Less Than a Decade After Launching Her Own Label, Tory Burch C'88 Is
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Less than a decade after launching her own label, Tory Burch C’88 is one of the most recognizable names in fashion. Through mentoring and microloans, the Tory Burch Foundation is empowering other women entrepreneurs to follow in her footsteps. By Kathryn Levy Feldman From Brand to RoleModel a recent evening at Tory Burch LLC in downtown Manhattan, the resort collection of bright, classic, ON and preppy-chic clothing and accessories was not getting much attention from the 75 women gathered in the trademark orange-and-green showroom. In fact, the clothing racks had been pushed to the sides of the mirrored space to make way for 11 glass-topped tables, where the women—aged 20 to 60, and each the owner of her own small business—were engaged in a networking forum modeled on speed dating and organized by the Tory Burch Foundation and its micro-financing partner, Accion. The evening was one of about a dozen similar mentoring events Burch’s foundation has held in locations such as New York, Chicago, and Hawaii. Every 20 minutes, the women moved from table to table to tap the expertise of a different mentor in fields including (that evening) retail, hospitality, real estate, insurance, and marketing. Burch herself circulated among the tables, listening in on conversations and beaming. 44 NOV | DEC 2012 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE PHOTOGRAPH BY PATRICK DEMARCHELIER From Brand to “I’m lucky to have had many mentors throughout my career,” Burch says. THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE NOV | DEC 2012 45 “For our mentoring events, we focus Certainly she has demonstrated hers. est influence,” she says. “They wore time- on inviting business leaders from diverse Just eight years after launching her own less, elegant pieces mixed with very fields our entrepreneurs need help with,” fashion line, she has created a global personal details. My father [the late Ira she explains. Participants in the “Friends lifestyle-brand: Tory Burch merchandise Earl “Buddy” Robinson W’43] had his of Tory” network include such high- is sold in more than 1,000 department jackets lined with Hermès scarves, and powered figures as J. Crew chairman and and specialty stores as well as 80 nation- my mother always brought back incred- CEO Millard Drexler and author and al and international stand-alone bou- ible pieces from her travels. I started Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski. tiques. In 2008, Burch won the Council experimenting with a balance of classics This particular evening, Cindi Leive, of Fashion Designers of America award and more eclectic pieces in college.” editor-in-chief of Glamour magazine, and for Accessory Designer of the Year. Sales The sunflower emblem of the Tory Burch the CEO of jeweler David Yurman, Glenn this year should exceed $800 million Foundation pays tribute to that parental Senk, are on hand, among others. and rumors of going public have been influence—it’s based on one of the pieces The focus is all business. Constance circulating for about a year. of jewelry Burch’s father designed for her Sherman, whose “Hot Girl Pearls” have “She started her business at a kitchen mother, a sunflower pendant that Tory been featured on The View television table in her apartment with kids running herself now cherishes and often wears. show, wants to know about going global. around,” says Glenn Senk, who has also Her mother, Reva—after whom Burch’s The owner of a teen/tween party business served as chief executive at Urban wildly popular line of ballet flats is that operates out of a storefront contem- Outfitters and Anthropologie. “Every named—remains a mentor. Singer notes plates marketing on a non-existent bud- good business I know starts at a kitchen that Burch is “ready at a moment’s notice get. A jewelry designer and recent trans- table or in a garage.” On top of that, he to break into praise of her mother’s tal- plant to New York wonders if she should adds, Burch has all the qualities of a true ents as an organizer of holiday festivities revamp her entire line or try and market entrepreneur: she is passionate about and organic farming.” her original designs in the city. However her vision, she is scrappy, and she works Burch attended the all-girls Agnes Irwin useful the advice of the expert mentors, 24/7. “You can send Tory an email at 5 School in Bryn Mawr, where she was a according to Burch the true value of the a.m. or at 11 p.m. and she answers it formidable tennis player. When it was time sessions is that the women will learn just within a half hour,” he confides. for college, Penn was “absolutely [my] first as