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Speaker 1: Ruthie's Table four presented by Sky.
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Speaker 2: I always liked clothes because I liked how they made me feel, and I feel like, you know, kind of you look good, you feel good. I think there is something to that because I think it gives you confidence. It's a way to express yourself. I love when people dress up. They've got to look in a style in their own jo out of eve on, how they kind of pull it all together, and there's so many ways to do that.
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Speaker 1: Of course, trying to think of how to talk about my newest friend, Paul Price, I sawt some help from his oldest friend and the person who brought us together, the film director Andrew Direki. He wrote, Dear Ruthie, I first met Paul during freshman year at Princeton. He was handsome, poised, and about a thousand times more stylish than any other student we were with. Is a taste maker and a creator, as he's reshaped my perception of what life can be. He is also reimagining legendary brands in the world, a fashion now burbery and making the newly relevant. An obvious adjective to describe Paul is elegant, but is not nearly enough of a word.
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Speaker 3: It's his mischievously.
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Speaker 1: Funny wit, his creative mind and deep compassion for and curiosity about people that sets him apart. I know you're going to love him. This is from Andrew last night.
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Speaker 2: That reminds me of, you know, the Adventures.
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Speaker 3: Of Finish It's done. This is back to me.
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Speaker 2: Now.
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Speaker 1: What Andrew didn't mention, but I know really well, is that Paul loves food and he loves to cook. That was our first connection some months ago over dinner at the River Cafe. It was the beginning of a conversation and the beginning of a friendship. And as Andrew says, I know I'm going to love him.
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Speaker 3: So now, what were you going to say.
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Speaker 2: About Well, it's like hearing your own eulogy, right, And that was very sweet Andrew. Thank you. It means a lot to me. Actually get a little teary on that it reminds you of, you know, the Adventures of Tom Sawyer when he remember he went, he went, He and Huck Finn they ran away, and they faked their deaths and they thought they drowned in the town. And he thought everyone hated him and he was a bad boy and all this and so they went back to town to see what was going on, and they churched up to a tree and it was his funeral and he was hearing the eulogies about himself and what people were saying about him weren't anything that he thought that they thought. And he was like, oh, wow, actually I'm loved, I'm actually I'm liked. Actually there are qualities about me that are great. So anyway, you know that that was very sweet.
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Speaker 1: It was also that movie, you remember that movie, It's a Wonderful Life, also with Jimmy Stewarp when it comes back or he's about to kill himself.
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Speaker 3: That's right, that's sweet. And then all the things. So we don't hear enough, but.
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Speaker 2: Well, thank you here for your that's very sweet. And I feel sime about you.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, and this is the beginning, and we love Andrew. We have to talk more about that.
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Speaker 1: You grew up in this house of you know, Serbian Croatian Julia's child sitting down to dinner, having lunch.
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Speaker 2: That's why I had to cook. That likes to cook as well.
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Speaker 3: Did they entertain lot? They did? So, remember would you like the kid that stood on the stairs.
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Speaker 2: I used to sit on the stairs, and this is when people would smoke inside and smell the smoke. I sort of liked that smell. My parents didn't smoke, but they would let there. I remember one my mom said, oh, it's so boring, like you sit next to the same person all night. So she came up with this idea which no one had at the time, where she had she had sixteen people over for dinner and she had four tables of four and everyone had to move a table, yeah, after each course. But now they do it all the time, and so for her to map it all out and who's going to be next to who? And she sort of was known for these sort of rotating parties.
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Speaker 3: This sounds really cool.
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Speaker 2: She would PLoP like big plants in the middle of the table like a giant like you know, fern in a tree, and they're all it's quite cheek nineteen seventies, and she'd.
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Speaker 3: Like them with seventies.
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Speaker 2: She liked them with you know, Christmas tree lights, which was sort of at the time, felt very ahead of the start.
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Speaker 3: What did your dad do, but you said he had stores.
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Speaker 2: He was he was a traveling shoe salesman, and then he started doing shoes in this departments are called the two Swabies. And then the shoe concessions started doing better than the rest of the store, so he bought the store. So then he would go into all these little towns like Walla, Walla, Washington, and Lewiston and Boise, Idaho, and Building's, Montana and take over the general stores. And they were sort of like sort of discount stores before that time. And then my mother was really in so my dad. My dad was doing okay, so we were sort of a big fishing.
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Speaker 3: Big deal though, to start all these stores all over I mean that was yeah.
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Speaker 2: So we had like twelve or seventeen or something, and I'd work for him in the summers and on the weekends. And so then my mother my dad, she liked eve Ce Lauran, So my mom would be like, my dad would like, okay, you can buy two to three outfits of celaw a season. Yeah. So my mom would then take me to Seattle, she take me out of school. I'd go to the shops on the wrong with her at the department there, you know. So my mother came up with this brilliant idea that they had all this excess inventory with Marshall Field, which was the store that and she said, how do you get rid of that? Go? Oh, we sell it. So she said to my dad, you should offer them pennies on the dollar of all these designer clothes and we'll sell them in spoken and I'll be in charge of We'll call it the clothes rack. So my mom opened up this the first kind of discount designer shop in this weird little town. Half the people, well most people even know what they were looking at. Yeah, but that's sort of her way. So I used to all the shipments would come in and then I go to my dad's warehouse. My mom would be, of course take the first pick of stuff, which was a heaven for her. My my niece just got a lot of my mom's clothes and she said, Uncle Paul, you should see this. So she has all these sola wrong things.
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Speaker 3: You know, Tell me about clothes, Tell me about your lifession.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, my mother was always in doing obviously, and I always like clothes because I liked how they made me feel. And I feel like, you know, kind of you look good, you feel good. And I know that sounds a bit you know that, No it doesn't, But I think there is something to that because I think it gives you confidence and it's something you just and it's it's a way to express yourself. And I love, you know, I love when people dress up, and when I dress up, it means, you know, they've got to look in a style in their own Joe out of Eva on how they kind of pull it all together. And there's so many ways to do that, of course, and it all you know, and I like all kinds of style. So I love that. When I was I was, I was running top Shop for a couple of years, and I remember there was a someone who worked for me, and you know, it was fast fashion and we were selling a lot of things and whatever, and there was I think there was we were to dinner at the other table there was a bunch of brain surgeons. No, no, we were we were an off site and in the other room there were brain surgeons. Literally And then we're in the other room talking about you know, T shirts and skirts and she comes out and we were she goes, oh my gosh, there's like brain surgeons in the other room. It just really makes you think like like we're just not doing anything of value, and we're like we're like so like silly, this industry that we're in, and I said, a whole art. So I go back into the room. Everybody, you know, blah blah, just not blah blah. Meg just said this thing, and I like, I said, you know, I go. We may not be brain surgeons, but we are bringing confidence to fourteen year old boys and girls like they are able to basically afford something at great value that's made well, that looks good and makes them feel good, and it's their self expression. It's one of the first things that they can express themselves with. I said, I said, we should be proud of that. Yeah, and I think that's important. You know.
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Speaker 3: I know that when I've had a hard day, sometimes I just go and I try on something to wear because it makes me, oh, that could be that person or maybe i'd like to be if I wear that, that's interesting. And then you know, you sort of see if you go to you know, esthetically and people are so nice. There is I think. But tell me how you decide what to wear when you get up in the morning.
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Speaker 2: It's funny. I always wear burbery, but I sometimes mix it with other things, but which I think is great because that is what burbery is. It's you can wear it all, or you can mix it or you know it's.
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Speaker 3: Not Do you have huge cupboards for a class? That's nice? Yeah, you keep them from I do.
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Speaker 2: When I move from La back here, I got rid of a lot. And then I'm thinking why did I do that? You know, because everything comes back into fashion, you know, we're thinking. But anyway, but I do try and shake it up, you know. I don't want to get locked into one thing where oh there is wearing that outfit again, So I try and like change.
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Speaker 3: I know you wear that suit again, Yes, I know you wear it again.
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Speaker 2: Do Actually it's it's uh, it's wolves. So this will probably be the last time I wear it for probably until next October. Yeah, and then I'll wear it with jeans.
