Underrepresented: Dorcas Payne on how to make Fashion Operations and Supply Chains Sexy

Dorcas Payne, a creative business consultant, shares her insights on building successful businesses in niche fashion markets. She emphasizes the critical role of operations and supply chain management in creative entrepreneurship, and the resilience needed to scale. For her, it’s crucial for emerging fashion talent to continuously listen to the feedback loop and use data to grow.  Dorcas is on a mission to make supply chains sexy again, showing how strategic operations, thoughtful execution, and community-driven collaboration are just as exciting and essential as the designs on the runway.

The Backbone of Creative Business- in this episode, we discuss why:
• Operations matter – supply chain and operational strategy are the foundations of growth in the fashion industry.
• Data is king – understanding customer behavior through feedback loops drives better decisions.
• Scale down, execute excellence – resilience comes from doing fewer things at a higher standard.
• Representation in entrepreneurship – systemic challenges for global ethnic majority founders demand allyship and collaboration.

Connect with Dorcas: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dorcas-payne/

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The show is recorded from Beyond Form, a fashion tech innovation platform. We build, invest, and educate fashion tech entrepreneurs and startups. We’d love to hear your feedback, so let us know if you’d like to hear a certain topic. Email us at podcast@beyondform.io. If you’re an entrepreneur or fashion tech startup looking for studio support, check out our website: beyondform.io

Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

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Beatrice Newman: 0:01

Hello, I'm Beatrice Newman. We're doing something a little different for this series and I'll be your host instead of your usual host, Peter. This is the Underrepresented Entrepreneur Series. Being a Black female founder myself, I know how hard it can be to do business in London. This series tells the stories of founders that have successfully navigated business where sometimes their backgrounds limit opportunities. In today's episode, we're joined by Dorcas Payne to unpack the world of supply chains and operations and ask the big question, how do we make supply chains sexy? It's something I've been thinking about for a while and Dorcas brings fresh insight into why this vital part of the fashion industry deserves more attention and excitement.

Dorcas Payne: 0:52

Back-end operations, that's a bit of a long game. Over a long period of time, we can say you're going to improve your efficiency, but that's also a term which is dependable on who says it. We can also say you're going to increase your income which you definitely will buy someone at your back end but it's going to be a bit of a long call you might not see it tomorrow some things are quick fixes which is why sometimes unfortunately you can get great viral brands and brands who've got great storytelling and great visuals but when you look at their back of house they're actually not profiting or making business or it's actually a nightmare to work on back of hand because they're not really focusing on that part

Beatrice Newman: 1:22

Let's get this conversation going with Dorcas on today's episode of Venturing into Fashion Tech. Hi everybody and welcome Dorcas to today's conversation and podcast session. It's bright and sunny today in London. Dorcas, are you in London? Yes, I am. I'm enjoying our heatwave at the moment. Let's get straight into it. So Dorcas, we got acquainted via LinkedIn and your profile was really, really interesting. Do you want to start by actually introducing yourself to the audience?

Dorcas Payne: 1:55

I call myself as saying I'm a creative business consultant and basically what I do is I focus on the business, back of house, operational strategy side of creative businesses. My background started in and is predominantly in fashion. I started off in buying and I've done the supply chain side and worked with factories. I spent some time in Ghana as well which is where I'm from working with factories there and kind of helping them to establish a good protocol over there so it's really kind of opened the door to me and I got like a sharp kind of interest would I say for the creative economy especially on the continent of Africa and then that kind of spreads over to the diaspora and where we are in different places and then I've been able to also to work with a bit more institutions with behind the scenes of its policy international ITC ethical fashion initiative also and those kind of bands as well to kind of do that scatter stuff and I would say more recently well recently is like the past five years or so I've been able to marry that with a bit more lecturing.

