Phillip Bloch, Bret Schnitker, Emily Lane
June 18, 2025
Phillip Bloch 00:01
That shifted the whole dynamic of fashion, magazines, TV, Hollywood, and it made Hollywood a big epicenter for fashion, as opposed to the runways. It became the red carpet, became the new runway.
Emily Lane 00:26
Welcome to Clothing Coulture, a fashion industry podcast at the intersection of technology and innovation. I'm Emily Lane.
Bret Schnitker 00:34
and I'm Bret Schnitker. We speak with experts and disruptors who are moving the industry forward and discuss solutions to real industry challenges.
Emily Lane 00:42
Clothing Coulture is produced by Stars Design Group, a global design and production house with more than 30 years of experience.
Emily Lane 00:52
Welcome back to another episode of Clothing Coulture. Today we are talking with a friend and colleague that has worn so many hats in this industry
Bret Schnitker 01:03
He's wearing one today.
Phillip Bloch 01:05
Not Mets
Bret Schnitker 01:08
Well, whoever's winning,
Phillip Bloch 01:10
yeah, well, I'm a New Yorker, so you gotta love you gotta cover both, right?
Emily Lane 01:13
Well, what's exciting about talking with Phillip Bloch today is that, as I mentioned, he has done so many things in this industry that regardless of your specialty, you're going to know who he is. Phillip, you started your career as a model, working for some of the most amazing brands, such as Jean Paul Gaultier, John Galeano, Comme des Garcons, Yves Saint Laurent. I mean, we're talking about some of my personal favorites. You've been accredited to bringing glamor back to Hollywood. You've styled tons of red carpet experiences and and even known to have styled 10 people at a time at the Academy Awards.
Emily Lane 01:14
13 but who's counting?
Emily Lane 01:29
Oh my gosh, I can't even imagine
Phillip Bloch 01:40
Not producers, not producers and agents, mothers and stuff. I just read something recently, and someone's like, I did 13 people for the blah, blah Met Gala. And it was like, Well, yeah, but you were doing like, managers and agents and, oh, it's different than when you're dressing like on camera talent that are presenting or nominated Anyway, keep going.
Emily Lane 01:40
Major celebrities to say the least, let's see. You're an actor, you're a designer, you're a TV personality, you're an author, you've you've shared your commentary and voice on major shows like Oprah, Good Morning America. MTV is House of Style. I mean, I could just go on and on and on this
Phillip Bloch 01:40
Date line.
Emily Lane 01:40
Isn't that a murder show? Don't they do a Dateline murder show? Who did you kill?
Phillip Bloch 02:46
I didn't kill anybody. I know where the bodies are hidden.
Emily Lane 02:51
I think we've talked a little bit about this. Yes, that's right, this will be a whole podcast, exactly.
Emily Lane 02:59
So. Philip, welcome to this conversation. Welcome to our podcast. We're so excited to have a conversation with you today. I kind of want to start at the beginning of your career, working with so many legendary designers and publications throughout Europe and being a model. How did this shape your approach to styling and creativity.
Phillip Bloch 03:24
Um, I didn't even know what a there really weren't stylists, per se. When I started, I started in the late 70s, early 80s, like 78, 79 80 and so there really weren't stylists. There were magazine editors. There were but they weren't. It wasn't really a thing, and it wasn't anything anybody knew of. It wasn't a desirable career. It just didn't exist. So anyway, I I was always influenced by fashion and growing up and but I obviously didn't, wasn't sophisticated enough to know it well there Comme des Garcon, came to America in the Japanese explosion, and that was the early 80s, so it didn't really exist before then. So I was at the beginning of that. But, um, I think luckily enough, I was unique, and that fashion had been the way it had been for many years. And fashion always changes and progresses. But in the 80s and 90s, I believe was kind of the end of that, you know? I mean, we still progress, and we have so many cool designers and amazing but kind of everything that could be done has sort of been done. The silhouettes, or the silhouettes people aware what they wear. We have a lot more technological advances. But creativity, like design wise, we're kind of seeing it all, for lack of a better word, and not that we won't always keep reinventing it with new technologies. There'll be more. But the silhouettes are kind of with their long story short, when I started in the modeling, all the models were very white, blonde hair, blue eyes, six foot tall, and I wasn't that. Mm. And so I came. I was very fortunate to come to the business in a time where there was change, where people like Ray Kawakubo and John Galeano and John Paul Gaultier were the change. They were breaking the norm. They were groundbreakers and trailblazers, and I was ended up becoming one as well. Because of them, they recruited me and to be part of their teams, and, you know, to be a model for them and represent them. So it was very interesting to be in the business in the time. Whoop, I found something on my shirt groundbreaking and transformational change, and those changes still hold true to the industry now. And it's so interesting because, you know, we see a lot about diversity in the culture and diversity in modeling, and so we, I really was part of a groundbreaking part of modeling, changing height, size, everybody didn't have to look the same, but it's Interesting. In the 40 something years since I started, there's still diversity like now. I'm part of a new generation of change, which is my agency. I'm with Major Models, and it's era models, and now all the older models are back working again, because in the 80s, you couldn't be 60 years old and work, or 50 years old work, or 40 years old to work. Everybody was in their 20s. Maybe some of the guys could go into their 30s or 40, but not really. And the girls really couldn't get to 30 and keep working. It was very hard. But now, ironically, I'm still part of change, even at this era of my career. And obviously we see so many new designers and so much creativity. So I really feel blessed to be a part of such a flow of creativity from the modeling side of the industry and from that part of it. You know.
