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Hi, everyone. I'm Hilary Kerr, the co-founder and chief content officer of Who What Where. And this is Second Life, a podcast spotlighting women who have truly inspiring careers. We're talking about their work journeys, what they've learned from the process of setting aside their doubts or fears, and what happens when they embark on their Second Life.
Today on the show, I'm speaking with writer, director, and chief creative officer of Reformation, Lauren Caris-Cohan. What I admire about Lauren is that she has this incredible creative instinct that she's used in so many different arenas, and she's done that while also pursuing her own personal projects, often to great acclaim.
Lauren started out at Free People in the late 2000s, eventually rising to artistic director. While there, she art-directed a video series called FP Presents and became enthralled by the world of filmmaking. So, while still working at Free People, she began working with different writers and directors and writing her own scripts. She described it as her own version of film school.
After she left free people in 2017, she could have just kept going down that path. But, in typical lore and fashion, she defies any one category. She went on to co-found the industry-disrupting lingerie brand Cup, and, in 2022, became Reformation's Chief Creative Officer, where she now guides all aspects of the brand's creative identity.
I don't know if you've noticed, but in the last few years, Reformation has really taken on some incredible collaborations and collections, and so much of that infusion of creativity is due to Lauren. During all of this, she also founded a branding agency, Lolly Wood, and kept writing and directing her own projects.
I've been a fan of Lauren's work for years and years, and I am so grateful that she agreed to be on the show. Her insights and perspective on creativity are so important, and I can't wait for you to hear more. Now, on Second Life, it's Lauren Karis Kohan.
Lauren, I am so excited to do this. So thank you again so much for taking the time. I think this is going to be a really good one. Thank you for having me. Totally my pleasure. Okay. So we like to start at the beginning on this podcast. So what did you study in school? And much more importantly, what did you want to be when you grew up? This is probably the first time I've ever shared the whole story.
I only went to college for one year. I actually, my senior year of high school was home for the entire year because I had spinal meningitis, mono and pneumonia all at once. Didn't really do the whole application process the way a normal person would. And so I went to a year school and the University of Delaware was not for me and moved back home with my parents.
I'd say probably about six months before moving into New York City, thinking I would start school again. And my father had some really terrible stuff going on with his health and they ran through all their money and declared bankruptcy. And so he was an entrepreneur. There was a lot of ego and pride. And I didn't know until the moment that they got kicked out of their house that they had, you know, double mortgaged. And so I
found the department and I did what a lot of people do and they started bartending and waitressing and I had a roommate at the time who told me that she had a great place that she could get me a job so I said sure I'll take anything. And so I went to this interview and walked into this office and the guy who interviewed me said great what do you want to do?
Do you want to be a bartender a cocktail waitress or an entertainer? And I said, well, what does an entertainer do? And what I was interviewing for was to be a cocktail waitress at the Penn House Executive Club. On 45th and 11th, they hadn't opened yet. This is probably 2004. And I was interviewing to be a cocktail waitress
in Robert Steakhouse, which was a Michelin star steakhouse that was above the penthouse executive club. I truly had no idea what an entertainer did, which was, you know, a stripper. And it was the most foundational experience of my whole career. And I worked there for
Maybe less than a year, about a year. And I went in a turtle-knack at a pencil skirt, served champagne. People were charging $30,000, $40,000 on their credit cards in the finance world. And so I got to see this little ecosystem of the dynamic between men and women when the roles were reversed and the power dynamics were reversed, because these women were so in control and they were really the
Creme de la Creme of entertainers, women who came from all over the world, who were so beautiful, who were so smart and completely in control. It was this really fascinating dynamic where I was serving cocktails and having conversations with people I would never associate with, chairmons of very large banks and actors and athletes. And it really gave me the chance to see people for who they are and not for who they are in their careers.
And you realize that everyone was very much the same. And so it emboldened me from then until now to, I guess, be less scared about the choices I make and have less fear, because what's the worst that could happen? Everybody is very similar.
