How I Built This with Guy Raz - Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich

Episode Date: August 31, 2020

One night in 1978, for fun, Sandy Chilewich and her friend, Kathy Moskal, tried bleaching their black cotton shoes, and dyeing them a new color. They were just fooling around in their Manhattan loft, but that experiment sparked the idea for Hue, a line of colorful shoes, stockings, tights, and accessories. It also launched Sandy on a 40-plus year career as a designer and entrepreneur. After selling Hue in 1991, Sandy built up her current, eponymous business based on an innovative design for placemats and other household items made from woven vinyl. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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made it feel less like a visit and more like we were actually living there. Plus, taking a trip is the perfect time to host your space on Airbnb. Your place with all of its personal touches and its amazing location could make someone else's vacation even better. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.ca.com slash host. I mean, it was amazing how quickly people got it. I mean, I remember the first international show that I did in Paris for the EU. And I'm standing there when we introduced it. And I went to the ladies' room. And then I'm walking back and literally there's like a wall of people around our booth and in the booth. I couldn't even get in.

And they're all staring at the placements. And it was like everyone's talking about it. It was like instant. From NPR, it's how I built this. A show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built. I'm Guy Raz and on today's show how a simple splash of color accidentally launched Sandy Chilowich into a 4.4. a year career as a designer, entrepreneur, and creator of the now famous Chilwich Place Mat. Some of the most successful brands we've had on the show were incredibly simple ideas that

didn't require much startup capital at all. Stacey Madison had a sandwich cart in downtown Boston. At the end of the day, she'd cut up leftover pita, toast it in the oven, and sell the chips in baggies for a dollar. Eventually, that became Stacey's pita chips. Lisa's pita chips. Lisa, Price wanted better skin cream, so she mixed shay butter and essential oils in her kitchen and packed them into baby food jars to sell at flea markets. Eventually, that became Carol's daughter, a line of personal care products. Kathleen King baked chocolate chip cookies and turned those into Tate's Bake Shop. All three of these entrepreneurs used their most valuable asset, their own creativity.

This was Sandy Chilowitz's most valuable asset as well. Back in the late 1970s in New York, when the city was filled with struggling artists and squatters living in abandoned apartments, she and a neighbor decided to buy a few pairs of Chinese slippers and dye them into different colors. That simple idea turned into a brand called Hugh, and eventually they branched out into tights. After Sandy sold Hugh, she looked at.

launched a second company called Chilowich, which is known for selling home products, especially placemats made from durable woven vinyl. Sandy grew up outside of New York and came from a family that had been in the leather goods business for generations. She says she was a pretty bad student. She went to Sarah Lawrence College but ended up dropping out twice. So to earn money, she painted, made sculptures, and sold handmade jewelry. She was making a little bit of bit from the jewelry, but one night, a simple, creative, do-it-yourself idea, change Sandy's life. What happened is that I met a neighbor of mine in the loft building that I lived in.

In New York. In New York City. So I'm living in Noho. It was a factory building. Everybody was an artist in the building. And one woman and I, who at that time, she was an art teacher. She was also doing some art, but mostly teaching. Her name was Kathy Moskull or Moscow?

Yes, right. Was it Mosul? Mosul, Mosul. And one evening, we were together. We were kind of little tipsy drinking wine. And I think we were in her loft and we were looking in her closet at her shoes. And at that time, all young downtown women, what they would wear every day were cotton canvas shoes that we bought in Chinatown. They were black, and they were like a really thin sole rubber back, and that was cheap chic. And they were three dollars. They were like the flat shoes, like the, like, Mary Jane's. And they were $3.99 in Chinatown.

And we thought, I don't know how we thought of this, but it just occurred to us because we both have our creative. We wondered, like, why doesn't anybody make these in colors? and that night, one of us had Clorox, I had writ dye, and we bleached out the black. It actually came out, and we overdid them. Okay. And they looked pretty great. You just thought we'll make them for ourselves or our friends or whatever? Yeah, well, this will be fun.

I don't know why. I think sometimes you just do it because it's fun to do it. So we went and we got more of them, and we died a bunch of them. And then we had a building meeting in my loft or her loft, I can't remember. And we had all the shoes out. And everybody in the building, they all said, oh, my God, what did you get these? It's amazing. Wow.

