The Fashion Translator

Claire-Lys Bastien Wald
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The Fashion industry demystified from the inside clairelysbastienwald.substack.com

  1. 4d ago

    Celebrating the Passion and Connection Behind the Podcast

    A Moment of Deep Gratitude Earlier today, a delivery arrived: a lovely white orchid sent by a recent guest on The Fashion Translator Podcast. It was a touching gesture that filled me with immense joy. As I looked at the blooms, I found myself reflecting on the profound gift of holding space for this community. Hosting this podcast is consistently one of the brightest highlights of my week, anchored entirely by the incredible people who bring their stories to the show. Every single time a fellow founder, brand leader, or entrepreneur joins me, something magical unfolds. The Magic of Shared Conversations The dialogues we share are deeply precious. They create safe, expansive spaces where we strip away the noise and talk candidly about the realities of building a brand from the ground up. There is an uplifting, vibrant energy that fills the room when passionate creators talk about their businesses. We share our stories, celebrate our wins, and unpack the truths of leadership. In that exchange, our shared passion is instantly reignited, reminding everyone involved why we fell in love with our work in the first place. Building a business thrives on community, and these conversations are a vivid reminder of the vibrant, deeply supportive ecosystem of visionaries we share. A Heartfelt Thank You To every creator, founder, and industry leader who has spent time across from me on The Fashion Translator Podcast: thank you. Thank you for your trust, your boundless openness, and your willingness to share your hearts so generously. You breathe life into this show, and it is the honor of a lifetime to walk alongside you, celebrate your brilliance, and amplify your voices. Let’s Stay Connected If you are navigating the exciting, dynamic journey of building and scaling your brand, remember the power of surrounding yourself with a strong network and supportive spaces. Get full access to The Fashion Translator Edit at clairelysbastienwald.substack.com/subscribe

    Celebrating the Passion and Connection Behind the Podcast

  2. 6d ago

    Episode 56 – Tricia Salcido • Softstar Shoes | Leathers That Ages Beautifully With a Story To Tell

    🎙️ In this inspiring episode of The Fashion Translator, I spoke with Tricia Salcido, CFO of Softstar Shoes, about the art of evolving functional design into refined aesthetics without ever sacrificing comfort. Softstar crafts handcrafted, foot-shaped footwear in Oregon, designed to give your feet the natural freedom and space they truly need. Having led the company for over 20 years, Tricia openly shares their remarkable journey of refinement: early on, the challenge wasn’t just creating healthy footwear, but reimagining its aesthetic. The mission became clear: how to harmonize natural foot health with fresh, desirable design, all while staying deeply loyal to the flexibility, quality, and width that define the brand. What started as a bold vision for natural comfort has now become a movement. Today, the world has caught up: wellness and style are no longer an either/or choice, but a seamless standard. Two decades in, Softstar stands as a shining example of true craftsmanship, proving that when you honor human well-being, beauty naturally follows. 🎁 Softstar is offering Fashion Translator listeners 10% off with the code TRANSLATOR. ✨ Connect with Claire Lys to explore how AI, systems, and innovation can support fashion brands — or to be featured on The Fashion Translator: https://www.linkedin.com/in/claire-lys-bastien-wald/ 🎧 Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@TheFashionTranslator Listen on Spotify: Guest: 👤 Tricia Salcido 🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tricia-salcido-6b410712/ Brand: 🌐 https://www.softstarshoes.com 📷 Instagram: @softstarshoes 🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/soft-star-shoes Get full access to The Fashion Translator Edit at clairelysbastienwald.substack.com/subscribe

  3. Oct 27

    Episode 55 – Lucy Quartermaine • Lucy Quartermaine | Designing From the Heart: How One Droplet Motif Built a Jewellery Brand

    🎙️ In this episode of The Fashion Translator, I spoke with Lucy Quartermaine, founder of her namesake British jewellery brand, about designing pieces meant to last for decades while the business around them keeps growing at full speed. Lucy has been making jewellery since she was nine, when her grandmother handed her a pot of buttons and some string. Her droplet motif, inspired by Dalí’s melting clocks and by her love of water, has been a bestseller for twenty years. She designs from the heart, keeps her focus on classics, and has customers who own dozens of her pieces. Today the brand can be find at Nordstrom and on cruise ships sailing around the world, a contract Lucy secured at the start of this year. Lucy runs her business of it with the calm she has grown into, and a clear goal to triple her cruise ship presence within two years. A signature design gives a growing brand something people already love, ready to travel into every new market. ✨ Connect with Claire Lys to explore how AI, systems, and innovation can support fashion brands — or to be featured on The Fashion Translator: https://www.linkedin.com/in/claire-lys-bastien-wald/ Guest 👤 Lucy Quartermaine 🔗 LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucyquartermaine/ 🔗 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lucyquartermaine_me/ Brand 🌐 Lucy Quartermaine 🔗 Website: https://lucyqdesigns.co.uk 🔗 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lucyquartermainedesigns/ 🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lucy-quartermaine/home/ Get full access to The Fashion Translator Edit at clairelysbastienwald.substack.com/subscribe

