August 30, 2022 • 33 mins
I’m excited to bring CEO and Founder Tracee Ellis Ross into our HER living room! Tracee educates me on the importance of salad skills, her journey to founding PATTERN and why it’s important for Black women to tell our own stories. Learn more about PATTERN at http://patternbeauty.com. Please enjoy this episode from the HER Archives.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, welcome back to a new episode of Her
with Amina Brown. And I've been telling you all that
September is a month of anniversaries. It is my wedding anniversary,
it is the anniversary of the relaunch of this podcast,
and as many of you know, I am the poetic
partner for natural haircare brand Pattern, and this month is
(00:22):
Patterns to year anniversary. And y'all, I am excited to
(00:43):
welcome into our her living room the CEO and founder
of Pattern, producer, actor, CEO, activist Tracy Ellis Ross. Hi.
Wonderful to join you here, Amina. We have such a
strong creative bond, so it's wonderful for me to enter
(01:06):
your family and your world the way you have so
beautifully entered and elevated Patterns and mine. I feel so
many emotional vibes. I'm curious to also talk with you
and hear how it is feeling to you now at
two years of being CEO and founder of Pattern. But
first I have to start with the very important questions. Tracy,
(01:29):
you're here in the her living room. I imagined this
as the living room where I like gather with my girlfriends.
You know, when we go to each other's house. We
bring drinks, we bring snacks. When you go to hang
out with your girlfriends, what is your favorite food or
drink that you typically bring to the gathering? Well, we
(01:50):
often cooked together. There's a small gaggle of us, my
best and closest sort of core group of girlfriends, lives
in New York. We often are at Monica's house around
her kitchen table. Monica is a great cook. I've best
friends of Monica since college, and like I usually make
something out, but she has as opposed to bringing something,
(02:13):
so I'm usually in charge of the salads. I'm a
queen of the salads. I also love, you know, a
bottle of wine. What do we drink? We usually drink wine.
We recently have graduated more into cocktails, like when we're together.
When we travel, we do an AfterAll sprits. Romy and
I love a dirty martini, and so does Kevin, So
(02:35):
you know, we mix it up. But it's a long friendship,
so I don't know that there's a regular thing. It's
a good thirty years amina with all of us. I
mean the depth of a thirty year friendship, you know,
I think I've got some friendships a little over twenty years,
about to hit the twenty five year mark. There's a
level of depth. Yeah, there's something that happens. It's amazing.
(02:56):
I mean, there's nothing better than that. It's the next
close this thing to family, and it's a different version
of family. It's the chosen family. But yeah, thirty, I
mean Monica and I might wait, hold on, it might
be longer than that. I was seventeen. Wow, Samarra, I
was twenty two. Roomy, I alays think even though we
went to high school together, we weren't friends in high school.
(03:17):
She was a year behind me. So yeah, it's been
a long time for all of us. Can you discuss
the merits of the salad situation? What are things that
you feel are necessary to make a salad? Really? Step
it up? Discuss Okay, let me this is a good topic, amana.
People pooh pooh and say, who so it's not cooking
bull crap people. Let me tell you something. There's a
(03:39):
lot of really important factors. Number One, bag lettuce is
a no no oh no, ma'am. How to get that
let us and bright off of its own little heart.
You gotta wash it by hand, you gotta shake it
and get that water off every time you touch the lettuce.
First of all, let us is not a sturdy situation.
Let Us is delicate. It is fickle. You've got to
(04:00):
be loving with it. You can't dress it too early,
salad dressing out of a jar, bottle, anything pre made, No,
ma'am over done. Salad has been ruined. Nope. People are
always like, I don't understand what you do to myself.
My ex boyfriend was like, I don't even eat salad,
and I was like, you do now, He's It's my
favorite thing in the world. I make all kinds of salads.
I was just thinking of the last time I was
(04:21):
with Monica and Samara and the ladies. Mid butternut squash
on a rugula with shalots. So baked butternut squash on
fresh fiber arugula with sunflower seeds and shallots and a
balsamic vinaigrette with a little wee bit of honey in it.
I also love when I do. I shaved the carrots
(04:42):
like really thin, so I don't know what you call
it when they're like long and skinny with olives green
and black olives cut without the pits in them. Fennel
red onion. I mean, come on, come on. And then
there's the regular salads that I always like. One of
my favorite salads. There's two your favorite salads that go
with steak. Depending on how you're making your thing, you
(05:04):
can do roman hearts with corn, hearts of palm and
red onions with olive oil and lemon, or you can
do arugola with apples red onions. One of my siblings
doesn't like fruit in the salads, so I have to
put that on the side at home when I cook. Oh,
I want to thank you for regaling us with these tips,
(05:25):
because I mean, as soon as you said shallots, I
was like, oh, I see what we're doing here. This
is not a game. Yeah, I like to tell people's
shallots are an elegant onion. I do feel that way.
I feel like anytime someone's like and they're fried shallots,
I'm like, I'll have that because that's a fancy lady
would eat and I want to also be fancy. Yeah.
(05:48):
I'm in charge of the food with my family. When
we do family whatever, my brother Ross and I do
the food. I love it, whether it's the cooking or
the what are we going to order? But we're in
charge of food. My younger brother Evan does snacks, so
it's cooking or curation. I respect that, Tracy. I respect
that being able to be a curator of food. I
(06:10):
respect that. That's right. You gotta figure that out. Is
it a pizza nite? You know I'm talking about, is
it Chinese food? What are we doing? And then you've
got to know where to order from. That's the talent.
Because I do have some friends. After a while, you're like,
you can't be the one who picks anymore because you
don't know how to How about those friends that you
think you were really close and then you don't have
the same taste buds and you're like, yeah, this is
awful and taste like nothing. So I don't know where
(06:33):
your taste level is, but I think our friendship might
be over. It's a question. It puts some question marks
in the air. I've had some friends when we go
to visit places, I'm like, we're going to choose the restaurant,
not you, because there's some levels of food that are
okay with you, and I feel life is too short
to eat food like that. Yeah, I happen to all
(06:54):
of my core group. We share the food foodiness. This
is important. I feel enriched. I feel enriched. I'm getting hungry.