Just died Mary Jane's. You know, because it seems so simple. It's a simple thing. Well, this is a time, seriously, where things were not available in a lot of colors. This was before or around the same time that for the first time you'd get a T-shirt in 12 colors. Like Canal jeans, which was one of the forerunners of this, was just a couple of blocks away from us, where you would get T-shirts that people would die at home and then sell. Because you couldn't get a T-shirt in a pale-teal color.

People that made T-shirts, they made white, you know, or black, maybe. All right, so you guys have all these artists in the loft, and they love them, and they would. And I don't know, did that spark further discussion about maybe we should actually make more of these, or what? Like, you and Kathy, you know, what did that lead to? So what was happening, I still had the jewelry going on in my loft. And I got an appointment. At that time, Vogue Magazine would have open days and you could show product to all the kind of fashion nieces that work there. They would just have an open day where you could just walk in and show the stuff you're making?

I think it was by appointment, but they were very, it's not like it is today. encouraged and wanted to see new stuff. You know, now it's like very, it's not quite the same way. You kind of have to be more established and so forth. But then I had an appointment already to show them my jewelry. Right. And this is at the time, this is the woman that was the editor-in-chief before Anna Winter, this is Grace Mirabella.

She was the heavy and she was there forever before Anna took over. Sure. So we go up there and we're with all these fashionistas and I've got my jewelry and we decided I said, Kathy, come with me. Let's show them the shoes, too. So we showed them the jewelry, and then we showed them the shoes, and they all said, you know, in so many words, forget the jewelry. Tell us about the shoes. Wow. Like, these were really simple shoes that you got in Chinatown.

They were just in different colors, and they were blown away by those shoes? Yeah. Well, because everyone knew the shoes, and they were great, but they were, you know, but imagine them. in any other color, but black. So it was like, I think that was a big thing. Yeah, I'm trying to think of something that would be analogous. Like, car tires, car tires are black. But if somebody pulled up in front of your house with yellow neon car tires or orange car tires, you'd be like, oh, my God, where did you get those car tires in orange?

I think that's totally. But, you know, that's taking it to the furthest extreme. Yeah. But this is at a time when towels were available in four colors. That's it. beige, white, darker brown, I mean, gray, that's it. And that was the beginning where people started to offer more colors in everything. So they're looking at you and they're saying, hey, this jewelry, eh, not for us, but the shoes.

We love the shoes. And what did that mean? Well, it goes a little further because then they said, look, hold on for a minute. We'll be right back, and they all left. And 10 minutes later, Grace Marabella walks into the room. Oh, wow. She says, oh, my God, these shoes. And so, see, so this is on a Friday.

And she said, we need to take these shoes to Sardinia. We're leaving on Monday. To Sardinia? To Sardinia. We have a shoot in Sardinia. I want all of these colors in size 10 or size 9. Wow. You know.

You said yes, I hope. We said yes, we can do it. Of course. She said, I'm going to put you ladies on the map or something like that. It was like... It was like... It was like a movie. It was a movie line.

It was without a question of movie. I mean, this was for people who don't... I may not remember. Like, there was a magazine called Mirabella. I don't even know if it's still around. Oh, for sure. Yeah. For sure.

That's right. They were right. There's a magazine named after her, like, that she started. So how did you get, did you like go rushed out to Chinatown and scramble to get these shoes sizes? Yes. I mean, we had to get a whole case of like 40 pairs in a box to get the one size 10 that was in the box. Wow. And because they didn't sell them singly.

So we probably got like 10 of these boxes I don't remember. And we tried to simulate those colors, which we did probably drunk one night and like how are we going to get this color again. Yeah. So we did it. They were still wet on Monday morning. We were blow drying. We didn't sleep. I mean, we were just making these shoes.

and off they went to Sardinia. And there's going to be a lag time between the photo shoot and one that's probably five or six months later it's going to be in the magazine. So at that point, what do you do? I mean, do you decide to make this a business? Do you and Kathy say, you know, I think we got something here? You know, it was certainly quite a long time

before it went into the magazine, but when they came back, they knew that they shot them and this will be, they told us, a two-page spread. And it said, shoes by Kathy. Kathy and Sandy because we didn't even have a company name. Huh. And they can't take a credit unless their customers can buy it in a store. So we went to Bergdorf Goodman.