Bret Schnitker 06:51
That's amazing. I was going to start doing a model myself, but Weight Watchers went out of business. I was going to do all the before pictures of the weight watcher magazine.
Phillip Bloch 07:00
It's all about full size. And, you know, I know some plus size or full size or curvy, maybe you prefer that,
Bret Schnitker 07:07
but that's just my head.
Emily Lane 07:09
So that's kind of interesting. I love the ongoing evolution that we've seen with inclusivity and diversity on our runways. Hollywood isn't always known for such a diverse range in body styles and so forth.
Bret Schnitker 07:29
More so lately.
Phillip Bloch 07:31
yeah, again. Now it's changing more. But the thing that happens in fashion that I think is very interesting compared to film or entertainment and that other source, um, we're very cyclical. I noticed that fashion is very cyclical, like right now the tall, very thin African model, not not black Americans, not black Latinos, but the African look is in that tall, thin, very androgynous. The boys look like the girls. The boys are like six foot four, and they weigh 120 pounds, and the girls are the same. They're just like long, long limbs, like we're very in that phase right now, and then another time, we'll be in an all blonde phase. So we have diversity in general, in the industry and in the commercial end of the industry, the targets and the J Crews and the Gap are all over the place with who they're using in their ads. But the high end fashion, the Comme Des Garcons, the Saint Laurent, they're all really still into the very thin, thin, thin, tall, African, androgynous, kind of innocuous and androgynous, you know.
Bret Schnitker 08:44
So you you had this kind of amazing career as a model. What? What made the shift from model to stylist, and what was your most interesting relationship with in your stylist career? Was there one that stood out? Was there a story that seemed
Phillip Bloch 09:00
well, the shifts came. But, you know, with time, you know, again, as I was saying, you couldn't really, you know, as a model, you get a few years depending on your look and how changeable you are, how you change as you grow. Do you look older? Do you look younger, whatever. So, you know, my my peak was, like the mid 80s. And then, you know, you kind of have the years leading up to your peak, and then you have, you have your peak of 2, 3, 4, years, where all the designers use you. You get to do the big magazines, if you get that lucky. Some people that never happened. Some people just do catalog their whole career. And they could work for 10 years just doing catalog all the time and make all the money. So it depends what part you're in. Long story short, for me, I'd reached the end. I was very editorial, very commercial. I worked a lot as a teen, like jeans campaigns, so I had reached the platform of that, and I wasn't really looking a lot older. So I really I done all the jeans campaigns. I'd done everything I could kind of do in my age range, and I wasn't really looking older. So I was kind of at the end of where I could go. Wow. And all the editors I worked with, I was very lucky, because I had good style and taste, and I'd worked in the fashion world as I was coming up as a model. I worked in depart stores and around fashion, so I knew what I was doing, kind of and I guess I had good stuff. So the my editor, Sasha Gambachini, and the very, very, very well renowned Franka Sozzani who kind of ran Italian Vogue, and she was very iconic all the way up until a few years ago when she passed away. And there's a great documentary about her, Franka Sozzani, her son is married to Anna Wintours daughter, as a matter of fact,
Bret Schnitker 10:37
and there's a retail royalty marriage.
