Pod Insights How I Built This with Guy Raz Tory Burch: Tory Burch About this episode Tory Burch didn’t set out to make her name into a brand; she didn’t even set out to get into fashion. As a matter of fact, she sort of gave up any fashion ambitions when her first designs were rejected by Ralph Lauren. But after noticing there were plenty luxury brands and plenty of affordable brands but nothing in between, Tory began to see a gap that she could fill. She tried to revive a dormant brand from the 1960’s, until one phone call put an end to that idea. So in 2004, with the help of her husband—a fashion entrepreneur in his own right—Tory Burch launched Tory Burch, a lifestyle brand with everything from shoes and swimwear, to handbags and home goods. Despite a rift in the relationship with her husband, that also bled over into the business, Tory has built a global brand with over 300 stores worldwide.
This episode was produced by J. C. Howard, with music by Ramtin Arablouei
Edited by Neva Grant, with research help from Katherine Sypher.
You can follow HIBT on Twitter https://twitter.com/HowIBuiltThis & Instagram https://www.instagram.com/howibuiltthis, and email us at [email protected] mailto:[email protected] .
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript 12,381 words · 6 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Guy Raz? Our presenting sponsor today is Anthropic, the team behind Claude. Every founder on this show started with a hard question. Not the marketing plan, the 2 a.m. kind. Is this idea any good? Am I the one to build it? Should I quit my job? Anthropic got built the same way. A public benefit corporation founded on one hard question. How do we make sure AI goes well for people? So they asked over 100,000 people their hopes and their fears and are publishing what they find, even the uncomfortable parts. Me? I've got my own hard question about AI. Here it is. If everyone has access to something that can help them write the business plan,
0:46 Guy Raz? build the prototype, analyze the market, maybe even come up with the idea, what separates the people who actually build something from everyone else? I don't have a clean answer yet, so I've been sitting with it with Claude. There's hope in hard questions. Ask yours at claude.ai/hibt. We get support from U.S. Bank. A question I love asking founders. What's the one decision you almost didn't make? The one that changed everything? Because it's never the obvious stuff. It's never, I decided to start a company. It's the small, boring, Tuesday afternoon decision you barely remember making until you realize it's the reason everything after it either worked or didn't.
1:32 Guy Raz? Say you're 18 months in. Business is growing. You've got expenses coming from six directions. Gas for the van, office supplies, your phone bill, team lunches that are actually client meetings, and you're putting it all on whatever card you grabbed in year one. You're not thinking about it. Why would you? You've got bigger problems. But here's the thing. Path A, you keep going like that. End of the year, you're sorting through statements, trying to figure out what went where. You've left hundreds, maybe thousands, on the table in rewards you never earned, money that could have gone back into the business. Path B, you pause and get the US Bank Triple Cash Rewards Visa Business Card. Now, you're earning 3% cash back
2:16 Guy Raz? on gas and EV charging, office supply stores, cellphone service, and restaurants. You pick up an extra $750 cash back as a bonus. And you've got a low APR on purchases and balance transfers for 12 months while you're scaling. Same business, same expenses, two completely different outcomes based on one small decision. Visit usbank.com/business to learn more. The creditor and issuer of this card is US Bank National Association, pursuant to a license from Visa USA, Inc. Some restrictions apply. If you travel often, you'll want to hear about this unprecedented offer. For the first time ever,
3:00 Guy Raz? new Delta SkyMiles Reserve American Express Card members can earn two Delta Comfort Round Trip flights for travel within the 48 contiguous US states, Puerto Rico, or the US Virgin Islands. Plus, you can earn 50,000 bonus miles towards your next getaway. And who doesn't appreciate an elevated airport experience? Delta SkyMiles Reserve Card members get access to the Delta Sky Club, your pre-flight oasis to recharge, with 15 visits and four one-time guest passes each medallion year when flying Delta together. That's up to $950 in annual value. Value estimate based on $50 per visit rate to purchase additional visits
3:45 Guy Raz? or bring a guest to the Delta Sky Club. Make every trip feel more rewarding with the car that upgrades your travel. Apply today at delta.com/cardsocial. Offer ends November 4, 2026. Minimum spending requirements and terms apply. Flights are fulfilled as flight certificates valid for Delta Comfort or Delta Maine to select domestic destinations. Book 21-plus days in advance. Up to $80 per person and taxes and fees apply. Other restrictions apply. When I pull up to a gas pump to fill my car, I'm not thinking about chemistry or engineering. I'm thinking about getting in, filling up, and getting on with my day. And it reminds me a little bit of the founders I talked to on this show, because the best
4:27 Guy Raz? ones obsess over things their customers will never see. Tiny details, invisible improvements, relentless iteration. And not because anyone's watching, but because it makes the product better. That's what the mobile brand does. It engineers fuel the same way great founders engineer their products. Mobile Supreme Plus Premium Gas helps keep engines three times cleaner, which can mean better performance and improved gas mileage. It's for people who care about what's under the hood, even if they never see it. Three times cleaner compared to mobile, regular gas in port fuel-injected engines. Actual results may vary. Visit mobilefuels.com for details.
5:11 Speaker 01 With a Spark Cash Plus card from Capital One, you earn unlimited 2% cash back on every purchase. And you get big purchasing power, so your business can spin more and earn more.
5:24 Guy Raz? How I Built This is pleased to have Upwork as our presenting sponsor. Visit upwork.com to get hiring. Upwork has a message for you. Everything you know about business, it was made up by a bunch of guys 100 years ago. Don't stay bound to their antiquated rules like the nine-to-five workday, commuting to an empty office building, or only hiring full-timers. Embrace a new way of working with Upwork. It's a portal to the future of business, and it's disguised as a website. Go to upwork.com. There you'll see the light and also find talent for projects of any size, from simple deliverables to complex projects, from short-term help to full-time hires. You can finally let those old business titans and their tired ideas rest in peace. This is how we work now.
6:08 Guy Raz? Visit upwork.com to get hiring talented professionals today.
6:13 Guy Raz? Does your team want a website that looks and feels handcrafted but is still fast to ship? Well, Framer is built exactly for that. With Framer, you design on a visual canvas with responsive layouts, hosting, and a CMS built in, so the work is production-ready from day one. And you can get it done with help from Framer's AI agents. Framer is the AI website builder that helps creators, teams, and businesses ship production-ready sites faster than ever while getting every detail right. Prompt, inspect, edit, and publish in one place at a whole new pace. AI agents and humans work together.
6:55 Guy Raz? The agents bring speed and scale, and people bring taste, judgment, and control. Learn how you can get more out of your site from a Framer specialist or get started building for free today at framer.com/built for 30% off a Framer Pro annual plan. That's framer.com/built. Rules and restrictions may apply.
7:20 Guy Raz? Hey, it's Guy here. You know, we hear a lot of stories on How I Built This about facing hurdles, overcoming obstacles, and being told no again and again and again. I recently talked with country music superstar Shania Twain, and she shared some pretty candid and surprising insights on how she, as a female performer from Canada, had to make some pretty bold moves to break into the male-dominated world of country music in Nashville. You should definitely check out my interview with Shania Twain on my other podcast, The Great Creators. Just search for The Great Creators with Guy Raz wherever you listen to podcasts. And now, on to today's show.
8:08 Speaker 02 I never slept. I was working out of my apartment for the first two years. We didn't have an office. So it was doing everything in our kitchen or in our living room. It was taking my kids to school and then getting on the phone until 4:00 in the morning, falling asleep on the phone.
8:28 Guy Raz? Yeah.
8:29 Speaker 02 It was the most exhausting year and following by 18 other years.
8:41 Guy Raz? Welcome to How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.
