Ali Dillon & Somsack Sikhounmuong Transcript
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everyone. You are listening to Radio Cherry Bombe and I'm your host, Kerry Diamond, coming to you from Newsstand Studios at Rockefeller Center in the heart of New York City.
Today, we're talking about one of my favorite subjects, food and fashion. And our guests are Ali Dillon and Somsack Sikhounmuong of the brand, Alex Mill. Some of you might've heard me talk about this, but Alex Mill opened a shop right across from our studio, and I am literally looking into their store as I read this. I've always felt a lot of kinship with the Alex Mill team as they left the corporate world to build something very special and intentional, much like we did with Cherry Bombe. We've done some fun events with them over the years and a great jacket collab. I bet some of you remember that and maybe even own the jacket. Anyway, Ali is the president of Alex Mill and Somsack is the creative director. We talk about their food lives, what lunch culture is like at the Alex Mill office, what all of us entrepreneurs can learn from their approach to merchandising, meaning how they display things and lots more. I've known Somsack for a long time and I loved getting to know him better, and it was wonderful meeting Ali for the first time. Stay tuned for our chat.
You regular listeners know I love Las Vegas. In fact, I just got back from Vegas a few days ago. I love the energy, I love the restaurants, I love the Sphere, but mostly I love the people. There's so many incredibly talented women making magic happen on the Las Vegas culinary scene, chefs, restaurateurs, mixologists, pastry chefs, many of whom we celebrated on this show last year during a special Las Vegas miniseries. Well, good news. Our next Vegas miniseries launches later this month with a whole new lineup of superstars and rising stars. Also, the Cherry Bombe team and I will be in Las Vegas to host some special events for International Women's Day on Friday, March 7th and Saturday, March 8th. If you've always wanted to go to Vegas, roll the dice and come hang with us. Stay tuned for tickets and more information.
We've got a lot going on at Cherry Bombe and the best way to stay informed is to sign up for our free newsletter. You can sign up at cherrybombe.com or at the link in our show notes. Learn about any podcast guests you might've missed, our upcoming events, early bird ticket info, pop-ups, and cool food news. We send our main email every Friday. Now, let's hear from today's guests.
Ali and Somsack, welcome to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Hi.
Ali Dillon:
Thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's start with some food questions so the audience can get to know you. What is your favorite restaurant in New York City? Who wants to start?
Ali Dillon:
I can go first. I was thinking about this because how do you choose? I have to say, first thing that comes to my mind is Colonie, which is actually in Brooklyn Heights. It's more personal. My husband and I went there when we were dating and then the night we got engaged and all of those things. I love it there. You can sit at the chef's counter and I just love actually watching that experience of them creating the food and that whole process. And it's always so yummy too, so it's a bonus.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yeah, mine would probably be King. I just love the space. I just love how small that menu is. It's just five things and you just have to pick from the five things. And the food and the quality of the food is just so great. And it's so just intimate and just nice to be there.
Kerry Diamond:
Cozy vibes.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yeah, a hundred percent.
Kerry Diamond:
What do you do for lunch most work days?
Ali Dillon:
So I am a creature of habit. I feel like we're lucky where we are in SoHo, there's a ton of different options of what we can get for lunch, but I wind up going to the same places. In our office, it's a huge food culture in our office. So Som could probably speak better because half of the new options that I have for lunch, I've only learned by just watching him drooling or wanting or actually him saying, "Have a bite. Have a piece. I ordered four extra things for you to try."
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
It's almost like, what don't we do for lunch? Every day is just something different. We have a communal table where everyone at lunchtime, more or less, just brings out whether they make their own food or whether we order food. We all order together and we just eat together. We've likened it to Alex Meals because every day it's just a big exercise and just eating. It's just shared foods. We're always sharing.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you have any faves in the neighborhood? I mean, you've been having Eataly.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
We have an Eataly that make you all run down and get sandwiches. We've ordered a lot of... I mean, almost like distance doesn't even matter because we've ordered from Koreatown. We've ordered from Tribeca. We've ordered probably by 11 o'clock, it's like, "What does everyone want to eat?" "Pasta", "Korean", "Pizza." We've got Popeyes.
Kerry Diamond:
Popeyes down on Canal Street.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yep. Carvel. We've gotten Carvel cakes. We've got-
Ali Dillon:
More than once.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yeah, more than once. It's very random.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you go out to eat for lunch much?
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
I haven't been out for lunch in probably five years.
Ali Dillon:
I think I went out to lunch the first day I started at Alex Mill. Me and Mickey went out to lunch and that's been it. And that's just because of how much we're doing all the time and how quick it all happened. Yeah, I think what Som mentioned, there is a really incredible sense of community around eating and conversation, so actually people like being in the office too for lunch.
Kerry Diamond:
Does anyone make their own lunch?
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
A lot of people make their own lunch.
Ali Dillon:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
You don't?
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
I don't. I'll bring a little meal, and they're like, "Oh, is that lunch?" I was like, "No, it's just a supplement to what I'm about to order, because I love eating." And so I'll make something really quick like fried rice or something like that, or leftovers I'll bring, but I don't make a proper lunch per se.
Ali Dillon:
Som also has multiple lunches, I would say.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yes.
Ali Dillon:
His lunchtime varies, so sometimes, we'll be in a meeting, it'll be 3:30. I'm like, "What's that?" He's like, "Oh, it's lunch."
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Shake Shack. Yeah.
Ali Dillon:
So yeah, I would say the delivery crew around New York City knows the office quite well.
Kerry Diamond:
You're keeping Uber Eats and all those folks in business.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
A 100%.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. And I know Mickey likes to go out to eat. He's got his table at Sant Ambroeus.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
His cafeteria.
Ali Dillon:
That's right.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
We call it, yeah.
Ali Dillon:
Yeah, satellite office.
Kerry Diamond:
And we're probably going to talk about Mickey a lot. Mickey is Mickey Drexler. He's the chairman of Alex Mill and you both worked with him in previous lives when he was the CEO of J. Crew. Okay, so who is this person named Yujin who makes chocolate chip cookies for everybody in the office?
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
So Yujin is our head of women's production more or less. She is one of the people that makes lunch, but she also bakes. And so she's brought in cakes, she's brought in-
Ali Dillon:
Breads.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Breads and stuff like that. And one day, she brought in these cookies and Mickey loves cookies. Yes.
