Olivia Cheng Transcript
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Hi, everyone. You're listening to The Future Of Food Is You, a production of The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network. I'm your host, Abena Anim-Somuah, and each week, I talk to emerging talents in the food world and they share what they're up to as well as their dreams and predictions for what's ahead. As for me, I'm the founder of The Eden Place, a community that's all about gathering people intentionally around food. I love this new generation of chefs, bakers, and creatives making their way in the worlds of food, drink, media, and tech.
Today's guest is Olivia Cheng, founder of Dauphinette. Dauphinette is a New York City-based brand that Olivia started out of her NYU dorm. Olivia and I talked about how she found her passion for fashion, how she incorporates food into her collections, getting the luxury world to pay attention to upcycling, and of course, getting her designs displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art at just 23 years old.
Thank you to Kerrygold for supporting today's show. Kerrygold is delicious all natural butter and cheese made with milk from Irish grass-fed cows, raised on small family-run Irish dairy farms. Kerrygold's farming families passed their craft and knowledge from generation to generation. This traditional approach is the reason for the rich taste of Kerrygold. You can enjoy delicious sliced or shredded Kerrygold cheddar cheese available in mild or savory flavors. The shredded cheddar is perfect for those who love making mac and cheese. And now the grilling season this year, the cheddar slices will take any burger or veggie burger up a notch. There's also Kerrygold's classic salted butter in the gold foil, it's perfect for slathering on corn on the cob, always a summer fave. And the unsalted butter in the silver foil is an absolute must if you're turning sweet summer strawberries into strawberry shortcake. Visit kerrygoldusa.com to find the Kerrygold retailer nearest you and lots of great recipes.
Let's check in with today's guest. Olivia, thank you for joining us on The Future Of Food Is You podcast.
Olivia Cheng:
Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
I always like to start off by asking our guests, can you tell me where you grew up and how did food show up in your life?
Olivia Cheng:
So I grew up in a suburb outside of Chicago, it's called Barrington. And I think food really showed up in my life through my family, not so much the place where I grew up, it being really a classic suburb of the Midwest. My mom is Shanghainese and both my parents are Chinese so a lot of the cuisine that we had growing up was specific to Shanghai. Something about the way that they cook their everyday foods, like the vegetables, they're very pure in the way that they're prepared. They're just cooked in some oil and they keep all of the juices of the baby broccoli or the bok choy, whatever it is. I think a lot of vegetables, but enhanced by meat, those tiny dehydrated shrimp that come by the million, like those or just little pieces of pork or even pork fat-
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Or like pork floss, is that a big thing too?
Olivia Cheng:
Yes, pork floss. I remember we would always have our congee with pork floss and thousand-year eggs. So lots of umami flavors for an otherwise pretty plain dish of rice porridge.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
And then having grown up in the Midwest, are there particular classic Americana dishes that you came to love?
Olivia Cheng:
Classic Americana dishes. I don't know that I love these things because I grew up in the Midwest, or if it's because I like junky food, but I mean, simple things, mac and cheese. I love Fruity Pebbles. I still eat Fruity Pebbles everyday.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
That's so adorable. Yeah.
Olivia Cheng:
I'm trying to think of specialties of the Midwest. I mean, I am from outside Chicago, so they have deep dish pizza, which-
Abena Anim-Somuah:
And the Chicago dog, of course.
Olivia Cheng:
And the Chicago dog, which I've never had because I'm vegetarian. I have been since I was 18 or 17, but I just never had a chance to have a Chicago dog before that age. I mean, I hear great reviews, and Chicago-style Italian beef, that used to be a favorite. It's so good.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Yeah. I feel like now that the beras is super popular in television, that's been a big dish that everyone's trying to recreate or going to taste of.
Olivia Cheng:
Yeah, absolutely.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
But let's get into fashion, that's your main thing that you're working on these days. Where did you think your spark of fashion came from?
