Latest / WHAT I'VE LEARNT / What I've Learnt - Poppy King

Transcript

What I've Learnt - Poppy King · WHAT I'VE LEARNT

• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Poppy King was just 19 years old when she started her own lipstick company in Melbourne, Australia, where she was born.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: Frustrated with the lipsticks on the market, none of which spoke to her modern vintage sensibility, she was looking for something chic and more like the 1940s idea of lipstick, rich and matte.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: She was also looking for a kind of marketing where it came to lip, lipsticks were just each shade and told a story.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: After finding a factory to produce her dream lipsticks, putting together a business plan and finding an investor, she launched Poppy King lipsticks.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: There were seven shades named after each of the seven deadly sins under the brand named Poppy.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: Frustrated with the lipsticks on the market, none of which spoke to her modern vintage sensibility, she was looking for something chic and more like the 1940s idea of lipstick, Rich and Matte.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: So after finding a factory to produce her dream lipsticks, putting together a business plan, and finding an investor, her first lipsticks that she released were a collection of seven shades named after each of the seven deadly sins under the brand name Poppy.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: Her story and her lipsticks garnered huge attention in Australia and even internationally before the days of the internet.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: She was able to go viral through her unique approach to everything she'd done.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: Within a year, she was selling in stores such as Barney's New York, Harvey Nichols, and more.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Poppy has been known to say that her business idol is none other than Willy Wonka himself, and that she's modeled her career on being the Willy Wonker of lipsticks.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: I love that expression.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm so thrilled to have Poppy King join us at the What I've Learnt podcast.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome, Poppy.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so thrilled to be here.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: And uh yes, Willy Wonker remains my idol.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's it's the ultimate, the creative journey of which you have been on a big one.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: And um I let's start at the very beginning, like all good fairy tales, because I really think um you were very young, you were 19 when you first embarked on your journey.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, what inspired you to start your lipsticks?
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: And because you didn't have a background in cosmetics, it was really a very organic thing that you embarked on.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: Tell us a little bit about what inspired you.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I didn't have much of a background on anything.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'd just come out of high school.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: So my background was uh was high school, which actually, strangely enough, uh ended up being all I needed in terms of uh in terms of being a super sleuth and figuring out how to start the business.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: I used very high school ideas of uh of figuring it out and it it worked.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: I was always, I've always had a kind of vintage sort of sensibility.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and in the late 80s, when I finished high school, it was very hard to find any kind of 1940s style lipsticks.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Everything was very blue-based, peach, coral, frosted, even the reds were sort of would go pink.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: And none of those colours suited me, and I felt terrible in them.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I would think about black and white films.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: I knew that back in the past, in other eras, there had been browns and reds and very matte lipsticks.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I it wasn't like I was inventing something.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: I was more curious as to why something that once was was no more.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that initially it just started as any, you know, consumer or young girl just kind of looking around for it.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't immediately jump to the idea that I'm going to fill this gap myself.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, so I was spending a lot of time when I should have been doing anything else, roaming around Myers and David Jones back in the in the late 80s and the very early 90s, asking for behind the counters from matte lipstick, for lipstick that wasn't shiny.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: And uh the more I started asking, the more feedback I would get from uh the counter, the women behind the counter.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: That was so interesting.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: And one woman in particular said it so well when she said that if I had a dollar every time someone asked me for a matte lipstick, I would be wealthy.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: And that was really the sort of, if there was ever a light globe moment, and it wasn't the wealthy comment, it was just the fact that I it really suddenly propelled me past customer looking for something to possible uh business venture.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: So that's sort of where it happened in my Melbourne, the light bulb, the light bulb moment.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: And from that point on, as I said before, having only high school to draw on, no MBA or particular business training, I really had quite a simple approach to how would I get a lipstick business started?
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is Melbourne, Australia, in 1991.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: How would I get a lipstick business started?