I feel enriched and attacked about the bag of salad
that's in my first So that's fine. I I know
the life I need to live now, Tracy, I know
the life I need to live. I have been brought
to a new level today. So I'm gonna I'm gonna
(07:15):
work on that. I want to start also by just
sharing a mushy moment with you that is Pattern involved.
So y'all in the living room. I realized I was
going to be working with Tracy and Pattern by getting
an email through my website from a creative agency. Now,
of course, Tracy, it didn't say your name, and it
(07:36):
didn't say Pattern. It was very respectfully nebulous. It was
very like a campaign is being launched in the air
at some point sometime soon, a prominent figure is founding
this company. We want to know if you will add
a poetic voice to a thing that is happening, please
write us back. At which time, Tracy, I was like
(07:58):
a scam. So I sent it. Yeah, I mean, listen
to me, I mean that sounds like a scam. I'm
surprisingly sitting here right now that's like you were being catfished,
sucker punched all in one. I was like, this is
a scam. So I sent it to my now manager,
but she wasn't my manager. Then I was like, can
you be have my manager of twenty minutes and find
out this is legit? So we find out that it
(08:21):
is Pattern, and I have my first phone call with
you and the team where you are telling me, here's
the vision for Pattern, Here's what I want the language
to sound like surrounding this brand you know that I'm creating.
And I was in my car in a small town
in North Carolina, right before a gig. My family was
(08:41):
in the hotel where I was staying at the time,
and I was like, we can't have my family loud
talking while I'm trying to find out what's going on
with Pattern. Right now. Number one and number two I
can't tell y'all is patterned or that it's Tracy. So
we're taking this call in the car. At that point,
(09:02):
no one even in the public knew I was even
starting a hair bread y'all. We were all sworn to secrecy,
and I was like, I'm gonna keep this secret. Nobody
needs to come get my bone Marrow because I was
the one revealing this before it was rolled out, which
I do want to say to y'all at that point,
keeping that secret and then seeing how pattern launched, seeing
(09:22):
the rollout, I mean, that is still one of the
most amazingly executed rollouts I've ever seen, you know, because
we all, each of us that were involved sort of
knew our different parts, but getting to see it all
like rollout together. So my mushy moment, Tracy is that,
you know, we talked through everything. We talked through the
fact that we're going to meet up in New York
because you're gonna be there meeting with other people on
(09:45):
the team, that we're getting ready to help do the launch.
And right before we hung up, you said, Amina, I
should have started with this. You said, your work is truthful,
it's soulful, it's full of joy, it's full of lightness,
and that is why I want to work with you.
And then we all just did our Everybody has their assignments, okay,
by we like hung up, and I sat in my
(10:07):
car for a little while, Tracy, because I was in
this point in my career. I was turning thirty nine
that year nineteen and I was experiencing this very strange
shake up in my career at a time that I
didn't think it was going to shake up, you know,
And I just felt this sense of like, there's some
things I've been doing, some spaces I've been in. I
need to get out of that. My work is trying
(10:28):
to tell me it wants to broaden itself, but I
know I need to leave where I've been. I don't
know where I go from here. And you saying those
words to me really impacted me in this way because
I was sort of doing this like searching inside, which
you didn't know, but you saying those words to me
really set me on a path inside of understanding what
(10:49):
was possible from my career at that point. So mushy moment,
it's on a little posted in my office. I'm not
gonna lie about a Tracy. It's on a post it
so I can remember. First of all, I really appreciate
you sharing that with me. I feel like the touchstones
of those moments and being able to give them space
and breathing room in community like and with another person,
(11:12):
and particularly the person that named that for you or
whatever that is. It does the same On my side,
you telling it like I had my own experience. And
I've had multiple mushy moments with you though, because part
of what sort of opened with you and I was
my ten years of dreaming of pattern, and all of
(11:34):
the language and words and sort of vision and imaginings
and all of that that I had dreamt of needed
to take flight with somebody's expertise. And part of our
conversation was that I started to feel the branches of
(11:56):
pattern growing, you know, and really zation that like when
you are a CEO when you found something, you know,
when you find a baby and you make it like
then you let all the other hands be a part
of it. I was trying to get you to express
my vision, but through what you do, your experience, your joy,
(12:18):
your light, your rhythm, you know, in all of our hands,
as you said, we all went off assignments, you know,
and it becomes this thing that is not mine, it's ours,
which is the reflection of what I really wanted the
company to be about. You know. It's a reflection of
who we are, you know, and we're so many different things.
(12:38):
And I also remember, in that conversation with you, having
what had been in my mind and heart for so
long having it come out, and it made it feel
really real, you know, like it wasn't something that I
was just like, I don't know, just me in in
my bathroom or in my bed dreaming. It made it
(13:01):
really real. And then the other third piece was I
remember saying to you because we had multiple conversations the
first one. Then we had the in person one, which,
by the way, I've never seen that footage back of
me NIX. Remember we video. I was like, where'd that go?
We got to find out about that. That would be
(13:21):
really cool to see. But so we had multiple conversations
and then I remember saying, I remember at the end
of every conversation, which is something that we still do,
I'm like, so those are my ideas. Now you go
make your magic, like and I remember you called me
once You're like, I don't know if I'm the right direction.
Do you think you're in the right direction. I think
you're in the right direction. And then we would play
(13:43):
some more and then remember that's how the other piece
came out from the manifesto, which the world still has
not gotten to feel and here but is coming. That
was something that was like an offshoot of a moment
for you. It was like another piece started spilling forward.
(14:05):
It's so funny because it sounds like we're talking about nothing,
but we're talking about do you know what I mean? Like,
I was like, so, if someone else is listening, which
they're gonna be doing, they're gonna be like, what are
they talking about? We're talking about poetry? How do you
define poetry? How do you define what you do? I mean,
I kind of feel like the style of poetry that
(14:26):
I write is something like if comedy and monologue and
jazz and hip hop tried to come together in a something.
I feel like that's my style and maybe a little
bit of like a soul music writer. I feel like
some of that, like the way that Bill Withers was
able to sort I mean, like that Grandma's hands. That
(14:46):
like imagery right there, which I felt was really important.