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Speaker 3: You know, I wear jeans so beautiful. What would you would you think about if you wore something today? Would you think, well, I'm not going to wear it tomorrow the next week?
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Speaker 2: Oh?
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Speaker 3: No, I think about how often did you change?
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Speaker 2: I change it? No, I don't want the same look. I try and change it up and make it interest because I think you also, I feel obligated to show people, not to show people demonstrate you can wear things in a different way. And also I think it's fun if you're working with somebody, what are you wearing today? Yeah, so when we're in the boardroom and we're chatting and sometimes everyone's looking to see what everyone's wearing. It, Yeah, it's kind of fun. And there's certain people that sort of how long.
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Speaker 1: Does it take you to get dressed in the morning to decide? You open this cupboard?
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Speaker 2: Said, when I'm brushing my teeth, yeah, I have my electric Not to get too personally here, but too much information, but I have my you know, my two minute electric toothbrush. I opened my closets and I'm like, okay, let's see. And some days you start with the jackets, some days you start with the pants. Some days you start it's like, what do I really want to wear today? Do I want to wear this sweater? Okay, now build an outfit around So it's like somebody, oh, warn those silk pants, let's figure out what to do with those. So I mean, but yeah, I like to dressing up.
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Speaker 1: Is it's great, And especially when you go to another city, it's so nice to walk around and see what people are doing and they're wearing, and you know.
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Speaker 2: And you know, you go to Tokyo and you know the hair Juco girls and yeah, and it's like I was just there. It is such an inspiration. It's like, Wow, you really put a lot into this and you look great.
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Speaker 3: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: You know, it's like when someone really makes the effort, it's like you just have to appreciate it, you know. And you know, I'd rather have one great thing than a lot of things.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, me too.
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Speaker 1: Do you have something that you look at and you say, I've never this, this, this is my treasure or this is what I would never like your mother and her son Lareol. Perhaps you do you have something that means a lot to you.
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Speaker 2: I have a few ties of my father's which I wore one the other day, which is really fair. So I love that. I have a few old burbery things that I really love, like the sweet coat burbaries I have.
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Speaker 1: I have a dress that I never is my safety dress, though what is it? It's actually you are and I've had it for so long and it's nothing. It's just a gray sort of flannely, just really simple dress that I love.
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Speaker 3: But I know that and I thought I'd lost it, Yeah, I really was. I thought what's gone? And I had to sort of talk myself through that a lot, thinking it's okay with you, You'll be okay. It's only pressed. It doesn't matter. And meanwhile, every time I opened a cupboard here, I thought I'd left it here because I changed. I looked at home, we looked for it, and then actually I went to I was shopping and the one said, you know, you left a shopping bag here about yeah, two months ago, and you never picked it up. And I opened it up. But there it was that.
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Speaker 2: I thought that amazing.
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Speaker 3: It was really nice because there are things that you just feel secure. I know, there are things that I feel slightly secure, makes me feel safe.
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Speaker 2: For you something, thank you. But otherwise what you wear when went when you don't see anything?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, what was it when your mother said this is your ticket, education is your ticket out? When you went, when you left and you went to Princeton?
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Speaker 1: Was that you know you didn't have those grilled lime sandwiches for lunch and you had Did you make that world yourself?
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Speaker 3: What did you?
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Speaker 2: We know? It's interesting? So I was, I was, I mean just I was in a small town and so I get I get to college and suddenly I'm around all of these amazing kids who I didn't grow up with. So I'm with the Andrew jurekis, who are you know, interesting family and you know, like you know, educators and you know, parents are doing interesting things and the kids have traveled and they're really smart, and they're like, you know all these things. And my friends were great from home, but the breadth of friendships was just astronomical for me. So I would you know, my friend Angelo's mother was head president of Lincoln Center, so I would go, I'd go off to some party and this and that. So anyway, so my first grades would come through the first and that they go straight to the parents, not because they're paying the bill. My mom and dad would call them. They go, you're au straight a student and now you got two c's, a B and an a minus, like what is going on? And I said, well, I'm I'm part of my education. I think should be the people that I'm meeting, and you have to allow me to do these things and whatever. And they said, no, no, no, that's just not I said, well, I said, just think about it. I said I can't. Just I go, I'm learning so much from all these other these people and these are going to be friends I have for life, which is you know, Andrew being one of them. And anyway, so they called me two days later. They go, Okay, here's the deal. You can get B pluses and a minuses, but he has to come in at a minus or you know, that's it. So I kind of struck a deal with them to do that.
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Speaker 3: So what does that? What did you have to do?
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Speaker 1: Did you just have to do few fewer parties or fewer trips to.
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Speaker 2: I just focused a little bit more more expect to fewer. I'm not a fewer type of person.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's okay, it's okay.
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Speaker 1: But why Andrew described you're going into your room? He said, because we didn't print that one out. But about going the.
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Speaker 3: Parties and hilarious.
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Speaker 1: You know, tell me about that because you immediately what the portrait he painted of you? This is the one that I sort of got from the first out we met, which is you, Well, first of all, like me, you really like being surrounded by all kinds of people, but you like being a host. You like big person that people come to rather than go to.
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Speaker 3: Is that right?
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Speaker 2: Which is true?
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Speaker 3: And how did you do that? In college?
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Speaker 2: What to do? So the first time I met Andrew, Andrew was like a year behind you. Actually, and so Andrew I seemed like a nice guy, but I didn't know him that well, but I could tell that he appreciated He was in a singing group and he was very creative and anyway, and so I wanted to throw a great party in my room and my dorm room. You know, they weren't that big, but I said to my room, I said, let's throw a cool party. And I said, so we cleared out all the furniture, which is kind of unheard of. And then I went into why did you put it across the rooms room or something? Yeah, that was like a lot of French anyway, but anyway, and then I said, let's let's go into a theatrical uh design shop in the in the forties in New York. Yeah, and theatrical lighting and things. So at the time, this is nineteen eighty one, there are rope lights the ones who game but now you can give them back. Then it was like you could only be if you were in a theater thing. So I bought rope lights that went all the way around the room. And then I got a fog machine with a dry ice machine, and then the theme was where wear upright colors and you can been seeing through the fog, So it was like a fog party in the room. I played disco and whatever and it was I don't know, it was sounds so basic. At the moment, it goes who else has got? And I used the I used the Calvin Client underwear and I went colors Xerox has just came out, and I rolled them up and I put them in everyone's door and it was like over the over the I wasn't out or gay at the time, but I put it the invite over the guy's crotch and his underwear and it was quite compelling. Cocktails at five.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, anyway, you were a freshmen.
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Speaker 2: You always need a good invite?
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Speaker 3: Were you a freshman?
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Speaker 2: I was a sophomore from that time.
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Speaker 3: You always need a good Tell me about invites. I agree with you, by the way, Yeah, I agree with you.
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Speaker 2: So I learned about invites when I used to go to this club area in New York which was Eric Goods Club, and he always had a great invitation. And I did a party at my house in London about twenty fourteen, and I sent everyone got a pill bottle and it said it was for my partner at the time. Is Fletcher's birthday? You know, Baba, I said, open the open the pill, open the bottle and drop the pill and do a hot glass of water to see what the dress the dress code is. And so you got a pill and you dropped it in the water and it fizzed. I mean this took about a couple of weeks of research to figure out how to do this. It fizzed and then to the top of the glasses a little piece of of my lar and it says be good, be good, or be bad, but be beautiful. And that was the dress code. And it was Heaven. Now this was in London, and that was a Heaven and Hell party.
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Speaker 3: What was that? To heaven? You're either good or beautiful?
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Speaker 2: And then I had to I had two There were two twins in the in the entrance of my place, and they would look at you in unison. They had they looked exactly like it, and they had these little sort of banged fringed wigs on and they'd look at you and they go in Unison, they go hello, Ruth. And first she had to sign a release. I don't know why but we had a really hello rooth, You're going to Hell. And then they gave you a ticket you'd have to go downstairs. And I had the whole bottom of my house in Hell where they go, you.