Olivia Cheng:
Sometimes I feel like a one trick pony because it's always what I've been interested in. And I think everything else that I've done up to this point, I haven't been alive for super, super long, but everything else is either just pushed me towards it or shown me something that I could rule out. I really grew up around fashion, but not in the sense of the fashion industry. My mom just was somebody, she was like the only person I hung out with for the first six years of my life.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
That's so cute. Yeah, built-in besty.
Olivia Cheng:
Yeah, she was like, "You really have a lot of trouble making friends." And I was like, "Yeah, I don't know. I think the problem is you, like you're always there." So her and I would always go shopping, but it was a very specific way of shopping, we would go thrifting, we would find things that we could put into the context of our own world and change and adapt. And it wasn't necessarily about finding the exact right thing out in the world, but it was finding something interesting and making that into the exact right thing for what you love at the moment.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
And how did Flora & Fauna become core components of the designs you have Dauphinette?
Olivia Cheng:
I've always been somebody who's really invested in materials, and in producing things, you could say that it's something as simple as a conversation starter, but something that is a little bit of a joke and a shock, but that doesn't necessarily read on the surface as that. And so, I was always really interested in how we could take these common motifs in fashion. A floral print dress is anywhere and everywhere, and how could I make that into something that is a level above, and that example, use real flowers. So that is an idea that I was really attracted to from the start.
And I started Dauphinette by doing upcycled leather jackets. I did a few leather jackets with pressed hydrangeas glued onto them, and then just sealed over and over again with this medium called Resolene, which is traditionally used to seal oil paintings. So that was kind of my introduction to using flowers in fashion. But frankly, the hydrangeas on the leather jacket, it's kind of like a one time wear if you want it to look perfect, because the second the wind hits, it doesn't matter how many hours you spent doing the Resolene, the flowers, they're not meant to stay on there. I was like, "I need to make something that people can actually wear." But that still captures that same excitement and novelty and evolution of the garment as we know it.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
And I love the name Dauphinette and the tagline, the Happiest Brand on Earth. How did you come up with the name?
Olivia Cheng:
It's actually really not a beautiful explanation at all. I was thinking about letters that are easy for everyone to pronounce, and a word that was memorable that I could obtain the URL to without difficulty. The word dauphine had been in my mind a lot because I'd come up with the idea, and it all sounds really silly and dopey now, but at the time I was 18 and I felt that I had come up with this idea in Paris and it would be so romantic and just cool to give the brand a French name. And I've always thought, it's so funny how obsessed and fascinated American people are with the French culture.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
So the American and Paris effect, it's so real.
Olivia Cheng:
Exactly. So I was like, "Why not?" And the word dauphine had been in my mind a lot. I felt like it was an interesting and enough word that didn't provide too many barriers to pronunciation. It wasn't like Proenza Schouler or something like that where everybody might find themselves a bit lost on how to pronounce it. I suppose my design perspective is you could call it rather feminine, so I thought Dauphinette, how cute, and the URL was available, so I matched it up.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
That's always the second-best option. It's like, cool name, is the URL available, we move. But for our listeners who are boosting their French vocabulary, what does dauphine mean?
Olivia Cheng:
Traditionally, the eldest son of the king, so the person that is next in line for the throne. So it is a very regal and fortunate position to be the dauphine.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
And so Dauphinette is I'm assuming the king's eldest daughter or just a feminine take on the word.
Olivia Cheng:
Yeah, exactly.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
That's beautiful. And how much of your personal style do you think translates over into the brand? And then how would you define your personal style as well?
Olivia Cheng:
Silly. I don't think the way I dress is silly, but to me it's silly. I like clothes that are funny. I think if it's not funny, I don't want to wear it. Today I am wearing a gold bionic finger. I mean, I enjoy the joke. On a personal level and for the brand, I've always really respected the idea of getting dressed, and this is something that I think about a lot, and I've also referenced in my collections. Last season I did a collaboration with the Bonnie Cashin archive, and Bonnie Cashin is the designer that brought about the Coach bag as we know it.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Oh, nice. Like the classic leather.