8:53 Guy Raz? I'm Guy Raz, and on the show today, how Tory Burch wanted to revive a former fashion label was told no, so she launched her own and grew it into a global brand with 370 stores around the world.
9:12 Guy Raz? When Tory Burch launched her fashion brand in the early 2000s, there were a lot of people who wrote her off. The perception, at least at the time, was that this was a vanity project from a so-called socialite. Tory had been an influential executive at Ralph Lauren, Vera Wang, and LVMH. She would sometimes appear in glossy magazines at fancy parties in New York City. But being well-connected isn't enough, especially when you're building a consumer brand, because at the end of the day, consumers have to like what you sell. And 20 years later, Tory Burch is one of the most enduring fashion brands in the world, a company that is worth billions of dollars.
9:55 Guy Raz? And one of the reasons for the brand's success is its point of view. Tory wanted to create clothing and accessories that were timeless and beautifully designed, but that lived in that zone of aspirational affordability. So shoes, for example, that might look like they cost $1,000 but were priced closer to $300. The road to taking Tory Burch from a single boutique in New York to hundreds of stores around the world was fraught almost from the beginning. Within two years of launching, she and her husband and business partner, Chris Burch, divorced. Their split and subsequent legal battles became fodder for the tabloid press.
10:37 Guy Raz? But remarkably, the two of them ended up resolving their differences. And through it all, Tori figured out how to compartmentalize the drama happening behind the scenes and still grow the brand. Tory Burch grew up in a sprawling 250-year-old farmhouse about 30 minutes outside of Philadelphia. She came from a blended family with three brothers. Her mom was an aspiring actress and model, and her dad?
11:05 Speaker 02 He was the most extraordinary man. I mean, definitely known for his style and quick wit. His humor was hysterical, and he was like the king of one-liners. But he was definitely more of an introvert. And I remember always just saying, "I love you," and getting him to say, "I love you." And he was just the kindest person you could ever meet.
11:30 Guy Raz? What did he do for a living?
11:32 Speaker 02 So, you know, it's funny. I mean, he never really worked. And so when you had to fill out those little things in school, that, "What did your father do?" I never really knew what to write. So I would write "investor," or I wasn't really quite sure what to write. But in a way, it was interesting. He was like a bon vivant. But he was much deeper than that. But he spent a lot of time traveling and spent a lot of time in Europe. And I used to have books of the women he dated. And he finally met my mom and fell in love. I don't think they got married until he was 40 years old. And so back then, that was pretty ancient.
12:12 Guy Raz? So he was, I mean, he was like, from what you described, from what I've read, he was almost like, I mean-
12:19 Speaker 02 A dandy.
12:20 Guy Raz? A dandy, right? Like, I think you described him wearing espadrilles and pink shirts, sitting on a tractor.
12:27 Speaker 02 Well, yeah, I mean, I just have this vivid memory of him on this giant tractor and listening to sport games and always just perfectly dressed. And in a way, he should have been a designer because he had all of his clothing made and it was just incredible detailing, much of which I've used for inspiration in a lot of the things we've made over the years.
12:48 Guy Raz? And were you like, as a girl, you know, and forgive me for using this term because it's lazy and kind of just shorthand, but were you like a girly girl or were you into sort of stereotypical girl things like?
13:04 Speaker 02 Not at all, not even the slightest. I was a complete tomboy. I was constantly climbing trees and trying to keep up with my brothers. So I don't think I put a dress on until I was later in high school. I remember, you know, when I was young, I had no choice. But I remember coming, actually, my dad took me one day to the barber. Then I finally had gotten long hair. I grew, I was born bald and my dad took me to the barber and I got a cut. And my mom was so furious because I looked literally like a boy.
13:42 Guy Raz? I know that when you got older, you went to college at the University of Pennsylvania, where I guess you studied art history. And when you graduated, did you, like, is that what you wanted to do or were you interested in fashion or what?
13:59 Speaker 02 I was, you know, in the, college was like the most fun and I was thinking of all kinds of different things. And then I realized I needed to get a job and it was the sense of urgency. I'm not as sure that happens today, but back then it was everyone needed to work right away and we needed to figure it out. And so I sent about 50 resumes to people and, you know, my sister-in-law was in fashion. She'd worked at Calvin Klein and my mom wore this designer Zoran. And so I sent a note to him.
14:34 Guy Raz? He was like a small designer in New York City?
14:37 Speaker 02 He was small, but incredibly cool. He was known as like this extraordinary minimalist and didn't use zippers or buttons and it was all about the fabric and the drape.
14:47 Guy Raz? And he had a boutique in the city?
14:50 Speaker 02 He did not have a boutique. He sold wholesale. And he sold out of his showroom.
14:56 Guy Raz? Got it.
14:56 Speaker 02 Which is where I ended up getting a job. And he basically told me that I could have a job if I came to work that next week, which was literally almost a week after graduation. So I, within that week, had to find an apartment and move to New York. And I moved with two of my roommates. And we lived in a one-bedroom with three girls in Tribeca.
15:19 Guy Raz? And what was your job? I mean, like, was it substantive work? Was it fetching coffee? What?
15:25 Speaker 02 It was anything that he needed done. So basically, you walked into his office slash showroom. And he was this man that looked like Rasputin. And the vodka would start at 10:00 in the morning. And we would, whether I was pouring his vodka or getting coffee or running interferences if he didn't want to see people. But I was setting up meetings with editors. And I was, like, taking notes. I was sending shipments. I was doing anything that needed to be done.
15:58 Guy Raz? And it was just, he's known as Zoran?
16:01 Speaker 02 Zoran.
16:02 Guy Raz? Like Pele or Madonna?
16:04 Speaker 02 Exactly. And he would dress everyone from Isabel Rossellini to...
16:10 Guy Raz? Wow.
16:10 Speaker 02 I mean, everyone chic and beautiful. And it was an amazing induction into the fashion world.
16:18 Guy Raz? And, I mean, so you kind of fell into the fashion world. It wasn't like you were seeking this out. It was like you had to find a job. And there was this opportunity to work for Zoran. And then that kind of got you into the fashion world. But it wasn't necessarily like your plan.
16:33 Speaker 02 No, it wasn't my plan. I mean, that said, in, like, thinking about it, I was immersed in fashion my whole childhood between my mom and my dad and just watching them, not partaking, per se. But I never really thought that would be my plan.
16:50 Guy Raz? Did you have a fashion, like, sensibility as a young woman? Like, did you... Was it something you were really into? Were you into clothes?
16:59 Speaker 02 It's funny. I guess I had my own style because I was always made fun of at Penn. And I always loved vintage also. That was something. And so I would wear like Grateful Dead t-shirts and an Hermes scarf and LL Bean boots. And I kind of had uniforms. And I remember my friend Patrick used to say, call me proc. And it was because it was like this look of like, sort of a bit preppy and a bit of a jock. And so I guess I stood out a bit.
17:31 Guy Raz? And I guess you went on to have eventually a few more jobs in the fashion world. You were, for a while, you were an assistant at Harper's Bazaar, the magazine, and then you went to work for Ralph Lauren to do, I think, PR for them, right?
17:46 Speaker 02 Right. So I went to Ralph Lauren. It was a very glamorous job in a closet, managing samples. And it was really there that I was exposed to so many different parts of his brand. And, you know, it's funny, when I was thinking about this interview, while I was at Ralph, there was one time that I tried to work in design and submitted a project and I was turned down. And I'll never, I hadn't, I don't think I've ever told anyone that. I was, but I really, I guess at the time, was interested in design, or at least became interested, because I was at Ralph for a while.