So totally and as someone who lived in New York during that same time and one of my best friends was a bartender at scores and I remember that era for anyone who's listening who wasn't in the nightlife world at that moment in time New York right then it was like
outrageous amounts of money were being spent. Everyone was out all the time and so for you too to have this sort of form of experience with all of these like titans of industry and normalizing that and seeing that like everyone puts on their pants one leg at a time. It's such a interesting crash course in
a form of reality. I wouldn't say it is reality because it was obviously a very specific hyper-moneyed bubble. But I mean like fascinating and eye-opening in so many ways. So fascinating. It really shaped my perspective. I'm sure there were versions of it that were a lot more scandalous than what I saw but it was very much like paradoxical for what I was experiencing at the time with what my parents were going through and
This experience lit a fire for the drive that I have always had. I mean, that is a really intense lesson to learn at such a young age. So you spent less than a year doing that. What happened next? After that, I had a boyfriend who was the creative director of the TJ Maxx companies in Boston.
He at the time was going back and forth between New York and Boston. And I didn't love that. So I applied for a job for him on his behalf without him knowing to be the creative director of anthropology. And they called him and he took the interview and ended up getting the job. So he and I together moved to Philadelphia.
And I also applied for a job with three people, and I didn't get it. So I was working as an assistant stylist in Philadelphia, and probably about six months later, I was pulling clothes for a magazine, and I got a tap on my shoulder, and I turned around, and it was Meg Hayan, who I think now is the Chief Creative Officer of all of Urban. But at the time, she was the president of three people, and she said, hi, do you still want that job?
It's available now. And I said, yes, and I started and worked as a stylist assistant for probably a year or two. This is 2007, 2008. Three people at that time was primarily wholesale with a couple retail stores and e-commerce was still just a twinkle.
No one ever thought it was going to be anything. And so I was working in the e-commerce studio. They were hiring freelancers a couple times a month to come in and shoot as much as possible in a very small timeframe. And so I went to the CFO and said, I think I have a better way to do this. Let's just build out a studio. And so I ended up
really spearheading their e-commerce studio. And I think by the time I left in 2017, it was a team of 40-something people with five bays and running. And obviously, the growth of the business between 2007 and 2017 was astronomical. And so it was an incredible place to work. And that was really my education and being a creative director. And I spent probably seven years of my life once a month going somewhere in the world. You want to shoot on a junk boat in Vietnam? Let's do it.
No way. Wait, I didn't realize all of that was on location. And it was every single month. It was amazing. I mean, I probably went to 50 countries. And when you're going, you get to go to the most photogenic places and be around the most amazing people because you're trying to create these incredible experiences. So really, it was just a very holistic education in production, in creative direction, in art direction. And it was before Instagram existed.
It was the way that people accessed that kind of aspirational lifestyle stuff that now is very much in our faces 24-7. That is just so major on so many levels. So I'm curious, what degree were you interested in fashion and aesthetics before getting that job at free people and working as a stylist? Because it feels like
People often have this idea that style or aesthetics or aesthetic point of view can't be taught like that. It's innate. I've always thought that it's very much something that can be learned. But how did you hone that side of your profession? For me, I
I think my strongest skill set is the world building part. So as corny as it sounds, it's like making somebody feel something more so than necessarily the fashion. I mean, I love fashion, but I discovered very early that I didn't want to be a fashion stylist. It just was not the thing that excited me. It was really like the show running part of it of like, how do I pull this together? How do I convince people when I don't have enough money to come and be a part of this thing with me and get everyone excited and emotionally invested in the process that creates
evocative imagery or film that makes people want to participate or feel something or buy something, which was obviously like the ultimate goal, which is why I've tested out trying to be so many different things is because you can really transfer the world building in different avenues. So probably six or seven years in, we were supposed to go shoot in Bali. I was like, Oh,
That's a sign. That's a sign. I'm like, somebody else should be doing this job. This is ridiculous. And that was when I knew, okay, like this season of my life is over. And I tried to quit and they were very, very good at getting me to stay. And they knew I was really interested in filmmaking. And so at one point, they said, well, let's build a film program at Free People. And so I was like, okay, well, if I'm going to do that,
I'm hooked in. And at that time, it was probably 2013, 2014. It was very hard to find female filmmakers. I said, OK, I'm going to do it myself. And so we started making white label content films for free people that got a ton of press. And it got me thinking, OK, how do I parlay this? I want to be the first person to make some sort of series that incorporates
product into the series where you can buy the product. And I made a short film with Margaret Qualley that ended up being sold to Hulu. It was like, okay, I did it. You know, thinking I'm like a part of the Hollywood shuffle. I'm like, I've made it. I'm sold a show. And I did. I sold my first project. That was a pretty cool thing. By the way, for anyone who wants to go and see it, it's on YouTube and it's called Dream Girl. Thank you.