Olivia Cheng:
The classic leather with the turn lock, that was her. And then she's the one that coined the term layering in fashion. So before that, layering was not a fashion term. I mean, she really was just such a pioneer of American sportswear for women and just for the idea of women wearing separates and women wearing clothes that are comfortable and women or just people wearing leather not for sport. So she has this saying that clothing is, it's your first environment, it's the one that you choose for yourself. I've always liked clothes, I like proper jackets, I like dresses.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
You like things with structure and depth.
Olivia Cheng:
Yes, exactly. I like clothes that you can't crumple up. I mean, you could, but it would be disrespectful to the garment.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Yeah. You're also a young designer. In New York City, there are so many designers that everyone is constantly looking up to and it's such a competitive space. But you've managed to have some pretty STAR setted moments. So it seems like one of your first big breaks came with an encounter with New York Magazine. Can you tell us a little bit about that moment and what exactly went viral with your pieces?
Olivia Cheng:
I started super young, so at the time I was 19 and I had my line of upcycled outerwear and I went to school downtown. And so, one day, I get this email from New York Magazine and the editor there is preparing the holiday gift guide. And at that time, I know nothing about the editorial calendar. I was like, "Why are they preparing a gift guide for the holidays in September? That's ridiculous." Which I think at 19 I was a bit naive thinking that, but they asked for a hi-res photograph, 300 DPI of this upcycled mink fur coat that I had made, and I did not have a 300 DPI flat lay image of it, but I did have white bedsheets and a stool. And so, before I went to class, I just laid the jacket out as flatly as I could, and I had my camera from when I was 16, I actually still have that camera.
So I take this photo, I send it. I think I did use a background deleting app on my phone, and I tried to export it as high resolution as the app would allow, and I sent it out. And they don't really correspond with you after that, but then I remember when the holiday gift guide issue came out, because I was at the CVS on Astor Place and Jerry Saltz was on the cover, and I saw his little Salvador Dali mustache moment that he was having on the cover that year. And I went into the holiday gift guide, and then they had all their items by price and ascending price, and the coat was pretty expensive because it was upcycled patched fur done by me, and it was there, and I was so, so excited because I had never seen anything that I had made really anywhere, but especially in print before.
And I think that with New York Magazine in particular, because at least with the strategist, it is a shopping magazine. And so later on, the first product for us to really go viral was our floral and then later the food earrings. But just that concept of this botanical, this piece of nature encased in resin. Then again, I think New York Magazine ran an article that year that was called, What is the best thing under $100 that you've bought for yourself this year? Which I would click on that, I want to know.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Oh yeah, I love those things.
Olivia Cheng:
Everybody else is buying on a budget and they love it. Somebody said that, it was our rose bud earring, I mean, obviously you know this, but press pieces, they don't always convert. It might be cute, another rung on the belt, but it doesn't necessarily make you any money or even give you exposure, it's just something to add to your press packet. It was really interesting to see what media can do, and I think that was very much an early proof of concept moment for me because I remember from that article, we sold so many rose bud earrings. That was kind of the year that really changed the scope of the business for me. And it's interesting because at that point, I was 22, the business grew so quickly, and when you're that age and you have no prior work experience, you kind of, I mean, not naive enough to think that this is forever, but you don't know what's next. And so, you do kind of just run with it and you're unsure of how exactly to manage the growth.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back.
Kerry Diamond:
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Abena Anim-Somuah:
Can you walk us through the process for a mood board to runway?
Olivia Cheng:
I've realized that I'm somebody who goes through phases a lot. Perhaps I'm just a perpetual teenager, but I'm always going through a phase. Every season so far has been pretty different. After we had this year and a half long viral moment with the botanical earrings and all of that jewelry situation, I really didn't know what I wanted to design because frankly, people were saying, "You're a jewelry designer," but I was like, "I didn't really design any jewelry. We did these flowers and then I put them onto earring hooks." Is that a design? To be transparent, no, I didn't do anything there except for develop the medium. And I think that's why people are buying it, they're not buying it because of how intricate it is, and that was on purpose. I think if you take something that's already so like what is that, and you force it into a complex setting, then it kind of takes away from the power of that object.
