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Superwomen with Rebecca Minkoff

She Quit Her Coveted Role at ELLE to Launch a Fashion Startup No One Thought Would Work

Superwomen with Rebecca Minkoff

Rebecca Minkoff

Society & Culture

4.8543 Ratings

🗓️ 14 August 2025

⏱️ 37 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Kate Davidson Hudson was supposed to climb the career ladder every fashion girl dreamed of.  Instead, she walked away and built a tech company from scratch. This week on SUPERWOMEN, I sit down with the founder and CEO of a shoppable AI closet platform, Vêtir, and a longtime force in fashion media and luxury tech. From her early days at Harper’s Bazaar and Elle Magazine to co-founding the content-meets-commerce platform Editorialist, Kate has always been at the intersection of editorial storytelling and digital innovation. Kate opens up about the pressure of leaving a dream job, learning to lead without a playbook, and why she became obsessed with personalization and automation. We also get into the risks of fundraising, being a woman in tech, and what happens when you sell a company but stay attached to its soul. Episode Guide: (00:00) Meet Kate Davidson Hudson, founder and CEO of Vêtir (02:42) How she broke into magazines at 21 (10:00) Leaving ELLE to launch a fashion startup (11:52) When she knew Editorialist was working (15:12) Walking away after selling her company (17:16) Facing bias as a female founder in tech (20:30) Why AI needs more diverse perspectives (22:51) What Vêtir does and how it works (27:40) Balancing creative instinct with business pressure (29:40) Hard lessons on hiring friends and co-leading startups Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

I can't believe it's almost the end of summer and it's time to start thinking about back to school.

0:05.1

I have four kids and they really cover the full age range from toddler to teen.

0:10.0

So as you can imagine, shopping for them can be a little bit of a challenge.

0:14.0

And that's why I'm so grateful for Macy's because I can find everything I need for all four of them in one place.

0:19.5

And most importantly, things they all like

0:21.8

and actually want to wear in their school photos. And best of all, the back to school sale is on.

0:28.5

Macy's has a ton of great deals like 40% off kids, Levi's, 25% off all JanSport backpacks,

0:34.7

50% off kids' character clothing featuring Hello Kitty, Minnie, Mickey,

0:39.3

that I'm obsessed with, and even 30 to 50 off baby and toddler clothing for your kids that are

0:44.7

not quite school age. If you have back-to-school shopping to do, then give yourself and your

0:49.7

kids a break and make Macy's your first stop. It honestly makes me miss being a kid and being in school

0:55.2

because back to school shopping is the best part. The sale is now on through August 13. Shop now

1:00.8

at Macy's.com or in store. It was a terrifying decision because it's the job that a million girls

1:06.5

would kill for. I vividly remember feeling sick to my stomach to go meet with my editor-in-chief,

1:11.2

but I just knew that I would literally feel like I needed to die if I didn't do this or I didn't

1:17.1

try this. Today's guest is the incredible Kate Davidson Hudson. She was the editor I envied

1:23.9

and wanted to be best friends with. She worked at Harper. She ran as the fashion director

1:29.6

for Elle for many years. And then she launched her own company as soon as she raised her seed ground

1:35.4

for the editorial list. It was the first of its kind mixing online shopping with an editorial point of

1:42.2

view. There were so many mistakes that we made.

1:45.4

As people outside, and I really do believe this, you learn more from your failures and

1:49.6

your mistakes than you do your success is.

...

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