Phillip Bloch 10:40
yeah, exactly, some fashion royalty, yeah, like Corinne Rothschild and her family anyway, so they suggested I become an editor and a stylist. And I was like, oh, what's a stylist? And they're like, Well, it's an editor, but not working with the magazine full time. So that's how I made the switch, and I came to New York. I worked as the I left Europe. This is kind of 8990 I left Europe and I came back to America, which, by the way, in the end of my modeling career, I met an Italian guy, and we became partners, and we had a sweater company together, very similar in style to what I'm doing now. Because again, towards the end of my modeling career, I was sort of working with Romeo Gigli and Costume National, as they were kind of in their peak, and I was helping them in the showroom, much less being a model. And then I could translate, I could speak English the stores that would come in. So I was always very multi multi talent, multi faceted and multi talented. So that kind of led me to come to New York as a stylist, and I started working for Vibe magazine. And Naomi Campbell was for the first issues of Vibe, which was Quincy Jones magazine. He opened this hip hop magazine, and this was early 90, 91 or 92 and Naomi came to the we had to shoot for Naomi, and it was in her phone throwing period and watch out. Remember that very well. Some people still have the scars, and she didn't show up the first day she came. The second day, she got in a fight with somebody on the phone. While she was waiting there, they couldn't even get her to sit in the makeup chair or look at the clothes she left. She came back a third day, had another fight and with somebody on the phone and was gone. And I thought to myself, if I'm going to do this guy, I was a model for years, I never behaved like this. Like, what the f is this? If I'm gonna put up with this kind of bullshit in fashion, I'm gonna do it for people that are interesting to me, like Oprah and Whitney Houston and and Vogue was very big at the time. I don't even think Tony Braxton was out yet, or maybe she was just coming out. And I felt like, oh, I want to work with the R and B girls in the music industry. I want to go work with music people. I want to get away from the models. I'm done with models. And
Bret Schnitker 13:08
I went to, you have styled a lot of amazing musicians, yeah,
Phillip Bloch 13:12
and, and I, well, I ended up doing a lot of good musicians. But really, my my forte, what ended up being the red carpet and the movie stars. And it just sort of happened that way. I I got there and didn't work for a year. I had a whole year I did not work as a stylist, and I had a decent book from some of the shoots I'd done in Europe and some of the stuff I was doing in New York and the, you know, the beginning issues of vibe. And I did not work for a year. And the very first shoot I got was working for Detour magazine with River Phoenix, and it was River Phoenix's last photo shoot.
Emily Lane 13:45
Oh my god.
Phillip Bloch 13:46
So that was very iconic, and it was kind of a big thing my, you know, like it ended up that photo shoot ended up being the cover Spin Magazine. And those pictures ran everywhere because they were the last photos of him. It was only a few weeks before he passed away. We shot it like my time. His cover came out. He had already passed away. Wow.
Emily Lane 14:04
So now wait a minute here, I'm noticing a common theme
Bret Schnitker 14:07
This could be a Dateline thing, right, yeah, right,
Emily Lane 14:10
because you have also noted to have styled Michael Jackson before.
Phillip Bloch 14:17
Yeah, I did his last photo shoots. I think I did Phil Hartman's last photoshot.
Bret Schnitker 14:26
Oh my gosh. Well, there is definitely a trend.
Emily Lane 14:29
Okay, you're not going to be doing our
Phillip Bloch 14:33
one of the things that the universe told me when I started to get into this part of the business, even in the modeling, I kind of realized that the photos, although this is not true anymore, sadly, but the photos, the magazine covers, I thought that those would were the only things that lived on. I would see these in Paris. You'd walk along the Seine on a Saturday or Sunday, you see all the old magazines, and you would. See all the movie stars and the people on the magazine covers, and I thought, wow, that's legacy. That's how the story lives on. That's how fashion is told. That's how history is told through magazines. And it was up until the last few years, but now that's not good anymore. So So I think that that's how I got into the industry, was because I love the whole telling stories through legacy and through photos. So there's no real surprise to that kind of being. What happened for me and having such a historic, you know, I have history with Halle Berry winning the Oscar in that dress that's in the Smithsonian Institute, if they don't take that down. And you know, I, I've had a lot of legacy work, you know, that is history, pop culture, history, and parts of you know that are actual parts of history, not pretend so
Bret Schnitker 15:52
like you've also, you know, you served as Creative Director for corporate brands, which seem to be a pretty big shift, in some ways, from, you know, fashion as art. You know, you've worked with NFL and Oat polish, Untitled magazine. You worked with Barbies, Ken, Hush Puppies, QVC, list goes on. How do you make that transition? I mean, how do you how do you manage kind of blending fashion with corporate identity.
Phillip Bloch 16:22
Well, again, that was really interesting for me, because some of the opportunities came in my notoriety as becoming a TV caster. So when I got to LA in like 93 or 94 we did River Phoenix, slash shoot. And then in 96 I saw those 13 people for the Oscars, and that shifted the whole dynamic of fashion magazines, TV, Hollywood, and it made Hollywood a big epicenter for fashion, as opposed to the runways. It became the red carpet, became the new runway, and we still live in that time. Really. Runways are big, and they exist still, of course, and that's how designers show but the celebrities in the red carpets are huge now and that so that started putting me on the map as people knowing me as a celebrity, like Kevin McCoy and I were kind of at the same time, and so the two of us were really the sort of first behind the scenes people that became known, you know, the First, you know, hair makeup, behind the scenes, glam squad, people that kind of became known to the public, really, yeah, you knew Vidal Sassoon because he created a product. Or, you know, many of the names we know in the industry are because they were Max Factor. Worked in movies. He was a movie makeup artist, and then he developed but, but we were known just for being with celebrities. And so I started on MTV in 1996 right after that, 13 people in that same period, I started on House of Style, and then I was doing E! and all these other TV things. So that brought the opportunities. That brought the Hush Puppies thing. It brought the Ken doing a makeover for Barbie, because they had been together 30 years, and I got to give Ken a makeover.
