The Who What Wear Podcast: Denim Expert Benjamin Talley Smith on Making Best-Selling Khaite and Reformation Jeans, Plus the Styles to Shop this Summer

Second Life

Clique Media, Female Founder, Entrepreneurship, Career Change, Career Pivot, Fashion & Beauty, Hillary Kerr, Personal Journals, Who What Wear, Clique, Career, Arts, Business, Careers, Second Life, Career Advice, Self-made, Entrepreneur, Mydomaine, Society & Culture

4.7 • 3K Ratings

🗓️ 3 July 2024

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Benjamin Talley Smith is the founder of the denim atelier Talley Creative. Named “the most influential jeans guy you’ve never heard of” in a recent New York Times profile, Ben provides services across design, production, and marketing to brands looking to create or expand their denim offerings. Over the years, he’s worked on denim collections for Helmut Lang, Earnest Sewn, Ulla Johnson, Jordache, Re/Done, Everlane, Reformation, and Khaite—and that’s just scratching the surface. As a true denim whisperer, he often has a hand in the most exciting denim launches, including an upcoming line with Spanx in 2025. This week, Ben joins us to discuss the best pairs on the market today, the return of low rises, and naming Khaite’s Danielle jeans after his wife.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Who what wear with Hillary Kerr, your direct line to the designers stylists, beauty
0:15.8	experts, editors, and tastemakers who are shaping the ever-evolving world of fashion.
0:22.4	I'm Hillary Kerr and today our editor-in-chief Cat Collings is chatting with Benjamin Tally Smith
0:28.0	the founder of the Denham Attili creative and potentially the designer of the genes you are wearing right now.
0:38.0	Ben has decades of experience creating hit-denum styles or entire entire denim lines for brands like helmet lang,
0:46.2	earnest sown, Vince, Jordash, Everlane, Reformation, and Kate. He also created Walmart's free assembly gene line
0:56.6	which used Fair Trade Factories to create a more sustainable and affordable gene.
1:01.8	Ben is here today to talk about upcoming sustainable and affordable gene.
1:02.8	Ben is here today to talk about upcoming trends,
1:06.1	what to look for in premium denim and his work
1:09.5	on viral it girl genes like the Danielle gene from Kate. It's all coming up on who what wear. Ben, thank you so much for joining me today.
1:28.0	Thanks for having me.
1:29.0	This is great.
1:30.0	You were recently featured in a really insightful New York Times article called
1:34.3	The Most Influential Genes Guy you've never heard of. What did you think when you saw
1:39.8	that title?
1:40.8	Amazed, honestly. Actually, it first came up online as The Wizard of Genes, which was a major compliment.
1:47.3	To me it's nice.
1:48.3	I've always sort of been in the background helping brands, so this was a first hint to like showing
1:52.4	the things that I've done.
1:53.2	Overall the article was amazing. It really did a deep dive into what I've been doing for the last 20 years.
1:58.6	So yeah, I mean we saw it and we were like, okay, we got to talk to this guy.
	...

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