Ali Dillon:
And when you know Mickey says something is his favorite, that is high sought after award. So yeah, he had these cookies recently and it was just like, "I've never had a better cookie in my life." And then inevitably what happens is the cookie becomes a meeting about how to merchandise and how to think and how to operate and the best of everything and the time and the intent. For us, a cookie can literally turn into an entire sales plan ultimately. But Yujin was the source of inspiration for sure.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, I want to know whose chocolate chip cookie recipe she has. So Yujin, if you're listening to this, you'll have to DM me or get the info to me.
Ali Dillon:
Also, with Yujin, we'll say, "This is amazing." And she's kind of like, "I didn't even really have a recipe."
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yeah. She plays around.
Ali Dillon:
Which is probably the sign of a good baker. She just remembers something, she includes something else and then she can't really share it again, but we will see if she can work on that one since it was the best.
Kerry Diamond:
I know you two go to bookstores a lot. I'm just guessing this about you based on everything I know about Alex Mill. But there's a really pretty pink baking book out right now called “Sift.” It's like pink and it has white, it looks like kind of confection or sugar on the cover. And the author is a lovely British woman named Nicola Lamb, and she used to be the office cake lady. And she said every office has the person who bakes for the office.
Ali Dillon:
A hundred percent. I even think we had that at J. Crew. I mean, I think back to-
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Every department has somebody-
Ali Dillon:
Yeah. Every department had somebody who was always bringing in sweets and treats. And again, that just creates this kind of fun culture vibe, gather round and gives a nice relief when things aren't as happy as a chocolate chip cookie is.
Kerry Diamond:
There's so much intersection between the food and fashion worlds these days. Once upon a time, the two worlds did not mix. Som, you know that.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Today, there's food imagery and so many collections and campaigns. Brands are opening restaurants and cafes and coffee shops. Major brands are collaborating with chefs and culinary creatives. Why this connection and crossover today? What's behind this?
Ali Dillon:
I mean, for me, I think it probably was always kind of pervasive, but more so than ever in this post-COVID world that we're all living in, where people just love experiences and they love to have this. We're deprived of all that kind of sensory interaction for so long, they love to be shopping with their favorite drink or their favorite snack or just kind of getting to know it all. And I know for us, we're constantly thinking about that. So a lot of the people that we feature are some of the restaurants we admire or the creators that we love to work with. And I think that's because we really want to be this intersection of all things creative. Food and fashion feel like such tangible things that everyone deals with every single day in their life. They have to eat and they have to get dressed. Those are kind of two universal truths, so being able to combine them is just really fun, especially when you weren't able to for that time period.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yeah. And I think social media probably has a huge thing to do and unlock where everyone's ivory towers were sort of shattered. When you could preview from the comfort of your couch just what a chef was wearing or what a designer was eating. I'm a designer that eats and I know there are chefs that probably need clothes and so it just makes sense, I think. Even a few years ago, Kelsey, who's Mickey's assistant in the office, she was on YouTube just watching Claire Saffitz and she saw that she was wearing a lot of Alex Mill's stuff and so it was just a natural, I think, an email or a phone call or maybe even a DM to Claire and just talking to her. And then we started a partnership. We did a collab on an e-print. It just seems like it was about time, more or less.
Kerry Diamond:
We'll be right back with today's guests.
The new issue of Cherry Bombe's print magazine is almost here. It's our love issue and it features the Maher sisters on the cover. Olympics rugby star, Ilona Maher, you all know and love her. The founder of Girl Dinner, Livy Maher. And humanitarian and youngest sister, Adrianna Maher. As always, our print magazine features terrific stories, photos and recipes from your favorite culinary creatives. You can order a copy at cherrybombe.com or check out the stockist list on our website for the bookstores, magazine stores, and culinary shops that carry Cherry Bombe and you can support a small business near you.
All right. Somsack, where do fashion designers hang out today? Remember, you could go to Balthazar for breakfast and see everybody in the industry? Where do you bump into your peers today?
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
I'm probably the worst person to ask because I don't ever really leave the house that often.
Kerry Diamond:
Are you a homebody?
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
I am. I think just after being out all day and just talking to millions of people at the office or making decisions everywhere, all I want to do is just go home and not... Not not see anyone, but just have a little time off. But I mean, honestly, I think when I was doing SoulCycle maybe a year ago, I would see a lot of fashion people sitting next to me in SoulCycle.
Kerry Diamond:
That's not a restaurant.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yeah, it's not a restaurant. We were all in the dark, which I think helped because no one really wanted to see each other. We were just sitting in the dark getting our sweat on and then we would leave and then be like, "Oh gosh, this person was here or that person was here."
Ali Dillon:
I don't think he chose it, but for this reason, but I'd say Mickey's usually onto things like this and I do think we hear a lot of people, or if you're walking by, since our office is across the street from Sant Ambroeus, there's a lot of people hanging out at Sant Ambroeus that you couldn't have seen be seen there or just cultivating there. He'll come back and he'll typically say he ran into so-and-so or he saw so-and-so.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Or bring someone up with him.
Ali Dillon:
Yes.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yes. Drag them up.
Ali Dillon:
Yes, come right up to the office and then we have, again, a new meeting.
Kerry Diamond:
Ali, is there any such thing as the power breakfast anymore?
Ali Dillon:
Maybe there is. I'm not powerful enough to have the power breakfast. I do think more and more, I'm connecting with people who are like, "Let's meet for a coffee. Let's meet for breakfast." Just getting back into that rhythm. For so long, we were in the office, but a lot of people also weren't in the city. They weren't coming to the city, so that wasn't as easy. But now it is when you're there every day. You can just kind of make that connection. I think, you get so much out of that in-person connection than you do even just having a phone call with that same person.
I'm always open, anyone, if they want to have breakfast with me, I'm happy to. We'll talk about Mickey, but one of the biggest things he's taught me is to be curious. Always take the call, always take the meeting. You always learn something even if it's not applicable in the moment. Anything that you can do, and again, an over enjoyable meal is all the better to say I had a great breakfast, or if you didn't even enjoy the conversation, at least you still enjoy the food.
Kerry Diamond:
I forgot to mention this when I said who Mickey was, but Mickey's an industry legend. Everyone in the industry knows about Mickey and he's had a remarkable career. I think we're all lucky today that he is very good about sharing his knowledge.
Ali Dillon:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
I wanted to say one of the reasons I wanted you both on the podcast was because you are literally our new next door neighbors.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
I mean, I can sit here and all three of us are looking right into the side window of your store. And you didn't even realize how close the studio was.