Bret Schnitker 18:08
How do you think the role of stylist has changed from the you know, the whole industry has changed pretty remarkably. Do you see?
Phillip Bloch 18:17
Well, there was no stylist really in the 80s. There were stylists before me, but because I had the TV exposure, and that came from the lack of fear in front of the camera and the comfortability in front of the camera. So the industry has changed that stylists are everywhere now they're a dime a dozen, if everybody's a stylist. So that's kind of that change happened. Yeah, for sure, um, it's so it's so sad and insulting. And, you know, I think that there's no um filters on that career, there's no umbrella like, there's no union, there's no anything. So everybody just says they are, and people don't taste is so subjective, a lot of people would rather save $100 and hire somebody that has no taste, because they don't have any taste. That's whole point of hiring somebody to be your stylist. Because, you know, this is something you're not great at hire the best, which I learned from Michael Jackson. He had a great comment about that, but, but the point being is, I just think the industry is there's so many people that don't, don't know what they're doing involved in the industry. Now, unfortunately, that was the problem of social media. Back in the day, there were walls and the man protected the industry. The walls were around the industry, and they had to say you could come into the industry. The powers that be had to let you in for whatever reason it was and social, that they liked you and they and so I always say I'm kind of the last of the that kind of part of the institution I'm in that last wave, like I came in because of TV and becoming famous and blah blah, and I was doing the job and being known for the job, the credibility and the success of what I was. Doing in my job. Now, if you can get on TV, then you're famous and you're accredited. If you can, you don't actually have to do the job. Well, it's about faking it till you make it or pretending so. Now, I just think there's so many people that want to be are in the middle of it, then there's no barriers, really stopping other than good taste. And we know there's a shortage of that.
Emily Lane 20:22
How have you balanced through the years? You know, once you became a personality, a celebrity, how do you balance that with, you know, being a fashion expert?
Phillip Bloch 20:35
Oh, I think I'm very unbalanced.
Bret Schnitker 20:39
We all are, this is the business, right?
Phillip Bloch 20:42
And carry all that stuff. I have a great knack for multitasking. I think I've always kept track of I have all, a lot of my friends, all, most of my friends from elementary school and high school, and I'm a friend collector, so I never, I think one of my important things I learned really early on, I saw the movie Notting Hill, which I actually did the video for, with Elvis Costello for the song she and which was so funny, we did the video for the song, and nobody even knew what the movie was. And, you know, we knew Julia Roberts, but that was like, kind of her second or third movie. So it's sort of like, oh, you know who knew? And we did this video for this movie, but we didn't really see the movie. It was coming with. We knew it was a Notting Hill, but we didn't know much. But anyway, the song The movie became big. In the movie, she says this line, and she says, I'm just a girl standing in front of a boy. But that's not the line that really meant something to me. The line for me was the fame thing isn't really real. In a few years, I'm just going to look like somebody who used to be famous.
Bret Schnitker 21:49
Wow, that's pretty powerful.
Phillip Bloch 21:51
It's very, very powerful. Especially I'd already been working with Salma Hayek and Jennifer Love business, and people would always come up to us in places. And even by that point, I was starting to get down there like, Oh my God, you look like that guy that's on TV. Oh my God, you look like Salma Hayek , but you're so much shorter than her. Oh, you look like the fashion guy, but he's more handsome than you. Or, you know, people just always say these really weird things to you. So I really realized early on, the fame thing wasn't real. I knew that Hollywood people were not really my friends, that you know, they're business friends. There's fashion friends. I have a lot of friends in the industries, entertaining, sports, fashion, creativity. But you know, they're not your your always your friends. Friends, a lot of times, there's this lovely little saying that they like to say in the business. And I always say when they say that, make sure you're sitting down, because someone's going to try and F you. They say, it's not, it's not personal, it's just business.