Speaker 01: 2:53

Wow, that's a wide breadth of career development and insights on your world. And we're going to unpack that. And Akwaaba to all our Ghanians out there. Yes, here we go. Black stars on the rise. So your career spans from working with luxury houses like Burberry, which you mentioned in your profile, and also grassroots creative entrepreneurs really love what you're talking about with really supporting diaspora, particularly in Africa. Can you tell us a bit more about your journey and what inspired your transition towards supporting small product-based businesses and particularly those led by founders from the global ethnic majority? Okay, so I would

Speaker 02: 3:34

say definitely the transition, it was quite a stark transition. It was quite clear to me. So I think the last buying job I did, I was in House of Fraser, which is like a kind of big department store here in the UK. And I think since up until that point, I'd mainly worked with big UK kind of retailers and stuff like that. Funny enough, a couple of years before that, I had done my MA in strategic fashion marketing. It was a big mouthful. And my dissertation, which I focused on, was the long tail, which is basically a concept of focusing on niches and how there's a lot of potential in niches. For me, it was really good insight for me because it helped me to shift away from what we generally see on the mainstream. And then it took me down a rabbit hole, obviously due to my research, looking at different type of niches, especially within the fashion industry and how they work together and how there's so much unseen from the mainstream commercial eye and that kind of opened up a kind of words to me in terms of like looking at that from a fashion fashion perspective so I think after a few years of being in the day-to-day of working with bigger fashion industries I did start an itch of what else is out there generally speaking and like I said because I'm of Ghanaian heritage for those of you who can kind of remember we used to have like Ghana independence days quite a lot of times and they used to be quite big parties for them I'm a self-taught. I used to make people's outfits sometimes. So I used to always love the cross-culture of how we express ourselves through clothes and stuff. And then serendipitously, I got an offer to work in Ghana. So I think that transition and working behind the scenes of production companies and also seeing how the fashion industry works outside of such a mainstream, like I was born and bred in London. So I've had the perspective of London fashion and big cities city fashion. So I think it was, for me, that was a transition. And then what I really appreciated was the creativity and the innovation which was coming from those guys and the story behind it. And I think for me, that's kind of where my shift happened. I was like, people need to see this. This is amazing. It's a shame that it hasn't boomed or hasn't got the recognition which I believe it should, has got. And that kind of helped me in my shift. So I kind of shift from, if I could say, Western commercial fashion industry saturated. And I just started to, I felt like I found more joy in that, which was good because I was kind of going through a phase where I wasn't sure if I liked fashion.

Speaker 01: 5:59

I think it's really interesting when you talk about niche and then visiting the continent in West Africa and in Ghana and seeing something very different from fast fashion. Could you maybe abbreviate a bit more on the different types of niches and comparisons of what you saw in, I guess, West Africa compared to the Western world.

Speaker 02: 6:18

Yeah. I think, and this probably spans over quite a lot of the continent, like you have, Congo have their, say, pers, you know, everyone's kind of got their kind of integrated culture in which they've kind of birthed things from. In Ghana, I was fortunate enough, the first kind of thing that I started doing, I was looking at like raw materials and looking at how like kente and how their wax print is made over there. So even within that niche of the cultural craftsmanship, that for me, I think was amazing to see how much you can slow down how you've made something. And there's so much story and depth. Like we can sit down and have a whole podcast on Kente and why it's so significant to them as culturally, what different colors mean, what different symbols, like you can go on forever. So even sometimes when people be like, oh yeah, I want Kente. It's like, this is a whole thing we need to unravel. Is it culturally appropriate? What you want to use it for? Because this is, you know, like a really regalia type of cloth. So I think those types of niches for me, I love the story behind it. Because I like fashion as a creative form and just like the design of the industry generally I always like pieces that tell stories so for me that niche was I think was burgeoning and also the fact that whether it's intentional or unintentional naturally due to the craftsmanship they slow down so their fashion does take majority of it and all of it majority of it does take a slower type of form I think for me that's kind of where I saw that there's different type of niches and within that you've got the way that we wear clothes so whether it's for occasion wear or whether it's like for how you dress for a wedding and how you dress for even the funeral is completely different And, you know, what we wear on a daily basis, the climate is different there. So even those type of niches, that resort wear is an untapped potential.

