Business of Home Podcast

Whether it’s preserving his iconic mannequin label or curating his next gallery exhibition, Ralph Pucci leads by one rule: “If everyone’s going left, I’m going right.” It worked in 1985, when Pucci successfully debuted the collection of designer Andrée Putman with no industry experience, and it continues to work today, as the company now boasts galleries in New York, Los Angeles and Miami. In this week’s episode, Pucci takes us through the remarkable timeline of Ralph Pucci International and reveals his visual merchandising secrets. 

Bryan Dicker began at Holland & Sherry when it was purely in the apparel business, offering tweeds, wools and cashmere to individual tailors. He developed a sideline selling fabric to interior designers, which has since grown into a robust business, employing 150 people at over twenty locations worldwide. On this episode of the Business of Home podcast, Dicker spoke with host Dennis Scully about building a team around your weaknesses, what Blackjack has to do with the fabric industry, and why his company has no plans to go direct to consumers. This episode is sponsored by Chairish and Google. 

Over the course of nearly twenty years as an advisor on licensing deals and business strategy, Kate Verner has worked with some of the most prominent names in the industry, including David Easton, Laura Kirar and Arteriors. On this episode of the Business of Home podcast, she speaks with host Dennis Scully about why licensing isn’t a get rich quick proposition, the need to make manufacturing cool again, and why Instagram fame doesn’t always translate to real world sales. This episode was sponsored by Chairish and Google.

As a child, David Netto became immersed in the world of design through his father, who owned storied fabric house Cowtan & Tout. After dropping out of Harvard Architecture School, he found his true calling, building a brilliant career as a decorator and writer for The New York Times, Town & Country, and the Wall Street Journal. For this episode of the Business of Home podcast, Netto spoke with host Dennis Scully in front of a live audience at the New York School of Interior Design as part of the Dialogues on Design series. They chatted about why Instagram’s rise is good for books, how the AIDS crisis affected design, and what a Bugati owned by Ralph Lauren says about how decorators should think. This episode was sponsored by Chairish and Google.

Six years ago, the real estate development firm Jamestown purchased the Boston Design Center and began a long-term project to revitalize the space by turning it into a hybrid. Now the building combines trade-only showrooms with retail shops, corporate offices, cafes and restaurants. On this episode of the Business of Home podcast, the president of Jamestown, Michael Phillips, discusses why the design industry needs to start reaching out to consumers, why showrooms should consider nighttime hours, and why disruption is ultimately a good thing.  This episode is sponsored by Chairish and Google. 

Over the course of a storied career, legendary interior decorator Carleton Varney has worked with everyone from Joan Crawford to Jimmy Carter—not to mention his 37 books, a long-running newspaper column, and a project he’s been tweaking for over 50 years, the Greenbrier hotel. On this episode of the Business of Home podcast, Varney speaks with host Dennis Scully about the stories behind some of his most famous clients, why he encourages students to think beyond beige and gray, and the one line of a client contract that only Dorothy Draper could get away with. This episode is sponsored by Chairish and Google. 

Janis Provisor and Brad Davis were established artists, displaying their work in museums and galleries across the world. Then a recession hit in the nineties, and they took a sabbatical in China, which led to an experiment with silk weaving, which, 25 years later, has led to an acclaimed luxury hand-knotted carpet company. In this episode of the Business of Home podcast, Provisor and Davis chat with host Dennis Scully about the ups and downs of doing business in China, why they needed to create their own brand, and treating entrepreneurship like an artistic challenge. This episode is sponsored by Chairish and Google.

Across the scope of a storied career, legendary interior designer Charlotte Moss has written ten books, won numerous awards, and through her work on countless projects, defined an elegant take on traditional style. In this episode of the Business of Home podcast, she chats with host Dennis Scully about learning sales secrets on Wall Street, the importance of mentorship, and what she looks for when she Googles potential clients. This episode is sponsored by Chairish and Google.

Fabric industry veteran David Klaristenfeld has spent sixteen busy years at Fabricut, but 2019 has been particularly eventful. This summer, his company acquired Clarence House, and has ramped up a whirlwind effort to grow the boutique fabric brand. Their first big move? Pulling the collection offline, so it can’t be sold to the general public—only designers. In this episode of the Business of Home podcast, Klaristenfeld chats with host Dennis Scully about the strategy behind the acquisition, the challenging economics of sampling, and why, despite a lot of noise, the industry isn’t going to change as radically as some people think. This episode is sponsored by Chairish and Google.

Founded as an online resource for recipes in 2009, Food52 has evolved into a unique and wildly popular hybrid of editorial content and e-commerce that recently attracted an $83 million dollar investment from The Chernin Group. On this episode of the Business of Home podcast, host Dennis Scully chats with co-founders Merrill Stubbs and Amanda Hesser about why their site defies easy categorization, how their readers helped them design one of their bestselling products, and why they prefer to think of Food52 as a world, not a brand. This episode is sponsored by Chairish and Google.