Ali Dillon:
We didn't, which is embarrassing because I've been to this store hundreds of times at this point and we've only been open for three months.
Kerry Diamond:
Right. Because no one expects there to be a podcast, literally in the lobby at One Rock.
Ali Dillon:
To be fair, I think I constantly have my eyes diverted at the store. I'm never looking left or right. But yeah, we are looking into our store right now and I'm trying to see who's working and say hi if we can, but I have a lot of ideas even just sitting here watching the stores.
Kerry Diamond:
You know what? I've been thinking too, I'm like, "Oh, maybe some of the clothes need to face this way."
Ali Dillon:
A hundred percent
Kerry Diamond:
Because the traffic in here is amazing.
Ali Dillon:
Yeah, absolutely.
Kerry Diamond:
That you get just all the people walking through and at lunchtime and all the tour groups that come through. Anyway, of all the places you could have opened in New York City, why Rockefeller Center?
Ali Dillon:
I mean, the Rock team actually approached us. They're doing so much here, we kind of thought why not? It's the center of the center of it all, that's their slogan, and we took a visit here and we totally agree. There was so much happening here and not just the traditional sense of just coming to see the tree lighting. They just have these incredible events, incredible restaurants that are here. I think we were only supported when Som said, "Oh yeah, I went to dinner there recently."
So we really liked that idea and like I said, they're bringing so many interesting brands in. We feel like especially being in Rock Center, there's not as many stores who are doing what we do, which is creating a really easy focused shopping experience, incredible quality clothes. And so when we looked around, we were like, we're a differentiator here, and we always want to be somewhere where we can be valuable to that space and valuable to that customer. And so we were excited and we turned it around pretty quickly. I think we started the conversations with them in the middle of last year and we were open right before the holiday season.
Kerry Diamond:
You're laughing. Why are you laughing?
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yeah, we have a habit of opening things really fast. I think we do a good job with it. Also, I think Rock Center, just the audience it offers us, how international I think in tours and also just people who live in New York, but in addition to that, just the clientele we get from all over the world.
Ali Dillon:
But we're still small. And so that brand awareness level, for us, we were thinking of this store as a billboard. There's so much traffic that comes through the center. We get a sales report every single day from our store teams and 90% of their customers made a great day yesterday. We're tourists. So it's just a great way for us to spread our roots a little bit more.
Kerry Diamond:
And Som, you said something about moving fast and making decisions quickly.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
I mean, that's one of the benefits of being a small company.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yes, a hundred percent. I always tell people when they ask what my favorite part of the job is, is I mean, I always think it's the best part and also the hardest part is the size. The number of decisions we can get made in an hour versus our old companies when there was just so many layers, so much better and so much quicker. And I think even the decisions are weighted a little differently too. It's like it's not the end of the world when we're about this size so we can take more chances. And that's been so great.
Ali Dillon:
A hundred percent. And Som is mentioning because this technically took us forever to open this store, because we had a store this past summer in East Hampton where Mickey saw the space on July 3rd and we were operational by July 19th.
Kerry Diamond:
No.
Ali Dillon:
Yes.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yes. He called us. He was there on the weekend, Monday. He said, "We have a space, let's open this store."
Ali Dillon:
Yeah. It was July 3rd. He's like, "Let's talk about tomorrow." Like tomorrow's 4th of July, but we can talk about it. I think it was Friday, it was the 5th, it's past year. And then we were up and running, build out fixtures, team, all of the things that go into a store, which truly does typically take months and months of planning, but we were operational in two and a half weeks. It wound up being an amazing store for us this past summer, so we're so happy we did it. But yeah, that's cramming all that into two weeks is a lot.
Kerry Diamond:
Wow. Oh, that store must have been a blast though.
Ali Dillon:
It was.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Last summer. Yeah. I want to talk about merchandising. And merchandising meaning how you display your product is such an important part of what you do. I'm curious what some of the brand codes are when it comes to merchandising, because I know a lot of our listeners have food businesses or shops and they can learn something from how you do it.
Ali Dillon:
Yeah, I mean, look, we've both worked with Mickey for over 20 years, and so the thing I often tell people about Mickey is there's a ton of consistency in his themes, and I think you'll even see that in the formula. I think we're doing it the best it's ever been done at Alex Mill. It's really about focus, simplicity, emotion, customer service. We want to be an edited destination. We don't want an endless aisle of choice of this or that. It's really about making the best, using the best materials, putting the best details, and having that be really easy for the customer. There's always different elements that I think we pull in, but to me, creating a really simple, emotional, incredible focused experience for the customer is probably top of my list.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yeah. We always talk about restaurant related too. Mickey's always like the daily specials. When you walk into a restaurant, these are the specials you have, this is what we're known for, this is what we do well, that can easily translate into a store. Let's not overwhelm the customer. Let's tell the customer why they're here, what they need. And emotion is always a big thing. Color, color, color. We always talk about color. When you walk into the door, what do you want the customer to feel? And how are you going to sort of snatch them or engage them? And I think. Oftentimes it's color.
Kerry Diamond:
Color is so key to what you do.
Ali Dillon:
Yeah, absolutely.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yeah.
Ali Dillon:
And you can't appreciate the quality of what we're doing if you're doing it in mass, because one, it's just really hard to execute. And two, you're just not able to touch and feel and see from a customer's side. So I think, yeah, there's just so many little elements that we're able to better execute when we're focused.
Kerry Diamond:
Alex Mill started as a small fashion brand and a men's brand, trying to make the perfect shirt. How would you describe the brand today? What is Alex Mill in 2025?
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
I would say it's probably exactly the same, but sort of like we've added women's. When we first started, Alex had a tiny store in Nolita and it was just men's, and women would walk into the store and they'd always be asking for women's stuff and we didn't have it, but women's would still buy it. And I remember, he would tell us this funny story where Group was one of the first wholesale accounts that we used to have, and they would just buy the men's stuff to sell to women. And so it's more or less sort of that same attitude or that formula that men have had the luxury of using for years and years and years. It doesn't have to be that complicated to get dressed and it's not about making more clothes, but the right clothes. Why shouldn't women also partake in that sort of formula?
Kerry Diamond:
Is it Alex Mill from Millard, Mickey's actual name? Or are you trying to apply a fabric mill?
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
It's a fabric mill. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
So totally coincidental?
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
We've gotten that question before. Totally coincidental. Just sort of the quality and sort of the handmade nature that goes into a mill, so Alex Mill.