We told them we had a credit in vogue. Would they look at this product? And would they buy it so that we can cover the credit? And they did. So it said available at Bergdorf Goodman. Yes. So they could say that. And what did you price the shoes at?

God, you know, I know ultimately they were like $16. We started to buy them in quantities. We went to Macy's. We went to other stores at that point and showed people. And then we're buying, you know, all these big boxes, but we weren't using all the sizes because some of them were tiny. I mean, none of it made any sense economically. So, all right.

So when the Vogue spread came out, was there like a huge rush to buy them? Or what do you remember about that? I would think we were selling a lot. And I don't remember the quantities, but we were selling a lot. And we had to work all night long. I mean, we had people that came in and were dying and bleaching through the night. And this was all in your loft apartment? Like, I read that you had a bunch of washing machines you were using to dye the shoes and stuff.

Well, it was my home, and it was a big loft, and it was very open. And the whole back area was really nothing. It was an old studio. And that's where all the washing machines and dryers were. Plus the place to kind of lay the shoes out and store the shoes. I mean, I had 3,600 square feet in this loft. It was huge. All right.

So you are basically dyeing these shoes and getting them out the door. And eventually you call your business Hugh, H-U-E, which stood for what was that name? Just colors, you know. It was like all these colors because that's really what we were doing. We're just offering something that was kind of a very pedestrian product and offering it in tons of colors. Yeah. And it was you and Kathy kind of running this shoe string business. And I guess pretty soon after you launched the shoes, you started to get into tights, dying tights.

How did that happen? Because every editor, I mean, we were like the darlings of the press because of color. And all the editors were saying, well, what else do you guys do in color? So we were looking for things that were kind of cool that were never available in colors. and one of them were these cotton nurses stockings, which is kind of hard to believe that we even picked them up because neither one of us wore stockings. And some other products too,

these cotton gloves that were sold in Chinatown, some of these cool garter belts, all these kind of weird accessories, and we put them into the same dyeing manufacturing. And again, we were at like two pages in Mademoiselle magazine. And we were at the beginning called Hugh Shoes, and then we just became Hugh. And I'm thinking like cotton stockings, were they, was it thin cotton, thick cotton? I mean, were they like tube socks?

What do they look like? Well, nobody wears stockings anymore, unless they're porn star or something. It's got this like really, because it's a guard of belt. It's like, you know, they were called nurses stockings. What we were buying because nurses had to wear, I think, cotton. while in their uniforms, not in Ireland because that was uncomfortable. So they would wear a garter belt to hold them up. So nobody, we weren't saying, hey, let's wear stockings.

It was more like we're just trying to feed the market with color and something that was always so boring. So this was, I'm just, I guess, this was like a kind of a revolutionary or sort of a new kind of offering in the fashion arena? Well, honestly, the stockings didn't become the big. big thing. It's what we did based on the feedback we got from customers and us making a stretch cotton tight. How did you come to that? Well, because people were saying we love the fact that it's cotton. We don't want to wear nylon, but we don't want to wear a garter belt. Can't you make it

cotton tight for us, you know? So that was what we did. We did a couple of things like that that kind of changed the world of legwear. That was one of them. How did you? How did you? How did you identify the right material to use? You know, it was identifying how to combine a stretchy material with the cotton to make it tight. And this had very much, I think, to do with Kathy. I think the nylon panty hose, there was nylon wrapped around a stretch fiber. So what she was saying is why can't we find somebody to take cotton and wrap a it around a stretch so that we can make a stretch tight made out of cotton.

And was that possible to do? Yes, and we did it. Wow. So here's my question. I mean, you're in your mid-20s at this point. How did you, like, how did you figure out how to just like manage the business? We didn't know what we were doing from a business standpoint. I mean, we're making all this inventory. We don't realize like, hey, you have to sell your inventory before you make more stuff. I mean, they didn't know what we're doing.

