Guest Yansi Fugel is the owner of Tux Couture. Yansi started in fashion by dressing women for professional business, which over time developed into consulting and private client work. Yansi designed a tuxedo for women, to simplify yet empower professional women’s fashion.
Host Jordan Lacenski is the founder and Chief Innovation Officer at Brandboss Creative, and co-founder of SheWolf Collaborative.

Host: Jordan Lacenski

Guest: Yansi Fugel

Show Notes:

● 5:10 - “A lot of it has to do with what you’re comfortable in. Fit is really very subjective.” - Jordan, Yansi, and Anessa talk about how fashion has to fit to the client comfortably, because confidence can sometimes come from the comfort zone.

● 6:36 - “Fashion is a creative outlet, it’s a way that you communicate your style and your personal brand.” - Yansi talks about how she enables her clients to take something cookie-cutter, like a tuxedo, and really make it their own style and flavor.

● 14:50 - “There’s a feeling of being more assertive, I think, when you have pants on.” - Yansi discusses why the tuxedo specifically spoke to her, and why it’s important for women to have powerful clothing options other than dresses.

● 20:50 - “There’s really a sense of trust and you know what you’re going to get, there’s no guesswork involved” - Yansi talks about her 28+ year business relationships with her production team and patternmakers, and how critical those relationships are to the success and quality of Tux Couture.

● 21:44 - “You’re not just making clothes, you are really facilitating a movement - building confidence.” - Jordan, Anessa, and Yansi discuss how clothing is more than just clothes. Fashion can be a powerful tool, and Yansi’s specific attention to her customers makes her tuxedos something special.

● 27:03 - “It’s genuine. You’re not going through the motions of a Christmas party every year because it’s expected.” - Yansi describes what she’s done to create a company culture that makes her employees feel more like family.

● 29:33 - “My perspective on things is: it’s going to happen, you gotta deal.” - Yansi explains how she handles the rollercoaster of managing business, e-commerce, accomplishing goals, and surviving change .

● 34:39 - “The creative aspect to life I think is such a key element in whatever you do” - Yansi, Jordan, and Anessa review the Art Contest Project that Tux Couture put on to create wearable art, but also uplift and give back to women in the arts.

● 40:12 - “They came up with all kinds of ways to keep us down. But now, we’re in a space where we’re all sisters and we’re all helping each other out and we’re recognizing that there’s a force in numbers, and there is no limit to how many female CEOS there can be.” - The ladies reflect on how much has changed for women in business in a relatively short time, and how women now cheer for each other’s success.

● 41:26 - “That’s why I started my own company.” - Yansi entered the workforce at a time when women didn’t have many (or any) seats at the table. So she made her own way, and her fierce entrepreneurship lay the path for us to follow.

Links:

Tux Couture: https://www.tux-couture.com/

She Wolf Collaborative: https://shewolf.co/

Brandboss Creative: https://www.brandbosscreative.com/

Quotes:

“It really is very personal. You work with people every day, you impact people’s lives every day with what you’re putting out there. It has to be very personal, it has to be about what makes you feel good, what makes you feel powerful, what makes you feel beautiful and in control. What I do is try to celebrate a woman’s beauty and strength, not one or the other, it’s both together.” - Yansi Fugel

“Another positive step is that we’ve come into a time where - yes, men are also joining the conversation - but women are supporting women. It used to be, in the past, that you were kind of in competition with other women, because there were only so many spots at the top. In order to get ahead, you had to take somebody else down, and I think that was part of the propaganda that we were fed, because they didn’t want us up there. ” - Yansi Fugel

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This was awesome, let me give it 5 stars

I want a tuxshedo

As promised, here’s our host Jordan in her rad pink Tux Couture tuxedo!