Speaker 01: 7:52

It's the richness of the culture. Yeah, just can't hate. It is from Western world, mainly Europe, Americas, et cetera, because of the whole season, the weather. And you're right when it comes to occasion as well. But sort of pivoting back to the idea of grand storytelling and narrative, because I think you've hit on a really interesting point. We sometimes forget that brand. storytelling doesn't necessarily really hit on the back-end operations as well, which I feel like is really part and parcel of that narrative. So why do you think operations and supply chain management are often overlooked in the creative industries? And what's the cost of really this gap of not being able to marry everything

Speaker 02: 8:33

together? So from my experience, I'll say there's probably two key things. Unfortunately, it's unsexy. It's not fun. It's not like it doesn't, you know, when you go and do a photo shoot, but you're doing brand storytelling and you can add creative, it's colourful. So when you're talking about positions, I'm drawing out an Excel spreadsheet and you're like, gosh, I mean, it's not, it takes away the fun out of it. So I think generally speaking, sometimes creatives and creative founders have birthed an idea from their creativity, not necessarily from a place where they are doing a business or doing ops. So it's a creative idea which they would like to share. So I would totally understand if they lead into their strengths of telling you why and how and they want to really want you to understand their creative processing whereas operations and the backend of stuff might not come so naturally to them. And also, I've always been perfectly honest, sometimes the ROI is not as clear with backend operations. Sometimes you might be careful to say with marketing, advertising, I'm going to, you know, do this shoot or do this campaign and then, you know, I'm going to be able to see that I've got 2,000 likes or 2,000 people have viewed it. You can see, okay, now there's been a peak in engagement when I did this post or I did this and now I've noticed that. There's basically like an outcry that you can read see it I think and you can see it a bit more instantaneously like you can make the shoot and you can do the new kind of like rebrand and you can quickly get some response a couple of times back end operation strategy that's a bit of a long game and it's hard because sometimes we can't always say like over a long period of time we can say you're going to improve your efficiency but that's also a term which is dependable and who says it we can also say you're going to increase your income which you definitely will buy someone at your back end but it's going to be a bit of a long call you might not see it tomorrow some things are quick fixes but sometimes it's harder to sell the importance of it because it's such a long game sustainability which is why sometimes unfortunately you can get great viral brands and brands who've got great you know storytelling and great like visuals but when you look at their back of house they're actually not profiting or making business or it's actually a nightmare to work on back of hand because they're not really focusing on that part.

Speaker 01: 10:40

So you mentioned earlier on when you were answering the question that operations is are just not sexy. However, this is really part of the industry that you work on. So I'd love you to delve a bit more deeper into, you know, really your personal story and how have you made operations sexy?

Speaker 02: 10:57

Great question. Okay, so to mow it up, I love the creatives. I think even, fun fact, when I first started, I thought I was going to go into architecture. Yeah, so I actually started off doing that at uni and then I did a quick pivot because while doing architecture, I was still sewing and doing all this stuff. So generally speaking, like I even tried to start a label when I was at uni, but I liked it, but I didn't feel like I was working fully, leaning to my strengths. Like I'm not somebody that fully enjoys pulling together patterns and sewing. I would do that as a one-off, but I wouldn't see myself doing it. doing that fully so it made me shift and I did a course called design management and innovation actually at uni after I dropped out of architecture um and I think that helped me realize the way my mind works um I'm quite fortunate I like creative beautiful well put together stuff but I've got a bit of like uh I would like to say it's a bit of isn't what I love things really organized so for me I was like okay how can I bring this love of creativity and my you know my stickler for organization and things being in quite a good order and move it over and having said that as well I've always generally been good at maths and kind of stuff that type of arena stuff so I kind of married my two traits or actually I prefer to help brands rather than be a brand if that makes sense so that really helped with the shift when I did that design management innovation because it was such a full circle of how much it gave a good insight behind what goes behind like building a brand it wasn't even specific to fashion it was just like creative brands in general and it really helped you realise in terms of even like building your team, what does it look like to do financial projections, what it looks like to kind of have like a hold onto your supply chain, how you do your products, how can you inject innovation into it. For me, I think I got excited about that and then, yeah, so, and then everyone asked, yeah, I think I found my thing and I think from then, I just started to challenge improvement. In terms of how have I made it sexy, I feel like it's difficult to make sexy.