In the words I was hearing you say about your
vision for pattern, it felt important that those words needed
to be concrete, that when people hear you saying those words,
they needed to you know, have visual have like a
sense of smell or you know, remember some some things
(15:08):
because those words were written that way, and I do
love for words to do that work. I feel like
that's the best thing they do. And they also offer
a frame, They offer a mirroring, they offer context and
history and tie us to our legacy. Like they do
(15:28):
all of those things. We get to tell our stories
and we have not always been able to even though
we have been doing it anyway, and particularly as black women.
The power of language and the ability to language feeling
to language, history to language, legacy, family community, Like how
(15:54):
do you put into words what your grandmother's mac and
cheese taste? Like, you know what I mean? How do
you put into words what the experiences of sitting between
your aunt's legs with a goody comb getting your hair
done and you know, having her squeeze you so you
(16:14):
don't move. Okay, Okay, It's like you say, there's many
(16:37):
people in the world that you know holding your ear.
They don't know the connotation of that. So how do
you both not tell for those who don't know, but
share for those of us that do in a way
that etches our truth and time and that offers an
expansiveness to the reality of what is our connection, you know,
(17:01):
and so much of that comes through the portal of hair.
And it's something that you and I have talked about,
but you know, Pattern is not a social justice organization.
At the center of Pattern is the celebration of black beauty,
and in the world we live in, that in and
of itself is a form of activism. It's a form
(17:24):
of resistance. And so all of the different pieces of
the company and that portal that you have given us
access to, even like, you know, the glossary was something
that I dreamt up so many years. I remember where
I was. It was like four years before Pattern had
(17:46):
a name. I was still trying to figure out how
to make the company happen. And I was like one
day like because I would go to all these different
places and they're like, you mean like kinky hair, Like
everybody had these different definitions, and then there were all
these different connotations. This person felt this word was negative,
and this one loved, this one the same word, and
all these differ kinds of things. And I was like,
(18:07):
so much of our words that we have come from
a paradigm in a system that did not celebrate and
see us or see us as beautiful, certainly didn't understand
our hair. And so I wanted to write a legacy
that didn't necessarily redefine, but gave our language, our words
(18:29):
the poetry that actually matches our hair because the words
are so small, but what they connotate is expansive, and
so I wanted to redefine the definition, not the words. Yeah,
I mean, that was a really fun thing to get
to do. Once you shared with me, like, this is
(18:49):
the vision of what I want this glossary to be like.
And I want to still keep this poetic voice. So
to get some of those words that you know, wash
day and I mean different terms that you know we've
thrown around and to reimagine them in this poetic form
was amazing to get to do. And still and now
(19:12):
I love about the glossary is that it lives in breathes,
so there will be different times that new terms need
to be added to it, and then to get to
reimagine those terms has been so fun. I want to
take you back to New York City when you are there.
What we now know was six months before Pattern was
going to launch your meeting with everyone getting all the
(19:33):
final touches put on different things. I am one of
the people that is going to be meeting with you,
and I remember I was staying with my one of
my girlfriend's shout out to Jamilla. I was staying with
her in New York, and I was like, well, we're
not gonna do is not be late to this meeting.
So I was like, I'm gonna leave early enough in
case the subway decides to fail or like some speed
movie happens, I don't want to be late. I get
(19:56):
there and I'm like thirty minutes early, and there's a
Starbucks down the street from the Creative Agency where we
were all meeting with you, and I remember I had
my New York bag because I have my certain things
I feel like I need to have when I go
to New York and my New York bag. And I
walked into the starbuts Tracy and I plopped my New
York bag on the table and I sat down and
just hyperventilated for like ten minutes, just like I was
(20:19):
so nervous about everything because I had the first draft
of the Pattern manifesto to share with you, and I
was so nervous. It was gonna be our first time,
you know, meeting in person, and as New York is,
this man walks in and he's like, is anybody sitting here?
And totally sat at the table with me while I hyperventilated.
I didn't didn't ask me anything about if I was
(20:41):
all right, if I'm nothing, So I mean, do you
do you remember the date? Because I think I have
those pictures on my phone. Oh my gosh, it was
like the end of March or the beginning of April nineteen,
because there was like a certain amount of days that
you were gonna be in town, and we met for
(21:03):
two days. I can't here if it was like March
thirty in April one or if it was April one
in April two, but it was somewhere around that time.
And I did my little hyperventilation for twenty minutes and
like got myself together, and then I still, honestly, Tracy,
even though I had talked to you on the phone
multiple times by this time, I was still like, what
if I'm still being catfished? What if the whole time
(21:25):
it really wasn't Tracy. I was like, I'm just not sure.
I was wondering if I was going to go up
to the elevator and it was going to open up
and it was gonna be like a scene from Fame
where the dancer thought they were getting this like amazing
audition with this like amazing Hollywood director, and instead it
was going to be some like big hairy man with
(21:48):
a crop top and his hairy belly, and I was
gonna walk in. He was gonna be like, you thought
you were meeting with Tracy Ellis Ross, but it's me.
I'm Tracy. I believe. I can't believe that. Even then,
I wish I had the picture because that I know
it's in my phone. I just don't know the date,
(22:09):
and I can find it and I'm going to text
it to you. But that's so crazy. You were cool
as a cucumber, okay outside, okay, because inside I was
freaked out until I like, once the elevator opened up,
Tracy and I saw like, this is a real creative agency.
The name is right there on the wall. I saw
you and the team in the boardroom in their meeting,
(22:32):
and I was like, you're okay, You're safe, And then
you know you and I went in the room and
read through the manifesto and did what was going to
be this amazing creative process of really shaving the piece
in these ways, figuring out the things that were there
that you wanted more of the things that maybe weren't
(22:53):
there that you wanted some of? And I want to
ask you when you look back on that now that
here we are at two years anniversary of pattern When
you look back at that moment as you are stepping
into CEO even further, what was that time, like six
months out from Patterns Launch, as you're okaying all the
things that are going to tell this story that you've
(23:14):
had germinating for so long. Well, I will also say
I surrounded myself with old So the creative director is
someone that I had known and no and is a
really good friend for twenty years, stylist creative Bolton, best
friend for thirty years. And I did that on purpose
(23:36):
because it gave me my footing in the places and
spaces where I had doubt. I knew I could trust
not only their expertise but their judgment as people that
I go to even if it weren't, you know, a
work project, like they're my counsel anyway. But the truth
(23:57):
is I felt so in my element. It was like
I've been waiting my whole life to get a chance
to make that kind of baby, you know, And every
step of this company has felt like that, even the
parts when I get wobbly, when I get scared, when
I get overwhelmed and feel like I actually don't know
(24:21):
or I don't know if we should have done that.