18:27 Guy Raz? There's this like, this kind of caricature, right, of what it's like to work at a fashion house, right? And, you know, it comes from media and films and the Devil Wears Prada and whatever it might be, right? And, I mean, you were in your early 20s in New York. This is the early 90s. It's like, you know, and Ralph Lauren, really, he's kind of the OG, right? He's the guy who, you know, we had Michael Kors on the show a while back, and he talked about Ralph Lauren, how he really looked to Ralph Lauren as a model for what, you know, eventually he would do. Did you, what was the atmosphere and the environment like? Was it cutthroat? Was it cruel? Were people mean? And what do you remember?
19:09 Speaker 02 I mean, I didn't find that at all. I thought it was spectacular and you go and you dream. And so, but it was interesting because I, I used to have this joke, I don't know if you'd think it was funny, but I used to call them polo Krishnas, all of us, because everyone was dressed head to toe Ralph. And it was like, you, you had to eat and drink and breathe Ralph, in a cool way. And I just thought that that was fascinating. And I loved my boss, and she's still there. People stay for forever there. Mary Randolph Carter. When you meet Mary Randolph Carter, she looks quintessentially like a Ralph model. She's stunning.
19:50 Guy Raz? Did you, I mean, you, you'd mentioned that you had submitted some designs when you worked at Ralph Lauren, which didn't go anywhere. They kind of didn't really-
19:58 Speaker 02 It was a project, yeah.
19:59 Guy Raz? Yeah. I mean, did you hold on to, to that kind of dream of maybe doing design work? Or, or did you kind of give that up at that time?
20:07 Speaker 02 I sort of gave it up at the time. And I didn't really think a lot about it. You know, I was thinking a lot about just how I became a designer. And with my love of vintage and my mother's clothing, I used to remake clothing all the time with a tailor.
20:23 Guy Raz? Oh, you'd bring her stuff to a tailor?
20:25 Speaker 02 I would bring her stuff or find stuff vintage and remake it. I mean, even in college, I even remember in high school, we had a uniform, but I was always wearing like boxer shorts and getting in trouble underneath my uniform and like adding patches. And I was always, you know, doing things like that, but I never really, it never really registered.
20:45 Guy Raz? Did you sew?
20:46 Speaker 02 Um, no. I mean, very, very badly.
20:51 Guy Raz? All right. So meanwhile, you, you, you end up doing a few different jobs in fashion. I think in the mid, in the mid 90s, you got a job doing a PR at Vera Wang, and then- A couple of years later, you left to go work for LVMH, doing PR for one of their brands, which is the luxury brand Loewe.
21:12 Speaker 02 Yeah.
21:14 Guy Raz? And also, I guess, during this period, you meet someone who's going to become very important to your life, who is Chris Birch. How did you meet Chris?
21:25 Speaker 02 He had an office in the same building. And then we met in the elevator. And he laughs. But my sister-in-law said, if there were 10,000 people in the room, he'd be the last person that she thought I would date. And he repeats that story, so I can't.
21:44 Guy Raz? And he was, he is older than you.
21:46 Speaker 02 Yep.
21:47 Guy Raz? And so you, the two of you, started dating, and then you got married. You became Tory Birch in 1996.
21:54 Speaker 02 Yes, I did. I fell in love with his three little girls, aside from him, but he had three little girls that were five, seven, and eight at the time.
22:07 Guy Raz? And what was he, I mean, who was Chris Birch? What was he?
22:12 Speaker 02 I mean, he was this incredible entrepreneur, and still is. And he built this company called Eagle's Eye with his brother. And it was a very big company for Philadelphia. It was like the sort of preppy company. It was sort of novelty sweaters and Christmas sweaters. I don't know if you remember, turtlenecks with embroidered whales on it, or ladybugs. And so he built this company like from college. He started to travel to Asia. And he was one of the first people to really do production over there. And he and his brother Bob just built a pretty terrific company.
22:56 Guy Raz? So you guys get married in 1996, and you become Tory Robinson Birch, I think, right?
23:02 Speaker 02 Yes.
23:03 Guy Raz? And you, I think, pretty, relatively soon after, you had two boys, twins. So you guys had... Within a year, you had a pretty big blended family. He had three daughters and now you have-
23:15 Speaker 02 Five children.
23:16 Guy Raz? Yeah, and he had five children at the house and a pretty busy job. I mean, working for LVMH, so there's a lot going on. And I guess eventually they offered you a pretty big job there.
23:29 Speaker 02 They offered me a bigger job because they were looking for a head of US.
23:35 Guy Raz? Head of US.
23:36 Speaker 02 For Loewe. And I also found out I was pregnant with my third son.
23:43 Guy Raz? Wow.
23:43 Speaker 02 So I realized that three babies under the age of four was a little too much to have a career at the same time. And it was a very tough decision to leave a career that I loved and essentially become a stay-at-home mom.
24:01 Guy Raz? So when you decided to leave, and what, tell me a little bit about what that meant in your life. It's the early 2000s. You now have got kind of six kids under your roof.
24:19 Guy Raz? But did you think that you, I mean, do you remember thinking, I probably won't go back into a corporate job?
24:28 Speaker 02 Well, I had so many ideas to start different companies during that time and just, I guess I was trying to find my way. And I was trying all different things. And the one thing that I realized is that I didn't want to keep talking about things to friends and people until it was real.
24:48 Guy Raz? Yeah.
24:48 Speaker 02 I was getting tired of the ideas because I would talk about them and then nothing would come to fruition.
24:54 Guy Raz? What do you mean you had ideas? I mean, you-
24:56 Speaker 02 Like, I was just interested. It could have been like, there was a baby contraption. I mean, there was a lot. I mean, I also had an idea to start a school, a charter school, because it was hard to get- You know, children into schools. I felt like there was a big need in New York City. So it wasn't always around fashion. It was, you know, it was also right at the time when I was moving down to Philadelphia. My dad wasn't 100% well. I had all of these things happening at once. And I kind of knew that I wanted to start a company. And I also knew that I wanted to start a foundation one day.
25:36 Speaker 02 So I had this instinct that if I could build something big, I could also then have the financials to invest into a foundation.
25:49 Guy Raz? Just the idea of wanting to start a company. Where do you think that came from? Is that something that you think you always had like a seed inside of you of? Like that you always somehow thought maybe would do that? Or is it something that started to emerge after you got more experience?
26:07 Speaker 02 I think it came with more experience. I really don't think it was, you know, something that I had planned. Certainly, I never planned to be a designer. But I think it came with really learning so much from all the different places that I had worked.
26:24 Guy Raz? You came to this state of mind, this place with, I guess, with a sense of confidence that maybe you could do this, you could actually start a business.
26:35 Speaker 02 Well, maybe it's because I really didn't know what I was embarking on. Because I literally hear myself and think back on some of the conversations I had. And it's slightly embarrassing. I mean, I said, I wanted to start a global lifestyle brand so that I could start a foundation. And had I known what that would mean and take, I probably would have been a little more careful in the words I used.
27:03 Speaker 02 I always, you know, there are certain things where you're, my parents always say, your own worst enemy. Like, you can be more confident at times and feel less at others. So, and maybe also hearing, you know, about what Chris had worked on at Eagle's Eye. I think he had the ability to make product. And so that was interesting for me.
27:28 Guy Raz? All right, so you were thinking through a bunch of different ideas and you kind of land on this idea that there's a gap in the market. There's not that attainable luxury clothing apparel is not, there's an opportunity there, that either you had to spend thousands and thousands of dollars, or you had to go to fast fashion. But you felt like there was an opportunity to create sort of luxury apparel, but not at luxury prices.
28:02 Speaker 02 Yeah, I did feel that there was nothing in between. I felt at the time there was the Gap and Banana Republic, and then there was Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren.
28:13 Guy Raz? Which was true in the late 90s, really 2000s.