But I had never really had a real budget to do a show before I was self-taught. And for the next year and a half after that, I really didn't know what I was making. I mean, I was doing four collections a year, plus DTC, so that's direct-to-consumer. So I was also doing things that would go straight onto our website, our e-commerce. So it was like 400 SKUs product units a year, 400 different things to design, and I was the only one designing it. So I don't know that the quality of my work, my ideas were where I wanted them to be.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Yeah, because you have to put so much out.
Olivia Cheng:
Right. And so around last year, I mean, I felt like I had been stuck for too long and it was becoming a little bit unacceptable, and you can never show that publicly. Publicly, you have to stand by the things you make. And when I look at those things in retrospect, I do think they're cute, I like them. I mean, we're still selling them, but they are not what I think should be next. I felt as if I was making things that I liked, but that they weren't pushing the conversation forward, and I couldn't rest on that forever.
Around this time last year, I started thinking about what exactly I wanted to say with Dauphinette because it's not just flowers, it's not just whimsy or cuteness because that's not me, and that's not what anybody in my company is really like. I wanted that to come across in the work that we produce, and so I started to do a lot more with upcycling. I think since in the past year, my design process has really, really changed. Our last collection really was the first collection that I've done in maybe ever that I have felt really confident about watching it come down the runway, and it was also our first runway show.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
I'm really interested to hear how do you work with real food to produce the accessories. I especially love the baguette bag that you have, obviously the earrings. And what are the best, most difficult parts about incorporating real food into the work that you do?
Olivia Cheng:
Well, I'll start with the most difficult part, which is that food rots. An early criticism of our work was it's just an orange slice. I can buy an orange at the supermarket, which you totally can, you can buy an orange slice or you can buy those pre-dehydrated cocktail orange slices and-
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Make yourself some earrings.
Olivia Cheng:
... you can make yourself some earrings, you absolutely can. But the thing is, it's something that's easy to try, very difficult to perfect. And it took us a really long time to figure out. I spent over a year training our factory because I was working with a single artisan that we still work with, and she was doing a really, really excellent job with everything, and then I needed to skill it, so I found a factory that did resin work, and I was like, "Hey, can you try this?" The quality just wasn't there, and so it took us so much time to really train them, to get them to use the right kind of resin, to get them working at the level that we needed things to be at, so that it wasn't like a homemade product, it was something that you could sell to a department store, a specialty store, or put in a physical brick and mortar and feel good about.
So I think that was the most difficult part. Working with the bread, I can't speak to as much because those we make in collaboration with a Japanese company called Pampshade.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Very cool.
Olivia Cheng:
Yeah. So they do a lot of bread lamps and lights, and that was how I found out about them. And so, I reached out to the founder, her name is Yukiko, and we started by doing some of their bread lamps with pressed flowers on them. So we had a baguette lamp covered in hydrangeas, and we have-
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Oh, that's so cool.
Olivia Cheng:
Yeah. I keep trying to get her to do more stuff with pretzels, and she's like, "You don't understand. The pretzels are difficult, I'm not doing more pretzels." That I just personally love pretzels and beer cheese, so I was just being selfish.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
It can happen. I mean, I could totally see like a focaccia clutch or something.
Olivia Cheng:
Oh, okay.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
I love food, I love fashion, so I feel like it's just the perfect combo.
Olivia Cheng:
That's amazing. Okay, I'll talk to her.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
So what's been exciting though about working with food? I know obviously it's a very technical art and food so well, but I'm sure there must be some joy when you finally hold the bread or the cherries in your hands once the product is done.
Olivia Cheng:
Oh, for sure. I mean, also the thing with resin is it almost helps you to see things more clearly. For example, going back to that dehydrated cocktail orange, if you have the orange in your hand at the bar or somewhere, it looks wrinkly and the colors are a bit darkened and muddled from it being dehydrated, but when you put it back in the resin, it almost looks like it's plumped back to life. And you can see the colors more vividly, and like on a kiwi, you can see the tiny little furs on the skin of the kiwi, and you can see the seeds and I'm not sure what they're called, but the veins of the kiwi so vividly.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Yeah. I guess the pith or something like that.