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I just sort of worked backwards as if it was a school project, as if I'd been finally, finally, I'd never ever done my homework, but finally I realized the role of homework.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um and uh start thought, well, the first thing I need to do is see if lipsticks can be made in Australia, because back then, you know, who we we weren't exactly known for indie brands back in the back in the early, early 90s.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I turned to what we what the only reference we had in 1991, which was pre-Google, was the yellow pages.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: And oh remember those days a long time ago.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yellow pages.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: A long time ago.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: I looked at the back of the yellow pages.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I even had a rotary phone where you had to dive.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: I looked at the back of the yellow pages and I naively looked up lipstick factories, like there was going to be a category of like lipstick factories.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, there was nothing under that name.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: But I found cosmetic manufacturers and started ringing all those numbers.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: And when you ring manufacturers, the names are not very imaginative.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's like this and this and the sons, and this, you know, they're they're very sort of technical sounding names.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: So it took me a while.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's had to ring and ring and ring and ring and ask, Do you make lipsticks?
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: No, do you make lipstick?
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then most people were making skincare or hair care that I was ringing.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then one person said, No, we don't make lipstick, but I know this is literally, I remember they said, I know a mob, so Australian, I know a mob who does it.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know a mob.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that out, that mob is out in Bayswater.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh that was how I found that I found the factory that could make me the type of lipsticks that I wanted.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Then the next step was finding the financing, because uh I didn't have um my own financing and I wasn't in a position family-wise to ask to for family help.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: So it meant that I had to look very creatively for a way to finance it.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: And um that ended up happening through um meeting through me as a young uh plucky entrepreneur at wannabe, meeting with anybody I knew who was in business to ask them about what a business plan was, and you know, really seeking advice through through the seeking of advice, I actually found financing, which was a real lesson right there, Deborah.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: That kind of sometimes so many of the things that really ultimately are the most important moments are when you're doing something that with a different objective and another and something else comes out of it.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was really at that point just looking for advice.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the people that I went to for advice who was uh decided that I was because I'd already found a factory, you know, they say luck is where preparedness meets opportunity.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I would say that the luck of that was that I I was prepared in the sense that I'd already found a factory, and I think that really impressed the person that I'd or that I'd come already knowing that part first.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I think if I would have turned up with it as an as a more of an abstract idea, I don't think that would have happened.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think because I had, you know, like I said, in my school, in my school, high school mindset, thought, well, you know, if this was an assignment, you'd have to find the factory, you know.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think because I'd done that, um, that's what led to being able to ultimately find the finance.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I spent a year putting the formula together with the lab and uh getting everything else ready.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: And uh Poppy Lipsticks entered the market March 1992, and they started, which uh there are there are a couple of things that were, I mean, there are many things about it that were so unique that remain unique today in it.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: But one of the things that was that was unique was that instead of going straight into department stores or pharmacy or back then we didn't have Mecca, of course, I went to all my favorite clothing stores on Chapel Street and in Sydney on um Paddington.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: What's the Box Main Street?
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Box Street, having a senior moment.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um and um and and ask this, ask these little fashion stores that I'd always frequented uh as a teenager.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Bettina Liano, exactly, which was my first ever stockist in uh in Melbourne.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if they would put a little display of poppy lipsticks on the counter, and I remember Bettina and her husband at the time, Roy, kind of looking at me like, I don't know, yeah, okay, maybe, yeah.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: So and within about two days, they were like, we sold them all, we need more.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so for the first six months or so of the poppy brand in the 90 in 1992, it was really only in in all sorts of fashion boutiques everywhere.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't, it would work, it wasn't in a major store until about six months later, um, when it went into my no, went into Daimaroo, then it went into Myers, and then it went into DJ's, and then you know, it started to go everywhere.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's quite an interesting story because it does show, well, first of all, this is pre-internet, pre-everything that basically is running now.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: So it's quite transformative the way makeup is sold now.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: But back then, I suppose what is great about that story is the organic nature.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: You had a mentor, you had people that invested in you.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: There was, I mean, that still happens, and there's a lot of people still doing that.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: But I suppose the, you know, that little bespoke notion that you go in and you say, Hey, well, you stopped my lipsticks, and it's very, it's about community, it's about people stepping up and supporting each other.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that really showcases how human, uh, the capacity of humans to help each other and lift each other up, and that's what you actually got.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: But the interesting thing to me is that the way that once you did this, that the success was quite extraordinary for the time.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: But also you ended up getting uh selling to Estee Lauder and getting this extraordinary traction.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: But there's a lot of competition.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, this was, I mean, we used to, you know, you'd go into DJs, you'd go into Myers, lots and lots of core brands of lipsticks.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't, as you say, reinventing the wheel.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think it was?