Emily Lane 22:56
Oh, sure. That's not just, that's not just your segments of the industry. That's just everywhere,
Phillip Bloch 23:01
talking about that one time Nicole Kidman was, like, they were asking her about, you know, what does it feel like to be Nicole Kidman? You work all the time. But like she said, Well, actually, the movie you see, he says, You have a movie come out every year, you have another movie, and your nominee said, Yeah, well, that's the job I get. I usually take the job I'm offered, and I don't get any others. You just think I get a lot, because you see me all the time, but I'm really only getting one offer, and I take it and and then he said something about something being, you know, work, being so personal. And she was like, she's talked all about it being personal. She's like, well, actually it is really personal. It isn't just business. I'm I am the business. I am the vessel. I talk, I do the job. It is my business. Is me, and I feel the same so, and the minute I hear somebody say that it's not personal, it's just business, I automatically know they are just about the money.
Bret Schnitker 23:58
Yeah, that's always a danger. every time I've heard that comment, you're like, Oh no,
Phillip Bloch 24:04
it's sad. But that's the warning. So anybody watching, if you hear that sentence, just automatically know that person what their goal is, is money, money, money. They don't care about what they're doing. It's really just about the money. Yeah, yeah.
Emily Lane 24:19
It is. It is really sad too. Telling that story about what people assume about celebrities and that people feel so liberated to be able to say whatever they want to somebody, it's just it's a real shock.
Phillip Bloch 24:38
Well, now we live in a really weird time, because celebrities used to be well behaved and you would be very politically correct, and you tried to not fly under the radar, but just have a monochrome of self respect for yourself and the public. And what you're talking about now, it's all about the clicks and getting you know people that the Wilder the better, the more naked, the better. That it's so funny as a a model-
Bret Schnitker 25:09
Which is not great for our business. Yeah, more naked the better. It's like,
Phillip Bloch 25:16
well, we just can make more sheer dresses,
Bret Schnitker 25:20
less fabric. Just raise the cost less, yeah,
Phillip Bloch 25:23
well, and they'll, they'll, um, they'll ban them from Con. But, you know, I, you know, I think it's really interesting, because I spent my whole career as a model never getting naked. You would never, never, never take your clothes off, and unless it was, you know, like a really big campaign or something special, because if you did it, then that's where you were going to go. And the girls, like the girls couldn't do Sports Illustrated at the beginning, because that made them commercial. They couldn't do beer like it was very interesting. How segregated, so to speak, the businesses, the parts of the business were you ask. How has the industry changed over the years? Every goal post has shifted. What was important isn't important anymore. What was taboo is now gold, really. You know, the things that people are heralded for now were things that you would never say in public before.
Bret Schnitker 26:19
So as the goal posts have changed? What are you doing as a renaissance guy, to always reinvent yourself with these new goal posts?
Phillip Bloch 26:26
Oh, I tell f themselves all the time. Sorry. Can I say that I'm not on TV anymore? I couldn't say that.
Bret Schnitker 26:36
Say it. That's right.
Phillip Bloch 26:39
TV, but now I can't, no, I think it's important to change with the times. You know? I mean constantly changing, constantly reinventing, you know, I'm always doing, doing different careers. Um, I stay true to myself up. The great thing is, I was beyond the goal post, so, so, so, the funny thing is, I was a groundbreaker. I was a rule breaker, a trend setter. You know, I did all that ahead of everybody, and now I'm almost the conservative one. I feel like sometimes, you know, I see some of the stuff people wear, and so there's something that I'm just like, Oh my god. It's so desperate for attention. It's so out there. So I think I was so far beyond the goal posts in the 80s and the 90s by two. And even in the, you know, 90s, I got to Hollywood before style in Hollywood really connected again. And so I think I'm fortunate in the sense that I've always pushed the goal, so I continue to and I think the rest of the world just caught up to me.
Emily Lane 27:46
Well, some of the things that you're involved right in right now is of are very important trends and a part of conversations that we're having with a lot of other create creatives and creators in this industry. You're very invested in upcycling.
Phillip Bloch 28:01
Yes, yes. Well, that's so funny. And I just launched a couple years ago. Two to three years ago, I launched a sustainable cashmere collection, eco friendly. And people were
Bret Schnitker 28:13
and the name, the name of
Phillip Bloch 28:15
Omniscient things
Bret Schnitker 28:16
great. That's a wonderful name.