Olivia Cheng:
Yes, the pith. That really, really is thrilling because you do feel like a little bit of a botanist, a scientist when you're holding this object that has gained clarity, thanks to these preservation techniques.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Yeah. It's almost like a still life, because you get to exactly enjoy and preserve this thing in its moment, in its peak. That's so exciting.
Olivia Cheng:
It's with you for a long time.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
And you've had some amazing career highlights. A bunch of your pieces were featured in the Met collection, In America: Lexicon of Fashion, which is part of the Costume Institute, and that theme is the theme for the Met Gala. So congratulations. And you also happen to be the youngest designer at just 23 years old. I want to know what was going through your head when you got that call? How did the Costume Institute come about to finding you?
Olivia Cheng:
I remember it was the summer, and I had gotten an email from them a couple of months ago. They said they were interested in seeing what we had and that they were working on a collection featuring a group of American designers. And this has happened multiple times now. Usually when I get an email that I think is too good, I always think it's a scam, even though it's from this person at Met. We sent them some pictures and it was touch and go for a while. And then one night in the late summer, I remember I was watching “Jersey Shore” season 1, the episode where Snooki gets punched, and so I'm coming off that high and then suddenly, I get this email and it's from the Met, and they're like, "We would like to submit a formal loan request for these pieces." And I was like, "Oh my goodness. Snooki was an omen." So that was kind of how that happened. And then after that, it moves pretty quickly. So basically they send somebody to come pick the clothes up from you and-
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Not Anna Wintour.
Olivia Cheng:
You know what, actually, yeah, she had this big backpack and she was like, "Give me clothes."
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Then she walked away.
Olivia Cheng:
Yeah. And she probably just took the subway.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Yeah, just casual.
Olivia Cheng:
So they sent this person to come pick up the clothes, and two or three weeks later, they were in the institute. And I went to the preview and got to see the collection. And I felt very, very lucky because, I mean, it was definitely where to this day, I feel like it's something where we kind of snuck in the back door and people were like, "Who let them in?"
Abena Anim-Somuah:
No one is thinking. No, I got to see the exhibit, and it fit in so beautifully.
Olivia Cheng:
Oh, thank you.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
But for our listeners who haven't had a chance to see, can you describe the two dresses that you had in the display?
Olivia Cheng:
Yeah. So we were really lucky because I think we were one of the three or four design houses that were able to feature more than one look. So the first, it was all about our work with flowers, and the first look was this organza top, it was the earliest floral piece that I had made, and it was silk organza, and then the cuffs of the sleeves were filled with pressed pansies and daisies. And then after that, we had made this sheer organza dress with a similar concept, except the pansies were made into a waistband, and it was the dress layered over the top.
And then the second look was this chainmail dress, which our floral chainmail was what came next in my pursuit of floral fashions. And essentially every single little resin disc holds a preserved leaf or flower, they're all hand drilled and then linked together, and I'm trying to remember the exact number, I don't know, it was something like 1,300 or so resin discs. And I remember making that, I made that dress by myself at my apartment. I started it the night that I was going to go see my parents in Chicago for the winter holidays, and then I finished it, I think, the following year.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Obviously, we're a food podcast, and I'm really curious to hear about your relationship to cooking and to food. Have you had any exciting food experiences in the last weeks, months, days that you've enjoyed and you think maybe will eventually transfer over into the brand?
Olivia Cheng:
Yes. So recently I kind of snuck in. Yeah, I kind of lied to get into the Fancy Food Imports convention in New York City. I mean, it was at the Javits Center, and it was the craziest thing I'd ever been to. It was like gourmet Costco samples X 4,000. There were so many vendors. Wow. I think I'll listen to this one day and be very embarrassed, but I had the best time. I didn't think it was possible to eat so much cheese, like good cheese that you don't want anymore, but I think an hour in, I was trying to be brave and tough it out and eat as much as I could, but I was-
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Like my stomach will make more room.