    Episode 55 – Lucy Quartermaine • Lucy Quartermaine | Designing From the Heart: How One Droplet Motif Built a Jewellery Brand

  4. Oct 20

    Episode 54 – Jemima Gray • Cotswold Fox | Start Small, Scale Steadily: How Cotswold Fox Grew From Instagram DMs to a First Shop

    🎙️ In this episode of The Fashion Translator, I spoke with Jemima Gray, founder of Cotswold Fox, a British countryside clothing brand, about launching with a couple of hundred pounds and a first product she now smiles about, then growing it step by step into a team, a warehouse and a first shop. Cotswold Fox began as a business school assignment. Jemima embroidered a logo onto plain stock clothing, took orders through Instagram DMs and PayPal, and posted every parcel herself. Looking back, she says the first product was far from perfect, yet “people bought it and then that’s your starting point.” Five years on, Christmas 2024 showed her the spare room system had outgrown itself, and she moved fulfillment to a warehouse in Manchester. Now the shop opens in about six weeks, a US push is planned for 2027, and the events season sees her driving her own van from stand to stand. The ideal picture of a growing brand is polished from day one. Jemima’s reality was launching small, learning on the job and improving even her five-year-old best sellers every season, while keeping the brand personal and founder-led. Five years of small, steady steps look a lot like overnight success from the outside. ✨ Connect with Claire Lys to explore how AI, systems, and innovation can support fashion brands — or to be featured on The Fashion Translator: https://www.linkedin.com/in/claire-lys-bastien-wald/ Guest 👤 Jemima Gray 🔗 Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/jemima-gray-a6305294?originalSubdomain=uk 🔗 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jemima.gray/ Brand 🌐 Cotswold Fox 🔗Website: https://cotswoldfoxclothing.com/ 🔗Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cotswold-fox-clothing/home/ 🔗Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cotswoldfoxclothing/ Get full access to The Fashion Translator Edit at clairelysbastienwald.substack.com/subscribe

    Episode 54 – Jemima Gray • Cotswold Fox | Start Small, Scale Steadily: How Cotswold Fox Grew From Instagram DMs to a First Shop

  5. Oct 13

    Episode 53 – Stephen Laundy • Fashion Compass | Why Your Margins (Not Your Product) Decide If You Are Ready For Wholesale

    🎙️ In this episode of The Fashion Translator, I spoke with Stephen Laundy, founder of Fashion Compass, about the key shifts direct-to-consumer brands need to make when stepping into the wholesale arena. With nearly two decades of experience placing fashion, accessories, and footwear brands with agents, distributors, and retail partners across more than 40 countries, Stephen highlights margin strategy as the ultimate foundation for wholesale success. He shared how pricing structure often determines a brand’s readiness: when DTC pricing is set without factoring in wholesale margins, it leaves little room for retail partners to maintain proper markups. Even with strong product appeal and an expanding fan base, unlocking wholesale growth comes down to designing a pricing model that scales seamlessly for both you and your retail partners. The brands that make it through, he explained, are the ones willing to start small. He builds a “never out of stock” core collection from a brand’s four or five bestsellers, the same handful of styles that make up most of a busy showroom’s sales, so an agent always has something reliable to offer while the rest of the range keeps evolving. And before he’ll help anyone chase a market overseas, he asks a harder question first: how strong is this brand at home? In his experience, a brand that sells better abroad than in its own country is the rare exception, not the rule. As more brands launch e-commerce first and only discover their margin structure can’t support wholesale once a real buyer asks, that early pricing decision is quietly becoming one of the biggest gates on how far a brand can grow. ✨ Connect with Claire Lys to explore how AI, systems, and innovation can support fashion brands — or to be featured on The Fashion Translator: https://www.linkedin.com/in/claire-lys-bastien-wald/ Guest: 👤 Stephen Laundy 🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenlaundy/ Brand: 🌐 https://www.fashioncompass.co.uk/ 📷 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fashioncompass.co.uk/ 🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fashioncompass.co.uk/ Get full access to The Fashion Translator Edit at clairelysbastienwald.substack.com/subscribe

    Episode 53 – Stephen Laundy • Fashion Compass | Why Your Margins (Not Your Product) Decide If You Are Ready For Wholesale