28:16 Speaker 02 There was not, there really wasn't the in-between. And I also felt luxury was not necessarily about a price point. And for me, I was always taught through my mom, and dad, that it was really about emotion and how something makes you feel and time. And I just had a different perspective on what luxury meant. And I would watch my mom get dressed and put on gold lemmes or an outfit. And she'd come, and it was like this awakening, and she'd be so lively and energetic. And she loved fashion. And so it just was an interesting way to think about it, is how fashion can change the way you feel about yourself.
29:02 Guy Raz? So you left LVMH in 2001, and you wouldn't launch Tory Burch until 2004. So let's talk about the time in between for a moment. When you, this idea started to coalesce in your mind, there's a gap here, and I think I can come up with something to fill that gap. And when you went to Chris, who had experience in the apparel business, and as did you, but when you went to him and you sort of talked to him about this idea, what was his response?
29:31 Speaker 02 I mean, he liked the idea. I also had a friend Fiona Couture, who worked at Ralph with me, and she worked in design. And she also was part of the conversation because I wanted to start a business with her. We had talked about it. And so she also had a bit of experience, more than I did, around the product and the actual design process. So in a way, she really helped me learn about that in the beginning. And Chris really liked the idea. I think he had sold Eagle's Eye, and in a way, he probably missed the business because he was very passionate about it.
30:12 Speaker 02 So he really did like the idea of us starting something.
30:17 Guy Raz? And you knew, I mean, you kind of, I imagine, you knew what you were going for. I mean, you had worked at Ralph Lauren, you'd worked with Vera Wang at LVMH. So you knew kind of what attainable luxury meant in your mind.
30:33 Speaker 02 Well, I had an idea. I mean, I sort of, you know, put these books together of what I thought it could be.
30:41 Guy Raz? What were the books? Was that like a mood board of like different images or things that you had sketched?
30:48 Speaker 02 Yeah, it was all of the above. It was old pictures of my parents from the 60s and 70s. It was images of a ballet flat from Audrey Hepburn. It was a company my mom wore called Jax. That was what I really wanted to do, is relaunch Jax. That was really what my first idea was, is to bring Jax back. And Jax was this great brand that all these very stylish women wore. It was designed by Rudy Gernreit, and it was in the 60s and 70s. My mom wore it, and it was the perfect cigarette pan. It was the perfect pea coat. It was the perfect gingham dress.
31:30 Speaker 02 And so we ended up going down to New Jersey to someone who had a ton of archives.
31:37 Guy Raz? Because Jax was no longer in business.
31:39 Speaker 02 Jax was no longer, it had gone out of business. And so I was really excited about this idea. And then I called Sally Hansen, who was probably 90 at the time. I got in touch with her.
31:52 Guy Raz? And Sally Hansen was the--
31:54 Speaker 02 Was the founder.
31:55 Guy Raz? The founder, OK.
31:56 Speaker 02 And the owner of the intellectual property.
31:59 Guy Raz? So you were thinking, oh, well, let's buy this brand and relaunch it.
32:03 Speaker 02 Yes. And so I got her on the phone. And literally, it was such a shutdown within 20 seconds. She basically said, absolutely not.
32:13 Guy Raz? Wow.
32:14 Speaker 02 And so it was like, whoa. I had done so much work on it. I had called different people. So then I had to regroup.
32:23 Guy Raz? So she wouldn't sell it to you?
32:25 Speaker 02 No.
32:25 Guy Raz? But your first step, really, in thinking of a concept was to build this brand bible, this book?
32:32 Speaker 02 Yes, yes.
32:33 Guy Raz? Just the pictures, your mom?
32:35 Speaker 02 Pictures.
32:36 Guy Raz? Sketches.
32:37 Speaker 02 And old things by Jax, but other things as well. It could have been vintage. It was pictures of Steve McQueen and different men that looked chic. It was kind of just an image board. And but it was books and books. It wasn't a board. But it was like the beginning of what I thought, what became the company.
33:01 Guy Raz? When we come back in just a moment, Tori launches a website, opens her first store, and wrestles with a loaded word: ambitious. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This.
33:30 Guy Raz? AI isn't just opening new business opportunities. It's changing the way businesses get work done. The questions they ask, the decisions they make, the routine tasks they can hand off. That's the idea behind NetSuite Next, the next generation of NetSuite with AI woven into the tools your business already relies on. NetSuite Next surfaces insights exactly when you need them, puts agents to work on routine tasks and problems, and lets you ask complex questions in plain language, like talking to a knowledgeable colleague. But technology is only part of the story. AI is also reshaping how people and teams work together, and that shift is already underway.
34:14 Guy Raz? That's why NetSuite wants to put a new, expert-created business guide in your hands today. It's called Aligning for the Agentic Era: How AI is Changing Everyday Work. And right now, it's yours, absolutely free. Inside, you'll discover how AI could reshape work across your entire organization, and how to position your business to prosper from it. If your revenues are at least in the seven figures, get NetSuite's free business guide, Aligning for the Agentic Era: How AI is Changing Everyday Work, at netsuite.com/built. The guide is free to you at netsuite.com/built. netsuite.com/built.
34:55 Speaker 03 Football is back, and PrizePix is bringing out their best offer yet. New users who sign up will get $150 in lineups if you win your first $5 lineup. That's right, if you win your first $5 lineup, you'll get $150 in lineups. On PrizePix, you simply pick two to six players, pick more or less on their stat projections, and submit your lineup. Then sweat it out as you watch your picks play out live. It's the best way to get more locked in on game day. Make all the picks you want this football season, all in the same app. And now, PrizePix is available nationwide. So what are you waiting for? Lock in for kickoff, because everyone and everything is on PrizePix. What you on?
35:40 Speaker 04 Download the PrizePix app today and use code WONDERY. That's code WONDERY. To get $150 instantly in lineups if you win your first $5 lineup. PrizePix, run your game.
35:55 Speaker 05 College students, get 12 months free of Uber One for Students membership program and get deals on things you're already doing. You're already ordering pizza, why not do it with 10% off Uber Eats? You're already ordering a ride to karaoke. Now you can save on those Ubers even at peak times. And you're ordering caffeine the next morning. Order it with a $0 delivery fee. Save on what you're already doing with 12 free months of Uber One for Students and save on Uber and Uber Eats. 12-month free membership offer for eligible students who aren't members. Available while supplies last or through 12/31/26, whichever comes first. Subject to change or cancellation, revocable due to fraud if not an eligible student.
36:27 Guy Raz? One more thing before we get back to the show. Please make sure to click the follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode of the show, and it's totally free.
36:44 Guy Raz? Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's the early 2000s and Tori's idea for reviving the fashion brand Jaxx has gotten a flat no from the founder. So she's trying to figure out what to do next.
37:00 Speaker 02 I regrouped and thought, okay, we can do this without using Jaxx. But it was still kind of a similar idea in that it was these classic pieces that were incredibly hard to find and beautifully made. And that was a different price point than what you might find at Valentino or YSL. So for me, it was like, how do we really think about quality and look through a luxury lens, but offer something that can reach more customers? And it was the beginning of this concept of a retail store and this idea of direct to consumer, which was also...
37:44 Speaker 02 The opposite of what I was told to do at the time.
37:47 Guy Raz? So in that period of time, from like, concept to launch, right? You started to talk to people, you partnered up with some former colleagues. And I guess you even brought in some designers to help you kind of sketch out designs of, what, dresses, of tops, of tunics?