Olivia Cheng:
Exactly. I was like, "Come on, get with it." And it was running out of room, but I did get to try some very interesting things from this one Australian cheese maker.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Very cool.
Olivia Cheng:
Yeah, I'm vegetarian, but I got to try this. I believe it was a Brie or a Camembert with live green Australian ants in it.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
No way.
Olivia Cheng:
I mean, the ants weren't alive, but I guess they're just called live green ants. They were really cute, they were like the color of golden raisins, and they had all their little legs.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
She got a little crunch in there.
Olivia Cheng:
Oh, yes. Yeah, lots of crunch. Honestly, it was delicious. And they also had a really good lemon myrtle cheese. What else? I mean, I loved the little Japan that they had there. There were some people dressed up as shiitake mushrooms. Some people dressed up as those Taiyaki red bean fish. So that was my most recent big food venture, it was unlike any other food event I'd been to.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
And something that you've talked about, you love this sense of community that comes around with your brand. People when they come to your store in the West Village, they're not just buying an item, they're coming to be a part of some community. And you've expressed desires to open up a wine bar, potentially, you'll be serving this cheese. What sparked the decision to build the wine bar, and how do you hope that it'll serve as a community space for your brand and for your customers?
Olivia Cheng:
I was filling out an application for a grant, and we didn't get the grant, but they always ask, "What are your long-term goals?" And I'm not somebody who's great at thinking about the long-term, I just assume that I'll figure it out because I feel like having those plans usually leads not to disappointment, but why would I spend my time planning for things that I'm most likely going to change my mind on, because I do change my mind a lot. I thought about it and I was like, "Well, what is something that I genuinely would be balls to the wall excited to do?" And I haven't really let go of that thought since, which is to open a wine bar, well, it's actually going to be a speakeasy wine bar. I mean, no speakeasy in New York is real, but it's even less real because the wine bar doesn't exist yet. And I'm already telling you, it's a speakeasy. So it's okay, it doesn't need to be a cool speakeasy, it can be an efficient speakeasy.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Yeah. There's some hidden element, it doesn't have to be the whole thing.
Olivia Cheng:
Precisely. Because I also want a second store, and I think we can just get one of those really long stores, and it can be a store in the front and a wine bar in the back.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Well, we should manifest a little bit about it. What are you thinking in terms of the types of wine you want to have, the aesthetics, the cheeses you want?
Olivia Cheng:
I mean, love cheese, and I love wine, and I love small plates. Small plates make the world go round, but I'm not somebody who works in food ultimately, and I don't want to stick my nose where it doesn't belong, so I have great friends that I think could do it for me. And I will be there every step of the way to "test" the products and-
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Very important part.
Olivia Cheng:
Yes. Naturally I will be doing my due diligence and eating some cheese for the greater good.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
I love that a lot.
Olivia Cheng:
Yeah. So I mean, I have a few friends who are very, very knowledgeable about their wine and cheese and their foods, so I think that I would work with them to bring that element to life, and I would focus more on the environment.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
As a young founder and in a very competitive industry, I want to know more about how you think the fashion industry has supported young designers like yourself. So what work do you think the industry should be doing as a whole?
Olivia Cheng:
I think the industry, I mean, they're definitely trying, I think, I mean things like the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund or Fashion Trust US, which opened up last year in the U.S., I think. There's a number of grants and things that you can apply for, but I think that there's not necessarily structures built out. I mean, I just don't know that that's necessarily how fashion is built for people to have sustained long-term success, because if the idea is that in this traditional fashion structure, most designers are selling to wholesalers. Realistically, they're selling to wholesalers at 40% of the retail price, and they have to make money within that 40%, I'm just spilling all the secrets, and then they get paid like net 45%. So they don't get paid until months after. I mean, from the time they start producing the product to the time that the check hits their bank account for 40% of retail value, it's usually five to six months.