Ali Dillon:
Yeah, and I think probably just for anyone who isn't as close to the brand as we are, Alex is Mickey's son, but also is the founder of the brand. I've only been with the brand for a year. I worked for Mickey for almost 15 years at J. Crew, but when I first heard the name, I was like, "Oh, that's so funny. And most people don't know that Mickey's real name is Millard, so they won't get it. It's tongue in cheek." And they were like, "No, it's for a mill."
Kerry Diamond:
So many fashion brands are obsessed with scaling. They have to be big, they have to have hundreds of stores, a huge assortment of product. As you mentioned when you talked about merchandising, Alex Mill is the opposite of that. Why have you taken this stance?
Ali Dillon:
Som said we do do a lot of will make quick decisions on things that we're excited about, but also so much is done with so much intention and it's near impossible to keep things intentional and keep things right if you're scaling really large. It becomes unfocused. I think we know we have a lot of opportunity to scale, but it's not our obsession. Our obsession, it's continuing to deliver what feels like the best product, the best experience, the best brand, and staying really true to that. So we're growing and we're really, really happy and excited about our growth, but we're not doing it to get from here to the moon as quickly as you can. We want to do it that feels like it's right and could have staged that stage growth. And I think, unfortunately what you are seeing is a lot of these brands that did scale and then have that unfortunate reality of having to pull back. So we definitely don't want to do that either. We don't want to be closing stores and having to pull back from the intentions that we set.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
I think it's a gut approach to it too, I think. Every day, we talk about this and it's almost thinking big, but acting small. I think there was one conversation where we didn't even want to call the stores stores but shops. There's just a smallness connotation to a shop and just behaving like a shop, making everything very customer-centric, being very hands-on with everything we do, writing handwritten letters to customers, just that kind of attitude, I think. I mean, how big can we get while still doing it? I think we're going to try our hardest to maintain that quality.
Kerry Diamond:
Because you two have worked at very big companies. You both worked at J. Crew for a long time. Did you want to work somewhere with a different ethos?
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yes.
Ali Dillon:
A hundred percent. I was at J. Crew with Mickey and Som, and then I was at Gap. Obviously, Mickey has a long storied history with Gap. You realize, and this is really about what we both wanted and what the brand is doing, just again, how much more you can do and how much more thoughtful you can be. The smaller you are, and then the ability to grow but still preserve that and it's working at some of those brands lovingly. I say this, but it's like trying to turn a cruise ship around in a port sometimes. It's really hard because of the layers and the complexity and all the things that go into it.
We're able to do things much nimbler that feel like, okay, we're starting from the bottom up with a small team. And everyone at Alex Mill wears multiple hats. I don't think you'll find a single person who does one specific role or job. Kind of that web that has been created of people doing all these different things and working together. Again, you're not going to, you find a lot of subject matter experts at big companies. And here you, what you're finding is really talented people who work really well together to create a brand.
Kerry Diamond:
Som, your answer was sort of like hell yes.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
Were you done with big brands?
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
No. I mean, Ali also, and I think probably Mickey to a certain point, it's just like we've been doing it for so long. I think when I was at my old company, I hadn't sketched a sketch in so long and that's my first love. And I just know that's why I love doing it and I'm sure Ali sort of being able to touch a garment and merchandise it with your hands and Mickey the same way, and now we can. I think that this scale has allowed me to sort sketch and do everything else and Ali to actually try on a garment and then say yes or no, or Mickey being in a color meeting and picking a color with us. We just haven't been able to do that in so long and it's been so, so nice.
Ali Dillon:
Yeah, a hundred percent. And Mickey would say, 60 years into this career, he feels like he's able to do more now than he's ever done before, and that's because everything's being made, all the decisions are being made together in that room quickly. We're talking about things so quick. And we open a store in two weeks or we chase after an idea. Everything's just very, very quick of putting our heads together. The entire team there is amazing, but our marketing team is also incredible at being able to be so reactive. And I think that's one of the things, even externally before I joined the team, that you'd hear so much admiration for. Like, "Wow. How does your marketing team create this sense of intimacy with the team? How do they do it?" Once you're on the inside, you see it just because that's life and really it's all just coming out as a projection, but there's so much magic in that authenticity.
Kerry Diamond:
Som, it's so interesting. When you think of designers, you think they're always sketching, but you forget at a big company, that's a luxury.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yeah. I mean, I had a team of probably a hundred people who were sketching. I could have sketched, but I just didn't have time, because I was doing everything else.
Kerry Diamond:
Speaking of sketching, let's talk about the spring collection. Is there a theme or prevailing idea?
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
I think every season, we take our key items and we look at everything and make sure that everyone sort of gets the best outfit. Are there pieces in this collection that we are going to wear season after season? Is the quality there? And then because it's fashion also, we have to add a little bit of fun. And I think this season it was color. Color is a big, big thing. I'm wearing something called butter, which is a brand new yellow, which is pretty new for us. We haven't done yellow in a really long time, but-
Kerry Diamond:
Wait, you really named it butter?
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
We named it butter.
Kerry Diamond:
Love it.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
And on this occasion, I decided to wear it.
Kerry Diamond:
It does look like butter.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yeah. There's a men's-
Kerry Diamond:
Did you wear that just for us?
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Well, maybe. There was a men's cashmere sweater that's butter. There's women's cashmere sweater and a really great work jacket also.
Ali Dillon:
We literally had the conversation this morning that someone said, "I don't know if it's more Kerrygold or Land O' Lakes." Those were actual words that were exchanged.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Mickey said margarine.
Kerry Diamond:
We're team Kerrygold here, so let's say Kerrygold. What's always on your mood board? I know some designers just have references that they adore and go back to time and time again.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Oh gosh. I love looking at old furniture and interiors. The homes like some favorite homes. Homes of the rich and famous and the poor and creative, I love also. The color combos you'll find and sort of like the mix of materials, I find very inspiring. Pinterest has been amazing obviously, but I've had a conversation recently with a friend too who had showed me a picture of a bracelet that he was looking at because he designs also. And I said, "Where'd you get that?" And he was like, "From a book." I'm like, "A book? Wow. You can actually reference pictures from books?" And I was like-
Kerry Diamond:
Radical.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Radical. And so I have all these books at home that I rarely open, so I think that's going to be my new form of inspiration. Because at the end of the day, there's so many common images that are just floating around on the internet, so it might be nice to just find an image that no one else has seen.