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we all know that a lipstick, well, I certainly agree with you in the sense that a lipstick can really freshen you up and make you feel great.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's just no question.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: Some people don't love makeup, some people don't love lipsticks, but whatever you've done and were doing clearly resonated at that time.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think it was?
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think it was also your branding?
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: I I think I I know what it was, and it's it's my storytelling ability.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then the story, and then matched by the product quality.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I was able to ever when you I was able to tell a story like the seven deadly sins is obviously such a big narrative, you know, and I've always I've always been interested in the dichotomy of saint and sinner, and you know, the fact that we're that you know that we're both, and I've all I guess I've always before we before we were throwing the word non-binary around, I've always been non-binary when it comes to you know um to who's a saint and who's a sinner, and in in and uh so um so so the seven deadly sins, I think that's an example of such a strong narrative.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then the but if it were just narrative alone, it would have faded out.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: But the product, the way that I design lipstick, and I think to this day, which surprises me more than anyone, I mean, there's so many that I there still aren't isn't anybody who designs lipsticks.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the moment you put on one of my lipsticks, you can feel that it's a bespoke design.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's not because it feels luxury, it's not about luxury because often those luxury lipsticks are highly fragrant and they've got all sorts of bells and whistles to justify the price point, which we won't touch on too.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like Louis Vuitton's latest.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: I was about to raise that with you, and we must touch on that too, because that's important.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the the the Louis Vuitton$160 lipstick, which has had this huge backlash recently, particularly, and I who am an investor in lipsticks and I believe, you know, pay for a good quality, I have seen the backlash and it's fair.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's obscene, and I think that that it's actually it's sort of almost like some sort of aberration, as if somehow they can just get away with something.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it's I think it's actually offended a lot of people.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: What are your thoughts on that?
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: I think it, I mean, no, because I know I've been designing and manufacturing and in the lipstick world for 30 years now, all over the world doing it.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I know that there's absolutely no fiscal reason for it to be$60.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: None whatsoever, unless it was, unless unless it was solid gold case, maybe.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh even then.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so it's I think it's just a pretentious kind of marketing.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: They're trying to have us show a point of difference.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: But I think what they've done is actually like and so and what they've done is actually, like you said, really disenfranchise a lot of people.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: There's no, there's no need, there's really no need for a lipstick to be over$60.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: I don't, you know, from a from a fiscal perspective.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so so so it's it's it's a it's an obnoxious price point um and very tone-deaf.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's a very good expression.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: It is tone-deaf, particularly in this era.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it it is an interesting time because you look at the the the extraordinary success of of Mecca.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, you've been to the new one if you have it in the city in Melbourne, which it is just, I think it's the biggest uh store in the world in terms of what it's created, separate to the Sephora branding.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: What are your thoughts around how the uh the cosmetic world has changed?
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: And clearly people are prepared to pay.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the funniest part about Mecca is when I don't know if you're a um what level you are, you know, when you have the, you know, you go into Mecca and you that it's very clever branding the way that you get to be in the beauty loop.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: And for anybody who's not a Mecca customer, you actually the more you spend, the more you get um up on a level of your loop, right?