Phillip Bloch 28:18
Thank you for that. Shameless plug, sorry Omniscient things by Phillip Bloch, and we sell online. We sell a lot of great stores around the country. And I think that people came to me when Women's Wear Daily was doing articles and Daily Mail, and everybody was doing articles like, oh my gosh, what made you think to start a sustainable collection? Well, in 1996 when I was doing MTV and going into people's closets, that's what I was doing, you know, I would go to Walmart and take a shower curtain and turn it into a skirt, or we take a bedspread or a sheet and turn it into a gown, and we'd go into someone's closet, take a dress and turn it into a top and put it with the towel, and, you know, like, I've just always done that. I've always been reinventing and reinterpreting and reinvigorating fashion. And I think if you're creative, you're creative. The interesting thing about myself, and I never really have talked about this, so this is something really unique, and I want to speak of it more. I'm extremely as creative as I am is, and you know me well enough, so as technically challenged as I am, I am artistically challenged. I can't paint, I can't draw. I write like I'm in third grade. I don't think I passed first grade writing. I have no hands eye coordination whatsoever. I can't so really I can, but I don't really have-
Bret Schnitker 29:51
this is a great plug for his new sweater line right now. The stuff is beautiful. So somehow-
Phillip Bloch 29:59
is to say, though I say it because a lot of people would think, Oh, I can't do this, because I can't paint, I can't draw, I can't make a pattern, I can't sew, I can't this, I can't be a designer, but you can, it's the raw talent. The interesting thing is, now the technology is there, and we can talk about technology in other ways that we're there now that finally, and some people now can get in and over the wall because they have the technology. They can make their own show. They can make their own fashion show. They can take pictures of themselves and AI them and airbrush them so they look like Cindy Crawford and whatever helps them sleep at night. I don't know. All I know is, when I go to sleep at night, I look like this. When I'm on camera, I look like this. Now they do it. Now they think that's okay, because when people really see you, they're gonna know. But the point being is, if you have the raw gift, the gift the talent, the passion, you can do anything. That's why I tell that story. And I've never really said it in that way before, until now. But you don't have to be creative. You don't like I never really passed school. I never really passed sewing classes or pattern making classes. I didn't pass any of that shit.
Emily Lane 31:15
The thing that you have, the thing that you have, that I've heard a couple times throughout our conversation is you had intention and determination. You said, hey, I want to dress these people. And you got out there and did it well.
Bret Schnitker 31:29
And I think let's not undercoat or undercut the esthetic aspect. You know, a great stylist understands esthetics. You can look at a garment, you look at a person. andunderstand what looks good. You have a great eye.
Phillip Bloch 31:42
I have a great eye, even in my worst time when I had eye surgery and I was blind in one eye
Bret Schnitker 31:48
then you really had just one great eye.
Phillip Bloch 31:51
I had one great eye better than anybody, than anybody else's three in the room or four in the room. Like, it was very funny, you know, like, I just, it was funny. Even in a blind state, I could see things in a certain way and differently. And I was like, no, let's put this with it, like it's, it's, it's just, it's a gift. When you have a gift, I think what people have to really understand is the difference between thinking you can doing something, knowing you can do something, and just actually having a gift. And and it doesn't matter whether you're a cleaning person, or you're a subway conductor, or whatever job it is, a bus driver, you have to really feel it and like that Milton, I think it's that Milton saying if you do something you'll love, you'll never work a day In Your Life. Yeah, that's and I think it's along that similar aspect, like you have to do what you're really called to do, and then you should be doing it. It'll work.
Emily Lane 32:52
That's great advice for anybody looking to get into the industry or transition in our in our space, is there-
Phillip Bloch 33:01
I mean, we see so many people that are famous singers or famous musicians, and yet they really can't sing. And then you look at a show like the voice or or, um, American Idol, and you just see these people up there, and you're like, oh my god, like, six of those contestants are better than the four judges.
Bret Schnitker 33:18
Yeah, I was at a Hollywood party one time up in Hollywood Hills, and it was a pretty famous producer's daughter, and I, there was a guy playing this amazing music out in the garden, and I walked over to him, and we start getting this conversation about, you know, my God, you're really good. I've never heard of you. And he said it, there are 1000s of amazing people out there. Yeah, it's being at the right place, at the right time, and getting discovered. It's not for lack of talent.
Phillip Bloch 33:44
It really is. It's and further to that, it's destiny.
Bret Schnitker 33:49
Yeah, that's a good point
Phillip Bloch 33:52
It's destiny.
Bret Schnitker 33:53
We are on a journey in life, and there
Phillip Bloch 33:55
fate- Yeah, I really have to say, if I've done 1000 things to in my career, to get ahead, or to do this or that or the other thing. What I've been successful at are 50 other things that came out of the other direction.
Bret Schnitker 34:12
Isn't that wild? That's how life works. I
Phillip Bloch 34:14
went to Hollywood to work with Oprah and Whitney, and then Vogue. I never worked with them Vogue. I did op work with Oprah, but I never really got to do the music people. I didn't get to do it. How I wanted to do it. I wanted the videos and all that. I didn't really ever get to do that. I did, you know, little bits of it, but not like,
Bret Schnitker 34:30
Yeah, Michael Jackson, I'm not sure, yeah.