Was that the wrong thing? Like that's whoa, you know
what I mean? Like it didn't feel bad, we decided that,
But now that it's hitting the air in the atmosphere,
I feel differently about it. I don't know, you know,
There's been so many of those moments, so much growth
curve on a regular basis, you know, and I don't
(24:44):
think I knew how much was involved. And I love working,
especially because the things I work on, our things, I love,
you know, and my hands are in every aspect of pattern.
But you know, the copy on the back of a package,
every single thing on the back of a package has
to be roof and I want to make sure it
(25:04):
matches my exact intentions and the company's mission and the
company's ethos, and that there's no wrong turn, you know.
And then realizing that even if there are things that
you go that was I didn't like that, that was
a mistake, you can okay, so that's a wash. It
is what it is, but you keep it moving, you know.
(25:26):
One of the things that I discovered in this pattern
journey is that I love a team. You know, I've
always loved a team, but it's very different being a
CEO in a team than an actor in a team.
And it's really interesting to learn something new and to
not know how to do it, you know. And I
(25:48):
think the biggest thing that I've learned that I like
to share with people is, you know, I didn't grow
up owing even what a CEO was. I remember my
maybe four years ago, somebody saying something about C I
was like C suites, Like is that like a presidential suite?
Like I was like, what is that? Like something at
the airport? Like my brain went to like hotel or airport.
(26:10):
And they were like, you know, like ce CEO, CEO,
And I was like, what are you dying around what
that means? You don't have to know what that means.
Being a CEO is based on intention, vision, gut instinct.
But what I have really learned is a successful company
(26:34):
is not built from just a mission and a vision.
You can't have a successful company without that, But that's
not the only factor. Execution operation strategy is incredibly important.
You can have the best idea, you can have the
best product. You can even make that product, don't be
(26:55):
amazing if you can't fulfill your orders. The supply chain
is so complex and so intense. I mean, I'm learning
on a regular basis the financials of how you back
in this, you know, how with a retail partner versus
just direct a consumer online? Like how you hold stock?
(27:17):
Do like? It is no joke and if your company
And by the way, this is a term I didn't know. Scaling.
I again, scaling, I'm like, what how you climb up
the outside of a building? How you scale a building? No,
it's how a company grows. So as a company is
skating the growth pains of that, and so for me
(27:38):
as an artist, because I am first and foremost an artist,
I'm a creative, but I do have a very strong
business mind. Trying to merge those two things has been
exciting and wonderful, but it's a lot of new stuff
to learn. Right I want to ask you about this.
(27:58):
What's your favorite thing so far about being the founder
and CEO of Pattern The incredible stories I hear in
the most fascinating ways and places, like they enter into
my space and being a the street or through a
comment on Instagram, or a friend will send me a
(28:19):
text that her mom's cousin or something like, and I'll
get videos and things of like my daughter hated her
curly hair, but she's embracing it now these products. My
hair's the softest it's ever been. My curl pattern is back.
Like the stories that I hear about people embracing their
(28:40):
authentic natural curl cotterns and experiencing their hair in a
space of beauty and joy is so fulfilling to me
because it's so much of who we are, and it's
the most beautiful thing. And our culture has really robbed
(29:03):
us of some of the most basic joys about our
authentic being. No, you know, I'm sure the term black
girl magic is lovely, but like, we're not magic. We're real,
and we're so real and so incredible that to some
people it looks like magic. But I feel like we
(29:24):
get to recognize each other and continue to uplift this
idea that each unique version of a twist, bend, coil,
zigzag is just some piece of art that is connected
to a being and a soul and a legacy and history,
(29:45):
and so having that mirrored back in all these many
different forms is just the most exciting thing to me.
I love it. I mean especially remembering that moment where
all of us we're learning about your vision and then
getting over the last two years, Tracy, to see that
vision go out to this community and to see it
(30:06):
also belong to us, and that that is what you wanted.
That is what you told me in the room. You said,
I want you to write something that I can say,
but I wanted to belong to us. And I thought
that was so powerful. It was so powerful, you know, Amina,
I will take a second here as we wrap up,
to just say you reached out to me recently about
(30:29):
a piece that you were working on to share it
with me, and I was so honored that you consider
me as part of your creative circle because I consider
you as part of mine. And so the reciprocity there
felt really buoyant for me. There was something about it
that made me bounce a little bit. And you know,
(30:50):
in this pandemic, there's so many things that have been hard,
and for many much harder than others. But I think
the deliver brittness of how we recognize our tribes, because
I think we all have many different tribes, we have
feed of this one and this one and this one.
But I just was so grateful, and you were saying
(31:13):
that because of the pandemic, your process has changed, and
so you have to be deliberate about how you connect
and share and grow something, and so I just was
I want you to know how honored I was that
you would share that with me, and how special it
was to hear something in its early form as you're
(31:35):
in process. It really was special to me. I love
our creative juju. Tracy. There's more to come, we do,
There's more to come, more to come. Always. It's just
such a joy. It's such a joy. I remember the
first moment I saw your smile, the first moment I
heard your voice on the phone, and all of the incredible,
the deep gratitude I have for what you have shared,
(31:56):
your artistry, that you have shared with Pattern and helped
us to build a brand that really is ours. I'm
so grateful, and I was so happy that you asked
me at this really wonderful moment of an anniversary to
come talk to you. What a like for us to
me to join you in your living room? You know
what I mean, It's so good. I'm so grateful, Tracy,
(32:18):
Thank you so much. And next time I see you
the salad, I'm gonna be ready on Oh yeah, no,
you're gonna be ready or I'm gonna make you one.
You know what I mean. Thank you so much, but
thank you. Amina or with Amina Brown is produced by
(32:45):
Matt Owen for Solo Graffiti Productions as a part of
the Seneca Women Podcast Network and partnership with I Heart Radio.