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Speaker 3: Know, hello Richard, You're going to Heaven.
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Speaker 2: And so then we kept everyone separated from Heaven and Hell. And then I opened it up after about an hour, and then Heaven and did you decided?
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Speaker 3: Did you pre plant that?
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Speaker 2: They decided.
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Speaker 1: They just decided to the twins. If you came dressed to look good, but you went down to Hell. That I think maybe that was a fact time.
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Speaker 2: I'm not sure everyone in Heaven always looks like there.
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Speaker 3: Maybe probably Heaven, maybe they're not.
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Speaker 2: Did your book by their color rouths?
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Speaker 3: Why did you go into retail them? Was that?
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Speaker 2: Part of it was my dad. I sort of grew that.
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Speaker 3: Sort of thing that your mother and your father my.
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Speaker 2: Dad really And then I would work my friends, would you know, do normal kid things, and I'd sort of go work for my father on the weekends. I mean, I would do normally kid things.
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Speaker 3: I mean, I can understand why you did. I mean I don't.
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Speaker 1: I don't think I just say that my probably at Princeton and it was kind of trajectory.
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Speaker 2: But it was great.
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Speaker 3: It's like me going into restaurant, so you know, why do we do that?
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Speaker 2: So, you know, I'd sometimes work in the warehouse, so i'd work in the shoe department, or I'd follow his buyers around, right, Dad, Yeah, that's the popcorn counter. And so when I was like, ay, i ran the popcorn counter.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, that was buttery. It was salted.
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Speaker 2: So my dad would come home, we'd always have a dinner, you know, the four of us sit at dinner. Mom would like the candles, you know, she'd make some kind of dinner and then always be conversation. My dad would be like, so I'm hearing from Mollie they had cashier that you're putting in three pumps of butter into the popcorn and you're only supposed to be putting in one one pump of butter. He goes, why are you doing that? I go, well, it tastes better, it's better, And he said, but you realize that that it's ten cents a bag, and by the butter's the most expensive ingredient. So if we do that, we're gonna have to raise the price up to twenty five cents and he said, it's completely your choice. I will do what you decide, and he goes, why don't you think of that overnight? Because if you think that your popcorn is that much better that you're going to get twenty five cents a bag, then I'll take the price up and we'll see how it works. So you right, eight, Wow, that's next night at dinner, my dad guys, have you thought about your popcorn? And I go, yeah, and its what do you want to do? Well? As good as my popcorn is, I just don't think. I think twenty five cents is a bit expensive, so I think we should just do one pump. My dad goes, I think that was a good choice. But I'm glad you thought about it.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, but maybe do you think now I kind of got the bug? Yeah, you got the bug.
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Speaker 2: Got the bug, and then I'm out of school. I went to the training program at Bloomingdal's, which is a department store.
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Speaker 3: I know, I love Bloomingdale.
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Speaker 2: It's a bit sort of like self rigidity, Yeah.
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Speaker 1: But kind of Bloomingdal's in New York was kind of do you think because it was Avenue and there's Burdils.
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Speaker 3: But then Burmia Bloomingdale's is on Lexington and fifty.
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Speaker 2: Ninth of the last. It was kind of it was theater. Yeah, it was very theatrical. Take countries and do a whole theme of the store in China or whatever.
00:22:03
Speaker 3: You did a management retail.
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Speaker 2: Training course right that you work in this store a little bit, and you'd be like I said, you know, they'd put you into in my case, they put me in the China silver department.
00:22:15
Speaker 3: Or are they clothing?
00:22:17
Speaker 2: I want? So I wanted to So Marvin Traub was the he was the CEO at the time. He's like, yeah, been written about him. And he used tot his office behind the towel department on the sixth floor anyway. So I was like, I was obsessed with Georgia of money at the time. He's American Jiggle just coming and I was like obsessed with Georgia of money. And I was went up to his office every day. I said to his assistant, I'd like to speak to mister Troub. I'm sorry, he's not available. I went up every day and finally mister trave overheard me. It wasn't that he was ignoring me. I think he was genuinely busy is that that Paul Price kid that's like coming here, Like, what are you doing coming up here all the time? I go, I really need to speak, it's really important. Are you put me in the wrong depart I'm in the training. He's like, I know who you are. I go, I owe you put me in the wrong department. He goes, you're in China and Silver says. He goes, no, we know exactly where we're putting. No, no, no, no, you don't understand. I have an affinity for men's designer. I should be in there the men's designer area around Georgia or Barney. And he goes, mister Brice, let me let me give you a little lesson. What's that, mister Trump. He goes, if I put you into the Georgia Ormony department, you would look at the suit and you'd go like, oh, well, I really like that suit, so I think we should buy those. And I really like that shirt, like that tie, and he goes, you would just personalize everything. He goes, I bet you now that you're in China and Silver, that you're learning about the Upper east Side lady and that she likes to have gold on her plates, and that she likes China versus porcelain, that she likes, silver plate versus sterling that she likes. He goes, you're learning about your customer, and he goes, you need to learn about your customer, not about your own personal affinities for things. And he was absolutely right, right know, you learn about your customer. You know that.
00:24:02
Speaker 3: How of course, how long did you stay in that department four before?
00:24:06
Speaker 2: For six months? And then they moved me andywhere? Then they got me into the clothing because they knew I wanted to do that. So I learned what I had to learn.
00:24:13
Speaker 3: I think those kind of people in your life are so crucial.
00:24:16
Speaker 2: He was amazing. He's passed away, but he years ago. I was at some conference living in London. I was working at Burbery and he was there and I went up to him and I said, mister Troup, you're not going to you know I lost my hair at this point. Yeah, I know, mister Traub, you won't remember me. I know exactly. You're the kid from China. You're the kid from China zor yeah, And he goes, how are you? I said, well, I'm at Burbery now he goes, I would He goes, wow, you guys are doing such great things. I said, well, why don't I bring you by the office. I'd love to give you a tour of the showroom. And it's not so I did. Yeah, And it meant the world to him. I thought he felt like service of pride under he is doing something interesting. Yeah, you know it's nice.
00:24:54
Speaker 3: When Yeah, that was nice. Did you eat well? In New York?
00:24:57
Speaker 2: New York you can always find something to eat. I think for not a lot. You'd go down to you know, the Lower East Side at the time, and you could you know, I forget the names of some of these places, Kafka or whatever it was.
00:25:10
Speaker 3: And would you cook? So would you cook a little bit as much?
00:25:14
Speaker 2: In New York?
00:25:15
Speaker 3: Was that post days? They had a New York feeling?
00:25:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was right right in the middle of it. And I was really lucky with someone I was sort of seeing it at school, sort of in the wrap under wraps, but he was with the gay men's health crisis and I was getting ready to graduate and was eight and it was just kind of surfacing. And he handed me all these brochures. His name was Bill George's Thank you Bill, since thanked him at dinner at Zunny Cafe in San Francisco, and he I said, read these brochures. He goes, we don't know what this is, but you need to read these brochures and follow these roles. I did, and I think he probably helped me.
00:26:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so, which is great.
00:26:05
Speaker 1: I think when you think about New York in the eighties, I guess I knew it. I never lived in New York, but I know that those different cycles even being there right now. You think New York goes through these phases, isn't you remember? You know, the great times, the hard times, the people who've been there. I'm like, do San Francisco is very different San Francisco.
00:26:26
Speaker 2: I feel like I've lived in all cities I've lived in at really good times. And when I said San Francisco was in the eighty eight to two thousand and five.
00:26:38
Speaker 3: So that was after Bloomingdale's you move.
00:26:40
Speaker 2: After bloom As, I moved to San Francisco.
00:26:42
Speaker 3: Why did you do that?
00:26:44
Speaker 2: Because I met this man, Mickey Drexler, who made the gap gap.
00:26:48
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:26:49
Speaker 2: So Mickey'd heard about me blooming News and he said, oh, I've just taken over Banana Republic and we want to convert it from a safari used to be a safari. He goes into a modern learning company. So Mickey, howged me? Is this first merchant? So I moved to San Francisco and I didn't know anybody, and it was really exciting. You know. San Francisco is known for its food.