Ali Dillon:
It was really fun when we were opening at Rock Center and Som was pulling inspiration tears for the store to see some of the tears that he pulled, and there were these really old specialty store like tailor images. And I think it gave a lot for me even of where his mind is in terms of the foundational elements of the brand, because it just created, again, this experience and this familiarity, but also a lore. There's so much of that.
Kerry Diamond:
How are creatives doing their mood boards these days? Are you Xeroxing things and-
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
I love a good Xerox. I love a good photocopier.
Kerry Diamond:
Pinning it to the wall?
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
And when that thing goes down, we're in trouble. We cover our foam core boards. We have pins. We just put them up, we take them down, we move them around. And then after each season, we just take them all down and we sort of file them away also, so we don't throw everything out, which is kind of nice to be able to look back.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, that's cool. To remember what you did a few seasons back.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yeah. What we did few seasons ago.
Kerry Diamond:
And what was inspiring you. What about Pinterest or shared Instagram folders?
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Pinterest, definitely. Shared Instagram folders might be a little too high-tech for me, personally. But Pinterest, yes.
Kerry Diamond:
How far in advance do you work on a collection?
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
A year. I would say, 12 months.
Ali Dillon:
Yeah.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yeah. And anytime-
Ali Dillon:
Even a little longer. I think a lot of your fabric development probably is like 15.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yeah. We're working on four seasons at a time. Right now, we just shot spring. We're going to shoot summer next. We're concepting summer and we're designing for spring next year. Yeah, it's all everything all the time.
Kerry Diamond:
It's a lot to keep in your head.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yeah. But it's fun. It's the fun part of it, I think.
Kerry Diamond:
Sure.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
It's just how crazy everything is.
Kerry Diamond:
More food colors in our future?
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
A lot more food color. Always.
Kerry Diamond:
Good. Happy to know that.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Especially in summer.
Kerry Diamond:
Social media has been key to Alex Mill's marketing strategy. Your accounts are very charming.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
Someone who looks at them a lot. And there's a lot of behind the scenes from Alex Mill HQ. Somsack, you have had to do everything from dance to model to sing. Has this come naturally to you?
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Why, yes, it has, actually.
Kerry Diamond:
Are you a theater kid?
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Not really. I was a theater kid. I remember as a kid, maybe it's seven or eight, I would do school plays and I even went to an audition or two for community plays. But after being rejected too many times, I knew it was over.
Kerry Diamond:
They didn't see the brilliance.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
They did not see the... Look at me now, right? Yeah, it's been fine. We also joke too, every time we interview someone, we should also ask for a headshot and I've auditioned of some sort because you will be performing if you work with us.
Ali Dillon:
We've definitely walked out of interviews and been like, "Ooh, they could be good for social, though"
Kerry Diamond:
Ali, how about you? I haven't seen that much of you yet.
Ali Dillon:
I leave that to the experts.
Kerry Diamond:
Have you been enlisted?
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Her debut is coming. Her debut is coming.
Ali Dillon:
Yeah. I think on my second day, Rose was like, "Oh, we have this great..." I'm like, "You know, I'm just going to wait on my social media moment." But yeah, I've been told there's more to come, so we'll see.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay.
Ali Dillon:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Collaborations have been very key to Alex Mill. Cherry Bombe did a fun pink work jacket collab in 2023. I love that jacket. Recent collab partners have included “The Tonight Show's” Jimmy Fallon and Becky Malinsky, who has the 5 Things You Should Buy Substack. Why are collabs such an important part of what you do?
Ali Dillon:
Yeah, I think there's multiple different reasons. One of them is just different audience. So different collaborators might have different audience. There's a different spin that they can take. I think as a classics brand, we love the idea of someone coming in and saying, "Oh, what's your kind of take on Alex Mill?" Even if it's just styling. So we've done things with Becky in the past where she's just styled our clothes, and then that kind of fed to this idea of, oh wow, there was such a great response to that. What would it be like if she came in and she worked with us and kind of put her handle on it? Which is again, a really fun thing to do when you're a brand as tight as we are because you can.
The P. Jimmy's thing is an incredible story and Mickey has a long history of doing these kind of fun quirky projects with him, and that came about a little bit naturally. We weren't in the pajama business. It lended itself well. So I think we think about people that we admire, people that are going to take a different approach to the product, people that are going to bring a new audience in for us. Awareness, you can't really get much bigger than a Jimmy Fallon, but then there's also the other side of it that's someone like Becky who's incredible at what she does and brings this really engaged audience much on a smaller scale than he has, but growing really quickly and kind of doing a really special thing out there.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yeah. And I would say all our collabs, I'm pretty proud to say is that most of them, or 99% of them, or maybe a hundred, but they're all very personal. They're organic. We've had relationships with these people before we even asked to do a collab. They're either we've been fans of them or they've been fans of us, or we've interacted in some form, before we even approach the idea of, "Oh, should we do something together?" And I think that shows.
Kerry Diamond:
And it's fun to see a unique collab because so many people do them with the same people and they just lose their specialness.
Ali Dillon:
That's right.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
There's so many collabs out there right now and I think that's always been the key is how do we do something that feels a little different?
Ali Dillon:
I wish that people could see sometimes some of the requests that come in and how we fangirl in the office of like... Even if it's a restaurant who wants to purchase our jackets, we're like, "Let's just give them to them." Because we love this restaurant so much and we love the idea that they'd be wearing Alex Mill every day. It's really fun for us to get those kinds of things like Somsack said. And it's nice to be able to be choosy and say, "We're only going to work with people that really inspire us."
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. We mentioned Becky Malinsky, who has 5 Things You Should Buy on Substack. Speaking of Substack, Somsack, you have the most brilliantly named Substack. Tell us the name and why you were inspired to start a newsletter.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
My Substack name is Somstack, which is sort of perfect, right?
Kerry Diamond:
Genius.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
So this came up probably about a year ago, I think we were talking with Becky and she has one, and I was like, "What is it?" I didn't even know what a Substack was. I didn't even know, I was like, "Where do you even go find this Substack? Is it an app? Is it a website?" Rose, we were talking at the office and she was like, "Maybe you should do one." Because so often, I mean, I don't purport to be an expert of anything or not too many things, but I think there are some things I know and some things that the team asked me about, like "Where should I go get my clothes tailored? Or where do I get the best Thai food in New York?" And they're like, "Why don't you just put something else where I'm sure people care or want hear from you?" It still shocks me-
Ali Dillon:
Som's being very humble.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yes.