I love that. You were just making a bunch of stuff and then like, oh, we've got to sell this. Exactly. You weren't making the sale first and then making the... Absolutely. And also, not every color you make is going to sell. And then what are you going to do with all those pink things that you just made? You know, where does that go?

And you're making the wrong things and you're not selling to enough people or people are not paying you fast enough. I mean, they're just basic parts of the business. And how to deal with cash flow. and how to deal with, you know, receivables and collecting. And so we're definitely, you know, losing money, but we knew we had something great. And somebody, a mentor of mine, who was a friend of my brothers who went to business school

and had been out in the world. And he came over and looked at both of us, and he appreciated what we were doing. He looked at us and he said, let me just tell you right now, one of you has to stop designing and you have to sell full time. There's nothing else. That's what you have to do.

And that's what I did. So you decided that you were going to focus on sales and the business and Kathy was going to focus on the creative side? Yeah, yeah. And did you want to do that? I mean, isn't kind of designing the products a little bit more fun? You know, I've always been, and in the later businesses I did, designing alone is not kind of enough for me. I do like the business side. and I do like the marketing side.

And I am very, very interested in that. And I didn't know it at the time, but I volunteered for that position. And I really learned how to sell, which I think I had a talent for anyway. So I do like the – I love that combination of art and commerce. How did you get the word out? I mean, in the beginning you had this sort of attention from these publications. But then, like, let's say, I don't know, you know, Bullocks, which doesn't exist anymore in Southern California. I grew up in Southern California.

So let's say Bullocks carried your stuff. Like, how would people walking into a Bullux know about your product? You go to the Hojury Department and you see it. We had great packaging. And we did very unconventional photography at that time. All of our products had a picture of a woman with the product and they were kind of way more fashionable. You know, the hosurie departments were a commodity department in most stores. They were so basic pantyhose, really ugly socks.

I mean, just nothing. And when we came aboard and there was another company called Hot Sucks at that time, but we were a huge part of the hosiery department. We still are at some of these big stores. I mean, I understand how early on you funded the business. You just used money to buy these shoes. But eventually you had to buy lots of inventory. and they had to be sold.

So how are you funding it? How were you getting the cash to build this business up? I can be quite specific. My father had lent us $300,000. And he gave it to us as we needed it. You know, I would ask him, look, we really need $10,000, we need $20,000. So that's what capitalized it. Plus, at the beginning, I kind of didn't take a salary out probably for several years, but then I did.

and it was able to pay both Kathy and I. You know, we get, Sandy, we get from time, time letters from people who when they hear some stories, they'll say, hey, you know, that story, I didn't, I couldn't identify with it because I don't have a parent who has a lot of money who could help me out. And I think, you know, with some justification, we'll say, you know, that sounds like they had all these advantages, you know, that I don't have. And, I mean, what do you think when you hear that? Well, I hear it. I mean, I definitely hear it. And I've spoken very often, you know, especially at schools and art schools and everything that, you know, they want to get a more practical idea of, you know, what can do with it, whatever. Yeah, I'm always a little uncomfortable about that part. I mean, but I, the fact, I actually, this is the first time that I've ever said publicly to anybody as I did with you today to tell you literally exactly how much I got. got from my dad. And at the end of the day, you know, it is what it is. I mean, I, I know. It's, it's, I was lucky. Okay. So you, you're growing Hugh, um, you and Kathy and selling a bunch

of different things. Yes. Eventually you stopped, uh, you stopped selling shoes. Was that just because they went out of a style or, or, or what? Um, no, I think it's like, it's something that I've certainly learned and really believe in is that you've got to narrow your focus and be clear on what you're doing. It's just, it's a different, you have to look at your avenues of distribution and who you're selling to. It just wasn't going to work. I wasn't going to be able to sell these shoes in a hosiery department. I just, I identified this, like, this product has legs, let me put it, and this can grow. And I kind of knew that intuitively. And so the idea was to grow it, you kind of had to kill one of the babies, which was the Mary Jane's. Yes. And you have to kill a bunch of things while

you're growing, in my opinion. And a big one that we did was back then there were two sections in a women's, if a woman wants a sock or a tight or a panty hose, back in those days, there were different sections within the hosiery or the legwear area. And one was kind of casual socks and tights and the others that were panty hose. And we, we were, We were trying to sell both of them. And it was definitely my thing. It's like, no, let's be the best in one area or another because it's splitting us up. And that's what we did.