So I think this is something that's really important for people to hear too, is that not every company is like free people obviously, but it is fascinating to hear like if you're doing really great work within a larger company and the powers that these see the value that you bring, oftentimes those powers that be will open up new opportunities in order to keep you in a place. And then you're basically like honing your future skills that you will take with you.
for the rest of your time, but you're getting to do it on somebody else's dime in an infrastructure situation where you're already being paid for your day job. If you're still growing and you're still like adding skills to your kit, take advantage of that. You also co-founded a creative services agency during this time as well. How did that work with everything else?
Right around the time that I had decided that I was going to go make it in Hollywood, my business partner, Helena, and I were both in transition between working in a corporate setting and deciding to go and be on our own. And so we just decided we were going to have a company. And my nickname is Lolly. And so it was Lolly Wood.
And as it happened, I had a friend probably about a month after we established our company who called me up and said, I need somebody, do you know any producers to do this massive project? And I said, yes, we can. And that one job started the company, we worked over the years with
many, many luxury brands. And yeah, so that was just one small part of the things that I was doing during that time around that same time was when I came out here to LA to be a filmmaker. Talk to me about that. Tell me about the decision to move to Los Angeles. Around that time, I had a friend who put me in touch with CIA. And once they saw Dream Girl, they ended up signing me. And
were really integral in being part of the process of Hulu buying it. It was so cool because I'd just never seen any of it before. And it ended up in a bidding war between a bunch of really cool production companies. And coming to this world after working in fashion for 10 years, you really realize that it's very much the same thing, except you're completely at the mercy of Hollywood schedule versus where I came from, where I was in total control of everything.
Yeah, that's uncomfortable. I was the commissioner. I was the showrunner. I was making all the decisions. And then all of a sudden, it was really, well, no one works until after Sundance. So we have to wait for a decision and then, well, nobody works until after the Oscars. So it was like the waiting and thinking the beginning of my new career was about to take off was probably a year and a half of my life.
In that time, it was great. I got to go and meet with tons of production companies and really get my foot in the door. And I was very lucky to be able to get a sense of what the industry was like and what I realized was that it's really, really challenging. Yes. And finally, I gave free people. I said, OK, I'm giving you.
six months and on February 1st of 2017 I'm leaving and that was like I gave myself this deadline to finally quit because it was a very wonderful place to work and I started working as a commercial director too because of all my experience with free people it was very easy to
You could do that with your eyes closed, I'd imagine. You know, I understand what it is to be a client. So I think in some ways that probably was to my benefit. In other ways, it was detrimental because I'm probably too practical. Like, I think the commercial world, they love an ego maniacal director that comes in and is like,
I had a producer tell me you're really too easy and say in a way that it was like a terrible thing. But so I think in some ways I probably wasn't the best commercial director because I was like, yes, we can do that. And I can save money on doing that thing because I know how to because I know how to build out a line plan. And so I did that for a couple of years while also trying to be a filmmaker in Hollywood. And I sold a couple of projects and nothing ever saw the light of day. And it was
Really hard coming from the world that I had been in where I was very easy to make things happen because it wasn't my money. I had a budget. So long as I was successful, I could spend the money in the way that ISO chose.
Well, to go from having so much agency to then waiting for that agency to be granted and then knowing that like also the way that all of this works, like it can also go away at any second. That is a really tough transition for anyone. No matter how much vision and joy and skill you bring to a project, like that is just soul sucking at the same time. It is soul sucking.
Especially when you know that it doesn't have to be that way. Yeah, there's only so much vision that you can give to a script that's on the page and you have to rely on the reader to be able to see that thing come to life. And you're totally at the mercy of things that you have no control over.
So at the same time, you were also co-founding a direct-to-consumer, intimate brand known as Cup. Yes. How did that come about? Like, what was exciting to you about the lingerie space, which, by the way, was very ripe for disruption. That was very much a time where skims didn't exist. Then there was just a big gaping hole to be able to speak to the consumer who
felt completely left out of the conversation. Without realizing it, I was wearing the wrong bra size. And the minute I had the right bra on, it was like my constitution changed. The clouds part, the sun shines. It really felt like a paradigm shift for me to be like, holy shit, there are so many women who don't have access to bras and their size. And the way that it makes you feel when you're properly supported is really different. And so my friend at the time had asked me to come and be a part of it and oversee the creative vision
So right in your wheelhouse, we're talking about storytelling once again. How does storytelling like that work for a brand when you're building it from scratch versus coming in to free people, which obviously had a look and feel and point of view, or even with filmmaking projects that you're like picking and controlling the look and feel and point of view? How did that differ from a project like this?
