Is there a shift happening in the denim industry now? For a while, there was so much talk of activewear taking its place, but that didn't really last. What is your customer looking for?
I think there's a major shift back to the kind of original, traditional denim — the vintage wash, the '90s movement is coming back. To me, that's really exciting because I really love washes, I love being in the laundry, I love to develop all of that. As far as like what our girl loves and looks for in our jeans particularly and just our brand, is something a little bit different, something that stands out. Our jeans definitely have quite a bit of personality. Our best seller has been the "Betty" side lace-up.
What was it like to see Gigi and Bella Hadid wearing that style?
I was crying, it was pretty big. Going back out on our own, we really took a big chance and we really felt like we had a lot to say. And actually it's funny because that particular style — we fought so hard when were in our corporate situation to put them into our holiday collection, and we were being told [that] nobody would wear this. We kept hearing the word "slutty," but when that kind of happened it was a little bit of: okay, now look at this. It was a really great moment for us, it was incredible. And seeing orders going out was even better.
How many people do you have working with you and what are their roles?
One is my co-designer [Marika Amegah]. My younger sister [Glenda] works with us. She's our creative director, and she lives in London, she graduated from Central Saint Martins for Fashion Communication. Anything visual; she did our website, our logo, our packaging, kind of everything that you see down to the graphics. And then we have our COO, Ingrid [Rodriguez]. My dad brought her in for us and made that connection, so it's like a squad of girls. It was really important for us to have a female COO that blended well with the whole team. It's become a whole girl power thing. The story kind of really changed from the whole oh, my dad did this and I'm launching this project, to just this group of girls, not even so much about me. It's really about all of us just really believing in what we're doing and fighting so hard to bring it out there.
A look from Made Gold's fall collection. Photo: Made Gold