For a young designer, often designers don't have business backgrounds to try and float their business on that, and that alone, I think it doesn't matter how good your ideas are, it's not necessarily sustainable. And so, I think what fashion could do better if the convening forces at large within this industry are interested in helping to provide sustainable solutions for young apparel business owners. I really think they should do a better job of connecting people with each other, because every single time, I have met another designer, it's never been anything but helpful. They're always specializing in something a little bit different from you, but you both need a factor. You both need good factors, you both need sustainable and cute tissue paper, you both need many of the same things, and you can help each other and you know what each other are going through. I'm not somebody who headed up a publication or owned a fashion brand that is now worth $45 billion, that's next year.
So I think that is something that is really helpful. And I'm not sure that this necessarily exists as much, but I'm sure it does, and I'm just not really privy to it. This idea that people in fashion are competitive in a way that is unhelpful to one another. You can be a competitive performer without competing against specific people, you're competing against a market, you're trying to produce things that are interesting to the client, not to make sure that somebody else produces things that are not interesting. And so, I think the best thing for young designers and just people working in any creative industries to connect them to each other.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Connecting for community, not competition.
Olivia Cheng:
Yeah, exactly. Precisely.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Something I want to touch on too is the finance aspect. I think especially for creative industries, it's like as much as you want to bank on all your ideas and that's what moves people to be interested in, you still need money to move these ideas. So, I'm curious to hear how have you balanced pursuing your creative ideas while also making sure that you have good business acumen to keep things going?
Olivia Cheng:
Yeah, I've always been very much a business person, I don't necessarily think that people expect it from me until they meet me. I've been self-employed since I was 15, so I was working and making some form of income on my own for a number of years before I even started the brand. I mean, it wasn't really a business school that prepared me for this type of career, but I did go to a business school. I think that having financial acumen or talking to people that have financial acumen is equally, if not more important than having great ideas.
I mean, I think every designer or creative person's fear is middling out. You don't want to be the person with the great ideas that doesn't know how to make them happen. Because, I mean, I'm 1,000% sure right now that I'm not the most talented person in any room of fashion designers. You don't need to be the most talented, you just need to want it the most, or I suppose not even the most, just the hardest. You need to be the one that figures out a way to make the world and the experience that you want and to understand how to communicate that vision to other people in a way that they will also be excited about it and that they will understand. I don't think creativity is lost in trying to help other people understand your vision.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
That's so true. You can still have your creativity and you can still support others, you're winning either way. We're huge manifesters on the podcast, and so where do you hope to see Dauphinette?
Olivia Cheng:
I have plans. I don't want to say these plans out loud, not because I don't think I could make them happen, but I very well could change my mind.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
You can just tell us one, this can be an archive for later.
Olivia Cheng:
Okay. This can be an archival later.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
I know that's a fashion term.
Olivia Cheng:
Okay. Well, I suppose this is the most obvious, but I think something that I've really been working on, and I suppose it's just my biggest job as a fashion designer is to make runway work, presentation ready work that I feel really good about. And I think trying to balance that with finding a commercially viable way to run my apparel business, that is something I'm still figuring out because my runway collections keep getting weirder and weirder and less and less sellable.
I realized recently that I've been on pause from designing any clothes to sell, and I realized that is one of the reasons that I've been doing vintage so much, like maybe 80% because I love it, but 20% because I'm buying myself time and I need time to figure out what's next, and I don't want to be putting all my resources into things that I don't feel good about. And so, that's part of my mission as well is this idea that I think vintage is very fashionable and trendy and all of those things right now, which is a sentence I can't even believe I'm saying because why should the age of something be trendy that feels-
Abena Anim-Somuah:
That's just fashion for you.