Cup felt so easy because I was the customer. And so it just felt supernatural, being able to speak to myself. So I was a part of that never with the intention of it being full time. It was really like to come in and build the world and then leave and have somebody else take over. And so I stayed on as a creative advisor for a couple of years. What kinds of additional tools and skills were you adding to your resume and to your arsenal working for a direct to consumer company?
It was very similar to what I was already doing. It was like going in a room and pitching an idea that was a TV show versus going in a room and pitching a product that you have to make people believe so deeply in the thing that you are doing because ultimately they're investing in you. That part of it didn't feel any different than what I was doing. Yeah, of course, like if you can pitch one, you can pitch the other. Pitching is pitching.
But it's also just nice to know like, okay, I really love the ideation piece of work. So a job in which there are multiple opportunities for ideation on a regular cadence is going to be a job where someone will feel satisfied longer than if it's just like, oh, you only get to do this piece of the job once a year or once every couple of years. Like, yeah, of course, you're not going to like the job if that's the thing. So it's a good way of like figuring out the good fit.
And I'm assuming that goes back to that was the skill at Free People too of like having that monthly cadence of the shoot. Like you always had to be in a process of ideation. Yep. And that makes even more sense though too, why the filmmaking piece of it while on paper is like obviously a natural fit, but like the pace of it would be annoying and frustrating and why it almost like should live as like a side thing that's always on because it's just not the right cadence, right?
I was just like, this is so silly. This process is so broken. And I don't want to wait around for 10 years to see if I am going to fail or not. You need some faster feedback. Yeah, I need immediate feedback. OK, so of all of the projects and initiatives that you worked on during your time at Cup, is there anything that you feel particularly proud of or any learnings from that time? We were like, wow, that was really great to know. I shot the original campaign.
myself and we made a series of films with like real women being super vulnerable and that was a really wonderful thing to be a part of.
I learned a lot about having to advocate for yourself, also really understanding the DTC world and what it was in 2017. It was like, every company was like 85 times multiplier. And since then the world has come back to reality a bit and you really, really, really have to be so invested for anyone who is out there building a business. You can't do it half heartedly.
No shortcuts, no treasure at the end of the rainbow and in reality. No magic mushroom that like kind of pulls you into another level. It's a real grind. Yeah. Now I'm at the age where I have a three year old daughter and every single moment is accounted for and every single second is invested in something. And so from here on out, it's is this thing worth my time and my energy and my efforts. And so that was very much a lesson I learned from Cup.
That's great. Okay, so how did you end up a Reformation? You're currently Reformation's Chief Creative Officer, but you started consulting with the company, right? So talk to me about how you first got involved with the brand. So Yell, follow, and I have mutual friends. And Yell was really wanted video content to be a part of Reft's programming as probably 2019. And I believe she'd asked about
a director and I think they weren't available and my friend suggested me. And so they asked me to be a part of something that was like a New Year's Eve video with Helena Christensen, which was super cute and really fun. And I think at the time they had said, OK, we have like literally no money. And I said, OK, why don't we do this? You don't pay me. I'm going to do this for free. And if you believe in me, you can try us again and you can pay us in the future. And so it was a big leap for REF at the time. They weren't working on projects like that.
And when they saw what the potential could be, it was sort of just dangling a carrot of like, okay, you can have this again, but this time you have to pay me for it. And so they ended up bringing me in as a consultant to oversee building up their video muscle, which then very quickly evolved into, can you come in and consult on, because I had so much experience and
e-commerce and building out and just being a part of advising, which evolved into just me having an incredible relationship with Holly Borenstein, who is a CEO now. And she's very, very persuasive. And I ended up getting pregnant in 2021. And I kept saying, no, no, no, no, I'm going to keep working.