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: So level four is the top.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: And if you don't spend to that degree, you actually drop down.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's actually quite bizarre to me that, but it's the branding is extraordinary, and the success of that is clearly extraordinary.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: What is your take on how this people are prepared to spend so much money on makeup now, even though they'll resist something like a Louis Vuitton.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's a sort of a it's a strange you talk about dichotomy.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: That that is strange.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, first of all, you know, a lot of retailers, I I a lot of retailers in um the US, beauty retailers, there's a massive retailer called Ulta UL.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, of course.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it's been a Ulta Alt Ulta has exactly the same program, that kind of and I, you know, that sort of loyal.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that's a a kind that's a very well used um model across a lot of and um I think that in terms of why the spend, well, first of all, with because of social media, uh, and I think this is rather unfortunate in many ways, the customer has got so much younger, particularly for skincare.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I think a lot of the a lot of the growth that's coming through in in beauty, even as people are cutting back on other luxury items, a lot of the growth is is coming, unfortunately, as I said, from very, very young girls buying expensive skincare, um, which is I think a worrying sign.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: But um, but there's so I think the whole the the fact that girls and you know and young boys are more interested in makeup at an earlier age has really made the industry grow.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: I think unfortunately, Generation X um has been really left out.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I just did an interview for Business of Fashion, you know, yes, BOF, Business of Fashion.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I just did an interview in America uh that's coming out tomorrow for Business of Fashion was and was say we're and said about the fact that business of fashion is predicting a Generation X revenge on the whole beauty industry because they because it has been anybody sort of over the age of 35 has just been ignored for the last 10 years.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that that's I think that's where a lot of the unfortunately I think a lot of the growth has come through uh through very through very young people buying much more expensive um products.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: But I do think that it's look, Leonard Lauder, who was, um, unfortunately, he passed away at '92 uh a couple of months ago.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: But Leonard Lauder was the person that brought me to America and created a position for me within his company.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: And he was the one who is always attributed the the term the lipstick index, which means that when things go, yeah, when when things are tough, little luxury items, you know, go up.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think, but I think with the Louis Vuitton, like that's not a little luxury.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like a little luxury is 60, 70, you know, dollar lipstick.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh 160 lipstick.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now that that's just got money to burn.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: I I can imagine that maybe in Dubai or something, it'll do well, but I can't see it doing well in many of the people.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: So coming back, that lipstick index, I think is a really interesting concept because I think that there's a very quick and easy way that many people can get a little bit of a lift during a time, as you've just referred to.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I was going to actually ask you that during times of struggle, or even if they're feeling a bit flat, they can pop in, which really and they can buy a lipstick, or they could buy, and that's the whole idea is that it can give you a lift and it's not completely outrageous.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: But I suppose to your point, that there's something, there's been just this great, um, almost I feel like there's been a great opportunist, which I suppose all business to some degree is, but I feel it's taking advantage of a lot of the drive to push younger and not just younger, because also I've seen when I go into these stores, I've seen a lot of people who are a little older who are looking to feel better about themselves and feel this great pressure to look young.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: So there's also that whole dynamic, you know, like if you don't have this skincare and if you don't have this, and you know, your our age more is like it's that constant, so it feeds the beast.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: And that is it can be great, but it can be dangerous.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: So, because I think people go in, and often they spend what they, you know, they're just they're going for one thing and they end up with seven.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know what I mean?
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: You just watch them, you can just see them as they mill around.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it's an interesting notion about, I suppose cosmetics has always been, and as you refer to, Estee Lord has been around forever, Dior, we all love a beautiful Dior, lipstick, etc.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: But this feels like a bit of a runaway train.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then you've got obviously the Sephora's and all of the things that we we refer to.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: So, what I love about what you're doing is you're trying to bring it back to the bespoke.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: And you use the word bespoke, and that certainly resonates for me and for many of my generation.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I actually think that's where it started.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's like the artisans.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: There's sort of, as you talk about, there's a little bit of a uh, you know, people are just saying, you know, we're a bit tired of like we buy all the same thing.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: You go wherever country you're in, it's all the same.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's sort of it's losing its value in verticommas.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I think the word bespoke is very relevant to what you do.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: And it's very much what I think people resonate with.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think?