And I tend to – that's something that I learned on my own and it's carried me through in general. So in 1991, you decided to sell. You and Kathy decided to sell the company. Yeah. And by the way, I shouldn't mention Hugh is still around. You can still buy their leggings and tights and shoes. shapeware and stuff like that. You and Kathy stay on as co-presidents for a few years.

Did you, I mean, I'm assuming that essentially you become financially secure at that point for the rest of your life. You could have probably stopped working. Probably. I mean, I wouldn't have lived, you know, we're not like the billion dollar business. So like it's not that kind of money. Right. But it was nice. It was a really nice sum of money and it didn't put any panic in me.

And did you sell it because you just wanted to kind of move on or it was just an offer you couldn't refuse or you were just kind of tired or what do you remember behind that idea? I think that to be honest, I think my relationship with Kathy, she and I both, I think we're both kind of, it was just hard to work together. And I, you know, so it was time. And we were together, we were doing this for a long time. So it was time to move on. Were you guys not getting along? I would say it was a little true. I mean, it wasn't horrible or anything, but we were fighting.

Yeah. I think I also, you know, more and more, I wasn't designing, you know, and then it became kind of difficult for me to kind of get back in. You wanted to get back into the design side, but you had been out of it for so long as a salesperson that it was. Yeah. And probably Kathy felt ownership over those designs, understandably. Yeah. And she, I mean, I definitely had my, you know, my hand in a couple of designs. I can say 100% they were mine.

But in general, she did amazing things. She was very good at it. And I wanted to do that, not with hosiery, but I needed to do that for myself. Yeah. I mean, I loved what I did. But then I, it just wasn't as much fun anymore. And I wanted to change. When we come back in just a moment, how Sandy's big change was inspired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

and a factory making outdoor furniture material in Alabama. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This from NPR. Hey, welcome back to How I Built This from NPR. So it's the mid-1990s, and Sandy Chilwitch is finished with Hugh, and she wants to get back to designing things and creating things herself, something she hasn't done in a while. But at this point, Sandy does have close to, 15 years of experience, making, selling, and distributing products and running a business.

So she's pretty confident she can launch a new venture if she can just come up with another great new idea. So it's this very organic kind of intuitive process, and I decided I'm just going to explore ideas and see where I land. Okay. And I got a studio downtown, just a one room. It was on Lafayette and spring. It was like so inspiring down there then. You just got a studio space to like just to have a kind of a room of my own, you know. And one idea that I had, which for the life of me, I don't understand where it came from.

But you know the butterfly chair, you know, that's the. Yeah, sure. Okay. So I always loved the chair, extremely uncomfortable, but I always loved it. And I love that idea of the canvas and the wire and blah, blah, blah. And I had this idea like, wouldn't that be great? like as a bowl. I mean, that whole concept of having a butterfly bowl. A butterfly bowl or creating a concavity with a textile to be a container.

A bowl to hold what? Fruit, vegetables. Okay. Like a fruit bowl you put on your counter. Yes. That was where that's where it started. So, you know, I'm, my husband's an architect. He had his own practice at that time and he helped me build this prototype and it was like very organic. Like I, you know, we're using wire and then I go out because you have to have fabric. And the, because I was in hosiery, I kept, I was always drawn to stretch materials. So I bought the stretch netting. It's like what people use for girdles, you know? So playing around with it, if you stretched it around this structure, it's like a trampoline because it's stretchy. It's boingy. So the only way to make it a concavity is to pull it down in the center. It's so. It's sort of,

hard to explain this without seeing it, you know, it's, um, but ultimately I called this the Ray Ball after my older son. Okay. And the first thing I had to do is to see if people actually would buy this thing. So I was connected to somebody that was the head of the MoMA design store. And, um, they saw it and they launched, literally launched their whole website with an image of that bowl. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Yeah, yeah. Which has a really cool online shop. So they picked it up and they put it on their website? Yes, and they had, they never even had a website before. Oh, wow.