  6. Oct 6

    Episode 52 – Robert Patton • SHEATH Underwear | A Brand Born in a War Zone

    🎙️ In this episode of The Fashion Translator, I spoke with Robert Patton, Founder & CEO of SHEATH Underwear, about his journey turning a hand-sewn prototype into a thriving brand, and the sheer grit, problem-solving, and single-minded focus required to bring his vision to life. Robert sketched the idea for a dual-pouch underwear design while deployed in Iraq, then returned home, bought a sewing machine, and personally crafted the initial samples for his friends. When early manufacturing runs ran into significant fit and quality hurdles, his steadfast commitment never wavered. Instead of walking away, he channeled his ingenuity—spending three years refining the patterns by hand at a local tailor shop while simultaneously completing two college degrees. What propelled SHEATH forward was Robert’s unwavering passion and deep confidence in his innovative design. That same forward-looking vision continues to inspire SHEATH’s dynamic marketing approach—turning every experience into an exciting opportunity to optimize growth, reach new audiences, and elevate the brand to new heights. Connect with Claire Lys to explore how AI, systems, and innovation can support fashion brands — or to be featured on The Fashion Translator: https://www.linkedin.com/in/claire-lys-bastien-wald/ Guest: 👤 Robert Patton 🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-patton-b675273b/ 📷 Instagram: @bobbythebank Brand: 🌐 https://www.sheathunderwear.com/ 📷 Instagram: @sheathunderwear 🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sheath/ Get full access to The Fashion Translator Edit at clairelysbastienwald.substack.com/subscribe

    Episode 52 – Robert Patton • SHEATH Underwear | A Brand Born in a War Zone

  7. Sep 29

    Episode 51 – Carla Daniela • Tailor Love | The Wedding Dress Philosophy Built Around One Bride

    🎙️ In this episode of The Fashion Translator, I spoke with Carla Daniela, founder of Tailor Love in San Diego, about why a wedding dress only really works when it stops trying to please anyone but the bride wearing it. Carla’s shop spent years doing general alterations before she narrowed her focus entirely to wedding dresses. Brides come to her stressed about pleasing everyone else at the wedding: their mother’s opinion, tradition, whatever’s trending. Carla’s answer is blunt: it’s her day, her dress. The goal, as Carla puts it, is a dress that “won’t fit anyone else in the world” the way it fits her. That philosophy shows up most clearly in her heirloom work. She described a bride who rescued her grandmother’s dress from a garage trash bag and brought it back to life, and a military bride who came back from deployment, put on her altered dress, and said she hadn’t felt that beautiful in months. Carla’s also started seeing brides bring in AI-generated redesign concepts made with ChatGPT. Her take: useful for a first idea, completely unable to account for the pattern-making, seams, and construction that make a dress actually wearable. Word of mouth still runs the whole business: referrals from bridal salons and past brides make up the majority of new clients, with social media a distant second. ✨ Connect with Claire Lys to explore how AI, systems, and innovation can support fashion brands — or to be featured on The Fashion Translator: https://www.linkedin.com/in/claire-lys-bastien-wald/ 🎧 Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@TheFashionTranslator Listen on Spotify: Listen on Apple Podcasts: Subscribe on Substack: https://substack.com/@clairelysbastienwald Guest 👤 Carla Daniela 🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carla-daniela-a715b1b5/ 🔗 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carla_danielar/ Brand 🌐 Tailor Love 🔗 Website: https://tailorlove.com/ 🔗 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tailor_love/ 🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tailor-love/ 🔗 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tailorloves 🔗 Pinterest: 🔗 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZEjlZ3EcU_RTqt0_lmlWSA Get full access to The Fashion Translator Edit at clairelysbastienwald.substack.com/subscribe

  8. Sep 22

    Episode 50 – Jerónimo Canale • Synced Graphics | From video games to e-commerce performance

    🎙️ In this episode of The Fashion Translator, I spoke with Jerónimo Canale, Founder of Synced Graphics, about the power of aligning high-performing ads with a seamlessly optimized store experience. After early 3D content work for a kombucha brand generated real sales, Jerónimo expanded into paid ads to directly influence growth—refining Shopify offers and page copy to perfectly complement what the ads promised. While performance agencies track ad metrics and Shopify shops monitor store metrics, Jerónimo treats both as a single ecosystem. By connecting how specific offers convert across different audiences, his team unlocks key insights to maximize revenue. To scale this unified approach, he is now building an in-house AI layer that analyzes ad and store data together to surface actionable growth patterns instantly. For fashion and CPG brands expanding their reach, the takeaway is clear: sustainable growth comes from creating total harmony between your ads and your store, unlocking higher efficiency from the traffic you already have. ✨ Connect with Claire Lys to explore how AI, systems, and innovation can support fashion brands — or to be featured on The Fashion Translator: https://www.linkedin.com/in/claire-lys-bastien-wald/ 🎧 Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@TheFashionTranslator Listen on Spotify: Listen on Apple Podcasts: Subscribe on Substack: https://substack.com/@clairelysbastienwald Guest: 👤 Jerónimo Canale 🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeronimo-canale-39946b1b7/ 📷 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeronimocanale/ Brand: 🌐 https://synced.graphics/ 📷 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/synced.graphics/ 🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/synced-studio Get full access to The Fashion Translator Edit at clairelysbastienwald.substack.com/subscribe

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The Fashion industry demystified from the inside clairelysbastienwald.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    Claire-Lys Bastien Wald
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    68
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Claire-Lys Bastien Wald
  • Show Website
    The Fashion Translator