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, and and when I say bespoke, what I like is then I have a surprisingly democratic price.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a again, a juxtaposition.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm filled with juxtapositions.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: And we all we all are.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: So that makes sense.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: The the lipstick is uh the lipstick is is bespoke because I have designed every aspect of that.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: That is not an off, never have I put an off-the-shelf formula.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: I am designing it the way that somebody who is a vintener or whatever they're called in the vineyard designs wine, like the the the foreground, the background, the notes.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean, and I don't go into all that because um, you know, I I just that's that's that's what I know goes on, but you can feel it when that's why my Lipsticks just feel so different and also not just feel so different, but I have so many different levels of pigment, um, which is which is very, very different to most companies or brands have two or three different formulas.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: They have a glossy, a mash, and something else.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas I've got such a range.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I it you know, I have had, and as I as I'm bringing my company back and now manufacturing in Australia again and bringing it all back to Australia, you'll see such a diverse range of pigment level because really it's about how that is what somebody may think they can't wear a red lipstick.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now maybe they can't wear a matte red, but a see-through red lipstick they can wear, you know.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: So it's the so much of what is really nuanced in lipstick is is about how much pigment there is relative to the battery.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: So on that note, obviously, and I know that you're back in Australia and that's that your um your I think you've got um a pop-up store September 19 to 25 in South Yara, is that correct?
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no, that that was a that was a while ago.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so that was a while ago.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: So that was not recent.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone can buy online basically now.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody, yes.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: At the moment I'm exclusively, it's a it's a small, it's small business.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really wanting, as I as I said in one of my Instagram posts, that I don't want to have to answer to anyone other than their customer.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I've decided not to get in, you know, big investment and do it and come out in a big budget way, but rather to come out very much like the 90s, you know, bit by bit.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: So, Poppy, we obviously we know business is tough and business is hard, and you've had your ups, downs, and roundabouts like all businesses.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: How can you just take us back to that time and how you navigated through it?
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: Because you've got some wonderful quotes because you were quoted at the time, and this is back early days, but I think you probably learnt a lot from that.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: And that's really the lens of this podcast is what have I learned and how have I evolved?
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: So tell us a little bit about that time.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because you were sort of, as is often the case, lifted high up and and sort of elevated and Australian of the year and just extraordinary success, all of which was deserved.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then, of course, when things go a little pear-shaped as they can, you were having to, as you I think you said, you know, you were fighting for your life, for your survival at some point, and you had to really um find a way to navigate that.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: How did that, how did you do that?
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: And what were some of the things you drew on in order to cope?
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, first of all, when you said things go and can go a little bit pear-shaped, I think, I think, I think it's safe to say things will go a bit pear-shaped, no matter what, because it just goes goes with the territory.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: And and for me, it was uh an extremely important lesson in understanding something that happens concurrently together.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: There's not never never is anything all a success, or neither is it all a failure.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: That it it's it's it goes it's between varying elements of both.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: The truth is, is that success and failure are something that actually working together, and that what I realized in 1998, which was probably um my uh the worst year for me in terms of uh public uh shaming over my um business at 26 years old over my business being in in having some problems.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that the the thing that the thing that I learned is that that success really, it's wonderful.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: And of course we all want it, and uh, but it what it does is it confirms what you already know.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas failure is actually, as much as you don't ask for it or want it or look for it, when quote unquote failure happens, it tells, it teaches you what you need to know and actually enhances you to go on to further success.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: So, and and that dance between success and failure that that I really had to understand both both publicly and personally in 1998, you know, when I went on to move to America in 2002, up until I moved back to Australia three weeks ago, uh the you really did teach me that there's there's never it's it's never one or the other.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: And if the if anything were ever needed to be redefined and it's crying out to be redefined, it's success because it's not it's not it's it's it's not a straightforward, it's not a destination.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: There's no such thing as success as a destination.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's really interesting, Poppy, the way that you um I like your definition of success.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: What you're saying is it's often a hybrid of the highs and lows, climbing the mountains, and but at the same time accepting that it's there's going to be some tough ledges along the way.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes it's a bit snakes and ladders too, yeah.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: So you go up and then you drop down.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and to for you, what were some of the so you learned the lessons?