And when they promoted the e-commerce site, they had this great photographer, took a picture of my bowls flying in the air, and that was what they used to sell and tell everybody that they had of a website. And there was a poster of my bowls, so like flying through the air in front of the museum, the actual museum of art, like right at the entrance. It was like, I mean, nothing made me more proud. It was like I couldn't believe it was there. But then I did everything that I would have done and that I did do in a little business.

I always, that's what I liked, you know, start with one store, then learn more. Then, you know, so that's what I did. I did it again with Ray Bowls. I mean, the Ray Bulls are very cool. It's a wire frame bowl with a stretched material that looks cool. But, you know, it's not something that, you know, it's not something that, you know, it's not something that it's not like stockings that people need. It's a real niche product. Like the Museum of Modern Art gift shop is the place to sell it. This was not going to turn into a scalable business.

Absolutely. Because everyone was coming to me and saying, you know, it's such a great concept because I did the bowls and the boxes. Why don't you do lighting? Why don't you do furniture? And actually I did like small prototypes. And I realized, you know, that's just pushing it. I hit, you know, I hit the note here. It's perfect. This is what, that's all this is. And so I, but in this whole process of kind of expanding the rayballs, I started to experiment with other materials that I could create a concavity with. And I found it just accidentally, this outdoor furniture material that I found at this library called Material Connection, which it had just opened their doors. And I was probably one of their first customers. This is a library in New York, right?

Yeah, that was, I don't know, it's still there. And it's basically a library for materials? You can just go and, like, feel and touch different materials? Yes. This guy that started, his name is George Ballerium. He's kind of iconic in the design business. But I thought, I'll go to them. Maybe they can find something.

And I found this factory in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, that made outdoor furniture upholstery. So I got some of the material. I'm looking at this material, and it's pretty ugly. And yet it's waterproof, it's stain resistant. It's like it's woven. And it's, you know, it's got opportunities, you know. This is like a woven vinyl? It's a woven vinyl, which I didn't even know what that was, you know.

And this was used on like, I'm trying to imagine, like just outdoor chairs and. Like sling chairs, you know, like whatever's like outdoor, outbound a pool. And I just became intrigued with the material. And so honestly, I don't. don't understand why, in a way, how placemats even entered my brain, because honestly, I don't remember even eating on a placemat. But all I know is that I tried to get more of the fabric. So I called them and I badgered to speak to somebody important down at Fyfer, which is a Tuscaloosa, Alabama. It's a big weaving mill. And I told them, you know, look, I want to come

down there. I want to talk to you guys. And so I did. So I go down there. It's a really big factory. And presumably you told them, hey, I'm a designer. I've already had a successful business with this thing called Hugh. Right, right, exactly. Because they knew that brand. They knew the brand. The women there certainly did. So once I told them what I said, look, you're not dealing with a complete rookie here.

I know what I'm talking about, you know. And a lot of what they showed me was more interesting and interesting enough for me to start making some prototypes of police mats. which is how I started. Just, I'm just curious. Like, how did you even see this material and think place mats? These could be placemats. You know, that's a good question because seriously, I'm telling you, I don't understand how I, I think it was just one of these dumb moments

where, like, it's sitting on my table. And I think I said, you know, this is a really good placement. It looks good on my table. To frame something, it looks great. It's a barrier of some sort. and I have to do so little, I don't know how I came to that moment. I really don't. I think it was very, very organic.

It's just looking at it and like, this looks good on my table. I think that's what happened. So you basically get them to make you some exclusive designs, you design them and colors, and you decided to make a go of this. I'm assuming you used the proceeds from the sale of your previous business to fund this. Absolutely. And you get the first delivery. Did you also go back to the Museum of Modern Art shop?

I went everywhere that I sold the Rebels, we're going to buy this because it's kind of a home design product. So I already had, in a way, an already built-in – it's small distribution, but I had a distribution channel. Was anybody like – this is a little weird, Sandy. I mean, place mats are, you know, usually cloth or, you know, or they're kind of anachronistic. Like, people don't really use them. I mean, did you get any feedback like that? In general, it was, I mean, it was amazing how quickly people got it. It's like, I mean, I remember the first international show that I did in Paris for the EU.