I want to keep writing. I want to work on a book, which is probably for another decade at this point. And I got pregnant and this is, I guess, during COVID and she said, you know, come work with me full time and
Believe me in this moment in your life, like you want to have more stability. And for me personally, she was totally right. And I'm so incredibly grateful that I joined ref because I didn't have to miss a single day of my daughter's life for the first three years. I'm incredibly grateful to her for being a little fairy godmother who helped kind of like guide my life at the right time.
And it's interesting because to that point too it's like stability is not something that maybe everyone's looking for in the same way at different points in their life depends on their finances depends on their family but like there are those moments where you're like I want a job that's creatively fulfilling and I also
get to be in one place more, like that is a perk of it too. And then also you happen to be working on a phenomenal brand and doing amazing things. So you oversee everything that has to do with Reformation's creative identity. So that feels like a very big responsibility because Reformation has always been synonymous with really like
effortless visuals. It's extremely cool, but it's also accessible, which is a hard needle to thread. And then there's this really witty copy. I mean, I literally started laughing out loud yesterday. I opened my email and there was an email header that said, clickbait. And I was like, Oh, you guys are funny. Like, it's so great. It's such a very clear brand world.
When you got the job, what piece of this world were you most interested to dive into? And where did you want to make your mark? I had no desire to come in and say, I'm going to put my personal stamp on ref. Like, I'm going to come in here and change everything. It was really like, this thing is so amazing. I have so much respect for the people running it. Let me sit back for six months and learn and
just take what already exists and then use my skill set to help refine it. And Halle had a lot of trust and I'm not a CMO. I've never overseen a marketing team before. And now I have the most incredible and powerful marketing team that we do these amazing things. And it's a testament to the way that Halle runs a business. She also very much like Meg Hane is
someone who understands the value of brand and is such an incredible partner in coming up with these amazing ideas that are out of the box and giving me the runway to go and do them and figure out how to do them. But I oversee everything from the social team, marketing team, graphic design.
the photo team of creative. Those are all things that I can very confidently speak to and say, I know how I can impact here, but the market excited never done before. So that's so fun to me because I love feeling a little uncomfortable and I also have such an incredible team. It was a change for me to have to report to a creative person because
You've got ideas coming out of your brain in many, many directions all day. And it's hard to interpret that, but they have adjusted, you know, it's like such a strong will unit. And it's my favorite part of my job now. I also oversee retail design. So I get to be a part of doing all the store design stuff, which is super fun too.
So it's another example of, OK, this is something I have never done before. I'm learning as I go. And it was one of the things I said to Holly when I started. I was super honest. I was like, I can barely build an Excel spreadsheet. There are other people who can do that. Yes. My poor team, I work from my phone 95% of the time. They have to text me to get answers. I am very grateful to have an amazing team who is willing to adapt and work with me in the ways that I'm capable of doing.
But yeah, so at this stage of my career, I'm very, very comfortable with what I'm good at and what I'm not. And I think that's probably good advice to everyone is just like, figure out what you're good at, figure out what you're passionate about and let the other stuff go because there's somebody else who is good and passionate about those things. And the more you can refine your skills, the better you're going to be at whatever you're doing.
So talk to me about how you sort of move the needle with the team's creativity and empower them creatively because you are working within certain parameters around brand identity and creativity is subjective. So how do you balance that and get the team to keep pushing things forward, but also at the end of the day, like there is a performance aspect to it as well. So how do you balance all of that?
everyone who works for a brand can understand that we're all just like completely at the mercy of the way the world is operating at any given time. Like a COVID is a perfect example of that. It's like you have to work one day at a time at the moment. And one of the things I changed was the way that we spent money and much to probably our CFO chagrin that in order to elevate, they had to make a more meaningful investment in creative and marketing. And
anecdotally we saw the change with Raf and just the way that the brand has continued to elevate which results in more people wanting to participate in collab with the brand because they feel excited to be a part of it and something in my whole career is just really allowing
creative partners to have autonomy and making sure that they have trust in the process so that they give all of themselves, and they feel like it's as much theirs as it is. Bress, that's something I think you can see the result of in our collaborations with Camille Rowe and Clareway Keller and Laura Harrier. And you really see that everybody's really proud to be a part of it because they really, truly were a part of it.