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: Did it take a while for you to learn those lessons?
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: How did you navigate that yourself personally?
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: Because you were young.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, 26 is quite young to be subject to that um sort of, I suppose it was a bit of an onslaught, you know, a bit of a media onslaught, to say the least.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: And to say the least, yeah.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me how you navigated that and what were some of the tools you used.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, um, I for me, I think because luckily, even though I didn't really listen at high school very much, the whole thing was just like wah, wah, wah.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I heard about three heard about three things.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, but I my favorite subject at high school was English literature, so where we read Lord of the Fly.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: This, you know, and Anna Kariner and Chaucer and all.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: So really, when when things got very dark for me um in terms of uh publicly, and when I read there, and it was an onslaught.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't think it would happen today.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I think it was because it was 1998, and we hadn't Australia hadn't seen many entrepreneurs go up and then, you know, um, and then all this.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I think now there's been so many businesses, Australian businesses that have struggled, it's it's not seen as such a as such an unusual occurrence.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, so I think that what for me in 19 it really what I really drew on, Deborah, was my understanding of English literature.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: And and if you look at it, look at the core of any classic literature is success, failure, concept, action and consequence, um, you know, outcast, and then coming back.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, so I I for me it's often gets quite a laugh, but I I I mean it when I say it.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um like one of them, one of the books that's told me them that's taught me the most about how to deal with the ups and downs and the the uh mores and milieurs of of success and failure would be Anna Karenina, you know.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: So Oh Poppy, I so hear you.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: And first of all, I'm a literature tragic, so I actually totally relate and resonate with what you're saying.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: And in of course, it's the hero's journey, isn't it?
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: Really?
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: In every right, right?
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: In every story, exactly.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I really can tell you that really what meant the most to me, what I really navigated through something that I was not expecting to be in.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't that I was expecting to be in business difficulties.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: My mother is a has been a single working mother my whole life, and so I've hardly I I know about struggle.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I certainly saw her struggle to to keep a roof above our heads.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it wasn't that I didn't expect difficulty, but when that absolute outpouring of shaming, I think uh yeah, you know, Lord of the Flies.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: Lord of the Flies, I was definitely helped me understand that.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's a really good analogy, actually.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: But I think the interesting thing is also you talk about, I think also there is still a lot of that going on, but now it's on Instagram and within five minutes it's literally viral.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: If people get shamed, they still do, but at a level that we at the time probably would have like right now, if people, you know, things go awry, even though it's more common than it was once seen, it is it can be vitriolic and it can be horrific.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I think in some ways, but coming back to your point, the resources that you turn to, I love that it was literature, and I love that you could see that in a sense that that is almost like human nature, and that you can rise and you can fall and you can recover.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's what you're saying, and that's very important.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: I I really think that the the things that have most uh shaped my difficult times has been a combination of high low has been Tolstoy and John Hughes films.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: Oh a combination of those two.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, or whenever whenever I've been in doubt, so what goes it Tolstoy or John Hughes film?
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I love that.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: That's really that's wonderful.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I also you talk about your mum and you talked to, I mean, was she a major role model in terms of, well, obviously, maybe the lipsticks.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know enough about whether your mom was somebody who loved cosmetics, but maybe you can talk to us about your mother as a role model and how you saw her struggle and survive and strive.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: How did she impact your journey?