And I'm standing there when we introduced it. And I went to the ladies room. And then I'm walking back and literally there's like a wall of people around our booth and in the booth. I couldn't even get in. and they're all speaking multilingual. And they're all staring at the placements. And what it is is that you don't even have to touch this thing. You can have it on the table beautifully set.

And you know exactly what it is, what it can do, and how to maintain it. You don't even have to touch it. And it was like everyone's talking about it. It was like instant. I mean, I remember the first time I saw them. And full disclosure, I have some of them. I probably bought them 10 years ago. And they're very simple.

and so there was nothing like it at the time. Like people saw it and they were like, nothing, zero. And right away people like, this is so cool. I love this. Oh, God. It was so instance. And, you know, it's a humble product.

That's the thing. But what goes into it, when you see the designs that we're doing now, people get to own such a beautiful, thoughtful product that's, you know, $14. And they get to see it every day. So, but. Let me just say one funny thing about the, when I first told people, when they said, when the store would ask me, well, how much are these going to retail for? And I said, like, $12. And they said, that's a dozen, right?

And it was like, no, that's one placemat. You know. And so that, I changed that whole idea, you know. Because people thought a placemat was a disposable cheap. Yeah, exactly. Right. Because $12 is still a good price, but, you know, per placemat. That's a lot.

So did you, I didn't, I didn't know until I, we said. up this interview that your name was Sandy Chilowich. I thought Chilowich was this kind of English, you know, village brand. How did you come to call it after your last name? You know, it's probably that hunger that I had that was left over from Hugh where I felt. The Rae Bowls, you know, that was my, they proved to me that I was a designer. That was hugely important to me because I had really kind of lost that identity. And I wanted to know if I'd still had it in me. And a product is not a business. The Rebels was a great product and it was not a business. And once the placemats, when that happened, I could see it. I could see the future there

that, you know, it could be rugs, could be this or that. And I wanted my name attached. I was very proud of it and it was time to do that. When you started to, when you started to get wider distribution of the placemats, because I think probably initially you had them in like boutiques and gift stores and And today they're available on Amazon and Crane Barrel and, you know, William Snowman, some West Elm, big, big places like that. Do they catch on pretty quickly? Did you see that happen fast or was it a slow burn? No, no. Oh, my God.

You know, I've had so much experience, you know, at Hugh. You know, it's like selling in versus selling through are two different things. It's great that you got the order, but did it sell to the customer or did it sell to the ultimate party that's going to use it? And when I sold the Ray Bulls to MoMA, I was in their store every day counting the stock because I wanted to know whether or not it was selling to the point where the buyers, she actually physically pushed me out there or saying, you cannot come here every day and count stock. Because I need to know, is this going to work or not? Because I have to know how I was going to produce it in real, for real. But the same thing with the placemats. I mean, you know, it's really about sell through.

I would call the stores and say, how many did you sell this week? And I knew before they did that we had a winner. We should acknowledge that you must live near a hospital, by the way. There's a lot of sirens. Do you live near a hospital? Well, you live near hospital wherever you are in Manhattan. Lennox Hill. This is the reality of pandemic era interviews where we're not in the studio.

So when your husband, Joe, came into the business, was there any part of you nervous about that? You had a partner. This is different. This is your life partner. And he brings a certain set of skills that are probably very valuable as an architect. But was a part of you nervous about working with your spouse? I don't think I was nervous before. I can't. It's hard, though. I mean, I don't, you know, there's no separation. And, you know, it's not so easy working with your spouse. I don't think it's so easy. I don't think either Joe or I would say it's so easy. Yeah. I mean, it certainly has some good things and we've done great things together. But all the turmoil that you have at the office, it's hard to cut it off and you continue the arguments or the controversies at home. It's just not so easy. There's a nice picture of the two of you on your website in the About Us section, you and Joe, and you seem like, you know, the nice picture. But do you find that, I mean, he's probably a designer too, right? He's an architect. You love design, and are there moments where one of you really just has to kind of surrender to the other person? You know, he has never tried to be involved with the design. He found his own thing, which was manufacturing.