00:27:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, certainly.
00:27:11
Speaker 2: I remember Alice to Zuni Cafe for the first time and Judy Rogers was the chef.
00:27:20
Speaker 3: I knew her.
00:27:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I remember having that roasted chicken and the caesar.
00:27:24
Speaker 3: Salad and the bread saladary.
00:27:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, that bread which I've learned how to do we.
00:27:28
Speaker 3: Make it here. We put it in one of our cooks to Rogers, and.
00:27:31
Speaker 2: To me, that was one of the greatest meals I ever had. And so after I left GAP for twelve years, I opened up an events business with my brother.
00:27:41
Speaker 3: Were in San Franciscancisco.
00:27:44
Speaker 2: And we did parties and things. But Judy hired us to do her Christmas decor for the first It was she never done it, and she said, oh, I'm going to give you guys your first job. I was like wow. So we did a kind of old fashioned Christmas tree, you know, it was like a spindley old Charlie bound tree with big lights and what breathe it. But it was like, you know, quite rustic and cute and propriate anyway, So we had to set it up on a Monday night because they were clothes on Mondays or Sunday night. It was late. So I set up and they were relaying the kitchen floor with this red wax so it wouldn't leak down below or something. I don't know anyway, and she had all of these ropes around the kitchen. She goes, whatever you do, just don't go into the kitchen, said, because the wax is wet and light. So cut to late at night. My boyfriend at the time, Mark, we had a Samoya dog, a big white, fluffy like husky, and he comes by. He goes, oh, I'm coming by to see you guys, and so he knocks on the window, you know, on market and he had the dog and I did so I didn't realize that her name is Daisy, that she was there. So I'm like doing something and I see these like red pawprints of wax all over the entire restaurant, you magice. So I was freaking out and I was like, so we're like trying to get the wax off. We did, and whatever I regard, this is a disaster. It's our first job, and with my brother, we were with my brother. It's a disaster. So I came clean. I go the next day because Judy didn't close up that night. I go, Judy, I go, I hope you like what we did, I said, but I have to tell you, I said, my dog got into the restaurant by mistake, and her footprints are all through your kitchen in the wax, and she goes. You get it a plus for design, and you get it a plus for your honesty. And it's our honor that Daisy is forever im martinalized in our kitchen. So my dog's friends in the kitchen. I don't know if they're still there, but it kind.
00:29:46
Speaker 1: Of makes sense that you went into events because you're such an eventful person.
00:29:50
Speaker 3: Did you not want to stay?
00:29:52
Speaker 2: Well, then I missed it, and then I sort of missed retail, and miss retail.
00:29:57
Speaker 3: I love what I do, so yeah, tell me about what you do.
00:30:01
Speaker 2: So I'm in charge of the product in the business, so I'm the chief merchant, and I just make sure that my team and I we work with the design team and the product development team and the sorte teams whatever to make sure that what gets designed and what eventually gets bought and what's presented is the things that are right for the brand, that tick the boxes of fashion, but also our commercial and to balance sort of the the commercial. You know, what our customers want, what does your customer wants? Try and understanding what that is. So you know, we'll you know, and we'll say to our design team, for instance, I need five different beverages, and they will give us a water and a tea and a wine and whatever, and they're like, well, you know what, maybe the tea. The tea is a really good one, so let's do three flavors of tea and not do the water. And you know, maybe we should have glasses that we should have a green tea glass, and we should have a black tea glass, and we should have a then you know, so you sort of create stories around the product. And I'm pretty good, I think at picking the thing on the table that's going to sell yeah, more than the other, so I can kind of say this is going to do better than that, and we should buy more of that than that. Don't always get it right, but you know over time you kind of you you know, I'm sure you kind of know what.
00:31:32
Speaker 1: Yah, yeah, and you're thinking about And also I think people always say where did you get the idea for something? And I said, there's no ideas in my work. You know, it's about a progression from right. You know, if I said we make an almond tarde with you know, Paris, then in the summer we might put strawberries on it, you know, and if you put strawberries, you might marinate them first or al to just do them stuck in. And it's a kind of it's not like, oh, I have an idea for a new flavor of ice cream.
00:31:59
Speaker 3: I mean I have to do you do? But it mostly.
00:32:02
Speaker 2: Don't You also think that you know, people come to your restaurant and they you know, they want certain things that they can count on, but they also want some it's sort of at what point, you know, we always sort of grapple with this. It's like, at what point do you move on? And like, because you know, for us, you know, we have a lot of a lot of locations, and it's sort of like if it's your local location, you have to keep refreshing a lot interesting So We're always like, how do we keep it interesting? Yet also yes, we have new verses of trench coats. We've got you know, whatever it may be. So it's fun. It's like a you know, it's it's an architecture of sorts of assortment of things.
00:32:50
Speaker 3: Which has been so good.
00:32:51
Speaker 1: And I'm starving if you are, so I think that you know the last I think if I always say, you know, food is about what you've described as your you know, you're you're really more in portrait of your parents on food is it's also you know, hosting and making people feel better, but it also is comfort. So I suppose I might have an idea clue of what you might choose. But if you were thinking about comfort food to go to when you need comfort, is there something that in your memory or your relationship?
00:33:21
Speaker 3: What would it be? That chicken pop pie.
00:33:24
Speaker 2: So I'm starting up a group with my friends and it's called death Row Meal. It'll be it once a month and there'll be like twelve of us and you cook what you would have on death row of your granted your death row meal, yeah, meaning your last meal.
00:33:40
Speaker 3: Basically yeah, is making a bit more no, no no.
00:33:44
Speaker 2: And sort of like my last meal. I gu this would be my most comforting.
00:33:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, what would that?
00:33:48
Speaker 2: So it would be like I would do, I mean to go fancy. I would have caber because that would be really nice. I mean I wouldn't that wouldn't be my car too, because that's expensive, but I would, you know, And I would do a porterhouse day on the grown with a chimmy cherry sauce. Home. It's with mint and serrano peppers and oregano and vinegar and oil and chilies. I say chilies anyway, it's just like a nice mix of that. It's argent time. And then I would do a mashed potato creamy mashed potato potato, which is also good. I would maybe do that instead, and then I would have probably asparagus, and then I would have a peach and raspberry pie with my secret ingredient, which is Southern comfort. I soaked the peaches and the raspberries and Southern comfort and then I drained that, and then I didn the pie and then it like explodes with flavor delicious. So I think it would be something quite be very American. And then i'd have a cheese. I probably have a final cheese dessert, and then they'd elect you keep me, I'd be done.
00:34:59
Speaker 3: What that?
00:35:01
Speaker 1: No no no, and then you'd have your party about no no, no, We're never gonna die.
00:35:06
Speaker 3: We're gonna keep on eating. I'm gonna eat that. Thank you so much for I love you.
00:35:11
Speaker 2: I love you, I love you, Thank you, thank you.
00:35:20
Speaker 1: Ruthie's Table four is proud to support Leukemia UK. The Cartwheel for a Cure campaign raises funds for vital research and more effective and kinder treatments for a cute Malloyd leukemia. Please donate and to do so search cartwell for cue.
00:35:44
Speaker 2: Ruthie's Table four was produced by Alex Bao, Robbie Hamilton and Zad Rogers, with Andrew Sang and Bella Selina. This has been an atomized production for iHeartMedia.
Speaker 1: Ruthie's Table four presented by Sky.
00:00:04
Speaker 2: I always liked clothes because I liked how they made me feel, and I feel like, you know, kind of you look good, you feel good. I think there is something to that because I think it gives you confidence. It's a way to express yourself. I love when people dress up. They've got to look in a style in their own jo out of eve on, how they kind of pull it all together, and there's so many ways to do that.