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, sure.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, first of all, uh definitely, I mean, my mother and I are very similar uh in that neither of us, believe it or not, are interested at all in cosmetics.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: We love lipstick.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like cosmetics is a cosmetics to me is something that you know conceals or change enhances or kind of like whereas lipstick lipstick to me is is is not actually cosmetic, it's much more cerebral, it's much more of an inner change as well as an outer change.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: So neither of us have ever really been interested in cosmetics.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: But my mother absolutely uh was and is a role model to me, and she was and was a role model to me with lipstick because she always wore very, very strong lipstick.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I, you know, I would be at the schoolyard.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: She didn't often pick me up from school because she was too busy working, but the times when she wouldn't all the other mothers would be in corals and frosted colours, and in would come my mother, kind of looking like Cruella Deville, you know, with a really strong lip, you know.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: Lovely.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: So um back in the 80s, and so so she she was absolutely that first started talking about what's happened to lipstick, you know, in the in the late 80s.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, why can't we find anything that uh that that that suits us, her and I.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: And and she's just been a role model in every way because my father died um tragically at 40.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: I was only seven when that happened.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: It was um um melanoma, skin cancer that had spread.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so my mother, my mother has been uh provider, was it but she never remarried.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: That wasn't really her uh modus operandi to be to be she was she she's an incredible knitwear designer and um creative, and and so my mother was both provider, you know, she was both father and mother.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I saw uh in terms of provider and also you know the the the homemaker and the provider.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so that really, from a feminist perspective, just seeing that in action right from seven years old, like seeing that a woman could be both the provide the decision maker and also you know the nurturer, um, was uh shape totally shaped my idea of what's possible to be female and certainly shaped the direction my life has taken and and my priorities because I too um I've never had any interest in being married.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um I don't have anything against it for anyone else, you know.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: But for me personally, it's not, and it's nothing to do with being a career woman or anything like that.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's just not I I've it's just not something I I saw and I've I lived with an independent woman, and an independent woman is what I want to be.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: Totally makes sense.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: And in fact, this is the best era to do you because actually finally people can just be themselves a lot more.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: I feel I think there's a very big like compared to 30 years ago, you know, that was it was just unheard of that people would would make a statement like that and feel supported.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: Now it's like of course, like why not?
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think it's a funny, it's it's it's a funny era on that level because I think you've got it's almost like um you've got two extremes.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: There's sort of there's there's there's people who there's there's a lot of people who've sort of gone into the extreme trad wife kind of thing, you know, and each to their own.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then other people that have gone into that have split into more of the single independent woman.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I think both camps kind of look at the other like, what are you thinking?
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and and it's really it really comes down to uh your own your own values and your own experiences.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, for me, I moved to New York when I was 30, um, and I moved back at 53 to Australia, so just recently.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: And certainly dating for oh bit for 23 years in New York um was something where I mean, no, none of my friends in New York are married.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's a dysfunctional city on that level completely.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so it was very easy to be here.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: I think in Australia, it's still a little bit more taboo than it is in somewhere like New York.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: I do find that when I come back and see people I haven't seen for years, it's always the second question they ask me is Am I married?
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: Which I never would get asked in New York.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's it's it's there and it's not there.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's very interesting you say that.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: If you noticed I didn't even ask you that, but I'm glad you talked to it because I was like, but I think also you've always bet to your own drum.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's a lot of um celebration of that, but I do understand that this is probably a little bit more parochial in Australia in some ways.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there are certain expectations in and certain, I suppose, um examples of where people seem to be seeking that, and that's okay.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_01: But in New York, you probably get a lot more of the um the beautiful hot pot, and you get the sort of uh, you know, there's elements of it's okay to be transient, transient and and sort of move through life in a different way.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's why a lot of people go there because they feel, well, I can be me here, you know.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think I think I think you know, Australia, Australia um has a has a much more of a tr you know, much better lifestyle for sure, much higher, you know, the quality of life.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: And and because of that, it makes sense to couple up and to have children because it is a lovely place and the food is much better and the environment and all that kind of stuff.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I I I I feel that when people ask me that, I don't feel um offended.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's just it's just more that I'm not used to being asked to distinct.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: But 23 years I was never asked that question.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: So and so it's it's a hard one to sort of know exactly exactly how to put how to how to say to how to how to say no without people kind of looking um quite concerned for you.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_01: So that's really um and so why, so 23 years there, were you in New York?