And you make most everything in the U.S., right? Yes. Everything is woven for us in Alabama, and pretty much everything we make is finished, either backed with different materials for different flooring or wall covering, all the ultrasonic equipment is in. He built a factory. That's what he did. And this is your factory in Georgia. Yeah. And it's our factory.

And, you know, it's grown like crazy. And we employ a lot of people. And it's, you know, it's all made here. So the materials made in Alabama. And then it's all cut and made into products in Georgia. Right. So also, so we make it into products, but also we laminate different backings to the materials. In laminating machines that Joe helped design that, you know,

that are very specific to our needs. But you were so successful that you attracted a lot of copycats, right? I mean, even now you could probably find companies that are really just copying what you're doing. How do you... Well, at first, you know, at first it feels terrible. But at the end of the day, at this point, you know, and it's all about how quickly we really saturated the segment of the marketplace that we really wanted to saturate. copies over the years in general are viewed, and they are in fact,

cheap knockoffs from China. You know, we have very, very strict trademark and, you know, copyright protection. And we've sued people and we've made big companies stop when they get too close to our designs. You can't copyright a simple basket weave. But when people get close to really our more graphic designs and certain other things, we can, I don't know, in America, we don't have any competition, to be honest.

I mean, within the stores that we're in, if they carry somebody else's, we've told them, if you carry this, we're pulling out. And nobody lets us pull out. I wonder if you, we are in the middle of this global health and economic crisis. Meltdown, yeah. And I have to imagine you have like 99.9% of businesses see a slow down because people can't physically go into shop. So you still have to rely on direct-to-consumer probably a lot. What does that mean for your business right now? Well, I mean, the lucky thing is that all the big stores like, you know, Crane Barrel, let's say, is our biggest customer or Sir La Tauv or any of these big people, they all have web sales.

And we've been building those businesses with these stores for a long time. So we're not dependent on brick and mortar. And in addition to that, because we have our own factory, when somebody orders, you know, placemats from West Elm, we can ship it directly from our factory to the customer. But from like a design perspective, right? So much of what I imagine you do has to happen in a room with people looking at the material, like right on that table. I mean, my design team, first of all, we're nowhere near as big as there's one two, four people in my design group. Yeah, but you still need to like pass things around. So are you doing that like on Zoom and stuff?

Well, no, that has been. I mean, actually my master weaver, she actually wove all of our small samples that we're going to do for fall. 21 in her home. Oh, wow. And we all met for the first time, all with masks, to look at all the things that we had Fyper do. You know, it's not ideal, but we're functioning. And we actually did a season.

And also, given that the sales are definitely down, we don't have to have every skew, so many new skews. I mean, who knows if the world's going to come back like it was, you know. So, but we're doing okay. You know, we look, we cut expenses. We had to furlough a little bit, but we have. I hired pretty much 99% of the people that we furloughed for a couple of months back. But look, we have to rethink everything.

It's just, it's tough. But I don't know. I feel very bullish. I feel our product is really good. It's just damn good, you know. When you think about the journey you took and, you know, the considerable success you've had as a business person, entrepreneur, do you think more of it has to do with luck or more of it has to do with your hard work and the skills that you brought to it? I don't think luck had anything to do.

with it. I don't. I think it has to do with endurance. It's constantly testing yourself, being open-minded, hugely listening to negative feedback. You've got to be able to listen. You have to listen, and you have to make sure when people say they like something that they really, really like it. You've got to constantly test the value of your product. And I think I did that. I think I did that very intuitively. that's Sandy Chilowich. She's the co-founder of Hugh and the founder of Chilovich. And by the way, remember Sandy's Rayball,

the design that was featured on the Museum of Modern Arts Web Store? Well, if you had difficulty imagining what the Rayble looks like, if you do a quick image search, you can see it for yourself. Just make sure you type it all as one word. Otherwise, you'll just see Bowles by Rachel Ray. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can also write to us at H-I-B-T at npr.org.

And if you want to send a tweet, it's at How I Built This or at Guy Raz. You can also follow me on Instagram. That's at guy.org. Our show is produced this week by Casey Herman with music composed by Rumptina Arablui. Thanks also to Julia Carney, Candice Lim, Neva Grant, Sarah Saracen, and Jeff Rogers. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This.