It's funny because you've spoken about both sides of knowing where to save money and where to make efficiencies, but then also where to spend and where to invest. And I feel like that's such an important piece of it. It's something I go through in my day job of running, who I wear and Marie Claire and wallpaper and country life of like saying like,
this is a brand moment we have to invest here and it's sometimes hard to get people to understand like well we never have invested in that way before. I'm like I know but it's going to yield these other things but you have to say what you stand for and you have to be able to execute and to execute at a certain level requires a certain amount of investment and it will pay off.
Getting people to come along for that ride can be scary in those moments, but then when you have the track record, then it doesn't feel so much like you're pushing a boulder up a mountain. Yes. So you mentioned collaborations and I would love to talk about some of them. Can you first start by telling me a little bit more about your inspiration behind the collaboration with the New York City Ballet last year because fashion and the arts love each other?
But I feel like there's been a much bigger awareness around ballet and I feel like you were really early on that. So talk to me about that collaboration. That was a little, like it was a reverse engineer where I knew instinctively that the ballet flat was going to come back and that ballet was going to have a moment. So that was probably 2022.
And so I said, let's just take this opportunity. And my amazing team went to the New York City Ballet and said, let's do this. And they were super receptive and wonderful to work with. And our amazing design team then went and built out a collection that would correspond with the partnership. And it was just perfect synergy, perfect timing. I tapped into probably a broader audience than Raph typically sees because
Everybody loves ballet. Got all the ballet girls. Yes. We got the ballet girl acquisition. It's that nostalgia piece too for the big girls who used to do ballet when they were little. And then they're like, oh, I still remember that and I still love that. I haven't done ballet since I was 14. And I was like, ooh. Yeah. I mean, I have a three-year-old who loves unicorns and rainbow sprinkles and pink. And it's just a wonderful, very core part of who we are as kids. And I think that was a great part of what that collab was.
So when you're in the early stages of conceptualizing a new collaboration, what does that creative process look like? Like how do you go from an idea to it's actually dropping in stores today and everything in between? And is the timeframe different depending on who you're partnering with or what you're trying to create? Totally, it's different from project to project.
I mean, ideas come from the whole team, people pitch things and then we'll run with them. The best place I come up with ideas is sitting in the bathtub from like 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. Probably just because it's the only time I have to myself. And then I'm just very much a part of the process to make sure like does it feel.
align with the brand. Does it feel it's at the taste level that we want to adhere to? But my marketing team is incredible. They're just so capable. And I'm so grateful after all these experiences to be doing something that's so fun and so creative that you want to be a part of it. You want to be there. And so much of Reth's voice is about being fun and irreverent. And like it really is just very much a part of the ethos. And that comes from Yale and then
Holly very much has continued to be part of the force that is ref in that way. So every project starts with an idea and then we figure out how to get it done. Monica Lewinsky is a good example of that. That was a bathtub idea.
OK, so wait, I want to give some stats on this. So it was a collaboration with Monica Lewinsky called You've Got the Power, which not only showcased Reformation's Workware collection, but also served as a call to action for voter registration. And according to Women's Wear Daily and the BBC, this campaign generated millions and millions of dollars worth of media exposure in the first 48 hours, because people, including myself, couldn't stop talking about it.
This was extremely successful, extremely buzzy. It was a redefining culture flashpoint moment. It was feminist and cool and authoritative and sexy and interesting. And I felt like we saw Monica in a whole new way. So how did it go from bathtub to lightning in a bottle buzz?
I had watched her TED talk for many years ago and found it incredibly moving and just thought she was so smart and so funny and a total babe and just felt very much like a rough bullseye and I texted Holly and said I want to do something with Monica Lewinsky and
I was like, okay, I have to figure out how I'm going to do this. And so I have a dear friend who runs MGM TV, who I told her I had this idea and she said, oh, I just had dinner with Monica last week. I'll connect you with her. And so she knew that I would be very careful and respectful of the way that I approached
Monica and her team and so it was Lindsay's trust that was really the doorway into getting access to being able to speak to Monica and so Lindsay Monica and I had dinner and I brought her as many cashmere sweaters as I could carry just to convince her how amazing ref is if she didn't already know it.
and then gave her my spiel of just like I would take care of her and we could be a brand that could be trusted and she could have total autonomy and kill anything along the way that she didn't want to do and be as involved as she wanted to be and she said yes. And so she was super involved. She was
just an incredible partner all the way through. And obviously we knew this was going to be a really, really sensitive year with regard to voting. And we just wanted to say vote. And you've got the power to vote. And I had no idea that it would blow up in the way that it did. I knew it was an incredible campaign, but I just had no idea the reach that it would have. I love it. Do you have any dream collaborators that you would love to work with?