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: So why are you coming back now?
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, is it a is it a what what has driven you back here, other than obviously you're going to to you've got your new um lipstick range, but beyond that, is it to do with family?
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_01: Is it to do with the politics in America, which are very interesting in themselves?
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: What are you saying?
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's all of the above.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the the main factor is that um my mother is now 85, and um I didn't want to be somebody, I know I know a lot of other expats from various countries who are living in New York or in America, that would that with with their parents reaching that age would sort of end up coming back just for the very last part.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I made the decision that I didn't want to do that.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to, I wanted to spend time with this woman, proper time before it got to that stage, uh, that that was more important than New York to me.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: So that was that was the the no-brainer to me was you know, stay in New York, or you know, which is, you know, unl unless who knows what's going to happen to it, but let's assume it's gonna stick around for another in its form as it is, you know.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um and um, or sort of, or um, or my mother who uh be with my mother and in and spend time with this woman um uh who who knows you know what the future holds and how long that has.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: So it it to me that was the no-brainer.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then once once that was just so clear to me, it was very clear to me thought that I wanted to start up uh my business in Australia again, leave all my American life behind for the time being, leave American manufacturing, leave the values of America behind, the values of American big business, and to come back and and literally return to doing exactly what I set out to do when I was 18, which is to do a really amazingly mindful, whimsical, glamorous yet artistic lipstick brand from the ground up.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well, all I can say is welcome back.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_01: We're glad you're home and certainly excited to see this range of beautiful lipsticks, of which I think I've already ordered some, as you know, because I think what you've tapped and what you are tapping is really important, which is the art of continuing to produce something special.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_01: And also, yeah, it's just been a wonderful chat and to hear that you um the journey you've gone on and that you will continue to go on.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: And it sounds like your mother will be very happy to have you home too.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes, sometimes it's an adjustment, put it that way.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_00: But yes, we'll continue.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_00: And and I've I've it's such it's such a pleasure to be on, and I really I I really believe that if there's and you've probably had other guests say it before, that the one thing that has just been so clear to me in terms of what I've learned is that, and it's the same in personal relationships um as in professional ones as well, your instincts, you know, if you as soon as you're just it's if your instinct is saying this isn't right and you start justifying it, even if it takes 10 years, it won't be right.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like what you know, you really that that very first, you you really have to, it's it's a pain.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_00: You don't want to listen to your doubts, not but but you have to acknowledge them because I'd say the only things, everything for me that that hasn't really um ended the way that I wanted or resolved it, I knew it immediately, but I pushed it down.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: So if I can say anything to anybody listening, it's much better to deal with the instinct when it comes than to deal with the problem 12 years later.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think that's a very good piece of advice.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: And also the power of intuition is something that I think we both uh, I mean, this podcast was born intuitively, and four years later, 350 guests later, it's just thriving because we are a community.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_01: And if we can listen to it our own intuition but listen to others, it's also a wonderful space and place to do that.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's what I finally say is, you know, and I actually I wrote a book in America called Lessons of a Lipstick Queen.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things I say in that is that you go outside for information, but you go inside yourself for direction.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's a wonderful piece of advice and a great lesson learned.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for joining us at the What I've Learned podcast.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_01: Lovely to see you and enjoy being back in the Australian hood.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, and I'm so thrilled Australia to be back.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much for listening.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm blessed to have so many wonderful guests coming on the show.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_01: So check out my What I've Learned Instagram for updates.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_01: Meanwhile, stay tuned, kind, and curious.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_01: Love Dev.