Olivia Cheng:
It just feels a bit ridiculous. But I mean, within my general hopes and intentions with Dauphinette, I like to think about the way that people actually dress. That's I think the most realistic part of me is I want to offer to our customers in our community a way of dressing that is actually reasonable to them. And I want my store to reflect that. I think oftentimes stores are utopic in the sense that they show you what's kind of unattainable for you, and I think our store, it has many of those utopic elements, but when you really come inside and you look through, you really can find things that are sensible.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
And help build on your style or your aesthetic, if that makes sense. Our girl, Hilary Duff wore one of your pieces on her show, “How I Met Your Father.” Are there any other dream clients or people that you'd love to see in a Dauphinette design one day?
Olivia Cheng:
The first person that came to mind was the pig from “Charlotte's Web.”
Abena Anim-Somuah:
That's adorable.
Olivia Cheng:
The celebrity we all needed. I'm not necessarily the person that's the most updated on celebrity culture and things like that. When I think about the customer, I'm thinking about this vague concept of a person and it could apply to anybody whether they are a public figure or not, and I think it's just almost this idea of commitment. When you wear one of our pieces, you're committing to a certain level of volume and certain level of expression about yourself simply based on what you're wearing. And if you're comfortable with that, then you are our customer. And if you're not, then work on it.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
I love that. Well, Olivia, we're going to play our fun Future Food Is You game called our Future Flash Five. Are you excited?
Olivia Cheng:
No.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
No worries.
Olivia Cheng:
But yes.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
No, don't be nervous. Yes.
Olivia Cheng:
Excitement doesn't need to be a positive emotion, it can also be rooted in fear and terror.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
I love that.
Olivia Cheng:
Yes. I'm excited. I'm excited. Okay, let's do it.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Let's do it. The future of sustainable fashion.
Olivia Cheng:
Complex.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
The future of New York City.
Olivia Cheng:
Nerve wracking.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
The future of wine bars.
Olivia Cheng:
Dauphinette.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
The future of luxury goods.
Olivia Cheng:
Bleak.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
And the future of flowers.
Olivia Cheng:
Dead flowers always die.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Olivia, thank you so much for joining us. If we want to continue to support you, where are the best places to find you?
Olivia Cheng:
Well, you can find us on Instagram at Dauphinette, D-A-U-P-H-I-N-E-T-T-E.nyc, as in New York City, also online at Dauphinette.com, or you can come to our store, it's really fun. And it is in the West Village at 60 Bedford Street.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Amazing. Thank you so much.
Olivia Cheng:
Thank you.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Before we go, our guest is going to leave a voicemail at The Future Of Food mailbox just talking to themselves 10 years from now.
You have reached The Future Of Food Is You mailbox. Please leave your message after the beep.
Olivia Cheng:
I know listening to this will make you recoil, but please don't because I hope you've learned by now that progress doesn't need to include disliking every former version of yourself. There's a quote we love from the Little Prince, it says, "It is the time you've wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important." So here you are attending your rose plant 10 years into the future. I hope you're making work and art that you feel good about, but if you aren't right now, that is fine too, I'm sure you'll find a way out of it. What I really mean to say is I hope your little rose has allowed you to grow in a multitude of directions. We all deserve to expand in more ways than one. When you go out into the world feeling like the walking embodiment of a career in progress, I hope you remember to have a robust personal life.
More specifically, I hope you have a better idea of what that means to you. You've always been aware, perhaps overly aware of what you are, but who you are is a much harder question and one that I know you haven't always afforded yourself as much think space to answer. I hope you're discerning about and committed to the people and things in your life. Join satisfaction may be everybody's right, but they're hard-earned and frankly temporary. I hope you never stop reinventing waste to feel those things. I hope you're loved and that you love back just as hard. And to kick it back to our rose metaphor, I hope the thorns on the vine don't keep your hands out of the soil. Good luck.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
That's it for today's show. Do you know someone who you think is the future of food? Tell us about them. Nominate them at the link in our show notes, or leave us a rating and a review and tell me about them in the review. I can't wait to read more about them. Thanks to Kerrygold for sponsoring our show. The Future Of Food Is You is a production of The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network. Thanks to the team at CityVox Studios, executive producers Kerry Diamond and Catherine Baker and associate producer Jenna Sadhu. Catch you on the future flip.