Robyn Berkley: "The Dumbest Idea I've Ever Heard" (From Fashion PR Burnout to a Bootstrapped Luxury Brand)

Robyn Berkley spent seven years as fashion director at Kelly Cutrone's People's Revolution before her health forced her out: 16 shows in a New York season, midnight most nights, and a body that stopped cooperating. She quit, flew to Bali for yoga teacher training, and came home with a name and no plan. Live the Process is now one of the first luxury activewear brands, made in its own California factory, stocked at Net-a-Porter, Selfridges, Lane Crawford and Le Bon Marché, with collaborations including the David Lynch Foundation, Moon Juice and the Whitney Museum. She has never raised a dollar.We get into the stranger at The Dutch who called her idea the dumbest thing he'd ever heard and then became her co-founder, the two years it took to source a fabric that costs triple, the corset bodysuit that sold out on launch day at Net-a-Porter, why they went all in on DTC after building a global wholesale business, going full time in April 2020 and posting their best month ever, the Whitney x Alvin Ailey shoot on the museum rooftop, and what "our plan is no plan" actually looks like after more than a decade.The inaugural Womansplain Summit is October 16 at The Malin Chelsea, NYC, keynoted by Robinhood CIO Stephanie Guild. 120 seats, most already spoken for: luma.com/7bxd1137The Womansplain Collective+ is open: founder matching, member dinners, and priority Summit access. womansplainpod.com/membershipFind Live the Process: livetheprocess.com | @livetheprocessFind Womansplain: @womansplainpod | [email protected] | womansplainpod.com/newsletter