Ali Dillon:
I think everyone comes to him and says, "Where should I eat? Where should I shop? Where should I visit? Where should I travel to?" So when you have people doing that every day, it's like, "Of course, there's an audience."
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yeah. Why don't I just get this up and going? And it's been really important to not put it onto a subscription because I just then feel the pressure to have to churn out stuff and that's the last thing I want to do is churn stuff out. This should be fun. And it's been great. I mean, I probably should post a little bit more often, but it's been fun.
Kerry Diamond:
Who came up with a genius name?
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Who did? Maybe it was me or maybe it was Rose. Maybe it was between the two of us. Someone did. There's a new sort of series that we're doing called Insomnia too, where all the things I sort of scroll through in the middle of the night when I can't sleep. So Insomnia.
Kerry Diamond:
I was reading some of the Insomnia ones, but your most heartwarming post is about you as a young Parson student in the mid-90s hanging outside fashion shows and taking pictures of the models on disposable cameras no less.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
Pre-iPhone. Tell us about '90s, Somsack.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Oh gosh, I tear up every time I think about it. It's such a... I think about all the pictures that I took as a kid and in the '90s, unlike now, if you wanted to find something or do something, you really had to love it and go find it and go do it, and sort of research it and put your whole heart into it. We didn't have the internet, we didn't have Vogue.com and stuff, and I remember just getting all these pictures with my disposable camera and then dropping them off at-
Kerry Diamond:
And remember, you could only take one or two at a time?
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
One or two at a time.
Kerry Diamond:
Because you only had, what, 24 on a roll?
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Exactly.
Kerry Diamond:
Or 12.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
You'd drop them off at the CVS and then sometimes half the roll would come back and there'd be a finger in front of everything. It'd be the worst. And so in hindsight, as I was writing everything, I was just like, "Oh gosh. Imagine if I told this little kid who was staying outside of the tents that these pictures would somehow end up on Vogue.com, he would never believe it." And I still don't believe it. It's just such a personal sort of post, which I think is probably one of my most favorites. And I think the people reading it also, I got some really great reactions to that post.
Kerry Diamond:
And the pictures are so charming.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yeah.
Ali Dillon:
Yeah. And I remember seeing those photos when we worked together at J. Crew. I don't know if they were pinned up on a board, I'm sure they were to some degree. But what's incredible, and I wish I knew the night... I'm so happy to know this Som now, I wish I knew the '90s Som, his creativity and the staying power that those photos have 30 years later, they're still so interesting and relevant and conversation starting. And even the models that he was able to capture and just the effort to go into it. So it's really, the whole thing is amazing.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yeah. This past weekend, it had been sitting in a shoebox or a bunch of shoeboxes under my bed. And so this weekend, I finally got a photo album. Remember those? And I was just putting them all into sleeves this weekend.
Kerry Diamond:
You knew all the model's names, so they were happy to stop and pose for you.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
I also read, you went to high school with supermodel Shalom Harlow?
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
I did, yeah. I mean, she was a year ahead of us, and I remember one day, she was at school and then one day she wasn't. She just disappeared and then she came back maybe a year later having traveled the world and being a supermodel. I was like-
Kerry Diamond:
Did you see her in the halls and think, "She should be a supermodel?"
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Of course. Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
You did?
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yeah. And then I would go into the library and find the old yearbooks and find your picture and photocopy them.
Kerry Diamond:
You were born in Thailand and brought to Canada as a young child.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
We've had several guests on the show who are immigrants or the children of immigrants who have said that their parents discouraged them from pursuing a creative path. Was it different for you?
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
It was the same. I think, they didn't know any better. I think there were probably three careers that they thought we should go into, not because they wanted us to be wealthy or anything, but I think they just worried about our sort of well-being. And they knew that if you were either a doctor or a lawyer or maybe an architect.
Kerry Diamond:
Accountant.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Accountant, yeah, you would be taken care of or you'd be able to take care of them too. So that being said, yeah, they wanted me to be a doctor. I said I would be an architect, so when I came to Parsons, I was coming for "architecture", quote-unquote.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, that's what you told your parents?
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yes. And so when I got there-
Ali Dillon:
He exaggerated.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yeah, I exaggerated. I simplified and I exaggerated. After the first year, I definitely switched to fashion.
Kerry Diamond:
Now your grandmother was a seamstress?
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
Was she an inspiration?
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
A hundred percent. She was a seamstress. I would watch her, so the ladies in town would come to her apartment or to her house and she would make traditional tie costumes for weddings and banquets and stuff, and so I would help her, whether it be grabbing the pin cushion or just ironing things for her. Yeah, I would watch her. And my mom too to a certain extent, when it was our birthdays, she would take us to Joann's Fabrics. Pick a fabric, we'll make you a shirt or something. Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
When did you know you wanted to be a designer?
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
I knew I wanted to do something creative in fashion. I guess, I didn't know that a designer was actually a possible career. Maybe, probably in fourth grade in the back of our art class, just flipping through old Vogue magazines. I remember seeing all the names of, whether it be Isaac or Marc Jacobs or Donna Karen, all the designers that I loved and the name Parsons was always associated with each one. I was like, "I guess, that's where I got to go. Mecca. I think it's Parsons." And so I think that probably started it all.
Kerry Diamond:
It's so amazing what you see when you're younger and how that inspires you.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yeah. You never know. So I think it's always important to sort of keep your eyes open all the time.
Kerry Diamond:
I heard you tell this story or maybe I read it somewhere, but I thought this could be a future collaboration for you. You talked about when you came to Canada, you were given some hand-me-downs and one of them was a “Sesame Street” T-shirt. Can you tell the story about that shirt?
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
It was a T-shirt because we were sponsored by our local church and we were refugees also. We arrived in April. I don't think I had pants on, because I either got them wet on the plane or whatever, but it was April and it was freezing. And so the family that sponsored us gave us clothes, and one of them was this really cool sort of “Sesame Street” T-shirt with Big Bird on a seesaw. And I just remember that really resonating with me. I was like, maybe that's my love of graphic tees to this day. And the crazy story is I still have that T-shirt to this day, and it's in my bedroom. And I just look at it sometimes, I'm just like, "Wow, how far have you come?" It's so crazy.
Kerry Diamond:
Can you do a Somstack on the T-shirt?
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
I think that might be the next one. Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
When I heard that story, I was like, "Oh, they should do a “Sesame Street” collab."
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Oh my gosh.
Ali Dillon:
That's what I was thinking. Yeah.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Wouldn't that be funny? That's a great idea.