Thanks for listening, and don't forget to subscribe, rate, and
review the podcast by
Hey, everybody, welcome back to a new episode of Her
with Amina Brown. And I've been telling you all that
September is a month of anniversaries. It is my wedding anniversary,
it is the anniversary of the relaunch of this podcast,
and as many of you know, I am the poetic
partner for natural haircare brand Pattern, and this month is
(00:22):
Patterns to year anniversary. And y'all, I am excited to
(00:43):
welcome into our her living room the CEO and founder
of Pattern, producer, actor, CEO, activist Tracy Ellis Ross. Hi.
Wonderful to join you here, Amina. We have such a
strong creative bond, so it's wonderful for me to enter
(01:06):
your family and your world the way you have so
beautifully entered and elevated Patterns and mine. I feel so
many emotional vibes. I'm curious to also talk with you
and hear how it is feeling to you now at
two years of being CEO and founder of Pattern. But
first I have to start with the very important questions. Tracy,
(01:29):
you're here in the her living room. I imagined this
as the living room where I like gather with my girlfriends.
You know, when we go to each other's house. We
bring drinks, we bring snacks. When you go to hang
out with your girlfriends, what is your favorite food or
drink that you typically bring to the gathering? Well, we
(01:50):
often cooked together. There's a small gaggle of us, my
best and closest sort of core group of girlfriends, lives
in New York. We often are at Monica's house around
her kitchen table. Monica is a great cook. I've best
friends of Monica since college, and like I usually make
something out, but she has as opposed to bringing something,
(02:13):
so I'm usually in charge of the salads. I'm a
queen of the salads. I also love, you know, a
bottle of wine. What do we drink? We usually drink wine.
We recently have graduated more into cocktails, like when we're together.
When we travel, we do an AfterAll sprits. Romy and
I love a dirty martini, and so does Kevin, So
(02:35):
you know, we mix it up. But it's a long friendship,
so I don't know that there's a regular thing. It's
a good thirty years amina with all of us. I
mean the depth of a thirty year friendship, you know,
I think I've got some friendships a little over twenty years,
about to hit the twenty five year mark. There's a
level of depth. Yeah, there's something that happens. It's amazing.
(02:56):
I mean, there's nothing better than that. It's the next
close this thing to family, and it's a different version
of family. It's the chosen family. But yeah, thirty, I
mean Monica and I might wait, hold on, it might
be longer than that. I was seventeen. Wow, Samarra, I
was twenty two. Roomy, I alays think even though we
went to high school together, we weren't friends in high school.
(03:17):
She was a year behind me. So yeah, it's been
a long time for all of us. Can you discuss
the merits of the salad situation? What are things that
you feel are necessary to make a salad? Really? Step
it up? Discuss Okay, let me this is a good topic, amana.
People pooh pooh and say, who so it's not cooking
bull crap people. Let me tell you something. There's a
(03:39):
lot of really important factors. Number One, bag lettuce is
a no no oh no, ma'am. How to get that
let us and bright off of its own little heart.
You gotta wash it by hand, you gotta shake it
and get that water off every time you touch the lettuce.
First of all, let us is not a sturdy situation.
Let Us is delicate. It is fickle. You've got to
(04:00):
be loving with it. You can't dress it too early,
salad dressing out of a jar, bottle, anything pre made, No,
ma'am over done. Salad has been ruined. Nope. People are
always like, I don't understand what you do to myself.
My ex boyfriend was like, I don't even eat salad,
and I was like, you do now, He's It's my
favorite thing in the world. I make all kinds of salads.
I was just thinking of the last time I was
(04:21):
with Monica and Samara and the ladies. Mid butternut squash
on a rugula with shalots. So baked butternut squash on
fresh fiber arugula with sunflower seeds and shallots and a
balsamic vinaigrette with a little wee bit of honey in it.
I also love when I do. I shaved the carrots
(04:42):
like really thin, so I don't know what you call
it when they're like long and skinny with olives green
and black olives cut without the pits in them. Fennel
red onion. I mean, come on, come on. And then
there's the regular salads that I always like. One of
my favorite salads. There's two your favorite salads that go
with steak. Depending on how you're making your thing, you
(05:04):
can do roman hearts with corn, hearts of palm and
red onions with olive oil and lemon, or you can
do arugola with apples red onions. One of my siblings
doesn't like fruit in the salads, so I have to
put that on the side at home when I cook. Oh,
I want to thank you for regaling us with these tips,
(05:25):
because I mean, as soon as you said shallots, I
was like, oh, I see what we're doing here. This
is not a game. Yeah, I like to tell people's
shallots are an elegant onion. I do feel that way.
I feel like anytime someone's like and they're fried shallots,
I'm like, I'll have that because that's a fancy lady
would eat and I want to also be fancy. Yeah.
(05:48):
I'm in charge of the food with my family. When
we do family whatever, my brother Ross and I do
the food. I love it, whether it's the cooking or
the what are we going to order? But we're in
charge of food. My younger brother Evan does snacks, so
it's cooking or curation. I respect that, Tracy. I respect
that being able to be a curator of food. I
(06:10):
respect that. That's right. You gotta figure that out. Is
it a pizza nite? You know I'm talking about, is
it Chinese food? What are we doing? And then you've
got to know where to order from. That's the talent.
Because I do have some friends. After a while, you're like,
you can't be the one who picks anymore because you
don't know how to How about those friends that you
think you were really close and then you don't have
the same taste buds and you're like, yeah, this is
awful and taste like nothing. So I don't know where
(06:33):
your taste level is, but I think our friendship might
be over. It's a question. It puts some question marks
in the air. I've had some friends when we go
to visit places, I'm like, we're going to choose the restaurant,
not you, because there's some levels of food that are
okay with you, and I feel life is too short
to eat food like that. Yeah, I happen to all
(06:54):
of my core group. We share the food foodiness. This
is important. I feel enriched. I feel enriched. I'm getting hungry.
I feel enriched and attacked about the bag of salad
that's in my first So that's fine. I I know
the life I need to live now, Tracy, I know
the life I need to live. I have been brought
to a new level today. So I'm gonna I'm gonna
(07:15):
work on that. I want to start also by just
sharing a mushy moment with you that is Pattern involved.