Phillip Bloch 34:33
But again, like I wasn't doing his videos or his concert tours and- like I was doing the photo shoots. I really wanted to work with the artists. I wanted to go on tour, and I wanted to talk, yes, really and the magazine. So I just really did the magazine stuff in the red some of the red carpet stuff. So again, I say it to say, like destiny as a human, I make a plan. I want to do one thing, and it ended up being something completely different. I didn't go there thinking. Oh, I'm gonna, you know, change Hollywood and make red carpets fashionable. I just thought I'm gonna go there and, do you know what I mean? Like, the same thing in the modeling industry, all of it, I just You never know what you're gonna end up doing. You, you, you just go in and do it with the best intention and integrity. Intention and integrity. And hear that, folks, there's words you don't hear very often anymore, and that's how things happen, really. You know? I mean, it is not the most talented person, that's for sure. Well,
Emily Lane 35:32
as we wrap our conversation today and look at the destiny of our industry, what what are, what are some highlights that you're looking forward to?
Phillip Bloch 35:43
Well, I'm really looking forward to something that I know we're working on, bringing production back to America. So many years ago, we started exporting all of our production to other countries, because nobody in America was going to work an eight hour day for $3 or $2 or $1 I don't know why, and ironically, I can't even tell you how many days I've worked for free. So when I hear those conversations and how many millionaires I've worked with for free, so it's very, very funny when you hear a lot of these sentences, but that's another story,
Emily Lane 36:20
and the truth of it is, let's face it, it's not eight hour days that those manufacturers are working. They're working long much longer.
Phillip Bloch 36:28
the point being is, so we outsource all that. We exported our production to other countries. We did not have the workforce that would work for that kind of money. Great, fine. We got it. Now we have the technology that you don't need the big workforce anymore. And what you could do with 80 people in a factory from, you know, for a 12 hour day, you can now do with four people over 24 hours, and you could do actually 20, what was it 10 or 20 times the amount of production that you could do with 80 people.
Bret Schnitker 37:04
Well, it's on its path for that. There's still some challenges. What? Why? Why Made in America? Why is that so important to you today?
Phillip Bloch 37:11
Well, because, why should we be beholden to other countries to get our stuff like we I can't get a zipper for my collection about it unless it's from China. I had to wait four weeks to get labels from China, and not to mention with the new factories, the smart factories, and the things that we could do over the next couple of years, if the government supported the industry more like they do in France and in Italy and other countries, Korea China, we would have much more sustainable practices, the things that they can do with sustainability, I mean, they can literally, like, throw a bunch of glass in a machine and a sweater comes out the other end, not quite, but
Bret Schnitker 37:51
boy, it's getting there. And I you know, the exciting thing about technology coming into our business is it does, to a degree level the playing field. It does allow some opportunity to bring that back. We certainly need an ecosystem. That ecosystem is expensive. It may take a little while to come, but there's no reason, yeah, well, investment for sure, but there is no reason that a segment of that business shouldn't come back. We all celebrate better, you know, these better collections. If you eliminate fast fashion. You eliminate, you know, low end product, and you really focus about the segment of the industry that cares about what they're wearing, which you spent a lot of years in, that business should be able to come back to the US with technology, and we can do some amazing things.
Phillip Bloch 38:38
Well, the problem, I think, is, and again, I haven't really talked about this a lot, except to everybody that will listen.
Emily Lane 38:46
You've been on a few news channels lately. Yeah, we've heard you talk-
Phillip Bloch 38:49
A few million people. I think that, you know, the fast fashion is great in the sense that you can go get a shirt for 50 bucks at Zara now, but even that's all gone up. I mean, let's face, a couple years ago, you were buying a good t-shirt for $29 now it's already 50. The problem is the better brands, like my own. So so there came this like mid level high brand, like the Catherine Melondrinos and even BCBG kind of work themselves into that level. The Theories the Elite Taharis Like they're not fast fashion, because you're spending several on Alice and Olivia, you know, price wise, those are all like, kind of the middle range of that. You know, you're you're spending six and seven and $800 for a piece of clothing, and that's not even high end fashion anymore.
Bret Schnitker 39:40
No, that's kind of considered better, right? Yeah, better,
Phillip Bloch 39:44
yeah. So better fashion is kind of there, and that should be really high end fashion price wise. I mean, the fact that you are paying some of the prices that you have to pay for, some of the stuff that we pay, is just extraordinary. Now, you know, I know when you get into gowns. Beading and these one of a kind things, they get more-
Emily Lane 40:05
alot labor. Yeah, more labor, a lot more materials.
Bret Schnitker 40:10
What we're finding really wildly, Phillip, is that in in talking to designers that are creating these really beautiful pieces, one of a kind, hand done or done with a small Italia, they're actually charging less, in some cases, than these kind of better brands that are doing really mass produced offshore. It just seems like a very big imbalance, honestly.