Speaker 01: 12:55

Well, I feel like you've answered that question. You are the one. You are the sexy if everyone wants how you're darkest and actually I found that um because I have my own business as well when you go through design school if that's your usual route and you don't really get taught on how to build the team and the many people that you really need in order to grow something quite successful and so designers really just often start off the business with creating their product designing their product and then only over time do they realize the benefit of really building these people within a team. And I think a lot of the time that just also comes down to resource. So, you know, you're lucky to build a team from the very beginning who are pro bono and believe in exactly the same thing. Probably have shares in the business and then you can all work and bootstrap it together. But I think it's a lot more harder in this day and age without any investment to, I think, bring people on board. It feels like a very broken chain.

Speaker 02: 13:55

I think, unfortunately, it's because Let's go to Spain. products-based businesses are so top-heavy in terms of the investment that's required to start it. It's totally understandable of the kind of the strapping or the lack of resources that you have to try to get the best of the best. One thing I would say is that try to get in the habit of, I feel like some people, everyone starts off and feels like they need an employee or a team doesn't necessarily mean that it's, you've got employees on your roster and now you've hired somebody. I feel like we need to take advantage of freelancers self-employed people now we've got the greatness of the internet and AI so some things can kind of be done and it's kind of intermittently but I guess the resource bit is always the problem that I find but also at the same time some people I've had experiences where they get the money and it's they actually don't need it yet so it's not always it's not always a money problem sometimes it's an application problem and it's a guidance problem as well because I can talk to quite a few people who are mentors sometimes and it's something for that process before you get hold of resources because then they can be misused as well. Can

Speaker 01: 15:03

you walk us through what a resilient, profit-driving business model actually looks like in today's turbulent economy?

Speaker 02: 15:10

One thing that I always stand by is having a feedback loop and research. I'm like a data research feedback loop. If there's one thing anyone takes from this, please research, please collect data, and please have a feedback loop established. I think for the sake of resilience, you really need to do, as long as I can talk to everyone, I'd be like, okay, can you please fully explain to me who your customer is? oh she's a girl she's yeah she's 25 and da da da da and the one thing I feel like we need to move away from is not we're such a multifaceted world now when it marks you what your customer is that customer can take it in the form of 10 different people which is yeah which is totally fine which is great you just need to have an understanding of who that customer is and not exclude anybody potentially who can come from that but I feel like sometimes the noise is sometimes a lot of brands their customer is the founder and That's also not a problem, but you need to unpack that and so you can understand, okay, if I'm the monolith or I'm kind of the prototype of what this person is, can you build her out in different forms in different places? What does she look like as a 25-year-old? What does she look like as a 40-year-old? Is she age? Can I build someone of that age?

Speaker 01: 16:29

like pivot because I think that's a really interesting point and not one that we were taught when I was back at universities and because they were actually saying and this was before Olivier took the whole I am the brand to a whole nother level it was always about it's not about you because you are the service but I have seen in this day and age particularly in this generation that the brand has become particularly with a great way to go because I'm guessing as you have more closer proximity to the types of things that you wear you have a better understanding of your customer or actually it doesn't work that way.

Speaker 02: 17:10

I'm a bit controversial on this point. I actually don't agree with the designer being the person or the whole thing being based on the designer. I actually prefer like this creative director model where there is a brand and there is a creative director and there's a lot to build and take different forms and shapes depending on the time of the season that we're in. or the era that we're in. The reason why I say that is because I feel like we're missing a trick of building long-term heritage type brands. And I think, unfortunately, sometimes brands can are at the peril of the designer. And we're going to see it now with stocks and shares. Unfortunately, when a designer says something bad or does something bad, which is part of life, I feel like for the brand to be so heavily rated, and don't get me wrong, I think the designer and so on and so forth should influence it, but it should never be a case where if the designer was to not be there, that the brand would simultaneously collapse. So I think that's kind of my perspective on it. And I totally understand the whole notion of people like to see who's behind the brand and stuff like that, which is totally fine. But I feel like you need to build a house which anyone can come in and go out and live in it. So the building of that brand should be the main focus and how what is called things are, it's pillars and stuff like that. And then of course, there needs to be room so potentially creative direction could change. And within that creative direction, we've seen it a lot of times now, it takes different shapes but the core value of the brand still stays the same again maybe we're going for a phase where this whole heritage house thing maybe it's no longer a thing but I would love to see a bit more newer brands contemporary brands become those heritage like I would love to see somebody just established now be here in 15 years time and