So y'all in the living room. I realized I was
going to be working with Tracy and Pattern by getting
an email through my website from a creative agency. Now,
of course, Tracy, it didn't say your name, and it
(07:36):
didn't say Pattern. It was very respectfully nebulous. It was
very like a campaign is being launched in the air
at some point sometime soon, a prominent figure is founding
this company. We want to know if you will add
a poetic voice to a thing that is happening, please
write us back. At which time, Tracy, I was like
(07:58):
a scam. So I sent it. Yeah, I mean, listen
to me, I mean that sounds like a scam. I'm
surprisingly sitting here right now that's like you were being catfished,
sucker punched all in one. I was like, this is
a scam. So I sent it to my now manager,
but she wasn't my manager. Then I was like, can
you be have my manager of twenty minutes and find
out this is legit? So we find out that it
(08:21):
is Pattern, and I have my first phone call with
you and the team where you are telling me, here's
the vision for Pattern, Here's what I want the language
to sound like surrounding this brand you know that I'm creating.
And I was in my car in a small town
in North Carolina, right before a gig. My family was
(08:41):
in the hotel where I was staying at the time,
and I was like, we can't have my family loud
talking while I'm trying to find out what's going on
with Pattern. Right now. Number one and number two I
can't tell y'all is patterned or that it's Tracy. So
we're taking this call in the car. At that point,
(09:02):
no one even in the public knew I was even
starting a hair bread y'all. We were all sworn to secrecy,
and I was like, I'm gonna keep this secret. Nobody
needs to come get my bone Marrow because I was
the one revealing this before it was rolled out, which
I do want to say to y'all at that point,
keeping that secret and then seeing how pattern launched, seeing
(09:22):
the rollout, I mean, that is still one of the
most amazingly executed rollouts I've ever seen, you know, because
we all, each of us that were involved sort of
knew our different parts, but getting to see it all
like rollout together. So my mushy moment, Tracy is that,
you know, we talked through everything. We talked through the
fact that we're going to meet up in New York
because you're gonna be there meeting with other people on
(09:45):
the team, that we're getting ready to help do the launch.
And right before we hung up, you said, Amina, I
should have started with this. You said, your work is truthful,
it's soulful, it's full of joy, it's full of lightness,
and that is why I want to work with you.
And then we all just did our Everybody has their assignments, okay,
by we like hung up, and I sat in my
(10:07):
car for a little while, Tracy, because I was in
this point in my career. I was turning thirty nine
that year nineteen and I was experiencing this very strange
shake up in my career at a time that I
didn't think it was going to shake up, you know,
And I just felt this sense of like, there's some
things I've been doing, some spaces I've been in. I
need to get out of that. My work is trying
(10:28):
to tell me it wants to broaden itself, but I
know I need to leave where I've been. I don't
know where I go from here. And you saying those
words to me really impacted me in this way because
I was sort of doing this like searching inside, which
you didn't know, but you saying those words to me
really set me on a path inside of understanding what
(10:49):
was possible from my career at that point. So mushy moment,
it's on a little posted in my office. I'm not
gonna lie about a Tracy. It's on a post it
so I can remember. First of all, I really appreciate
you sharing that with me. I feel like the touchstones
of those moments and being able to give them space
and breathing room in community like and with another person,
(11:12):
and particularly the person that named that for you or
whatever that is. It does the same On my side,
you telling it like I had my own experience. And
I've had multiple mushy moments with you though, because part
of what sort of opened with you and I was
my ten years of dreaming of pattern, and all of
(11:34):
the language and words and sort of vision and imaginings
and all of that that I had dreamt of needed
to take flight with somebody's expertise. And part of our
conversation was that I started to feel the branches of
(11:56):
pattern growing, you know, and really zation that like when
you are a CEO when you found something, you know,
when you find a baby and you make it like
then you let all the other hands be a part
of it. I was trying to get you to express
my vision, but through what you do, your experience, your joy,
(12:18):
your light, your rhythm, you know, in all of our hands,
as you said, we all went off assignments, you know,
and it becomes this thing that is not mine, it's ours,
which is the reflection of what I really wanted the
company to be about. You know. It's a reflection of
who we are, you know, and we're so many different things.
(12:38):
And I also remember, in that conversation with you, having
what had been in my mind and heart for so
long having it come out, and it made it feel
really real, you know, like it wasn't something that I
was just like, I don't know, just me in in
my bathroom or in my bed dreaming. It made it
(13:01):
really real. And then the other third piece was I
remember saying to you because we had multiple conversations the
first one. Then we had the in person one, which,
by the way, I've never seen that footage back of
me NIX. Remember we video. I was like, where'd that go?
We got to find out about that. That would be
(13:21):
really cool to see. But so we had multiple conversations
and then I remember saying, I remember at the end
of every conversation, which is something that we still do,
I'm like, so those are my ideas. Now you go
make your magic, like and I remember you called me
once You're like, I don't know if I'm the right direction.
Do you think you're in the right direction. I think
you're in the right direction. And then we would play
(13:43):
some more and then remember that's how the other piece
came out from the manifesto, which the world still has
not gotten to feel and here but is coming. That
was something that was like an offshoot of a moment
for you. It was like another piece started spilling forward.
(14:05):
It's so funny because it sounds like we're talking about nothing,
but we're talking about do you know what I mean? Like,
I was like, so, if someone else is listening, which
they're gonna be doing, they're gonna be like, what are
they talking about? We're talking about poetry? How do you
define poetry? How do you define what you do? I mean,
I kind of feel like the style of poetry that
(14:26):
I write is something like if comedy and monologue and
jazz and hip hop tried to come together in a something.
I feel like that's my style and maybe a little
bit of like a soul music writer. I feel like
some of that, like the way that Bill Withers was
able to sort I mean, like that Grandma's hands. That
(14:46):
like imagery right there, which I felt was really important.