00:00:27
Speaker 1: Of course, trying to think of how to talk about my newest friend, Paul Price, I sawt some help from his oldest friend and the person who brought us together, the film director Andrew Direki. He wrote, Dear Ruthie, I first met Paul during freshman year at Princeton. He was handsome, poised, and about a thousand times more stylish than any other student we were with. Is a taste maker and a creator, as he's reshaped my perception of what life can be. He is also reimagining legendary brands in the world, a fashion now burbery and making the newly relevant. An obvious adjective to describe Paul is elegant, but is not nearly enough of a word.
00:01:21
Speaker 3: It's his mischievously.
00:01:22
Speaker 1: Funny wit, his creative mind and deep compassion for and curiosity about people that sets him apart. I know you're going to love him. This is from Andrew last night.
00:01:36
Speaker 2: That reminds me of, you know, the Adventures.
00:01:39
Speaker 3: Of Finish It's done. This is back to me.
00:01:44
Speaker 2: Now.
00:01:45
Speaker 1: What Andrew didn't mention, but I know really well, is that Paul loves food and he loves to cook. That was our first connection some months ago over dinner at the River Cafe. It was the beginning of a conversation and the beginning of a friendship. And as Andrew says, I know I'm going to love him.
00:02:06
Speaker 3: So now, what were you going to say.
00:02:07
Speaker 2: About Well, it's like hearing your own eulogy, right, And that was very sweet Andrew. Thank you. It means a lot to me. Actually get a little teary on that it reminds you of, you know, the Adventures of Tom Sawyer when he remember he went, he went, He and Huck Finn they ran away, and they faked their deaths and they thought they drowned in the town. And he thought everyone hated him and he was a bad boy and all this and so they went back to town to see what was going on, and they churched up to a tree and it was his funeral and he was hearing the eulogies about himself and what people were saying about him weren't anything that he thought that they thought. And he was like, oh, wow, actually I'm loved, I'm actually I'm liked. Actually there are qualities about me that are great. So anyway, you know that that was very sweet.
00:02:56
Speaker 1: It was also that movie, you remember that movie, It's a Wonderful Life, also with Jimmy Stewarp when it comes back or he's about to kill himself.
00:03:04
Speaker 3: That's right, that's sweet. And then all the things. So we don't hear enough, but.
00:03:07
Speaker 2: Well, thank you here for your that's very sweet. And I feel sime about you.
00:03:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, and this is the beginning, and we love Andrew. We have to talk more about that.
00:03:16
Speaker 1: You grew up in this house of you know, Serbian Croatian Julia's child sitting down to dinner, having lunch.
00:03:23
Speaker 2: That's why I had to cook. That likes to cook as well.
00:03:26
Speaker 3: Did they entertain lot? They did? So, remember would you like the kid that stood on the stairs.
00:03:31
Speaker 2: I used to sit on the stairs, and this is when people would smoke inside and smell the smoke. I sort of liked that smell. My parents didn't smoke, but they would let there. I remember one my mom said, oh, it's so boring, like you sit next to the same person all night. So she came up with this idea which no one had at the time, where she had she had sixteen people over for dinner and she had four tables of four and everyone had to move a table, yeah, after each course. But now they do it all the time, and so for her to map it all out and who's going to be next to who? And she sort of was known for these sort of rotating parties.
00:04:08
Speaker 3: This sounds really cool.
00:04:09
Speaker 2: She would PLoP like big plants in the middle of the table like a giant like you know, fern in a tree, and they're all it's quite cheek nineteen seventies, and she'd.
00:04:20
Speaker 3: Like them with seventies.
00:04:21
Speaker 2: She liked them with you know, Christmas tree lights, which was sort of at the time, felt very ahead of the start.
00:04:27
Speaker 3: What did your dad do, but you said he had stores.
00:04:29
Speaker 2: He was he was a traveling shoe salesman, and then he started doing shoes in this departments are called the two Swabies. And then the shoe concessions started doing better than the rest of the store, so he bought the store. So then he would go into all these little towns like Walla, Walla, Washington, and Lewiston and Boise, Idaho, and Building's, Montana and take over the general stores. And they were sort of like sort of discount stores before that time. And then my mother was really in so my dad. My dad was doing okay, so we were sort of a big fishing.
00:05:01
Speaker 3: Big deal though, to start all these stores all over I mean that was yeah.
00:05:05
Speaker 2: So we had like twelve or seventeen or something, and I'd work for him in the summers and on the weekends. And so then my mother my dad, she liked eve Ce Lauran, So my mom would be like, my dad would like, okay, you can buy two to three outfits of celaw a season. Yeah. So my mom would then take me to Seattle, she take me out of school. I'd go to the shops on the wrong with her at the department there, you know. So my mother came up with this brilliant idea that they had all this excess inventory with Marshall Field, which was the store that and she said, how do you get rid of that? Go? Oh, we sell it. So she said to my dad, you should offer them pennies on the dollar of all these designer clothes and we'll sell them in spoken and I'll be in charge of We'll call it the clothes rack. So my mom opened up this the first kind of discount designer shop in this weird little town. Half the people, well most people even know what they were looking at. Yeah, but that's sort of her way. So I used to all the shipments would come in and then I go to my dad's warehouse. My mom would be, of course take the first pick of stuff, which was a heaven for her. My my niece just got a lot of my mom's clothes and she said, Uncle Paul, you should see this. So she has all these sola wrong things.
00:06:22
Speaker 3: You know, Tell me about clothes, Tell me about your lifession.
00:06:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, my mother was always in doing obviously, and I always like clothes because I liked how they made me feel. And I feel like, you know, kind of you look good, you feel good. And I know that sounds a bit you know that, No it doesn't, But I think there is something to that because I think it gives you confidence and it's something you just and it's it's a way to express yourself. And I love, you know, I love when people dress up, and when I dress up, it means, you know, they've got to look in a style in their own Joe out of Eva on how they kind of pull it all together. And there's so many ways to do that, of course, and it all you know, and I like all kinds of style. So I love that. When I was I was, I was running top Shop for a couple of years, and I remember there was a someone who worked for me, and you know, it was fast fashion and we were selling a lot of things and whatever, and there was I think there was we were to dinner at the other table there was a bunch of brain surgeons. No, no, we were we were an off site and in the other room there were brain surgeons. Literally And then we're in the other room talking about you know, T shirts and skirts and she comes out and we were she goes, oh my gosh, there's like brain surgeons in the other room. It just really makes you think like like we're just not doing anything of value, and we're like we're like so like silly, this industry that we're in, and I said, a whole art. So I go back into the room. Everybody, you know, blah blah, just not blah blah. Meg just said this thing, and I like, I said, you know, I go. We may not be brain surgeons, but we are bringing confidence to fourteen year old boys and girls like they are able to basically afford something at great value that's made well, that looks good and makes them feel good, and it's their self expression. It's one of the first things that they can express themselves with. I said, I said, we should be proud of that. Yeah, and I think that's important. You know.
00:08:24
Speaker 3: I know that when I've had a hard day, sometimes I just go and I try on something to wear because it makes me, oh, that could be that person or maybe i'd like to be if I wear that, that's interesting. And then you know, you sort of see if you go to you know, esthetically and people are so nice. There is I think. But tell me how you decide what to wear when you get up in the morning.
00:08:45
Speaker 2: It's funny. I always wear burbery, but I sometimes mix it with other things, but which I think is great because that is what burbery is. It's you can wear it all, or you can mix it or you know it's.
00:08:56
Speaker 3: Not Do you have huge cupboards for a class? That's nice? Yeah, you keep them from I do.
00:09:02
Speaker 2: When I move from La back here, I got rid of a lot. And then I'm thinking why did I do that? You know, because everything comes back into fashion, you know, we're thinking. But anyway, but I do try and shake it up, you know. I don't want to get locked into one thing where oh there is wearing that outfit again, So I try and like change.
00:09:22
Speaker 3: I know you wear that suit again, Yes, I know you wear it again.
00:09:25
Speaker 2: Do Actually it's it's uh, it's wolves. So this will probably be the last time I wear it for probably until next October. Yeah, and then I'll wear it with jeans.
00:09:35
Speaker 3: You know, I wear jeans so beautiful. What would you would you think about if you wore something today? Would you think, well, I'm not going to wear it tomorrow the next week?