Speaker 01: 18:48

I think sort of pivoting back to the idea of the customer profile I think I mentioned earlier on that I really don't write that question and I think it's because what I've come to realize in my experience of building a brand is you will never really know who your customer is until you start selling. And that's really when your eyes open. So when you actually start a brand, you have an idea in your mind of what you think the customer would be, which in actual fact, I feel is a very unconscious bias playing out. And we need to be really careful with that because as you said, you could be alienating your customer too. But I think a lot of the time, what's really helped me sort of come back down to understanding, and I guess how this conversation links back to the operational side of the brand of business and creativity. Also understanding the resourcing and also the financing, I would say. A lot of, again, creators really sort of understanding if I'm selling, let's say, a £100 scarf, it means my customer needs to have X amount of income a year to actually want to be selling on the scarf. I think maybe working backwards that way to help you get identify who your customer is as opposed to thinking about it sort of very materialistically and sort of aesthetic-wise.

Speaker 02: 20:02

This is where I would inject the feedback loop. So I think it's really important that, like you're saying, you're not going to understand until you start selling. But sometimes, unfortunately, what happens is there's not enough data collection at those points of interaction to collect that information. And now we all know that data is king at the moment. People are selling chunks and chunks of data. Like even as small as your shopping which is why everyone now has a membership card and all of this stuff because data is so important we need to collect and see how you're buying what you're buying and that stuff is data is king I think so I think for me what I would advise is there needs to be ways that you inject feedback loops because sometimes I and also just to love the data because I'm always asking customers sometimes like friends that work if okay cool where do you get the most footfall who's coming to your brand the most where are they coming from when they purchase and then along the chain and sometimes people are like because why is that important but along the chain when are they stop and not make the final sell? Why is it in their basket and they didn't cash out? Why is it they're always heavily on that page? You need to really take analytics and see, okay, cool. A lot of people in America, they go all the way and then they need the stuff in their basket and they don't check out. Okay, that might be a delivery option that they are, that's putting them off. Okay, cool. When you're interacting with kind of your brands and the information that you collect when they sign up and they do a member, maybe there's some information you can collect at that point that is not invasive. You don't need to ask them your age, your number and your height but it can be stuff like, what do you do? What do you enjoy doing? And then you'll get responses. Okay, when we actually post about lifestyle stuff, I feel like people might interact with it a bit more actually. Okay, cool. How can you embed some of your products into that? What lifestyle stuff do they like? I feel like a lot of my customers, like they really, when it comes to holiday, they, you know, it's all over that. And we thought about, okay, how can you adapt something that's resort wear? I think sometimes we reinvent the wheel while then just responding to this evolving customer. It's really harder because you've got like macroeconomics that you still need to pay attention to, like the role, the finances. Are we going for a downturn? Is it going to be a heatwave? Do you know what I mean? And then also this evolving customer, which is constantly happening. So, which is why I do think that is a lot for a designer to also take on without making them turn into starting to hate the brand because they're taking away the creativity out of it. So it needs to be a hat which they don't wear, which is why I like the creative director model. And it's kind of like this senior model where there is an operations person there is someone that you know they work on the finances and it leads them to have the creativity because at the end of the day that creativity is still also what makes the brand like amazing so we don't want to eradicate that we just want to kind of have it a bit more informed and also as well sometimes it's not always creating something new it could be one product which is your hero product and it's you release in different colours different levels different you do that an amount of mass customisation where it feels like it's new and the customer's getting something fresh but you know that it's a given Amazon take it

