On this episode of the Lead With Purpose podcast host, Tze Ching Yeung talks to Richard Lue, a fashion consultant, about fashion and working with big, global brands

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• I studied accounting and finance, and I got into fashion by accident. I started modelling at 16 years old and I saw a sign in a window of a Benneton shop, so I applied and got the job as a sales assistant. The brand was very prestigious at the time and the brand put its name to a lot of worthy causes and I was proud to be part of the organisation. At 17 or 18 I got to go to Italy to buy clothes for the new menswear department.
• Diversity is better in fashion, for gender than in almost any other industry, there are a lot of female bosses. When you look at people of colour or from different ethnicities, it feels like the ‘Guinness effect’ where it's brown at the bottom and at the top it’s very, very white, which is a shame. It has to do with the hiring process where people hire people who look and sound like them, but if you want to go into new markets and understand them you need people from those markets who understand that culture to give you the extra step to overcome those difficulties.
• In the 20-plus years I’ve been working with these big brands there have been multiple times where I’ve had to speak up and say “That sounds racist, that shouldn’t be happening in a business meeting.” All those things were passed off as “it’s not their first language, maybe you heard it wrong”, they always made it out that the things that I heard that were absolutely racist I’d taken the wrong way. After a while, you get a little bit nervous about being seen as the complaining person. Finally, I reported it and we had to go to court to sort it out.
• At the top level, everybody believes in the overarching themes, but when you get to middle management, people who are trying to hit targets and controlling their budgets, that’s where it’s in completely different hands and the ownership of culture gets lost. It’s a lot better now and now I can speak about it at that same company’s Black History Month events and they have protections in place.

BEST MOMENTS
‘It’s important we have community in all these spaces because things can go wrong when you have the wrong network.’

 ‘These brands are so big and creating so much that even if they produce 10% of their collections sustainably, it would still be a drop in the ocean.’

 ‘At the end of the day being sustainable doesn’t mean not being desirable, I’m always working on let’s make desirable product and find a sustainable way of producing it.’

 ‘Who are you targeting? What are you trying to produce? What are the price points? Create a bible so that anyone working in the organisation can see what the brand stands for.’

ABOUT THE GUEST
Richard Lue has over twenty years of experience delivering exceptional business results for premium and luxury brands like Benetton, Guess, Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, and Calvin Klein, his consultancy specialises in creating bespoke solutions for new, emerging, and established brands looking to develop clothing and business strategies in a sustainable way.
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ABOUT THE HOST
Tze Ching started her entrepreneurial journey back in 2007 with the launch of a sustainable clothing & home furnishing ecommerce business. Next, she created a sustainable fashion brand.
In 2019, she launched a social enterprise to help raise awareness about the negative impact of fashion at schools & colleges.
Through the 15-year journey, she learned so much, but easily the most meaningful lesson learned was about the importance of marketing. She now focuses on channelling those insights to help others succeed through We Disrupt Agency, a business coaching, mentoring & digital marketing company.
Tze Ching’s mission is to create a community of global change makers and to contribute to positive change in both people & planet.
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