00:09:43
Speaker 2: Oh?
00:09:43
Speaker 3: No, I think about how often did you change?
00:09:45
Speaker 2: I change it? No, I don't want the same look. I try and change it up and make it interest because I think you also, I feel obligated to show people, not to show people demonstrate you can wear things in a different way. And also I think it's fun if you're working with somebody, what are you wearing today? Yeah, so when we're in the boardroom and we're chatting and sometimes everyone's looking to see what everyone's wearing. It, Yeah, it's kind of fun. And there's certain people that sort of how long.
00:10:07
Speaker 1: Does it take you to get dressed in the morning to decide? You open this cupboard?
00:10:11
Speaker 2: Said, when I'm brushing my teeth, yeah, I have my electric Not to get too personally here, but too much information, but I have my you know, my two minute electric toothbrush. I opened my closets and I'm like, okay, let's see. And some days you start with the jackets, some days you start with the pants. Some days you start it's like, what do I really want to wear today? Do I want to wear this sweater? Okay, now build an outfit around So it's like somebody, oh, warn those silk pants, let's figure out what to do with those. So I mean, but yeah, I like to dressing up.
00:10:44
Speaker 1: Is it's great, And especially when you go to another city, it's so nice to walk around and see what people are doing and they're wearing, and you know.
00:10:54
Speaker 2: And you know, you go to Tokyo and you know the hair Juco girls and yeah, and it's like I was just there. It is such an inspiration. It's like, Wow, you really put a lot into this and you look great.
00:11:07
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:11:07
Speaker 2: You know, it's like when someone really makes the effort, it's like you just have to appreciate it, you know. And you know, I'd rather have one great thing than a lot of things.
00:11:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, me too.
00:11:17
Speaker 1: Do you have something that you look at and you say, I've never this, this, this is my treasure or this is what I would never like your mother and her son Lareol. Perhaps you do you have something that means a lot to you.
00:11:30
Speaker 2: I have a few ties of my father's which I wore one the other day, which is really fair. So I love that. I have a few old burbery things that I really love, like the sweet coat burbaries I have.
00:11:43
Speaker 1: I have a dress that I never is my safety dress, though what is it? It's actually you are and I've had it for so long and it's nothing. It's just a gray sort of flannely, just really simple dress that I love.
00:11:57
Speaker 3: But I know that and I thought I'd lost it, Yeah, I really was. I thought what's gone? And I had to sort of talk myself through that a lot, thinking it's okay with you, You'll be okay. It's only pressed. It doesn't matter. And meanwhile, every time I opened a cupboard here, I thought I'd left it here because I changed. I looked at home, we looked for it, and then actually I went to I was shopping and the one said, you know, you left a shopping bag here about yeah, two months ago, and you never picked it up. And I opened it up. But there it was that.
00:12:26
Speaker 2: I thought that amazing.
00:12:28
Speaker 3: It was really nice because there are things that you just feel secure. I know, there are things that I feel slightly secure, makes me feel safe.
00:12:35
Speaker 2: For you something, thank you. But otherwise what you wear when went when you don't see anything?
00:12:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, what was it when your mother said this is your ticket, education is your ticket out? When you went, when you left and you went to Princeton?
00:12:55
Speaker 1: Was that you know you didn't have those grilled lime sandwiches for lunch and you had Did you make that world yourself?
00:13:00
Speaker 3: What did you?
00:13:01
Speaker 2: We know? It's interesting? So I was, I was, I mean just I was in a small town and so I get I get to college and suddenly I'm around all of these amazing kids who I didn't grow up with. So I'm with the Andrew jurekis, who are you know, interesting family and you know, like you know, educators and you know, parents are doing interesting things and the kids have traveled and they're really smart, and they're like, you know all these things. And my friends were great from home, but the breadth of friendships was just astronomical for me. So I would you know, my friend Angelo's mother was head president of Lincoln Center, so I would go, I'd go off to some party and this and that. So anyway, so my first grades would come through the first and that they go straight to the parents, not because they're paying the bill. My mom and dad would call them. They go, you're au straight a student and now you got two c's, a B and an a minus, like what is going on? And I said, well, I'm I'm part of my education. I think should be the people that I'm meeting, and you have to allow me to do these things and whatever. And they said, no, no, no, that's just not I said, well, I said, just think about it. I said I can't. Just I go, I'm learning so much from all these other these people and these are going to be friends I have for life, which is you know, Andrew being one of them. And anyway, so they called me two days later. They go, Okay, here's the deal. You can get B pluses and a minuses, but he has to come in at a minus or you know, that's it. So I kind of struck a deal with them to do that.
00:14:39
Speaker 3: So what does that? What did you have to do?
00:14:41
Speaker 1: Did you just have to do few fewer parties or fewer trips to.
00:14:45
Speaker 2: I just focused a little bit more more expect to fewer. I'm not a fewer type of person.
00:14:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's okay, it's okay.
00:14:57
Speaker 1: But why Andrew described you're going into your room? He said, because we didn't print that one out. But about going the.
00:15:03
Speaker 3: Parties and hilarious.
00:15:05
Speaker 1: You know, tell me about that because you immediately what the portrait he painted of you? This is the one that I sort of got from the first out we met, which is you, Well, first of all, like me, you really like being surrounded by all kinds of people, but you like being a host. You like big person that people come to rather than go to.
00:15:24
Speaker 3: Is that right?
00:15:24
Speaker 2: Which is true?
00:15:25
Speaker 3: And how did you do that? In college?
00:15:27
Speaker 2: What to do? So the first time I met Andrew, Andrew was like a year behind you. Actually, and so Andrew I seemed like a nice guy, but I didn't know him that well, but I could tell that he appreciated He was in a singing group and he was very creative and anyway, and so I wanted to throw a great party in my room and my dorm room. You know, they weren't that big, but I said to my room, I said, let's throw a cool party. And I said, so we cleared out all the furniture, which is kind of unheard of. And then I went into why did you put it across the rooms room or something? Yeah, that was like a lot of French anyway, but anyway, and then I said, let's let's go into a theatrical uh design shop in the in the forties in New York. Yeah, and theatrical lighting and things. So at the time, this is nineteen eighty one, there are rope lights the ones who game but now you can give them back. Then it was like you could only be if you were in a theater thing. So I bought rope lights that went all the way around the room. And then I got a fog machine with a dry ice machine, and then the theme was where wear upright colors and you can been seeing through the fog, So it was like a fog party in the room. I played disco and whatever and it was I don't know, it was sounds so basic. At the moment, it goes who else has got? And I used the I used the Calvin Client underwear and I went colors Xerox has just came out, and I rolled them up and I put them in everyone's door and it was like over the over the I wasn't out or gay at the time, but I put it the invite over the guy's crotch and his underwear and it was quite compelling. Cocktails at five.
00:17:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, anyway, you were a freshmen.
00:17:14
Speaker 2: You always need a good invite?
00:17:15
Speaker 3: Were you a freshman?
00:17:16
Speaker 2: I was a sophomore from that time.
00:17:19
Speaker 3: You always need a good Tell me about invites. I agree with you, by the way, Yeah, I agree with you.
00:17:24
Speaker 2: So I learned about invites when I used to go to this club area in New York which was Eric Goods Club, and he always had a great invitation. And I did a party at my house in London about twenty fourteen, and I sent everyone got a pill bottle and it said it was for my partner at the time. Is Fletcher's birthday? You know, Baba, I said, open the open the pill, open the bottle and drop the pill and do a hot glass of water to see what the dress the dress code is. And so you got a pill and you dropped it in the water and it fizzed. I mean this took about a couple of weeks of research to figure out how to do this. It fizzed and then to the top of the glasses a little piece of of my lar and it says be good, be good, or be bad, but be beautiful. And that was the dress code. And it was Heaven. Now this was in London, and that was a Heaven and Hell party.
00:18:34
Speaker 3: What was that? To heaven? You're either good or beautiful?