Kerry Diamond:
I did not know your family that they were refugees.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
You must have a lot of empathy for what people are going through right now, and-
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
That's just crazy.
Kerry Diamond:
Attack on immigrants right now.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
I just know that my life would be so different had I not been sponsored, nor had I not started our lives in Canada. And I just think back to my parents, they were like 20 years old, with two kids in this land that no one spoke their language. They didn't even have a grocery store that made the food or offered the food that they had. And so props to them and just to sort of move here and start a life.
Kerry Diamond:
Right. Ali, your turn. You're a bit of a sphinx, but I did find one fun story about you. When you graduated from the College of the Holy Cross, where you got a degree in sociology and women and gender studies. Well done, you.
Ali Dillon:
Thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
We like that. You interviewed J. Crew for a job. Mickey was CEO of J. Crew at the time. He handed you a piece of paper and said, "Write down why we should hire you." I heard you tell the story in an interview, but you didn't tell us what you wrote down.
Ali Dillon:
Oh, I didn't?
Kerry Diamond:
No. Or maybe they cut it from the interview.
Ali Dillon:
Oh, that's so funny. So yeah, I mean, a little backstory. I loved sociology because I love the study of people and I didn't even realize merchandising was a career. I knew things arrived in stores, but I didn't really understand it. I had had internships in finance, I thought that's-
Kerry Diamond:
They just unpack themselves.
Ali Dillon:
Yeah, I mean, now it's like, "Hello?" But I guess, my 19, 20-year-old self, I didn't appreciate it. Holy Cross is in Worcester, Massachusetts, not exactly the fashion capital of world, but my sister was visiting and was in my house. And I had all these Pinterest... Before I had Pinterest, I had all these magazine tears and that's when you were still doing catalog shopping. And they were all pinned up and it was kind of like what I was hoping for, wanting, inspired by whatever.
She kind of said to me, "You should think about going to retail." She had a very dear friend who was in that business, so gave me that foot in the door. And I remember thinking, because I had actually was coming for finance interviews, and I came and rounds of interviews, I think I met with one woman in all these rounds and I was a little defeated in that process. And even still I remember thinking, "Okay, well here, I'm going to go to another company that's run by a man." And that was a J. Crew with Mickey.
Read a lot about him and I knew a little bit about his leadership team, most of them included women predominantly. But from the moment I walked in there, the energy in that building, it was 2005, so a lot of the team had been there for about a year, year and a half, two years. They were really starting to turn the business around and it was electric, I mean, seismic. You could feel it reverberating around the walls. I was hooked and I remember it just thinking, "God, I want this job so badly. I don't even really a hundred percent know what I'm going to be doing, but I want to work here." I met that day with the five women who interviewed me are now either chief product officers, CEOs themselves, so it was Liz Binder who's currently the CPO of Lululemon. It was Tracy Gardner who became the president of J. Crew and now serves on several boards and it's incredible.
Trish Donnelly, Jen Foyle. It was just like this unbelievable. I was captivated by these women that I was meeting with. And then they said, "You're going to meet with Mickey now." So I was kind of like, "Okay, I'm going to go in." And I actually had to text my dad to ask him a question about getting someone's phone number, and my dad made me so nervous. He's like, "This is such a big deal. You're meeting with Mickey Drexler. "So I remember I was so nervous going in, sitting there.
And Mickey is... I mean, I can still remember that interview. He is exactly who he was 20 years ago. It'll be actually 20 years. I started on June 6th, 2005, and so it'll be 20 years of working with him this June. But we were in there and there was like Mickey had this, it wasn't a big office, I wouldn't call that. It was just a big room. He had a big table that sat in the room and there was tons of hubbub in that room. People came in, came out, he was paging people. He had a loudspeaker and I was kind of like-
Kerry Diamond:
Wait, let that sink in for a second. There was an intercom system?
Ali Dillon:
There was an intercom system. At the time I was there, I think we only had two floors. We ended up expanding to four floors, but he would page you or you could dial him 8001. You could get right to him. He would page people when he had a question, and it could be like, "Where should I eat? Where should we open a new store?" He's so curious. Anyway, I was kind of like, "I don't even know how this is going because there's so much going on." He was asking me questions and we're having a really good back and forth, but again, I couldn't get a gauge. And then he handed me a piece of paper. He had his feet on the desk, which he often again does still to this day, and he said, "Write down why I should hire you."
I'm so nervous, thanks in part to my father who had kind of made me feel like on edge. But I just thought if I was someone who was established as him and I was hiring someone who's so green like me, what would I want them to tell me? And so I wrote, "I will make a difference here." I gave him back the piece of paper and he looked at it and he kind of smiled and he slapped his hand on the table and he said, "You're hired." And that was it. I was there for the one day of rounds of interviews, and I remember it was such a whim that I was even kind of there. I had no idea that I was going to go and meet with someone from HR. It's set me off in this incredible journey, 13 years at J. Crew, and then I was at the Gap for five years and now being with the team here. So it's just been really fun to be with him from the very beginning and back with him in this role now.
Kerry Diamond:
What a beautiful answer.
Ali Dillon:
Yeah, thanks.
Kerry Diamond:
That you gave him. I have goosebumps.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yeah, it's a great answer.
Kerry Diamond:
You came up with that right on the spot, right off the top of your head?
Ali Dillon:
Yeah. And then maybe I'll give my dad, who's incredible, a lot of credit. I think, I probably had he not said to me, "Wow, this is a really big deal." I probably would've given an answer like "That was a little bit more what I thought I should write" instead of what was in my heart. Kudos, again, Mickey has always supported women in this huge way and that was part of the reason, but the women that I met with that day, even 20 years ago, they were so inspirational. Even talking to them, you could just tell they were motivated. They were so excited. If I hadn't even met with them all day, I don't think I would've written that, because it just made me feel like, "Okay, what are these women doing? They're just trying their hardest to drive this business, to motivate their teams, to breed excitement at the customer level." I mean, clearly, I was hooked then and hooked now as I was then.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, that's an amazing story. Are you two good at trusting your gut?
Ali Dillon:
As a merchant, you have to trust your guts.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
You have to.
Ali Dillon:
Yeah.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
If you work with Mickey also.
Ali Dillon:
Yeah, that's right. It has to be. You have to... Sometimes, we'll say, "If I think it is." You have to really have that courage of conviction and say, "This is what the customer is going to love." And you have to feel that yourself, I think. And if you don't, then it's not going to execute that way.
