, no surprises,
and I was expert at due diligence. I had learned it,
I understood it, I knew how to run business. And
I have to tell you, between the three of us,
our acquisition of Calvin Klein was brilliant. There were no hiccups,
no disappointments, no surprises other than Calvin Klein decided when

(42:10):
we bought the company, he'd no longer walk down the
runway and take credit for the collection, which in itself
was its own problem. But go no. And that's for
another time. But one of the things I noticed about
Calvin Klein and talking about brands, they were fanatical about
protecting the brand. They would do nothing that would take

(42:32):
a penny of value out of the brand. What Calvin
Klein represented, from the logo to the product, to the
quality control, nothing would ever be jeopardized. One of my
favorite stories. Again I'm told you like my stories, I'll
tell you young designer took the Calvin Klein logo and changed it.
You know, if you look at Calvin Klein, it's drawn

(42:55):
up from high case letters and lower case letters. Calvin
Klein designer came in and he did it in all
block letters, all large case letters. And he showed it
to me and it was brilliant, and everyone he showed
it to looked amazing, and it was fresh and it
was different. And here we are buying a company new,
shouldn't we make a change in the logo. And finally

(43:16):
I got to the point where I wanted to show
it to Calvin, and I said, Calvin, you know this
came out of nowhere. One of our young designers took
the logo and changed it from lower and upper case
to all large letters, upper case letters. What do you think?
And he looked at me and he started to laugh
and he said, let me tell you something more. In
all my years, said Calvin Klein, every single month, every

(43:39):
single year, every single whenever somebody came in and wanted
to change the logo. Wow, this looks great. It's not
with Calvin kleines. We have a logo. We should cherish it.
Coca Cola doesn't change their logo. McDonald's doesn't shake their logo.
Nobody of consequence. Who built the brand? We have this company?
You paid a billion dollar for it. There's a reason

(44:01):
this is our logo. Don't change it. And we never did,
and I don't think they ever did since I've been gone.
I also remember walking in the offices. Now, remember I
was a president of PVH at the time. We just
acquired this company. So and I walked, you know, the
ground shook. Whatever I said mattered, and I had to
choose my words very carefully. I had an appreciation for

(44:24):
what I would say, and more importantly, appreciation for silence
went to listen when to learn? I remember walking through
the offices. It was quiet, you can hear a pin drop.
The showroom's noisy, of course, where there's activity, but everything,
and I noticed a couple of phenomenon. One I never
saw pens or paper on anyone's desk. And I remember

(44:47):
walking over to a young lady and said, you know,
I never see pens and papers on your desk. Running
from that matter, don't you have pens? Don't you have
paper clips? And she laughed and said, of course we do.
She's let me show you. She opens a drawer. Her
desk was silver, Everything was silver. All the working in
the the building was white, silver and gray. She opened
up a deester and showed me her pens. All her

(45:09):
paper clips were black. All the pens were black. I said,
is that by accident? And she said no. In this company,
you're not allowed to take out a pen that isn't
all black. You're not to use paper clips that are
not all black. And I remember saying to myself, is
this crazy? Are my nuts? And then I said, I

(45:32):
noticed that there were no family pictures on her desk,
And I said, once again, I've noticed in the offices
no family pictures, your office clean, none of the other osters.
We are not allowed to have family photos in this company.
The only photos were allowed to have are Calvin Klein
ads or anything associated with Calvin Klein. I said, do

(45:56):
you believe in that she's well? Would I like to
have a picture of my husband here? Course, But I
respect what the company represents. We all understand that we're
all tied together. We understand what the greater good was
and I really really respected it, and I would have
never changed it. My CEO showed up one day. He
had the courage I guess of conviction or he was
a liberal, and he made a decision immediately that all

(46:19):
the people working there that were allowed to have their picture. Now.
While I respected it, and because everyone else in the
company and all the other divisions and all the other
businesses we ran had access to everything, they weren't fanatical
like Calvin Klein was at the brand, and he immediately
allowed them to have pictures. But I can tell you
I could never prove it. The minute that started, the

(46:41):
brand lost part of its luster. We always had something special.
Now it didn't change. The company is still one of
the wildly successful companies of our time and hopefully forever.
And I only have fond memories, but I think understanding
how important it is to protect the brand comes across

(47:03):
with Calvin Klein's esthetics and everything they've done about the brand.
And when Warren Buffett I saw that article this week,
lose money for the firm, I'll be understanding, lose a
shred of reputation, I'll be ruthless. I thought about Calvin Klein.
You know, when it comes to brands and what you
do with a brand, you have to satisfy your customer,

(47:25):
maybe surprise him, create a special feeling. You know. When
I think about the words to sound off and say
what you should be doing for your customer to build
your brand, I don't know, create joy, create a special feeling?
Is that the goal? I think about it, and I
came with the word that did it for me. You

(47:46):
have to mesmerize your customer. It could be the littlest thing,
the biggest thing. And that's what you should be thinking about.
When I look at all these stores and I look
at the products, and when I'm disappointed, I wonder, what
are you thinking? Are you not hiring the right people.
Do you not, let me say again, are you not
setting the goal in the standards at the corporate level?