38:08 Speaker 02 It was everything. I mean, literally, it was about maybe nine to 11 different categories, whether it was footwear, handbags, swim, ready-to-wear, eyewear. It was jewelry. So I really thought about everything in these image books, about sort of what would be interesting to have my take on it. And so I think it was just about women, and they were becoming more and more busy, and they wanted to look chic, and I wanted to be a problem solver. A lot of women struggled with how do you put certain things together? How do I wear color? How do I wear print? I always heard that in everywhere I worked.
38:52 Speaker 02 How do, you know, women didn't always have the confidence. And I kind of was thinking, like, how do you be irreverent and interesting, but still be classic in spirit? And those were some of the things I thought about.
39:05 Guy Raz? So at what point were you comfortable to sort of pull the trigger and say, let's do this, let's start to bring some money in?
39:14 Speaker 02 So I remember it, it was really around 2003, when I decided that I wanted to start something. And it was a year of very intense everything to get the idea of the company together.
39:34 Guy Raz? So you needed to, obviously, raise some money. And I know that you and Chris put in some money as well. But starting a fashion brand is not, it's hard, I think, to do it with 100,000 bucks. Like, you need significant cash to do it.
39:49 Speaker 02 Yeah. I mean, Chris and I put in $2 million. And we also were funding the beginnings of it. And that was everything from the branding. We worked with a company called Modco to work on our logo and to actual...
40:09 Speaker 02 Setting up the production in Hong Kong, and Chris had experience with that. We set up our Hong Kong office before anything.
40:19 Guy Raz? Let me kind of ask you about the logo, which is now kind of iconic, two Ts, right? Was that, I mean, tell me about that logo. How did that, was that the logo from the very beginning?
40:38 Speaker 02 So, yes. I met with this branding company called Monco. And I said, you know, I wanted to create a logo that we could use in different ways. And I was really interested in Morocco. My parents had spent their honeymoon and then just constantly went back. And then also David Hicks, who was an interior designer that I had always loved and my parents loved. And so I thought there was something interesting that we could combine and that it would be more of a design element. And they came back with different iterations, but many different iterations. And they came up with this one. It was the one that I loved. And it was the first one that I had an emotional connection to.
41:22 Speaker 02 And I would say that wasn't the case for everyone. It was polarizing. And people either loved it or they didn't. And I really loved it.
41:32 Guy Raz? Yeah, because you can, I mean, probably people said, oh, it looks like an iron cross or something like that.
41:37 Speaker 02 You know, we got the cross. We got, it looked Asian. It looked Moroccan. You know, everyone had a different opinion.
41:48 Guy Raz? And did you ask yourself at the time, like, because it's such an iconic logo today, but you couldn't have known that in 2003 while you were designing it. But did you, were you ever sort of asking the question like, hey, if we just put this logo on a sticker, we want people to know what this is. Was that?
42:07 Speaker 02 I wasn't thinking about it that way. I wasn't thinking like, what is our logo?
42:12 Guy Raz? What's your Nike swoosh?
42:14 Speaker 02 Yeah, it wasn't like that at the time.
42:17 Guy Raz? It was just, you liked it. It was Moroccan.
42:19 Speaker 02 I liked it and I felt that it was like, I felt it was impactful and strong. And, you know, I had spent some time studying Chinese art and it reminded me of like never ending the circle. And it was, it just felt vibrant.
42:35 Guy Raz? All right, so you have the logo and you decide that Hong Kong is really the best place for you to set up manufacturing because Hong Kong, obviously tailoring textile center for a long time. And so from that base, you could basically establish relationships?
42:53 Speaker 02 Well, I went and I met with factories. And back then, to ask a factory to make 50 or 100 pieces of something was not that interesting for them.
43:04 Guy Raz? Yeah.
43:04 Speaker 02 So they had to, I think going there personally made all the difference. And showing them that if they took a chance on us, that we would stay with them and partner with us, that we would grow with them. So it was a lot of long dinners, a lot of long conversations. And I think also Chris's experience of building a brand absolutely helped as well.
43:30 Guy Raz? And this from the beginning was going to be a fashion brand, but that was also a retail location. You were not, it wasn't like you were going to build a brand and sell it to Bloomingdale's and...
43:44 Speaker 02 No. In fact, I was not thinking about wholesale at all in the beginning. I was really interested in direct to consumer. And I really felt that e-commerce at some point would be worth it. And it was also a way that we could reach more people.
44:03 Guy Raz? But, I mean, because of your experience working in the industry, I mean, you could have had far faster distribution if you, right, if you had designed a line and then went and talked to a bunch of buyers.
44:18 Speaker 02 Yes, yes.
44:20 Guy Raz? And that could have been a faster way to get your brand out into the world.
44:23 Speaker 02 Well, I think that's sort of a message about our whole company. We've never wanted to take the fast way. We've always wanted to be a patient brand, even from the very beginning. I've never been inspired by becoming the biggest brand. I wanted to be the most extraordinary brand.
44:44 Guy Raz? What about the name of the company? I mean, originally it was not called Tori Birch, right?
44:49 Speaker 02 No. Well, I didn't want to use my name. And I tried to get, I wish I could remember, maybe 10 names. And all of them were taken or unavailable in some way. And so I thought Tori by TRB. It's in retrospect, it was such a bad name. But that's what we ended up using. And I think it was probably a year and a half into it, or maybe two years into it, that I ended up changing it.
45:20 Guy Raz? To Tori Birch?
45:21 Speaker 02 Yes.
45:21 Guy Raz? And so just to kind of, I mean, just imagining this. I mean, you really did a lot of work before. I mean, you laid the groundwork. You had, you set up a shop, an office in Hong Kong. You had a logo, a name, and then a product line. And so what, yeah, tell me about that product line.
45:41 Speaker 02 So we were designing different products. And I was really interested in sweaters. And we had ready to wear. We had the pea coat, the concept of the perfect pant. We had the caftan. I had found a vintage tunic in a Paris flea market for about $8. That became one of the core pieces of our collection. We had a fair amount of my mom's clothing that I was inspired by. And we had totes, we had swim, we had espadrilles.
46:17 Guy Raz? And you would have them, you would have, so you had a lot of products. You had a bunch of things in a lot of different sizes?
46:24 Speaker 02 We did. I wouldn't say we had a tremendous amount of inventory, but we had what we needed.
46:33 Guy Raz? And you were going to be selling things online, which was kind of rare at the time. But you were also going to open a physical store, right? Like a retail location in New York. So tell me about that first store.
46:46 Speaker 02 So we found a location where the rent was very inexpensive. And that was Elizabeth Street.
46:53 Guy Raz? In Tribeca?
46:54 Speaker 02 In Tribeca. There was nothing on the street at the time. There was Cafe Habana and maybe a couple of stores. And the store we ended up taking was a furniture store.
47:04 Guy Raz? So you opened the store February 2004. And
47:10 Guy Raz? In Tribeca.
47:10 Speaker 02 During Fashion Week, yep.
47:12 Guy Raz? During Fashion Week. And, and what did, I mean, creating a tangible luxury, did it mean? I mean, because a lot of what makes something luxury is in the design, right? In how it's designed and how people perceive that design. But were you able to create that, those luxury products because your manufacturing costs were lower, because they were being made in Asia?
47:37 Speaker 02 Well, I think so. I think we were pushing the limit there. And, and we, first of all, I had met some different designers. So the attention to detail and design was there. And the quality was incredibly beautiful. I think I've learned a lot about design. I would say the pieces were, at the time, great and they stood out and different. But as I've learned to become a designer over time, you know, it's, it was the first collection.
48:12 Guy Raz? All right. So that store opens and it's, it's a hit. I mean, you sell everything out in the first, first couple of days. And there, I guess around that time, The New York Times wrote its, a piece about, she's the first time they had written a piece about the brand and they called you ambitious. And that apparently really bothered you.