00:18:37
Speaker 2: And then I had to I had two There were two twins in the in the entrance of my place, and they would look at you in unison. They had they looked exactly like it, and they had these little sort of banged fringed wigs on and they'd look at you and they go in Unison, they go hello, Ruth. And first she had to sign a release. I don't know why but we had a really hello rooth, You're going to Hell. And then they gave you a ticket you'd have to go downstairs. And I had the whole bottom of my house in Hell where they go, you.
00:19:10
Speaker 3: Know, hello Richard, You're going to Heaven.
00:19:14
Speaker 2: And so then we kept everyone separated from Heaven and Hell. And then I opened it up after about an hour, and then Heaven and did you decided?
00:19:21
Speaker 3: Did you pre plant that?
00:19:24
Speaker 2: They decided.
00:19:25
Speaker 1: They just decided to the twins. If you came dressed to look good, but you went down to Hell. That I think maybe that was a fact time.
00:19:34
Speaker 2: I'm not sure everyone in Heaven always looks like there.
00:19:36
Speaker 3: Maybe probably Heaven, maybe they're not.
00:19:39
Speaker 2: Did your book by their color rouths?
00:19:41
Speaker 3: Why did you go into retail them? Was that?
00:19:43
Speaker 2: Part of it was my dad. I sort of grew that.
00:19:46
Speaker 3: Sort of thing that your mother and your father my.
00:19:48
Speaker 2: Dad really And then I would work my friends, would you know, do normal kid things, and I'd sort of go work for my father on the weekends. I mean, I would do normally kid things.
00:19:56
Speaker 3: I mean, I can understand why you did. I mean I don't.
00:19:58
Speaker 1: I don't think I just say that my probably at Princeton and it was kind of trajectory.
00:20:02
Speaker 2: But it was great.
00:20:03
Speaker 3: It's like me going into restaurant, so you know, why do we do that?
00:20:07
Speaker 2: So, you know, I'd sometimes work in the warehouse, so i'd work in the shoe department, or I'd follow his buyers around, right, Dad, Yeah, that's the popcorn counter. And so when I was like, ay, i ran the popcorn counter.
00:20:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was buttery. It was salted.
00:20:23
Speaker 2: So my dad would come home, we'd always have a dinner, you know, the four of us sit at dinner. Mom would like the candles, you know, she'd make some kind of dinner and then always be conversation. My dad would be like, so I'm hearing from Mollie they had cashier that you're putting in three pumps of butter into the popcorn and you're only supposed to be putting in one one pump of butter. He goes, why are you doing that? I go, well, it tastes better, it's better, And he said, but you realize that that it's ten cents a bag, and by the butter's the most expensive ingredient. So if we do that, we're gonna have to raise the price up to twenty five cents and he said, it's completely your choice. I will do what you decide, and he goes, why don't you think of that overnight? Because if you think that your popcorn is that much better that you're going to get twenty five cents a bag, then I'll take the price up and we'll see how it works. So you right, eight, Wow, that's next night at dinner, my dad guys, have you thought about your popcorn? And I go, yeah, and its what do you want to do? Well? As good as my popcorn is, I just don't think. I think twenty five cents is a bit expensive, so I think we should just do one pump. My dad goes, I think that was a good choice. But I'm glad you thought about it.
00:21:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, but maybe do you think now I kind of got the bug? Yeah, you got the bug.
00:21:33
Speaker 2: Got the bug, and then I'm out of school. I went to the training program at Bloomingdal's, which is a department store.
00:21:39
Speaker 3: I know, I love Bloomingdale.
00:21:40
Speaker 2: It's a bit sort of like self rigidity, Yeah.
00:21:43
Speaker 1: But kind of Bloomingdal's in New York was kind of do you think because it was Avenue and there's Burdils.
00:21:48
Speaker 3: But then Burmia Bloomingdale's is on Lexington and fifty.
00:21:53
Speaker 2: Ninth of the last. It was kind of it was theater. Yeah, it was very theatrical. Take countries and do a whole theme of the store in China or whatever.
00:22:03
Speaker 3: You did a management retail.
00:22:05
Speaker 2: Training course right that you work in this store a little bit, and you'd be like I said, you know, they'd put you into in my case, they put me in the China silver department.
00:22:15
Speaker 3: Or are they clothing?
00:22:17
Speaker 2: I want? So I wanted to So Marvin Traub was the he was the CEO at the time. He's like, yeah, been written about him. And he used tot his office behind the towel department on the sixth floor anyway. So I was like, I was obsessed with Georgia of money at the time. He's American Jiggle just coming and I was like obsessed with Georgia of money. And I was went up to his office every day. I said to his assistant, I'd like to speak to mister Troub. I'm sorry, he's not available. I went up every day and finally mister trave overheard me. It wasn't that he was ignoring me. I think he was genuinely busy is that that Paul Price kid that's like coming here, Like, what are you doing coming up here all the time? I go, I really need to speak, it's really important. Are you put me in the wrong depart I'm in the training. He's like, I know who you are. I go, I owe you put me in the wrong department. He goes, you're in China and Silver says. He goes, no, we know exactly where we're putting. No, no, no, no, you don't understand. I have an affinity for men's designer. I should be in there the men's designer area around Georgia or Barney. And he goes, mister Brice, let me let me give you a little lesson. What's that, mister Trump. He goes, if I put you into the Georgia Ormony department, you would look at the suit and you'd go like, oh, well, I really like that suit, so I think we should buy those. And I really like that shirt, like that tie, and he goes, you would just personalize everything. He goes, I bet you now that you're in China and Silver, that you're learning about the Upper east Side lady and that she likes to have gold on her plates, and that she likes China versus porcelain, that she likes, silver plate versus sterling that she likes. He goes, you're learning about your customer, and he goes, you need to learn about your customer, not about your own personal affinities for things. And he was absolutely right, right know, you learn about your customer. You know that.
00:24:02
Speaker 3: How of course, how long did you stay in that department four before?
00:24:06
Speaker 2: For six months? And then they moved me andywhere? Then they got me into the clothing because they knew I wanted to do that. So I learned what I had to learn.
00:24:13
Speaker 3: I think those kind of people in your life are so crucial.
00:24:16
Speaker 2: He was amazing. He's passed away, but he years ago. I was at some conference living in London. I was working at Burbery and he was there and I went up to him and I said, mister Troup, you're not going to you know I lost my hair at this point. Yeah, I know, mister Traub, you won't remember me. I know exactly. You're the kid from China. You're the kid from China zor yeah, And he goes, how are you? I said, well, I'm at Burbery now he goes, I would He goes, wow, you guys are doing such great things. I said, well, why don't I bring you by the office. I'd love to give you a tour of the showroom. And it's not so I did. Yeah, And it meant the world to him. I thought he felt like service of pride under he is doing something interesting. Yeah, you know it's nice.
00:24:54
Speaker 3: When Yeah, that was nice. Did you eat well? In New York?
00:24:57
Speaker 2: New York you can always find something to eat. I think for not a lot. You'd go down to you know, the Lower East Side at the time, and you could you know, I forget the names of some of these places, Kafka or whatever it was.
00:25:10
Speaker 3: And would you cook? So would you cook a little bit as much?
00:25:14
Speaker 2: In New York?
00:25:15
Speaker 3: Was that post days? They had a New York feeling?
00:25:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was right right in the middle of it. And I was really lucky with someone I was sort of seeing it at school, sort of in the wrap under wraps, but he was with the gay men's health crisis and I was getting ready to graduate and was eight and it was just kind of surfacing. And he handed me all these brochures. His name was Bill George's Thank you Bill, since thanked him at dinner at Zunny Cafe in San Francisco, and he I said, read these brochures. He goes, we don't know what this is, but you need to read these brochures and follow these roles. I did, and I think he probably helped me.
00:26:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so, which is great.
00:26:05
Speaker 1: I think when you think about New York in the eighties, I guess I knew it. I never lived in New York, but I know that those different cycles even being there right now. You think New York goes through these phases, isn't you remember? You know, the great times, the hard times, the people who've been there. I'm like, do San Francisco is very different San Francisco.