(48:06):
Are you not making clear what's important? Are you not
spelling out the essex, the ethos of the brand so
that people understand what you're supposed to do. You want
to see a great brand, go to fifty seventh Street
in New York and look look what Louis Utone has
done to wrap their store while it's under construction, while
their rail stores across the street in the former Nike

(48:28):
store in a temporary shot. Look at the effort and
the time and attention to the brilliance they did to
wrap the store under construction. So everything you do is
so important, so important, you know. I'm always constantly trying
to teach people, my son's, my friends. I have a
thing called repeat after me. Drives me crazy, drives me

(48:49):
nuts with my friends or people disappoint but I know
it drives them even crazier than I drive them. In fact,
to make a point, I had a very close friend
and that meant a lot to me, and often made
mistakes and always often wrong, never in doubt, and said
the wrong things. And I would say to it, I
would say to him, you got to do me a
favor of this one time. I need to teach you

(49:11):
a lesson. Would you mind? And he said okay. I
said repeat after me. The guy looked at me like
I was crazy. I said please. He said okay, I'll
try it. And he said, Mark, Mark, You're always right.
He looked at me like I was nuts, Mark, You're
always right. This time, I was delighted in an experience
that has to do with a number of things, all

(49:32):
lessons learned, and the first has to do with the
Grand Lux Cafe. I don't know if any of you
ever eaten in Grand Lux. It's supposed to be a
luxury version of cheesecake factory. Now, I am a man
of the people. I could eat in Lusser, I could
eat in the most expensive, famous restaurants and love it
and be comfortable. But I also love the simple pleasures

(49:53):
in life. I love McDonald's chicken sandwich with a dye
coke or even a regular coke. I love the Grand
Lux Cafe. I was there the other night and I
ordered one of my favorite dishes there. It's barbecue plank salmon.
I love the barbecue taste it comes with rice, and
I always change out the rice for green beans and broccoli.
I like to eat healthy, and I always order it

(50:16):
well done. Something about me and fish. I like the
fish cook anyway. Ten to fifteen minutes later comes out.
It looks great. I start to eat the fish. The
top is grilled be perfectly, and it's completely raw inside.
And I'm really discouraged because I don't eat a lot
of meals, and when I do eat, I want to
eat them get my job done. I'm looking around, there's

(50:36):
no way, no waiter, and ultimately I eat maybe a
third of the fish. I only eat the crust because
it's the only thing that I could actually look at.
I ate the vegetables and that was it. And during
the course of my dinner, a woman walked by and

(50:57):
looked at my food, didn't say and she said to me,
are you finished? I said yes. She took the plate away.
Would you like any dessert? I said no, thank you.
She came a minute later with a check and she said,
I noticed you didn't need your meal. I also noticed
that the waiter put it in well done and wasn't
served to you well done. And for that we take
our responsibility seriously. We're sorry you're unhappy. We could cook

(51:21):
you a meal again if you'd like, but either way,
we're not charging you for tonight. That mesmerized me, the
fact that she saw it, the fact that they took action,
the fact that they dealt with it without even asking me.
They gave me a complete credit. I was impressed with that,
and I thought it was amazing to see that that way.

(51:45):
On the negative side, without mentioning names my favorite clothing maker,
it's pretty much everything I wear is one of the
greatest designers of all time has a problem. And in
the tailor shop, and every time I go to buy
a sport go to or a suit and end up

(52:06):
coming back no less than three times to have it repaired,
to the point that this winter, this fall to date,
I have bought nothing, haven't even stepped in the store
because I feel let down. As much as I love
the brand and much as I feel simpatico to the brand,
I am not being mesmerized and I feel let down,

(52:27):
and they have a problem, and I've shared with them,
and the salesman that handles me knows I feel this way.
They either fix it or they don't. It's up to them.
But it's a problem when you're a brand. You don't
want to leave your customers feeling this way. I've been
noticing another subject. I don't know about you, guys. If
anybody seen the Jaguar advertising, I'm a fan of Jaguar.

(52:51):
When I was a teenager, my first car was a
Jaguar XKE. It was the biggest mistake in my life.
It was six years was used. I borrowed money from
my mother to pay for it. It was a disaster.
I drove it Friday Saturday, was in the shop, stayed
in the shop for a month, picked it up a month,
drove it Friday back in the shop. Never ever performed.

(53:15):
It was one of the worst cars I ever had,
But nonetheless I had a love for it. And as
it stands, one of the reasons I loved it is
I eventually sold it. And if you would ever see
the engagement ring on my wife's hand, if you looked
very very closely and used your imagination, that was the
Jaguar I had on but recently not a Jaguar. Jaguar

(53:39):
decided to rebrand. They changed their local disaster. They changed
the look of the car disaster. They made it all electric, disaster,
alienating every customer that doesn't want an electric car at
this stage of the game disaster. I can't believe Jaguar,
one of my favorite brands of all time, is about
to destroy it. Tirety of this strategy is disastrous. Everybody's

(54:04):
making fun of their marketing campaign, the change of the logo.
I'm worried. I was hoping they'd come out with great
sports cars again. Branding is so important. Once you make
a customer, you do all the research. In the luxury business,
there's something called CRM Customer related marketing. What it is

(54:24):
is fish where the fish are swimming. Why would you
fish where the fish aren't When you have customers in
this case that are already inclined to buy your brand,
that they know, you know who they are, that you've
demonstrated that you like what they're doing, You've been mesmerized,
you want to market to them. My friends at Jaguar,

(54:45):
do you have any idea that I won't buy an
electric car at this time because I don't think we're ready.
Have you any idea that I want your logo the
way it is? It has meaning to me since I
was a teenager. Do you have any idea, the kinds
of cars I want to purchase. My family still has Jaguars,
but no, you went and made all these changes. I

(55:06):
am worried for you. I've been mesmerized. Don't you want
me to stay? Now? I could keep myself quiet. I
don't have to say anything else. But I realize that
a fool is known by his speech, and I am
trying to be very careful. But I'd like to think
I'm a wise man by my silence. And with that,

(55:26):
I've decided to go silent for the rest of the evening.
Good Night,