48:31 Speaker 02 Well, it bothered me in the way that it was asked. It was not, it was, it was asked in a way that, at the time, I sort of was put off by that question and I just felt like it was kind of a rude question.
48:44 Guy Raz? You thought the concept of the notion of being ambitious was, you know?
48:48 Speaker 02 Distasteful for women.
48:51 Guy Raz? You felt that way? That was how you were programmed to think?
48:53 Speaker 02 I think we, I think it was, it was in the ether that way back then, that it was OK for men to be ambitious, but not OK for women. And I got a phone call from a friend of mine in business. And it was until she mentioned it to me that I should embrace the word ambition and not shy away from it. It never occurred to me. And as soon as I heard it put that way, it struck me as something that I wanted to change.
49:27 Speaker 02 And wanted to correct in myself because I also shied away from that word. And I wasn't embracing my own ambition. And I wasn't saying, thank you. Yes, I am ambitious.
49:39 Guy Raz? Yeah. Yeah, and I mean, ambition is obviously a critical element of building a company and a brand. And so let me ask you about ambition in 2004. When you opened that shop and you talked about to maybe people you really trusted about what it could be, what did you imagine in 2004?
50:03 Speaker 02 Well, I imagined something big. And I don't know why, but I felt that I wanted to create a company that reached a lot of women. And I wanted to build something globally. But it was pretty frenetic. It was, you know, a lot of just moving in all directions and just trying to keep up. I never slept.
50:35 Guy Raz? Yeah.
50:35 Speaker 02 And it was, being a mom, I was working out of my apartment for the first two years. We didn't have an office. So it was doing everything in our kitchen or in our living room. It was taking my kids to school and then getting on the phone until 4:00 in the morning, falling asleep on the phone. You know, we ended up having maybe 14 or 15 people working out of our apartment. So I was also contacted from the first day by Bergdorf Goodman.
51:09 Guy Raz? They wanted to buy.
51:11 Speaker 02 They wanted to buy. And so they came into my apartment to see the two racks and the accessories. And that was the beginning of our wholesale collection. It was, it was the most exhausting year and following by 18 other years. But it was, it was crazy and it was a whirlwind.
51:36 Guy Raz? You got a pretty awesome opportunity a year in when Oprah called, or Oprah's producer called, to be on for the next big thing that she was doing on fashion. Which is amazing. You went out to Chicago to be on the show.
51:49 Speaker 02 Well, I thought it was a joke, first of all. You know, my brothers and I are constantly playing tricks on each other. So I thought this was a total joke. But I realized it wasn't after a moment. So I was completely blown away and said, yes. And it was the beginning of a new chapter for us.
52:09 Guy Raz? And did that, I mean, this is 2005, so it's still early e-commerce days. And I have to assume that e-commerce wouldn't become a significant part of your business for a few more years after that. But did that have an effect? Was there a spike in people ordering stuff online?
52:24 Speaker 02 Yes. And we were so fortunate that we had e-commerce because had we not, it would have been a very different conversation, probably. Because it really propelled us in a way that I never could have imagined. She told us to back up our site. We had 8 million visitors in our first, almost second year in business.
52:48 Guy Raz? I'm curious about how you felt or responded, maybe internally, to some of the, let's say, criticisms or sniping that began early on. Right? Here we are, almost 20 years since you launched this brand, an enduring brand, a major global brand, which we're going to trace over the course of this conversation. But initially, when you launched, there were, you know, there were people saying, well, you know, this is a socialite, or this is-
53:17 Speaker 02 A vanity project.
53:18 Guy Raz? A vanity project. This is a wealthy couple who just, you know, and it's going to die. And did you feel like you had to prove something when you would hear that?
53:27 Speaker 02 Well, I mean, OK, I can't say it wasn't hurtful, because it was. That said, I mean, literally, I hear it every five minutes from my parents. Negativity is noise. Buckle up, thicken your skin. This is going to be a roller coaster. I mean, I had those conversations. I knew what I was getting into. And I'd also had those snipes before. And it definitely got to me at times. And my mother is my North Star. And whenever it would get to me, I would call her. And I hear, you're Tori Robinson. Don't you know who you are? Even just when I was little. But always building me up. And my brothers and my family, they were
54:12 Speaker 02 like my strength.
54:15 Speaker 02 And you know, when you go back to the concept of a lot of money, there's perception and reality. And I wouldn't say we had a tremendous amount of money at the time when we launched this company. And it was, it was not something we took lightly.
54:31 Guy Raz? It was a big risk.
54:32 Speaker 02 It was a big risk. And I, I really tuned it out. And I, I learned to tune it out even more. And I think it's a very freeing concept when you don't listen and you don't read and you just keep your head down and, and keep going and, and believing in yourself.
54:54 Guy Raz? And yeah, I mean, you know, occasionally like we'll all hear from, from somebody who'll say, oh, you know, How I Built This, Guy Raz didn't, didn't start a, a big company. And, and so what does he know about business? Right? There were also people that said, well, Tory Burch is not a designer. What does she know about design?
55:13 Speaker 02 Oh, my God. So many things like that. And by the way, I didn't even think of myself as a designer either. So there you have it. I was the hardest on myself. So I would say not until about four years ago did I consider myself a designer and, and, and proud to say it, even though I loved, I worked with incredible designers over the years. But personally, I'm the hardest on myself. So yes, she wasn't a designer. People would come up to me and say, do you go to the office? I mean, I'm working 13-hour days. So for me to hear something like that is pretty shocking.
55:49 Guy Raz? When we come back in just a moment, Tori faces a crisis when the most important partnership in her life falls apart. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built This.
56:24 Guy Raz? Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. So it's 2006 and two years into the business. Tory Burch, the brand, has already gotten a boost from being on Oprah. But Tory Burch, the founder, is still doing everything she can to build momentum.
56:40 Speaker 02 We also built it in a very scrappy way. We were doing trunk shows. I was taking suitcases of product to Greenwich and to Atlanta and to Palm Beach. And I would have, I would go places where I had friends.
56:56 Guy Raz? They would host a party, like Avon.
56:59 Speaker 02 I was literally like Avon. I was kind of always obsessed with the Avon model. And it was kind of, they were becoming, in turn, brand ambassadors. And it was becoming word of mouth. And it was just building like that.
57:15 Guy Raz? I want to ask you about what is now sort of an iconic shoe that you designed. Came out in 2006, which was named after your mom. It's called the Reva. Lots of people listening know that shoe. It's a ballet flat with the gold double T medallion like on the top of the shoe, at the top of the foot. And that went crazy, that shoe just. Tell me about the design of that shoe and how it landed. Like, what was it about that moment in time and that design that just like met? You know, like, it wasn't a heel. It wasn't a pump. It wasn't a, you know, people were buying stilettos. It was Sex and the City. People were right, right? They were buying Manolo Blahniks.
57:59 Speaker 02 It was almost the opposite. It was about comfort and it was about this concept of a ballet flat. And I always felt that a ballet flat was super classic. And I'll never forget it because Bridget Klein, who had joined our company from Michael Kors.
58:15 Guy Raz? And she would eventually become your president, I think.
58:17 Speaker 02 President. And I'll never forget, her boss at the time, John Idol, told her it was career suicide coming to work for us. I was in this meeting with Vince Camuto. And he was a footwear manufacturer. He had his own collections. But he, he had called us because he was interested in a licensing deal. And I
58:39 Speaker 02 Rightfully, also, you know, probably with Chris, too, we weren't excited about licensing in general. I wanted to be extremely careful about licensing.
58:48 Guy Raz? Because it would dilute the brand or something?
