Ask Rachel - The Extras

Published Mar 21, 2025, 9:00 AM

Join Rachel Zoe this week as she answers a variety of different listener questions that she wasn't able to respond to on Instagram! What past or present star would Rachel like to style? Is not taking advice, the best advice? And was her first childhood memory fashion related? Tune in and found out! 

Hi everyone, I'm Rachel Zoe and you're listening to Climbing in Heels for your weekly dose of glamour, inspiration and fun. Okay, guys, I'm starting to think the podcast should really just be me answering listener and follower questions because every time I put them up on Instagram, I get so many incredible questions and I can't answer them all. So today I've pulled some of my favorite questions that I didn't get to answer, and I'm going to answer many for you today. Okay, one more thing before we jump into it. We're gearing up for season four of the podcasts, and I want to know what guests and topics are important to all of you. I love connecting with my podcast community every week, and I want to.

Know what you're most interested in.

So feel free to DM at Climbing in Heels pod with any and all ideas. Okay, dream celebrity to style dead or alive. Someone really fun who loves fashion and can play dress up. Sianna Miller, Ultimate cole Girl Kate Moss. That would be iconic. I would die to style of Sukie Waterhouse like Dakota Johnson. Just girls that want to have fun and dress up and love fashion and don't take it too seriously. But like, we'll go there and just have some fun. Dead celebrity that i'd want to dress god, Audrey Hepburn, Audrey Hepburn, I would definitely say that that would be an honor. Okay, So my retirement plan now that my life has changed, is it still making jewelry on the beach in the south of France. I love this listener question because it means you are definitely paying attention to what I say, because even my kids know that's my retirement plan. No, it hasn't changed, I think now more than ever.

I think the dream is to.

Buy a chateau in the south of France and have my kids and my grandchildren and you know, everyone just together while I sit in front of the house on the beach making beautiful jewelry in a caftan. That would be the plan, with a tan of course, and big sunglasses.

I have the visual.

Okay, what is my advice to someone who wants to open a clothing betique?

I don't know. Sorry, Okay, let's see. I would say that's a.

Very hard business to get into. And I only say that because Truthfully, the clothing industry is one of the absolute hardest to survive in now more than ever, and I think especially now that there's new tariffs that are happening outside of this country coming into the country. It's I think there are challenges now and over the last several years that have made it harder and harder for clothing stores to exist. It's even hard for big department stores that are heavily funded and multi branded to survive. So I don't mean to sound negative. I don't want to discourage, but I would say my advice would be to start very small and do not overbuy, and maybe take brands on consignment rather than purchase, because otherwise you can be losing a lot of money if no one comes into shop. So I'm just being very honest. But I also think that e comm is really important. E commerce and you know, direct to consumer shopping, so that even if you open a store, you can also shop online, so that you have two sources of sales at least. Okay, who's the best role model for dressing up male and female? Honestly, let's see. Okay, I'm loving Timothy Sallamy right now. My male icon for style is tom Ford has always been, will always be.

I know him personally, I know him professionally.

I know him from afar for as long as I've been in this industry, and he has never missed. He's never not looked flawless. And every guy meet they're like, I need style, I need this, I need that. I'm like, look to tom Ford, looked to tom Ford. He's polished, he's perfect, he's cool, he's luxury. And you don't have to buy tom Ford clothing. It's just for the overall. Like, you know, even if you like don't know what to wear to a dinner party or whatever, it's like a really good pair of crisp Dunim jeans, a great pair of Chelsea boots, and the perfectly fit tailored black blazer with a white shirt underneath, no tie, you're great. Like It's like, if that can be your uniform and versions of that, that's great too. I could go on for days about tom Ford, but okay, female role model for dressing up, I think it depends on your personal style.

With women, there's so many.

Options, but I think if you're sort of polished and uptown, I mean Kate Middleton flawless, I think Victoria Beckham is always perfect.

I think.

Who else do I just love love? I think Gwyneth is always really nice. I think it depends on your age, it depends on your style. Like if you're an effortless cool girl that does want to try too hard, look to Sianna Miller, look to Kate Moss, look to Daisy Edgar Jones, look to Dakota Johnson, like there's so many style icons out there. I also love, obviously Nicole Kibman perfection, Martha Story. She looks so good, she looks I can't, she looks amazing. Okay, Okay, Now you support Baby to Baby? What other philanthropic causes to support?

Many?

