Oh, I don’t know about that! I think they’ll be running for the hills. But it’s focused on fashion, home, and
beauty. I didn’t want the competition element to feel staged, so we thought, Well, what if we built a team and
the competition becomes about hiring? So we added that element to it, but I wanted it to be real—I
wanted my team to have real time and real money to work with. You see us making lots of mistakes and also
doing some things right. It’s reality television, but it’s a different kind of reality television.

In this world where our Instagram lives present a life that’s not really real, it’s refreshing when
people are transparent and honest and show you their faults. I find that when people just come out and say,
“Here’s what I got, here’s where I struggled, and it’s not perfect,” that’s what I relate to. Success does not
come without failure. There is not one person who tries new things and puts themselves out there who doesn’t
fail. And that’s okay.

There is so much emotion attached to clothing. When you’re dressing a person, it’s a different thing
from picking out a couch. The couch isn’t going to look in the mirror and say, “Oh no, I look bad.” There is a
lot of emotional weight that goes with dressing a person. The goal is to care for that person intently and
make sure that they feel beautiful and seen and loved. Putting together a room doesn’t have that same
attachment, but the process is almost identical.

So many of the basic building blocks of building an outfit and mixing it up are the same tenets that I try to
follow when doing interiors. And I’m not an interior designer—let’s just call a spade a spade. But
part of what I love about this new world is that you don’t have to be deemed as such. For me, it’s like,
“Here’s what I do; here’s what I like.” And if you like it, that’s great. At the end of the day, I like to put
things together, and I’m super open to trying new things.

Do not put baby in a box! I remember distinctly when I was young, filling out one of those questionnaires
about what you want to be when you grow up. There was a box for teacher, doctor, lawyer…there wasn’t a single
creative option on there, and I was so terrified that I had to fall into one of those categories. I remember
writing “art director” under the “other” section—it’s so ironic, I didn’t even know what that meant at the
time. I was ten!

I use social media in a very specific way. I have a tendency to deep-dive into things. It’s funny because I
watch my Instagram algorithm shift based on what I’m working on. I’m doing a hotel project in the Bahamas, and
I’ve been looking at 80 million pictures of rattan-and-cane chairs. Now my entire feed is rattan-and-cane
chairs. But I love that I can find people that I would never have seen before. We’re doing a pop-up for the
final episode of the show and I was researching ceramics and found this amazing woman out of South Africa, and
I never would have found her stuff otherwise. It’s kind of incredible.

I think it’s softening up a bit. A couple of years ago, I went out to a restaurant with my hair down and I
had on an old pair of glasses that were very delicate. Someone came up to me and said, “Oh, I didn’t recognize
you!” And I thought, Amazing. I marched over to the glasses store and bought six pairs of completely different
frames. But I’d say my mantra for getting dressed these days is: How many times have I worn it, and is it
clean? I’ve been in a state of purging lately, but not in a Marie Kondo way because I love clothes
and there are certain things I’ll hold on to because they really do bring me joy.

I think it can be honed for sure. There’s a woman on the show whom I work with, Sarah Clary, who
could put on a paper bag and look phenomenal. And I’m just not that person. I’m more studied than that. I
think about it, but I also really enjoy it. We’re told how to be, what to wear, and what to do all the time.
And for me, it’s more important to teach people how to look for themselves: How does it feel? What does it do
for you? Do you like the silhouette? Does it feel flattering?

With design, there are certain places people get stuck. Something I talk a lot about on the show are
sightlines. When you look down the hallway, what do you see? Do you like what you see? Look at it
from every angle. Is it too cluttered? Is the light low? I try to give people starting points because it’s not
helpful for me to just redo everything and make it pretty. The idea is to give tips, big or small, for ways
you can train your eye to see things differently so that you can make your own decisions.

I’ve always been interested in eyelashes because honestly, I don’t have any. Before I left J.Crew, I noticed
that many of the women wore little to no makeup, but they were all coming to work with lash extensions. And at
the same time, all of these Instagrammers were doing these dramatic video tutorials where they would put on
seventeen layers of contour and highlighter and eye shadow. Then at the very end, they would pop on their
eyelashes. I thought that was so interesting. Here are two completely opposite ends of the spectrum, but they
are both focused on eyelashes as the finishing touch. I can’t do the no-makeup thing because I’m not Gwyneth
Paltrow, and I also can’t wear ten layers of contour because I’m old. So I thought, Is there something in
between for someone like me? LoveSeen was born out of that.

It’s really scary leaving the landscape of a job that you know so well without that safety net of: What am I
going to do next? And: Where will I land? But I feel lucky and grateful that I have an opportunity to try new
things and feel like I’m still learning. And I’m getting to do it in a way that leans on my past experience,
which is incredible.

I’m terrible at taking and giving advice. But the one thing I will say is having curiosity around things
outside of the one thing you’re currently doing is important. And being voraciously into anything that excites
you is important. That is the thing that you should be doing in your spare time. That’s what’s going to keep
you engaged. And that’s probably the thing that you’re going to kick ass at, too.