Phillip Bloch 40:34
Well, interesting enough, like my beaded cashmere sweater would be $1,300 $1,500 at the most. The most are, you know, in that price range. And what my sweater would be a Gucci or a Dolce, or at Oscar de la Renta would be easily 2800 more than double
Bret Schnitker 40:52
McQueen made, 2800 3500 something, yeah,
Phillip Bloch 40:55
and easily into the 3000 range, 4000 you know, I mean, yeah, easily, easily, easily.
Bret Schnitker 41:02
And your your sweaters in your collection, like of a particular style, how many are you producing?
Phillip Bloch 41:09
Mine are all limited edition. So I take the sweater and I remove either the sleeves or the front, usually, sometimes the back, and we put, like, these great vintage fabrics in there or so we have the beaded ones, which are the more expensive. Those tend to be in the 1000 to, you know, 1213, 1400 and the but those are, like, total, like, one of those are what, usually one of a kind.
Bret Schnitker 41:34
So that's insane for that price.
Phillip Bloch 41:36
yeah. And they're great, because you could throw them on with jeans or a legging or a ball gown skirt you can wear them to Trader Joe's or the Oscars?
Bret Schnitker 41:46
My hope is the we can help the fashion industry distill the difference between these levels of apparel, because, you know, a one of a kind piece, things that people are working diligently on, and you're the only one that has it. We've lost track of the fact that that should be, should be valued, and it just don't understand the difference.
Phillip Bloch 42:10
The lost in the mass that's lost in masses. The funny thing is, is the people that appreciate that are the people that get the shit for free, like the movie stars, really appreciate the one of a kind, because they don't want anybody else wearing what they're wearing. And that kind of was where I got the inspiration early on, because a lot of my clients, like, you know, the Gucci's and the Louis and the Chanel's and this, they'll stay, you know, they have the girls that they love, and they send them free shit all the time. And I would, and especially Gucci, I had to say to the likes, I remember one time I was working with Cindy Crawford on something, and she got the velvet burnout shirt with the G's, you know, where. And it was in a velvet burnout, they did burgundy and brown and black and whatever. And she got the shirt. I was like, oh my god, I love this shirt I saw in the fashion show. And those were the days where, you know, it took a few months after the show to get it, but they sent them out to all their VIP people. And she was like, Oh my gosh, should I wear this, you know, this weekend, or should I wear it in three weeks I have that event, and I think it could be really perfect for that. Actually, I was like, no, actually, you got to wear it this weekend, because by three weeks from now, everybody that got me will have worn it, yeah, right, either you wear it this weekend or put it away and bring it out in five years, because in three weeks, everybody in Hollywood will have worn one color of another color of it like it's just, it's going to be too everywhere. And she wore it that time, and then she put it away for five years.
Emily Lane 43:36
Boy, I'd love to get my hands on that now, right?
Phillip Bloch 43:40
Well, it's very funny. Celebrity clients have put their daughters, have their daughters now, have worn gowns that they've worn.
Bret Schnitker 43:53
There you go. Recycle right.
Phillip Bloch 43:56
The Oscars. Harry was very good friends with Sydney Poitier, and Sydney was being honored. I think was Sydney. Yes, Sydney was being honored. And we invited Lisa and Harry to go to the office 20 years ago, when she was pregnant with with one of the girls. And I think that was it Amelia, or anyway, she was pregnant, and, long story short, the day of the Oscars, the baby had moved. Harry had to get these wire cutters. It was a Versace dress. It was turquoise, so beautiful, but we had to get wire cutters to get it over her tummy, because the back had this metal mesh. Anyway, Harry saved the day, and just recently, her daughter wore that dress that her mother wore. Lisa -, that's pretty cool. The Oscars she wore it and Selma Hayek, the same thing her daughter, Valentina, wore a dress that Selma wore just to a gala.
Phillip Bloch 44:54
Wow, I see. Super fun.
Emily Lane 44:56
Yeah, meaningful. Well, thank you so much. Phillip. For sharing parts of your story. There's so many facets of your story. I know we can't get to it all in one conversation, but
Phillip Bloch 45:09
limited series,
Emily Lane 45:10
yes, but it was really great to get behind the scenes of Phillip Bloch. So thank you for joining us. Thank you for joining us.
Phillip Bloch 45:17
Always grateful when I can get on the call. Of course, that's half the battle.
Emily Lane 45:25
Thank you to all of our listeners, and don't forget to subscribe to stay apprised of upcoming Clothing Coulture conversations.
Bret Schnitker 45:32
Thanks, Philip. T
Phillip Bloch 45:33
Take care.
Bret Schnitker 45:34
Bye.
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