So Baby to Baby is my number one. I've been on the board since it's started. I think we're on fourteen years now of Baby to Baby and now it's Baby to Baby start as a local organization helping babies and children and families under the poverty line, and now we are pretty much first on the ground in disaster relief, whether it's tornadoes, fires, hurricanes all over the country and even abroad in certain cases. I am involved in something called the Cost Foundation, which works with pediatric cancer hospital Saint Jude's Children's Hospital in Los Angeles, also the Mattel Children's Hospital UCLA, and a Sense of Home and that is helping to build homes for people who have aged out, kids that have aged out of the foster care system and helping them get back onto their feet and start their lives as they get jobs and things like that because no one really looks after them. And then also Core Core is Champin's foundation that he started in the hurricane that pretty much destroyed Haiti and it has now spun out into also the most incredible organization that's also literally boots on the ground in any disaster.

COVID.

They were heroic the fires Ukraine Russia situation. I mean, they're amazing, truly amazing, and that's been an honor to be a part of as well. Oh and also BCRF Breast Cancer Research Foundation o cr F Ovarian and also F which is Women's Cancer Research Foundation. So many I actually co designed and collaborated with a very dear friend Briany Raymond. She's been on climbing and heels. She's a brilliant jewelry designer. She also deals vintage in a state designer jewelry as well, and we designed and collaborated on this incredible pendant that I wear every single day. It is a gold and also the option of gold with diamonds in different sizes. They are the most beautiful angel wings and they're called the Golden Wings of Strength. And one hundred percent of the proceeds of every single piece, and you can get your custom you can engrave it, and one hundred percent of the proceeds goes to Baby to Baby and also California Fires Benevolent. So whichever cause you choose to support, it's up to you. But I cannot tell you how much I love mine. I wear them every single day. It's these gorgeous wings, angel wings, and they kind of form the shape of this very cool, imperfect heart. Okay, biggest advice for a new mom, I mean, honestly, my best advice I could give you is don't take people's advice, because so many people feel this need and write to tell you everything about what to do and what you shouldn't do, and oh my god, don't put your baby in the bed with you, don't keep the kids in the room with you, don't do this, make sure you let them cry it out like da da dah, don't give them peanut butter, don't you know. And the truth is the funniest thing. I did not listen to one person. I actually did the polar opposite of what my mom friends at the time, most of them, not all of them. I kind of just went the other way because it felt unnatural to me. And I still put my kids to sleep every night. I still I wake up with kids in my bed half the time. I think you have a very small window of when you have those kids next to you at all times. And my only advice that I would leave you with is, don't miss that window. Hold onto that window, because when it's gone, it's gone, and you don't.

Get it back.

Okay, Goals for twenty twenty five, Well, I had a lot of goals going into twenty twenty five, and then the day after I came home with like guns of blazing so excited, danced on tables into the new year, the wildfires broke out across Los Angeles and that was really a curve ball I think none of us were prepared for. So it definitely started the year off differently, and I think weirdly focused all of us in a different way and I think it just sort of forced all of us here in LA to sort of just be like, Okay, just go just be happy. Whatever you're doing, just do it, and like live your life as it's coming to you right now.

My goals.

Once that's sort of cleared and I was able to go away I'm out of LA and spend some time honestly in nature in the mountains, it was pretty game changing for me. I woke up every day filled with gratitude, like endless gratitude just for my life and what was given to me, because I think we get very lost in the things that don't work out, or the things that we didn't get, or the things that like you, why me? Why is this coming at me right now?

Why this? Why that?

And instead I just went at it like, Okay, I'm happy for this, I'm grateful for this, and I'm really blessed. And now my goals have shifted in twenty twenty five and they've really just landed in this place of peace, of this place of I'm going to start the rowing my hands in the air and letting the universe do what it's doing. I can obviously nudge it one way or another. I can put my efforts in one direction or another. But I think for the first time in my life, I'm sort of surrendering a little bit to what will be will be, and it's very freeing. I'm happier than I've been in a really long time, and you know, just going day by day and feeling all the feels and moving through it. Okay, what's my first What is my first memory? My first memory? God, it's funny, it's weird. It's hard to know when pictures of things from when you're very young trigger a certain memory. But there's this one picture I have of me in this dress that was literally my favorite dress, and I remember it like it was yesterday, and I wore it, I think, until it became like a mini dress. It was like a mac dress, kind of looks a little bit like an Aussie Clark's seventies dress.

And I wore it so much.

And I remember wearing it one day and asking my dad to take a picture of me in it because I loved it. And I also remember things that when I went to the first concert I went to with my parents, and the music was so loud that my dad had to take me outside and carry me the whole time because I just couldn't go inside because it was too loud, and I had to have these things over my ears that would like protect them. And I guess now that's why you see kids with like headsets at concerts.

But I remember that very well.