In the words I was hearing you say about your
vision for pattern, it felt important that those words needed
to be concrete, that when people hear you saying those words,
they needed to you know, have visual have like a
sense of smell or you know, remember some some things
(15:08):
because those words were written that way, and I do
love for words to do that work. I feel like
that's the best thing they do. And they also offer
a frame, They offer a mirroring, they offer context and
history and tie us to our legacy. Like they do
(15:28):
all of those things. We get to tell our stories
and we have not always been able to even though
we have been doing it anyway, and particularly as black women.
The power of language and the ability to language feeling
to language, history to language, legacy, family community, Like how
(15:54):
do you put into words what your grandmother's mac and
cheese taste? Like, you know what I mean? How do
you put into words what the experiences of sitting between
your aunt's legs with a goody comb getting your hair
done and you know, having her squeeze you so you
(16:14):
don't move. Okay, Okay, It's like you say, there's many
(16:37):
people in the world that you know holding your ear.
They don't know the connotation of that. So how do
you both not tell for those who don't know, but
share for those of us that do in a way
that etches our truth and time and that offers an
expansiveness to the reality of what is our connection, you know,
(17:01):
and so much of that comes through the portal of hair.
And it's something that you and I have talked about,
but you know, Pattern is not a social justice organization.
At the center of Pattern is the celebration of black beauty,
and in the world we live in, that in and
of itself is a form of activism. It's a form
(17:24):
of resistance. And so all of the different pieces of
the company and that portal that you have given us
access to, even like, you know, the glossary was something
that I dreamt up so many years. I remember where
I was. It was like four years before Pattern had
(17:46):
a name. I was still trying to figure out how
to make the company happen. And I was like one
day like because I would go to all these different
places and they're like, you mean like kinky hair, Like
everybody had these different definitions, and then there were all
these different connotations. This person felt this word was negative,
and this one loved, this one the same word, and
all these differ kinds of things. And I was like,
(18:07):
so much of our words that we have come from
a paradigm in a system that did not celebrate and
see us or see us as beautiful, certainly didn't understand
our hair. And so I wanted to write a legacy
that didn't necessarily redefine, but gave our language, our words
(18:29):
the poetry that actually matches our hair because the words
are so small, but what they connotate is expansive, and
so I wanted to redefine the definition, not the words. Yeah,
I mean, that was a really fun thing to get
to do. Once you shared with me, like, this is
(18:49):
the vision of what I want this glossary to be like.
And I want to still keep this poetic voice. So
to get some of those words that you know, wash
day and I mean different terms that you know we've
thrown around and to reimagine them in this poetic form
was amazing to get to do. And still and now
(19:12):
I love about the glossary is that it lives in breathes,
so there will be different times that new terms need
to be added to it, and then to get to
reimagine those terms has been so fun. I want to
take you back to New York City when you are there.
What we now know was six months before Pattern was
going to launch your meeting with everyone getting all the
(19:33):
final touches put on different things. I am one of
the people that is going to be meeting with you,
and I remember I was staying with my one of
my girlfriend's shout out to Jamilla. I was staying with
her in New York, and I was like, well, we're
not gonna do is not be late to this meeting.
So I was like, I'm gonna leave early enough in
case the subway decides to fail or like some speed
movie happens, I don't want to be late. I get
(19:56):
there and I'm like thirty minutes early, and there's a
Starbucks down the street from the Creative Agency where we
were all meeting with you, and I remember I had
my New York bag because I have my certain things
I feel like I need to have when I go
to New York and my New York bag. And I
walked into the starbuts Tracy and I plopped my New
York bag on the table and I sat down and
just hyperventilated for like ten minutes, just like I was
(20:19):
so nervous about everything because I had the first draft
of the Pattern manifesto to share with you, and I
was so nervous. It was gonna be our first time,
you know, meeting in person, and as New York is,
this man walks in and he's like, is anybody sitting here?
And totally sat at the table with me while I hyperventilated.
I didn't didn't ask me anything about if I was
(20:41):
all right, if I'm nothing, So I mean, do you
do you remember the date? Because I think I have
those pictures on my phone. Oh my gosh, it was
like the end of March or the beginning of April nineteen,
because there was like a certain amount of days that
you were gonna be in town, and we met for
(21:03):
two days. I can't here if it was like March
thirty in April one or if it was April one
in April two, but it was somewhere around that time.
And I did my little hyperventilation for twenty minutes and
like got myself together, and then I still, honestly, Tracy,
even though I had talked to you on the phone
multiple times by this time, I was still like, what
if I'm still being catfished? What if the whole time
(21:25):
it really wasn't Tracy. I was like, I'm just not sure.
I was wondering if I was going to go up
to the elevator and it was going to open up
and it was gonna be like a scene from Fame
where the dancer thought they were getting this like amazing
audition with this like amazing Hollywood director, and instead it
was going to be some like big hairy man with
(21:48):
a crop top and his hairy belly, and I was
gonna walk in. He was gonna be like, you thought
you were meeting with Tracy Ellis Ross, but it's me.
I'm Tracy. I believe. I can't believe that. Even then,
I wish I had the picture because that I know
it's in my phone. I just don't know the date,
(22:09):
and I can find it and I'm going to text
it to you. But that's so crazy. You were cool
as a cucumber, okay outside, okay, because inside I was
freaked out until I like, once the elevator opened up,
Tracy and I saw like, this is a real creative agency.
The name is right there on the wall. I saw
you and the team in the boardroom in their meeting,
(22:32):
and I was like, you're okay, You're safe, And then
you know you and I went in the room and
read through the manifesto and did what was going to
be this amazing creative process of really shaving the piece
in these ways, figuring out the things that were there
that you wanted more of the things that maybe weren't
(22:53):
there that you wanted some of? And I want to
ask you when you look back on that now that
here we are at two years anniversary of pattern When
you look back at that moment as you are stepping
into CEO even further, what was that time, like six
months out from Patterns Launch, as you're okaying all the
things that are going to tell this story that you've
(23:14):
had germinating for so long. Well, I will also say
I surrounded myself with old So the creative director is
someone that I had known and no and is a
really good friend for twenty years, stylist creative Bolton, best
friend for thirty years. And I did that on purpose
(23:36):
because it gave me my footing in the places and
spaces where I had doubt. I knew I could trust
not only their expertise but their judgment as people that
I go to even if it weren't, you know, a
work project, like they're my counsel anyway. But the truth
(23:57):
is I felt so in my element. It was like
I've been waiting my whole life to get a chance
to make that kind of baby, you know, And every
step of this company has felt like that, even the
parts when I get wobbly, when I get scared, when
I get overwhelmed and feel like I actually don't know
(24:21):
or I don't know if we should have done that.