Speaker 01: 22:54

I completely agree career with that model and it's something that I personally teach in startups as well within and beyond form and at the university but then going back to when we talk about challenges from the work across Africa Europe and within global organizations like UN what have you learned about the unique structural or systemic change challenges global ethnic majority founders face because it's always very different or sort of whatever you talked about that added on pressure right and what solutions are you passionate about driving

Speaker 02: 23:26

unfortunately the systems if I was to be honest with you just generally are not equipped to accommodate the global majority which is so crazy to say those two things together there's a global majority and the general systems are not equipped that's another story for another day but I think unfortunately that is such a big thing there's a lack of representation even when we're talking about those at the table those at the bigger tables and stuff like that you can take any big international brand and It will be a struggle to find a ethnic global representative in those big decision-making rooms and those decision-making elements. I'm not necessarily always of the thought, which is why I have a passion for niches, where you need to always infiltrate those rooms. I do think there's room for you to create a different table and create a different room. But within those rooms, I think now taking on a bit more responsibility... ourselves which we need to I would say that there needs to be an amount of collaboration which we which we push a bit more better and I also think there needs to be a collaboration not just within the global majority but also a bit of allyship and I'm talking allyship in the form of good business not in terms of charity or aid or pity positions I'm talking about how does it look like for people to kind of embrace acknowledge because sometimes there is also it's called a spade a spade there is a misappropriation there's cultural appropriation somebody can do that he's from the continent and it might not be as successful but as soon as somebody else a high profile person does the exact same thing on there it's culturally appropriated and they can make lots and lots of money with it without acknowledging who the person is that inspired it so I think that within which is why obviously I'm a stickler for Upstar I think within the community there needs to be some sort of structuring and some sort of working together or collaboration which can really help Push. And also create some sort of framework, because you've got to, I think, if I was honest with you, the West and the powers that be, they're just highly organized, if I was to be honest with you. They're highly organized. They share, to an extent, they share information. It's also generational. So once they get in, they pull in their people and their people. And I think it's just kind of a similar sort of structure. To take away gatekeeping as well, I think would also help drastically. But I think it's a bit of both worlds. I feel like the system is not designed because of None of us are making power positions in that situation. But also, I feel as a collective, there needs to be a bit more collaboration and connectivity there.

Speaker 01: 25:58

I hear that. And again, going back to the point you made earlier on in that answer was basically creating your own infrastructure, your own seat able. But I mean, I think that still comes with, you know, a few question marks, really, because it's also about infrastructures. And how near do you think we are in building those really important infrastructures to society? support the global ethnic majority in the global south?

Speaker 02: 26:23

I think... If you was to give it a number, unfortunately, we're in the twos and threes.

Speaker 01: 26:29

Yeah.

Speaker 02: 26:30

Yeah, unfortunately. But it's unknown because when it comes to branding and aesthetics and style and culture and, you know, the creativity, we're all up there in the eights, the nines, the tens. So I feel like it's the packaging, which is unfortunately, bears a lot of mind to the infrastructure and stuff like that. Because even something as small as production, there's so much potential to produce on a continent. But unfortunately, the systems are not fully ready yet. They need to kind of adapt. And we've got to be honest as well. It's difficult. It's like they could be going through the industrial revolution, which the UK and the likes have had decades and decades ago. They're going through that now, also competing against technology and AI. So it's also, it's a bit of a, it's a, yeah, it's a lot. So unfortunately, I don't think we're close, but I do think it doesn't require a lot to get there because also it's a plus side that we do have access now to all this type of kind of support with technology. So hopefully, I think with harnessing and thoughtful harnessing, I don't think we necessarily need tens and tens and tens of years to kind of get to where we need to go. I think it can happen quite quickly still, but I do think we have got a lot to do.

Speaker 01: 27:42

So I feel like today has been a really insightful conversation and I think at times probably hard to hear information, but it is the truth. But to end, I would say on a really positive note, for any founders that are listening in who feel like they're constantly having to cut out fires. What would be your first piece of advice to shift from survival mode to sustainable growth?