And I also remember being at this place in Florida on this beach and collecting shells and SeaGlass with my parents on the beach and my sister, and I just remember that so so clearly, and I must have been maybe three or four years old. So best foundation for long wear, you know, I I have been using. There's a lot of foundations. Listen, a lot of people that do my makeup. They all use different things, and the foundations vary, but there are definitely constants, and I would say that clod Depo is one of the best.

I would say for me.

I have fallen in love with using a stick foundation because it's easier because I'm always on the go and it takes two seconds and it doesn't get all over me and it doesn't spill in my bag. And I'm obsessed with this hour glass stick foundation that is just so easy. It stays on, it's dewey. I love it. I love Charlotte Tulberry Foundation. It's great. I also love cl Nikki Deuro's line, and a lot of makeup artists have been coming to do my makeup using that, which I love because she's a dear friend, and so I love when you know, I see them supporting friends.

It's great.

And Merit Merit foundation stick is so good. If you have not used it, do not let the clean factor scare you. It stays on and it's so good and it's nice.

In volvity.

Okay, One place I haven't traveled that I want to see, Oh my god, there's so many. Definitely certain parts of Spain for sure. I have not spent enough time there. I've gone there for work, but I haven't really spent time there. I've not been to Majorca, and I'm dying to go. Also, places in Italy I have not gone to, like Capri I have not been to, which is wild, I know, makes absolutely no sense. I mean, maybe I'm just going to go to Italy and stay there possibly, and certain places in France for sure. I mean just Europe. I'm very europe obsessed. I'm very I could spend years there. My boys are dying to go to Japan. They are dying to go to Japan. I actually went with Cameron Diaz, but like for maybe twenty four hours. So again, when you're traveling as a stylist, you're in a place you basically see the airport to the hotel, and the hotel to the airport, So it's like, you know, sight seeing from a car.

It makes a good summer hot.

I love Eres I love Genesa Leon, I love Eugenia Kim. I love Philip Tracy. Those are just a few, but there's so many good ones. Best skincare tip for someone in their late thirties God hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. Get out of the sun. Get out of the sun, says the sun worshiper. But I can tell you my friends that didn't sit in the sun versus me, who did? I promise you You will thank me later. You will spend a lot less money and a lot less time repairing your skin. But late thirties, I would say, start to do all the things in your late thirties, start to do all the things that stimulate your collagen, all the things that are not invasive that stimulate your own collagen, and do all the good things without having to do anything drastic, because the more you do in your thirties, the less you do later because there's so many advances. Now, okay, best sunnis for spring summer. I mean, I'm gonna say, rachel Zo sonnis. I haven't stopped wearing them since I got the samples. Totally unbiased though, because I wouldn't say that unless I meant it other than that. Tom Ford all the way, am I spiritual person? I'm a very spiritual person. Actually, I would definitely confidently say I am not a religious person, but I am most definitely a spiritual person. I believe very much in believe very much in going to sleep at night feeling good and feeling like you have treated people the way you want to treat them, and feeling like you that you did good like I don't. It's like it's not about that. It's not for any kind of a war, you know.

It's like.

We are only as good as we are in this world. We are only as good.

You know.

A friend was thanking me for showing up to something on Friday night. She started crying when I walked in, and I said to her, you don't have to say anything. I know exactly what you mean when people show up for you, and you know how annoying it can be sometimes on a rainy Friday night to go to something thirty minutes away to show up for a friend. It's not something I'm paid for. It's not something that like I need to do for anything for me for my purposes. But I do understand the power of showing up for people. And it's not because I want them to show up for me, because I actually anyone on my team will tell you I never expect anyone to show up for me. I very rarely ask people to do anything or show up for anything, because it makes me uncomfortable. However, I do feel that all we have in this life is who we are as people, and who we are at our foundation and our core, and how good we are and the decisions we make, and how honest we are and kind we are, and how much we can help because we are blessed, many of us more blessed than others, and I think it tends to bother me people that are so gifted with so much and have so much and don't give anything back to anyone, and that has always bothered me, even as a young child. It's not because I'm trying to be a saint. It's just there is this desire that I have in my soul to just help when I can and do what I can.

I'd like to do more, but.

All we have is who we are as people, what kind of people we are, and how we show up for our people we love and our friends, and I.

Think that's invaluable. So that's just that's just me.

I'm not judging if that's not how everyone else is, but but yeah, that's my that's my answer. Okay, thanks so much for listening to Climbing and Heels. If you haven't already, please subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the iHeart app, or wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss a single episode this season. And be sure to follow me on Instagram at at Rachel Zoe and the show at Clembing and hills Pod for the latest episodes and updates.

I will talk to you soon.

Climbing in Heels with Rachel Zoe

Rachel Zoe is known as one of Hollywood’s most powerful fashion authorities. She welcomed audiences  
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