much from each other. “Sadly, it’s true,” Burch admits. choice,” she says. She fondly remembers “There is the Madeleine Albright quote Such dedication belies the Main Line- classes in art history, her major, with David that goes, ‘There is a special place in Hell born socialite-turned-fashionista that Brownlee (currently the Frances Shapiro- for women who do not help other women,’” Burch is often portrayed as being. Weitzenhoffer Professor and chair of the says Glamour’s Leive. “Well, Tory’s defi- Despite speculation that she owes her graduate group in the History of Art), as nitely not going to Hell!” success to the deep pockets of her social- well as in sociology with the late E. Digby It wasn’t concern for her afterlife that ly prominent friends and her ex-husband, Baltzell W’39 Hon’89—and was one of the motivated Tory Burch C’88 to decide in financier Christopher Burch, with whom founding members of the Kappa Alpha 2009 to establish her own foundation; she has three sons, the truth is that she Theta sorority. and she wasn’t out merely to do good is extremely good at what she does. During her junior year, Burch partici- works, either. Providing mentorship and Burch “seems to have an infallible pated in a Semester at Sea program. “I microfinancing opportunities is “not instinct for what resonates with female traveled to 14 countries and saw a side charity; it’s empowerment,” she told CNN consumers across class and age divides,” of poverty I’d never seen,” she says, which Money in 2011. “It’s an investment in our says Sally Singer, editor of The New York is where her commitment to give back collective futures.” Times Style Magazine. was inculcated. From that point on, she Rather, it was Burch’s firsthand expe- That sixth sense is coupled with a near- says philanthropy and education were rience of the difficulties women face in constant, focused drive to deliver new always a part of her vision. simply having their aspirations taken goods that both expand and reinforce Not that this approach was always wel- seriously, let alone getting financing for her consistent vision. “Tory turned her comed. Early on, one of her investors a start-up, that led her to create a pro- unique view of the world into a busi- advised her to “never bring up philanthro- gram specifically geared toward helping ness,” Senk elaborates. “She shared the py and business in the same sentence.” women entrepreneurs in the US. “It’s way she lives with the world.” “Philanthropy was thought of as women much easier for a woman in a developing doing charity benefits—very Junior League,” country to get a microloan than it is ory Robinson grew up in Valley she said in the Fast Company interview. here,” Burch told Fast Company, when Forge, Pennsylvania, on a 35-acre “But I thought—and people are now think- the magazine named her to its League “gentleman’s farm” with three ing—that business and philanthropy and of Extraordinary Women in June. “Early Tbrothers, Robert, James, and Leonard. A doing good really do go hand-in-hand.” on, it was just the way potential investors self-professed tomboy, she credits her par- After Penn, Burch got her first job an were a little condescending. I felt that ents with instilling the fashion sense that assistant working for the Yugolslavian fash- from the beginning. There was a stigma has fueled her designs. ion designer Zoran—from whom, she says, attached to being a woman in business. “My style has always been classic, but she “learned about the elements of running I think it’s about the ambition.” I have to say my parents were my great- a small design atelier”—and followed that 46 NOV | DEC 2012 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE Participants at the foundation’s mentoring events get expert advice—and learn from each other, says Burch. with an editorial stint at Harper’s Bazaar, has become legendary in the fashion rooklyn-based jewelry designer where she was “exposed to some of the most industry, the store’s inventory was sold out Natasha Wozniak knows from pas- creative people in fashion.” Next she moved by the end of its opening day. sion and exhaustion. In 2010, after into the public-relations side of the fashion By the end of 2012, Burch will have Bbeing in business for nine years, she was industry, working for Ralph Lauren (“where opened 25 new stores, each unique to its feeling the pinch of the economic downturn. I discovered the importance of marketing neighborhood and clientele but all emanat- “There was a huge drop-off in sales, and I and story-telling”), Vera Wang (“which was ing that same ethos. “We are opening about had used credit-card financing to get me about to expand a brand”), and Madrid- 10 more stores in the Middle East, Asia, through,” she recalls.