Speaker 02: 28:03

I would say scale down. I always advise people sometimes to, even if it's not something as small as SKU, it's like, why do you, you're giving the customer too many options. Let's reduce it. You've got to realize that there's some amazing brands out there which have two or three options in what they give, but they do those two or three options excellently. So for me, I'll which is say scale down and execute excellence at that remit. And I think sometimes what we need to do is kind of build a bit more slow and steady. And in that, you kind of create a great model because then you start to move away from being reliant on funding and use what you make to kind of reinvest into yourself, which is what I always advise people to do. If you can try and move towards having a brand that is self-sufficient and sustainable. But I would definitely say scale down, strip back, scale it down, take your best items or the thing that the customer love the best and focus on those get those executed excellent from the beginning to the end the full supply chain and then slowly ramp up and ramp up doesn't always mean increasing products it might be taking on new territories it might be evolving it slightly but do it very slowly and only after looking at the feedback loop if that is a warranted way to move into that direction

Speaker 01: 29:17

I wholeheartedly agree with that answer so thank you so much for ending on that positive note and really insightful we have a question Okay, a list of questions for you. You ready?

Speaker 02: 29:28

I'm ready. I'm ready.

Speaker 01: 29:30

All right, let's do it. So if you could have coffee with any fashion icon, past or present, who would it be?

Speaker 02: 29:36

Okay, I feel like companies, it has to be Emma Greed for me. It's probably a popular opinion. But again, I just love the way that she enters and takes on brands and kind of throws them into like international kind of like bands as a whole. I would say though, if I can choose two and be cheeky, a past one would be Virgil Abloh. Fortunately, he's left a lot of blueprints for us, which is great. But I would just love to kind of get a bit more of how his thought process was in terms of how do you think about that? And why did you do that? And what was your vision between kind of creating this kind of like off-white? So those two, I would do one from a branding perspective and one from like, who's just shown herself to be amazing when it comes to kind of ups and scaling and stuff.

Speaker 01: 30:17

I love that. I think Virgil Abloh would probably turn into a lunch and then potentially

Speaker 00: 30:21

dinner. Yeah. all right repeat repeat yeah

Speaker 01: 30:28

i shouldn't say if you had to describe your career journey in three emojis which ones would you pick i thought this one is a hard one

Speaker 02: 30:35

so some obscure ones i'll definitely have the globe emoji just because i love the way that creativity kind of is like every language like everyone can understand creativity so great like kind of interconnects people across the world so i love that obviously products of these innovative ideas everyone can understand it so that'll be one of them another one i'll be the magnifying glass or the detective person I stay hungry in terms of trying to research and look and see what's happening what's new and that's kind of been my stance I always say like stay inquisitive and stay curious and then what I would say is the last one would probably be a flower or blossom of some sort because I do have a love-hate relationship sometimes with the fashion and creative industry I do feel like there's a lot blossoming even sometimes when you think about the creative approach that people have taken to kind of like combat waste and it to be more sustainable. You know, you get fabric made out of amazing things nowadays and stuff like that. So I would say just for the purpose of hope, which is springing, it will definitely be like a blossom or flower.

Speaker 01: 31:38

I think that's beautiful. Thank you. Okay, number three. At the end of operations or brand storytelling, which would you rather teach a masterclass on? Kendall Day every day. Yeah,

Speaker 02: 31:51

that is my thing. And yeah, just trying to find ways to make it, to hone in, right, so important. I would say, yeah, masterclass, I'll do that.

Speaker 01: 31:58

Last one, Dorcas. So what's the first thing you notice when walking into a new creative workspace?

Speaker 02: 32:04

Systems, you know, like how does the workflow and how does this make sense to people? Those are like systems and things in process. Like I would like to see like, do you move from there to there? Why are you looking all the way from over there to there? And why did you do that over there? That doesn't make sense. Actually, I do have one

Speaker 01: 32:22

more question. What's the best piece of advice you've ever received from a fellow entrepreneur? So the feedback loop

Speaker 02: 32:28

one was actually from a fellow entrepreneur which I think is what I take it I always take it because it's done me justice so yeah feedback loop and I pass that on all the time as well

Speaker 01: 32:38

I might have to bend your ear on some of the points you've talked about today that was a fabulous session thank you so much for your intel it's been really amazing no thank you for having me that was fun