58:50 Speaker 02 It was dilutive. And I had seen so many wonderful brands do too much licensing. And it was, it scared me. So we, we set up a production agreement. It was a very different kind of deal. So, so we talked to Vince about this concept of this ballet flat. And I, I had this idea of our logo being the design element, not necessarily a logo. So I put it on our toe and on this deconstructed, super comfortable shoe. And, and that was the beginning of the Reva Ballet Flat, which then all of a sudden just was worn by Jessica Alba and Cameron Diaz and Paris Hilton and Katie Holmes. I could go on and on.
59:33 Guy Raz? How did you, I mean, you were still a pretty small company at the time, and you were well-connected because of your experience in the industry. But did you have a, like a, a strategic way to get those things to those kinds of people? This is pre-influencer. Influencers were actually real humans, like, you know, getting photographed. It wasn't social media. So did you have a way to get those things to them?
59:58 Speaker 02 Well, I think, again, it was through friends. And we also had a wonderful young girl named Samantha Gregory. She came to do our PR. And, and we, we gave, we gave it maybe to some people. I don't remember exactly. But it, it ended up becoming this sort of word of mouth type of thing. And I think that was kind of something that's missing today. Because with, with instant gratification of all this social media, you don't have that concept of building and sort of learning about something. It's, everything's out there.
1:00:37 Guy Raz? You were, you know, running this business, you know, small team, and it's growing, and you're getting more attention. And in this very formative time in the business, your marriage collapses, your marriage ends, you and Chris split. Tell me, tell me what was happening.
1:01:01 Speaker 02 I mean, it was the most difficult period of my life. And, you know, I, to have a marriage fall apart when you have six children that are all very young. And our parents were great friends and our families were completely intertwined. Like, our, both of our families are from Philadelphia.
1:01:26 Guy Raz? Right.
1:01:26 Speaker 02 And they became very close.
1:01:28 Guy Raz? Wow.
1:01:29 Speaker 02 So I was very close with my sister-in-laws and my brother-in-laws and all the cousins. And I'm a huge family person, so you can imagine it was excruciating. And the boys were really young. They were, Sawyer was probably four and Henry and Nick were seven. And then I had my stepdaughters that were all in their teens. And they were like my kids also. When I married Chris, I made the decision that I would treat all of our kids the same. And so to go through something like that and do it in a public way when you're the
1:02:08 Speaker 02 most private person and wanting to protect your kids and your family, it was incredibly difficult.
1:02:16 Guy Raz? How did you compartmentalize the personal side of, and it's obviously a professional side too, because Chris was involved with the business and, you know, was Tory Burch, right? And so how did you kind of compartmentalize what was happening in your personal life and then show up to work and run the business and smile?
1:02:39 Speaker 02 Yeah, it was, one thing I am good at is compartmentalizing things. And I would say, even though that's a strength, this was incredibly difficult.
1:02:50 Guy Raz? Yeah.
1:02:51 Speaker 02 I think everyone likes to get this scoop on what's going on with divorces and, you know, it becomes everyone's story. And I just, you know, for me, it I really do live my life where I disengage.
1:03:09 Guy Raz? Yeah.
1:03:09 Speaker 02 When with that kind of like gossip and particularly when you're the focus of the gossip. It's not fun. I had Vanity Fair writing stories on me. And also, the company was taking off. So you had this like family type of business that you had employees you wanted to protect. You had your actual family you wanted to protect. You wanted to protect the business and protect yourself. Because when you're being written about, it's hard. That said, I found the inner strength and courage. And my mom always said to me, and Dad, that you wake up and tomorrow's a whole new day. And I kept thinking that.
1:03:54 Speaker 02 The tomorrows took longer than I'd hoped. But it was how I looked at it.
1:04:02 Guy Raz? That that next year, your father passed away as well. I mean, I can't imagine how just challenging of a time that was between the end of your marriage, your dad passing away, I know you were really close with him, and running the business.
1:04:19 Speaker 02 Yeah, I would say my father passing away, as he said, I get choked up because that was probably hands down the hardest out of anything. And I it was just, you know, he had been sick, but it was he was better and he was getting better. And then he had a heart attack. So it was incredibly sudden. And it was just on top of everything, but it really just made everything pale in comparison. It just was, I saw the toll it was taking on my mother. And, you know, listen, he he lived a great, long life, but he was still my dad. And, you know, it was, I was just not expecting it.
1:05:00 Guy Raz? One of the decisions that you you took in the in the period of time after after your split and what was going on was you had you had your your brother, Robert, come and join the company. And I'm curious about that. I mean, it seems like you really.
1:05:19 Speaker 02 You can imagine the conversations with Chris.
1:05:22 Guy Raz? I mean, it also seems like you really, you've always kind of leaned on, you talk a lot about your mom and of course about your dad, but your dad was gone. And it seems like particularly Robert, your brother, was like a rock, too.
1:05:34 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:05:35 Guy Raz? Somebody really-
1:05:35 Speaker 02 He's been a second father figure to me. He's nine years older and he's always been a pillar for me, a rock, as you said. He's also brilliant. And when I finally convinced him to come on board and be part of the company, he was doing other things. He was working on, I think, selling a company. And so I was so grateful that he came. And not only, as it turns out, has he been in-house legal, a new business development, he's helped me build the business over the years. And he's like, he also personifies our culture.
1:06:16 Guy Raz? In 2009, you were finally able to launch that foundation that you wanted to launch, Tory Burch Foundation. And tell me about the idea behind it. What did you want it to be?
1:06:28 Speaker 02 Well, so I wasn't exactly sure in the beginning of when I started the company. I knew I wanted to help women and children. And what I realized is that I was an entrepreneur and there were a lot of exceptional women in business that weren't as lucky enough to have the access that I had. And so I thought maybe that I could help women get access to all kinds of things, whether it would be capital, or each other, or other business leaders. And so in 2009, that was what we started. And even though we were doing a
1:07:09 Speaker 02 lot of work, I wanted real numbers. So we partnered with Bank of America to help women get access to lower interest loans. And their commitment of 100 million was something that I was so excited about. And that's something that I, as a leader in business, would love to impart on startups and other businesses, that doing good is good for business. And that's something that in the early days, I was pretty much laughed out of the room. And when I talked about- Building this global lifestyle brand so I could start a foundation. I was told never to say that. And that business and philanthropy don't go hand in hand.
1:07:51 Speaker 02 And I was told that more than 10 times by many people. And so to see that sea change happen today is very gratifying.
1:08:02 Guy Raz? All right. Around, I think around 2011, you had, you and Chris had separated. But he was still, he still owned a significant amount of the company. And one of the, I think, I imagine, the challenges was he launched his own apparel brand in 2011 called Sea Wonder. And I don't know, what was your feeling when that, because it opened, he opened a store?
1:08:33 Speaker 02 Yes.
1:08:34 Guy Raz? And did you, were you aware that it was going to happen? Was it a surprise?
1:08:39 Speaker 02 You know, I was aware he was working on a concept, and I was fully supportive of that, until I went to see the store. And that was the first I had seen, anything that he was working on.
1:08:52 Guy Raz? And how did you, what did you think when you saw the store?
1:08:54 Speaker 02 Yeah, I thought it was a big problem. Because it was taking cues from our brand and doing it in a way that would be damaging from our intellectual property standpoint.
1:09:08 Guy Raz? Basically, it looked like Tory Burch stuff, but sort of lesser.
1:09:13 Speaker 02 I mean, I would say it sort of looked like some of our stuff. And it was close enough that it was a big problem.
1:09:18 Guy Raz? So this, I guess, is in the midst of a period of some back and forth, kind of sniping and challenges. And Chris is not here to, I've met Chris before.
1:09:33 Speaker 02 Defend himself.