Was that the wrong thing? Like that's whoa, you know
what I mean? Like it didn't feel bad, we decided that,
But now that it's hitting the air in the atmosphere,
I feel differently about it. I don't know, you know,
There's been so many of those moments, so much growth
curve on a regular basis, you know, and I don't
(24:44):
think I knew how much was involved. And I love working,
especially because the things I work on, our things, I love,
you know, and my hands are in every aspect of pattern.
But you know, the copy on the back of a package,
every single thing on the back of a package has
to be roof and I want to make sure it
(25:04):
matches my exact intentions and the company's mission and the
company's ethos, and that there's no wrong turn, you know.
And then realizing that even if there are things that
you go that was I didn't like that, that was
a mistake, you can okay, so that's a wash. It
is what it is, but you keep it moving, you know.
(25:26):
One of the things that I discovered in this pattern
journey is that I love a team. You know, I've
always loved a team, but it's very different being a
CEO in a team than an actor in a team.
And it's really interesting to learn something new and to
not know how to do it, you know. And I
(25:48):
think the biggest thing that I've learned that I like
to share with people is, you know, I didn't grow
up owing even what a CEO was. I remember my
maybe four years ago, somebody saying something about C I
was like C suites, Like is that like a presidential suite?
Like I was like, what is that? Like something at
the airport? Like my brain went to like hotel or airport.
(26:10):
And they were like, you know, like ce CEO, CEO,
And I was like, what are you dying around what
that means? You don't have to know what that means.
Being a CEO is based on intention, vision, gut instinct.
But what I have really learned is a successful company
(26:34):
is not built from just a mission and a vision.
You can't have a successful company without that, But that's
not the only factor. Execution operation strategy is incredibly important.
You can have the best idea, you can have the
best product. You can even make that product, don't be
(26:55):
amazing if you can't fulfill your orders. The supply chain
is so complex and so intense. I mean, I'm learning
on a regular basis the financials of how you back
in this, you know, how with a retail partner versus
just direct a consumer online? Like how you hold stock?
(27:17):
Do like? It is no joke and if your company
And by the way, this is a term I didn't know. Scaling.
I again, scaling, I'm like, what how you climb up
the outside of a building? How you scale a building? No,
it's how a company grows. So as a company is
skating the growth pains of that, and so for me
(27:38):
as an artist, because I am first and foremost an artist,
I'm a creative, but I do have a very strong
business mind. Trying to merge those two things has been
exciting and wonderful, but it's a lot of new stuff
to learn. Right I want to ask you about this.
(27:58):
What's your favorite thing so far about being the founder
and CEO of Pattern The incredible stories I hear in
the most fascinating ways and places, like they enter into
my space and being a the street or through a
comment on Instagram, or a friend will send me a
(28:19):
text that her mom's cousin or something like, and I'll
get videos and things of like my daughter hated her
curly hair, but she's embracing it now these products. My
hair's the softest it's ever been. My curl pattern is back.
Like the stories that I hear about people embracing their
(28:40):
authentic natural curl cotterns and experiencing their hair in a
space of beauty and joy is so fulfilling to me
because it's so much of who we are, and it's
the most beautiful thing. And our culture has really robbed
(29:03):
us of some of the most basic joys about our
authentic being. No, you know, I'm sure the term black
girl magic is lovely, but like, we're not magic. We're real,
and we're so real and so incredible that to some
people it looks like magic. But I feel like we
(29:24):
get to recognize each other and continue to uplift this
idea that each unique version of a twist, bend, coil,
zigzag is just some piece of art that is connected
to a being and a soul and a legacy and history,
(29:45):
and so having that mirrored back in all these many
different forms is just the most exciting thing to me.
I love it. I mean especially remembering that moment where
all of us we're learning about your vision and then
getting over the last two years, Tracy, to see that
vision go out to this community and to see it
(30:06):
also belong to us, and that that is what you wanted.
That is what you told me in the room. You said,
I want you to write something that I can say,
but I wanted to belong to us. And I thought
that was so powerful. It was so powerful, you know, Amina,
I will take a second here as we wrap up,
to just say you reached out to me recently about
(30:29):
a piece that you were working on to share it
with me, and I was so honored that you consider
me as part of your creative circle because I consider
you as part of mine. And so the reciprocity there
felt really buoyant for me. There was something about it
that made me bounce a little bit. And you know,
(30:50):
in this pandemic, there's so many things that have been hard,
and for many much harder than others. But I think
the deliver brittness of how we recognize our tribes, because
I think we all have many different tribes, we have
feed of this one and this one and this one.
But I just was so grateful, and you were saying
(31:13):
that because of the pandemic, your process has changed, and
so you have to be deliberate about how you connect
and share and grow something, and so I just was
I want you to know how honored I was that
you would share that with me, and how special it
was to hear something in its early form as you're
(31:35):
in process. It really was special to me. I love
our creative juju. Tracy. There's more to come, we do,
There's more to come, more to come. Always. It's just
such a joy. It's such a joy. I remember the
first moment I saw your smile, the first moment I
heard your voice on the phone, and all of the incredible,
the deep gratitude I have for what you have shared,
(31:56):
your artistry, that you have shared with Pattern and helped
us to build a brand that really is ours. I'm
so grateful, and I was so happy that you asked
me at this really wonderful moment of an anniversary to
come talk to you. What a like for us to
me to join you in your living room? You know
what I mean, It's so good. I'm so grateful, Tracy,
(32:18):
Thank you so much. And next time I see you
the salad, I'm gonna be ready on Oh yeah, no,
you're gonna be ready or I'm gonna make you one.
You know what I mean. Thank you so much, but
thank you. Amina or with Amina Brown is produced by
(32:45):
Matt Owen for Solo Graffiti Productions as a part of
the Seneca Women Podcast Network and partnership with I Heart Radio.
Thanks for listening, and don't forget to subscribe, rate, and
review the podcast by
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