00:26:26
Speaker 2: I feel like I've lived in all cities I've lived in at really good times. And when I said San Francisco was in the eighty eight to two thousand and five.
00:26:38
Speaker 3: So that was after Bloomingdale's you move.
00:26:40
Speaker 2: After bloom As, I moved to San Francisco.
00:26:42
Speaker 3: Why did you do that?
00:26:44
Speaker 2: Because I met this man, Mickey Drexler, who made the gap gap.
00:26:48
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:26:49
Speaker 2: So Mickey'd heard about me blooming News and he said, oh, I've just taken over Banana Republic and we want to convert it from a safari used to be a safari. He goes into a modern learning company. So Mickey, howged me? Is this first merchant? So I moved to San Francisco and I didn't know anybody, and it was really exciting. You know. San Francisco is known for its food.
00:27:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, certainly.
00:27:11
Speaker 2: I remember Alice to Zuni Cafe for the first time and Judy Rogers was the chef.
00:27:20
Speaker 3: I knew her.
00:27:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I remember having that roasted chicken and the caesar.
00:27:24
Speaker 3: Salad and the bread saladary.
00:27:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, that bread which I've learned how to do we.
00:27:28
Speaker 3: Make it here. We put it in one of our cooks to Rogers, and.
00:27:31
Speaker 2: To me, that was one of the greatest meals I ever had. And so after I left GAP for twelve years, I opened up an events business with my brother.
00:27:41
Speaker 3: Were in San Franciscancisco.
00:27:44
Speaker 2: And we did parties and things. But Judy hired us to do her Christmas decor for the first It was she never done it, and she said, oh, I'm going to give you guys your first job. I was like wow. So we did a kind of old fashioned Christmas tree, you know, it was like a spindley old Charlie bound tree with big lights and what breathe it. But it was like, you know, quite rustic and cute and propriate anyway, So we had to set it up on a Monday night because they were clothes on Mondays or Sunday night. It was late. So I set up and they were relaying the kitchen floor with this red wax so it wouldn't leak down below or something. I don't know anyway, and she had all of these ropes around the kitchen. She goes, whatever you do, just don't go into the kitchen, said, because the wax is wet and light. So cut to late at night. My boyfriend at the time, Mark, we had a Samoya dog, a big white, fluffy like husky, and he comes by. He goes, oh, I'm coming by to see you guys, and so he knocks on the window, you know, on market and he had the dog and I did so I didn't realize that her name is Daisy, that she was there. So I'm like doing something and I see these like red pawprints of wax all over the entire restaurant, you magice. So I was freaking out and I was like, so we're like trying to get the wax off. We did, and whatever I regard, this is a disaster. It's our first job, and with my brother, we were with my brother. It's a disaster. So I came clean. I go the next day because Judy didn't close up that night. I go, Judy, I go, I hope you like what we did, I said, but I have to tell you, I said, my dog got into the restaurant by mistake, and her footprints are all through your kitchen in the wax, and she goes. You get it a plus for design, and you get it a plus for your honesty. And it's our honor that Daisy is forever im martinalized in our kitchen. So my dog's friends in the kitchen. I don't know if they're still there, but it kind.
00:29:46
Speaker 1: Of makes sense that you went into events because you're such an eventful person.
00:29:50
Speaker 3: Did you not want to stay?
00:29:52
Speaker 2: Well, then I missed it, and then I sort of missed retail, and miss retail.
00:29:57
Speaker 3: I love what I do, so yeah, tell me about what you do.
00:30:01
Speaker 2: So I'm in charge of the product in the business, so I'm the chief merchant, and I just make sure that my team and I we work with the design team and the product development team and the sorte teams whatever to make sure that what gets designed and what eventually gets bought and what's presented is the things that are right for the brand, that tick the boxes of fashion, but also our commercial and to balance sort of the the commercial. You know, what our customers want, what does your customer wants? Try and understanding what that is. So you know, we'll you know, and we'll say to our design team, for instance, I need five different beverages, and they will give us a water and a tea and a wine and whatever, and they're like, well, you know what, maybe the tea. The tea is a really good one, so let's do three flavors of tea and not do the water. And you know, maybe we should have glasses that we should have a green tea glass, and we should have a black tea glass, and we should have a then you know, so you sort of create stories around the product. And I'm pretty good, I think at picking the thing on the table that's going to sell yeah, more than the other, so I can kind of say this is going to do better than that, and we should buy more of that than that. Don't always get it right, but you know over time you kind of you you know, I'm sure you kind of know what.
00:31:32
Speaker 1: Yah, yeah, and you're thinking about And also I think people always say where did you get the idea for something? And I said, there's no ideas in my work. You know, it's about a progression from right. You know, if I said we make an almond tarde with you know, Paris, then in the summer we might put strawberries on it, you know, and if you put strawberries, you might marinate them first or al to just do them stuck in. And it's a kind of it's not like, oh, I have an idea for a new flavor of ice cream.
00:31:59
Speaker 3: I mean I have to do you do? But it mostly.
00:32:02
Speaker 2: Don't You also think that you know, people come to your restaurant and they you know, they want certain things that they can count on, but they also want some it's sort of at what point, you know, we always sort of grapple with this. It's like, at what point do you move on? And like, because you know, for us, you know, we have a lot of a lot of locations, and it's sort of like if it's your local location, you have to keep refreshing a lot interesting So We're always like, how do we keep it interesting? Yet also yes, we have new verses of trench coats. We've got you know, whatever it may be. So it's fun. It's like a you know, it's it's an architecture of sorts of assortment of things.
00:32:50
Speaker 3: Which has been so good.
00:32:51
Speaker 1: And I'm starving if you are, so I think that you know the last I think if I always say, you know, food is about what you've described as your you know, you're you're really more in portrait of your parents on food is it's also you know, hosting and making people feel better, but it also is comfort. So I suppose I might have an idea clue of what you might choose. But if you were thinking about comfort food to go to when you need comfort, is there something that in your memory or your relationship?
00:33:21
Speaker 3: What would it be? That chicken pop pie.
00:33:24
Speaker 2: So I'm starting up a group with my friends and it's called death Row Meal. It'll be it once a month and there'll be like twelve of us and you cook what you would have on death row of your granted your death row meal, yeah, meaning your last meal.
00:33:40
Speaker 3: Basically yeah, is making a bit more no, no no.
00:33:44
Speaker 2: And sort of like my last meal. I gu this would be my most comforting.
00:33:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, what would that?
00:33:48
Speaker 2: So it would be like I would do, I mean to go fancy. I would have caber because that would be really nice. I mean I wouldn't that wouldn't be my car too, because that's expensive, but I would, you know, And I would do a porterhouse day on the grown with a chimmy cherry sauce. Home. It's with mint and serrano peppers and oregano and vinegar and oil and chilies. I say chilies anyway, it's just like a nice mix of that. It's argent time. And then I would do a mashed potato creamy mashed potato potato, which is also good. I would maybe do that instead, and then I would have probably asparagus, and then I would have a peach and raspberry pie with my secret ingredient, which is Southern comfort. I soaked the peaches and the raspberries and Southern comfort and then I drained that, and then I didn the pie and then it like explodes with flavor delicious. So I think it would be something quite be very American. And then i'd have a cheese. I probably have a final cheese dessert, and then they'd elect you keep me, I'd be done.
00:34:59
Speaker 3: What that?
00:35:01
Speaker 1: No no no, and then you'd have your party about no no, no, We're never gonna die.
00:35:06
Speaker 3: We're gonna keep on eating. I'm gonna eat that. Thank you so much for I love you.
00:35:11
Speaker 2: I love you, I love you, Thank you, thank you.
00:35:20
Speaker 1: Ruthie's Table four is proud to support Leukemia UK. The Cartwheel for a Cure campaign raises funds for vital research and more effective and kinder treatments for a cute Malloyd leukemia. Please donate and to do so search cartwell for cue.
00:35:44
Speaker 2: Ruthie's Table four was produced by Alex Bao, Robbie Hamilton and Zad Rogers, with Andrew Sang and Bella Selina. This has been an atomized production for iHeartMedia.