Kerry Diamond:
You nodded immediately, but were you always good at that when you started?
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
I mean, I wouldn't have maybe called at that, but you sort of knew. I think the minute you see something, inside you know, whether you like it or don't like it or whether it's good or bad. I mean-
Kerry Diamond:
I guess, you also don't become a designer if you don't have a strong point of view.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yeah. It's also helpful in sort of editing out the noise and the garbage almost, because you could be open to everything and then that's never good. Then there's no point of view, if you love everything. You can't love everything.
Kerry Diamond:
Last question before we do the speed round, do you two have a motto or a mantra that gets you through the day?
Ali Dillon:
One of them was "Run, don't walk." And we talked about that a little bit. That's a big kind of work ethos. Mickey's been saying that for 20 years, "Run, don't walk." How quickly can you do something? Don't iterate it and beat it to death talking about it, just kind do it. Another one that I think gets me by at work in the hectic days is "’Finding Nemo’ just keeps swimming." I mean, sometimes you have to just keep going. There's a lot of noise and if we lose sight of all the distractions and noise and the ideas and the excitement and the emotion, then we're not going to get anywhere.
And then the third, and this is one I think we try to keep at work and then also bleeds more into my personal life, is "Simplify and really try to keep things simple." And I think we find, in the office, if we're talking ourselves into circles, it's like, "Wait, just stop. We've gone too far. Just like keep it simple." If it's harder for us to come up with the idea, the customer is never going to understand it and we don't want to give them something where they're choosing not to buy it for a certain reason. So just keep it simple. Don't overcomplicate it. Yeah, so simplify is probably the biggest one, but I cannot think about making it not here "Run, don't walk" in my head.
Kerry Diamond:
Som, how about you?
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
All the time. Yeah. I think whether it's "Not overthinking it" or maybe even just "Every day is a new day." It's just like every day you wake up, it's a clean palette. Everything, sometimes you can get down on yourself and mired in sort of the mistakes and then you start overthinking stuff. But you know what? It's not the end of the world. Especially having gone to where I have and then thinking back to when I used to think it was the end of the world, it really is not the end of the world.
Kerry Diamond:
You are known for your tattoo collection. Do you have any mottos tattooed on yourself?
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
I don't have a lot of words, but the one I do have is a line from Neil Young song. "There is a town in North Ontario." And that's sort of like a nod to my Canadian roots.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, that's sweet. All right, speed round. What beverage do you start the day with?
Ali Dillon:
I have a green tea every morning.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Black coffee.
Kerry Diamond:
Favorite cookbook? Do you two cook?
Ali Dillon:
I love to cook.
Kerry Diamond:
You do?
Ali Dillon:
I absolutely love to cook. My favorite cookbook, and he's a friend, so I will give him a shout-out too, is “Let's Eat” by Dan Pelosi. I don't know if you know Dan.
Kerry Diamond:
Grossy Pelosi.
Ali Dillon:
I love him.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Grossy.
Ali Dillon:
We love him. My kids love all of his... I love all of his food, but my kids love all of his food. I really cook for my family. I have three kids and so I spend most of my weekend cooking with them for the week, meal prepping stuff for the week.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
I don't really cook from cookbooks. I serve more on the fly kind of guy and I don't even cook that often. But I just got a cookbook from my sister this year, it was Ruth Rogers cookbook. It's just like that kind of food I just love. I actually Googled-
Kerry Diamond:
“The River Cafe.”
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yeah. I think it was her prosciutto, radicchio pasta. It was four ingredients and that was it. That is my kind of recipe. Simple, simple, simple.
Kerry Diamond:
What are you streaming right now?
Ali Dillon:
I'm watching “The Bear,” which is so convenient for this podcast. My husband and I were behind. I'm watching it and so we just started the third season.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Streaming? Does “Jeopardy” count as streaming? Like DVRing “Jeopardy?” That's probably what I have.
Kerry Diamond:
Maybe.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Does that help you relax?
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
A hundred percent.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah.
Ali Dillon:
I love that, Som. I did not... That's my mom's favorite show too.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, yeah?
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Especially the “Tournament of Champions,” I love.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you know all the answers?
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
I used to be a trivia buff as a kid. I don't know all the answers. I probably-
Kerry Diamond:
Do you have all the answers, Somsack?
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
All the time.
Ali Dillon:
They're worldwide.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Oracle.
Ali Dillon:
I am thinking though that we need to do an Alex Mill trivia competition.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
That would be fun. True pursuit and stuff.
Kerry Diamond:
All these new social media franchises for you guys said Alex Mill's-
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
More things. Yes. To do and perform. That's Mill's trivia.
Kerry Diamond:
Favorite snack food?
Ali Dillon:
Doritos comes to mind for me.
Kerry Diamond:
Really?
Ali Dillon:
They say don't let myself have it all the time, but I love Doritos.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Cake. Any kind of cake. Just cake.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. We're going to skip ahead to the final question. If you had to be trapped on a desert island with one food celebrity, who would it be and why?
Ali Dillon:
I mean, I would happily be trapped with Dan. But Ina Garten. If you could put me anywhere with Ina Garten on an island, like this jewel box of a recording studio, I would be more than until I did.
Kerry Diamond:
Why Ina?
Ali Dillon:
To me, I think she was the first, maybe it was because of the accessibility on the Food Network, but she was the first person who really made me think about cooking from the heart, not having to be formal or fussy. And I just adore that about her. And I think she visited the J. Crew offices when we were there. She seemed so authentic, true to herself. So she's just an idol. Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Som, how about you?
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Maybe a Julia Child. I think old school. On top of everything that she'd cooked, all the sole meunières and stuff, just like all the stories that she'd probably have, growing up when she did and doing what she did.
Kerry Diamond:
All right. Well, you two are amazing. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I'm thrilled to have you as neighbors.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
So much fun.
Ali Dillon:
Yeah, we're so excited.
Kerry Diamond:
Alex Mill puts a lot of fun and positivity and color out into the world, and as one of your fans, I appreciate it.
Somsack Sikhounmuong:
Amazing. Thank you.
Ali Dillon:
Thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
That's it for today's show. I would love for you to subscribe to Radio Cherry Bombe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and leave a rating and a review. Anyone you want to hear on an upcoming episode? Let me know. Our theme song is by the band Tralala. Joseph Hazan is a studio engineer for Newsstand Studios. Our producers are Catherine Baker and Jenna Sadhu. And our editorial coordinator is Sophie Kies. Thanks for listening everybody. You are the Bombe.