You know, I think it might just be more personal than anything, but coming from the cup world, I think what VS is trying to do right now, you know, bringing Emmanuelle Alton for the show. And I would love to cosign a comeback and ref be a part of that and for us to do a collab. So if anyone's listening, you can.
Call us. I just think it's time. We all want sexy. We all want a version of what the S once was. Yes, I'm always like, what if Sofia Coppola art directed? That's the version of Victoria's Secret. I personally would be interested in it.
Absolutely. Okay, so I know you still have a very busy life outside your day job, so tell me how you manage to sort it out, whether it's filmmaking or other artistic projects. How do you figure out how to commit time, where, and why is it important to you?
Yeah, I mean, I think the team at REF is so amazing. And each person on my team runs their own respective part of the business. And so that is probably the only reason I'm capable of doing multiple things is because I'm just here to advocate for them and help come up with ideas and shape them. But they're really all so capable that they're the brand builders. They're the ones that are making REF what it is. And then my husband and I also design and renovate houses. So we are currently
Never currently doing that too. But yeah, I feel just completely and totally fulfilled by all of the creative endeavors I have. And the only thing I think is just time is moving quickly and just making room for all of the things that I want to do. And I guess I'm pretty good at multitasking.
Okay, so on this podcast, we always talk about mistakes because everyone makes them over the course of their career. We don't always talk about it because we like an Instagram perfect sort of positioning of our lives, but that's just not true. So I'm hoping that you can tell me about a mistake that you've made at any point in your career and what you've learned from it.
I think in my younger years, or just in general handling confrontation, especially when it comes to being creative and working with people who are creative, I have learned probably the hard way that just
you know, be cruel to be kind. It can be really hard and confusing for people if you tell them that something that they're doing is great and then kill it. It can cause tension. I think also like I've learned unfortunately not to work with friends. Working with friends can be extremely damaging. That's probably the biggest lesson so far in life that I've learned.
So, a lot of the folks who listen to this podcast are in their first life and they might have an idea for something new or they might want to change jobs within the same industry or change industries entirely, but they're scared. They haven't made that leap yet. As someone who has made a major pivot in her own career, what advice would you give people who are standing there thinking about making that leap but just haven't done it quite yet? I think it probably goes back to my old strip club days of, you know, you realize you just have nothing to lose.
And certainly, yes, that's much easier said than done. We all have financial responsibilities and personal responsibilities. But at the core of it, if you are motivated to make a change, you have nothing to lose. Fear is the hardest part of the unknown. And really, what's the worst that can happen if I change jobs? You can always go back. You can always go back and do something again if you feel like you made a mistake. But I think most of the time you will realize that you did not make a mistake.
Well, whatever age you are, if you have a fear about changing a career, you think it's too late or you think it's not possible to start over. Like somebody who's changed my career a thousand times, like there's no time too late to start something that you're super passionate about and excited by. Life is too short to be unhappy working. My last question, which is also my favorite question, is if you could go back in time and speak with your younger self, what would you say?
I guess I would say that it's going to be okay as someone who had to be pretty resilient through most of my 20s and just figure things out as many people do. It took me a long time to understand my own self-worth and realize that all of my experiences are additive and shape who I am as a person. And so I was probably really hard on myself through that time. And, you know, if I could see where I am now,
I would know that it was all okay. I love it. Well, Lauren, thank you so much for taking the time. This was such a pleasure and congratulations on everything that you have accomplished. I have so enjoyed watching your career from afar. So thank you again so much for making the time to talk to us today. Thank you so much for having me and taking the time to go so deep in my career. You reminded me of things that I haven't thought about in years.
That was writer, director, and chief creative officer of Reformation, Lauren Karis-Cohan. For more inspiring interviews with women like Lauren, head on over to secondlifepod.com where we have so many more for you to peruse.
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This episode was produced by Hilary Kerr, Summer Hammeris, and Natalie Thurman. Our production assistant is Claire Schmidt. Our audio engineers are at Treehouse Recording in Los Angeles, California, and our music is by Jonathan Leahy. This episode is brought to you by Paige.
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