1:09:34 Guy Raz? He's not here to defend himself. So I'm going to try to step in as best I can. But imagine from his perspective, he's thinking, well, you know, yeah, I've got a lot of experience doing apparel, and I'm entitled to start my own brand. But he still owned a significant stake in Tory Burch, and I'm assuming was on the board or had some influence there.
1:09:53 Speaker 02 Yes, he was on the board.
1:09:54 Guy Raz? So what did that mean? I mean, did you have conversations with him and say, hey, you know?
1:09:58 Speaker 02 This is a problem.
1:10:00 Guy Raz? Yeah.
1:10:01 Speaker 02 And we need to deal with it, because this doesn't work. And he's sitting in board meetings and having proprietary information and starting something that would be brand damaging. So we wanted him to change his concept and then he sued us. He sued me personally and my entire board.
1:10:22 Guy Raz? And I imagine this was fodder for the press.
1:10:26 Speaker 02 Oh, they loved it.
1:10:27 Guy Raz? Right.
1:10:27 Speaker 02 It was like a dream come true for the press.
1:10:30 Guy Raz? Yeah, and so all of a sudden, you're once again in the press for the wrong reasons, or reasons you didn't want to be in.
1:10:37 Speaker 02 No.
1:10:38 Guy Raz? And so at that point, presumably, you kind of did not communicate much.
1:10:46 Speaker 02 I mean, we had to because we also had young children and a lot of children. But I mean, we both tried to parent the best we could.
1:10:56 Guy Raz? I mean, litigation in any circumstance is stressful. But, you know, companies and leaders are kind of, they have to expect it sometimes. And you gotta just march on.
1:11:10 Speaker 02 But not from within.
1:11:12 Guy Raz? Not within. It's different.
1:11:14 Speaker 02 And also, I had to protect our company and our employees. You can imagine it was confusing.
1:11:20 Guy Raz? So you guys countersued.
1:11:23 Speaker 02 Yes, we did.
1:11:24 Guy Raz? And your countersuit, basically, I think, said, hey, this is a knockoff brand. And you guys are getting ready to go to court.
1:11:32 Speaker 02 Yeah, and luckily, we didn't have to.
1:11:35 Guy Raz? Luckily, you didn't, luckily, you settled. By the end of the year, you settled.
1:11:40 Speaker 02 Literally, we were in Hawaii. I'll never forget it. My brother didn't leave a hotel room for probably two weeks. He hadn't shaved. And we were lucky enough to find two extraordinary partners to buy Chris out.
1:11:56 Guy Raz? And basically, it was in everyone's interest that this did not go to trial.
1:11:59 Speaker 02 Yes. It would have just been a complete waste of everything.
1:12:06 Guy Raz? So that was it. Chris, at that point, he sold his shares or most of his shares.
1:12:11 Speaker 02 Yeah. And that was something that was a relief. I think bringing BDT Capital and General Lanick in was an incredible result.
1:12:24 Guy Raz? These are the partners that came in and bought his shares out.
1:12:26 Speaker 02 They're the private equity partners that bought Chris and some other people out. But I would say it was challenging. I am happy to say recently, like four or five years ago, we are the best of friends. And we've gotten through the mess of everything. He told me it was a 10-year misunderstanding, which I had to laugh.
1:12:47 Guy Raz? All right. So now you are fully, I mean, it's sort of pretty much resolved and you can focus on the business. By 2013, you had 54 stores, $800 million in sales. Today, I think it's closer to 350 stores. And there's something interesting about the stores, too, that, like, I don't know if all of them do this, but I know that they would have, like, mini fridges stocked with beer and soda. They'd have iPads for kids. So tell me about that, about having all those things in the store.
1:13:22 Speaker 02 I mean, I've always wanted it to be welcoming. And I think in retail, sometimes that's not always the case, that customers are intimidated. And so I always thought it would be great to have an environment where people could stay and get to know our sales team and sort of get their stories as well. And I think you get a lot of insight into the customer that way. So we tried to make it an environment that, even from the beginning, that you felt like you're walking into a living room.
1:13:54 Guy Raz? And when you, I mean, when you sort of stepped down as CEO, and that happened in 2018, and now your husband Pierre-Yves Roussel is the CEO, and he was, obviously we were together before he was CEO, and he came from LVMH, where he was a CEO there. And you were CEO for, I think, 14 years or something like that. It's a long time for anyone to-
1:14:25 Speaker 02 Well, it's too long in retrospect. And you know what I realized as I learned my passion over the years? And it wasn't operating a business. It was really designing the product and the creativity. And being able to be focused just on design and the product creation, I think, has been transformative for the business and for the product, for sure. I mean, it's, I went from me spending 30% of my time on it to 100%. And I do feel that we're just hitting our stride.
1:15:02 Guy Raz? Obviously, starting an enduring brand in any category is really hard. But if you were advising somebody who wanted to start an enduring fashion brand today, I mean, could they take your playbook and do that today? Or is it, is the, just the business changed so much?
1:15:19 Speaker 02 Yeah, I mean, I think there's elements of our playbook, but certainly they need a new one. And I think that we need a new one. And we always need a new one. And we're always, we have our core strategy, and that's not changing. But the world is changing so quickly. And we need to be evolving and changing with it. And be intellectually curious. And not just jump on everything. Just think about what's important that applies to our business.
1:15:50 Guy Raz? Tori, do you imagine a day when you might sell this company? Or do you see a future where it's more like Estee Lauder, where Tori Birch is a family business in perpetuity?
1:16:05 Speaker 02 You know, I just, I don't know the answer to that. I'm so not ready to sell this company. Or I hope that we're here for a long time. And Puri and I love working together. We love working with the team that we have. And we have so much we want to do. So I don't think about selling the company. That's not something that I'm actively thinking about. I think it's a luxury to be private.
1:16:33 Guy Raz? Yeah.
1:16:36 Guy Raz? When you think about this journey that you've had and where this brand and business is today, how much of it do you think has to do with the work and the skills that you brought? And how much would you attribute to luck?
1:16:51 Speaker 02 I think it's definitely both because there's been a lot of luck along the way. And I'm an extremely superstitious person, so I realize that. But there has been such a tremendous amount of work that has gone into this company by so many people, and me included. So I think they go hand in hand. And I think that we always need a little luck, and I'm hoping that that continues. But I don't see a world where we're not working and doing inspiring work. But it's hard work that's ahead.
1:17:32 Guy Raz? That's Tory Burch, founder and executive chairman of Tory Burch. Just one more question for you. When you're not wearing Tory Burch, who do you wear?
1:17:44 Speaker 02 Oh, well, I do wear a lot. In fact, I just went to the Met and I wore Chanel by Karl Lagerfeld.
1:17:51 Guy Raz? By the way, when you see people wearing costumes, like Jared Leto wearing a catsuit with a giant cat head, how does he sit down for dinner?
1:18:01 Speaker 02 I know. Actually, they have a lot of trouble. Even one of our dresses, I felt badly because it's quite large.
1:18:07 Guy Raz? How do they do that? Is he holding the cat head at the table?
1:18:10 Speaker 02 Well, no, I probably think the cat head had a chair next to him. I don't know that for sure because I wasn't seated next to him. But the creativity is pretty spectacular.
1:18:21 Guy Raz? Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to click the follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode of the show, and it's totally free. This episode was produced by J.C. Howard with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by Nuba Grant with research help from Katherine Seifer. Our production staff also includes Casey Herman, Sam Paulson, Liz Metzger, Alex Chung, Elaine Coats, John Isabella, Chris Messina, and Carla Estevez. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This.
Previous Cultivating a creative community with Tina Roth-Eisenberg of CreativeMornings Next Tapping the heat beneath your feet with Kathy Hannun of Dandelion Energy Page updated October 26, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
