Aug 31, 2020 · 43m · how-i-built-this
Chilewich: Sandy Chilewich
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of NPR's How I Built This, entrepreneur and designer Sandy Chilewich shares the story of co-founding the revolutionary legwear brand Hue and later inventing modern woven vinyl tabletop accessories with her eponymous brand, Chilewich.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Guy holds 34.9% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Guy as informed peer 3.4 Guest teaching 2.9 Guest disagreement 1.2 Guy pushing back 1.8
speaking balance: gold is Guy, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 41:59 Firm rejection of the luck premise
Sandy immediately shuts down Guy's framing that luck played a role in her accomplishments, stating unequivocally that success boils down to endurance and rigorously testing negative feedback.
Hardest push from Guy ▶ 18:54 Host presses on parental financial privilegeGuy challenges Sandy on behalf of listeners who lack affluent families, directly confronting the unfair advantage of having a wealthy parent finance a fledgling startup.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 13:16 Educating host on historical legwear materialsSandy breaks down the functional limitations of 1970s nylon and cotton nurses' hosiery, explaining how Hue engineered modern stretch cotton legwear by spinning cotton around an elastic core.
Guy holds their own ▶ 8:53 Host cites Grace Mirabella editorial historyGuy demonstrates detailed domain knowledge regarding Vogue editorial leadership and Grace Mirabella's career, anticipating and expanding upon Sandy's narrative.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Guy as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Guy pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Genesis of Hue: Bleaching Chinatown Slippers | 4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Guy Raz probes the creative origins of dyeing Chinatown slippers, offering an analogy of neon car tires to frame the novelty of color in the late 1970s. Sandy Chilewich builds on the context, explaining how limited color palettes were across consumer goods at the time. | |
| The Vogue Breakthrough and Grace Mirabella's Sardinia Shoot | 5 | 2 | 0 | 1 | Guy Raz demonstrates industry knowledge by bringing up Grace Mirabella's history and eponymous magazine. Sandy shares the dramatic story of scrambling over the weekend to fulfill an emergency Vogue photo shoot in Sardinia. | |
| Commercializing Hue: Loft Production and Department Store Orders | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | Guy asks about early operational scaling and retail pricing after landing a Bergdorf Goodman credit. Sandy describes running a 24-hour dyeing workshop out of her spacious NoHo loft apartment. | |
| Expanding to Legwear and Inventing Stretch Cotton Tights | 3 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Sandy educates Guy on historical legwear, explaining why cotton nurses' stockings required garter belts before Hue developed stretch cotton tights by wrapping cotton around elastic fiber. Guy asks technical questions to understand how Hue revolutionized hosiery. | |
| Operational Hurdles and Sandy's Shift to Full-Time Sales | 4 | 3 | 0 | 2 | Guy probes the transition from informal artisan production to structured business operations. Sandy candidly details her mentor's directive that forced her to step away from design and manage commercial sales full time. | |
| Department Store Merchandising and Startup Family Funding | 4 | 2 | 2 | 6 | Guy pushes back sharply on family financial support, asking how Sandy addresses listeners who feel disadvantaged without wealthy parents lending substantial startup capital. Sandy acknowledges her privilege openly and reveals for the first time publicly that her father loaned Hue $300,000. | |
| Product Line Focus, Company Acquisition, and Partnership Transition | 3 | 2 | 1 | 3 | Guy inquires about the sale of Hue in 1991 and gently probes interpersonal tension between the co-founders. Sandy admits to creative friction and fighting with Kathy as a major motivation for stepping down. | |
| Mid-Show Teaser and Station Identification | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Following mid-roll narration, Sandy explains her exploratory post-Hue phase downtown developing the Ray Bowl with architectural wire netting and landing MoMA e-commerce placement. | |
| Material Discovery: Sourcing Industrial Woven Vinyl in Alabama | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Sandy walks Guy through her accidental discovery of industrial outdoor woven vinyl at Material Connexion and visiting the textile mill in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Guy probes how an ugly outdoor sling chair fabric sparked the idea for tabletop design. | |
| Launching Chilewich Placemats and Defining Modern Tabletop Design | 4 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Guy and Sandy explore how Chilewich placemats disrupted the category by redefining tabletop textiles from disposable commodities to high-end reusable design. Sandy recounts how buyers initially assumed her $12 wholesale quote was for a full dozen rather than an individual placemat. | |
| Family Partnership, Domestic Manufacturing, and Combating Knockoffs | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | Sandy details her domestic manufacturing setup in Georgia managed by her husband Joe and explains her aggressive legal strategy against foreign knockoffs. She asserts that major retailers are warned that Chilewich will pull out immediately if they stock copycat products. | |
| Adapting to the Pandemic and Reflections on Endurance | 3 | 5 | 5 | 2 | When Guy asks his signature concluding question about whether her career success was driven more by luck or hard work, Sandy firmly rejects the luck premise. She insists that success in design and business is entirely a matter of endurance and listening to negative feedback. |
Statements from this episode (13)
Mass-Market Apparel Generally Only Came in Black or White Before 1980
“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 could get a t-shirt in 12 colors. Like, Canal Jeans, which was one of the forerunners of this, was just a…”
Vogue Openly Welcomed Unknown Designers in the 1970s Unlike Today
“They 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.”
Bergdorf Goodman Bought Sandy Chilewich's Shoes to Satisfy Vogue's Editorial Requirements
“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, but they look at this product, and Would they buy it so that we can cover the credit? And they did.”
Hue Changed the Legwear Industry by Inventing Stretch Cotton Tights
“We did a couple of things like that that kind of changed the world of legwear. That was one of them.”
Sandy Chilewich's Father Lent Hue $300,000 to Capitalize the Business
“I can be quite specific. My father had lent us 300,000 dollars and he gave it to us as we needed it.”
Brands Must Kill Product Lines During Growth to Dominate Retail Categories
“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 so, if a woman wants a sock or a tight or a pantyhose, back in those days, there were different sections …”
Hue Was Sold in 1991 Because the Co-Founders Could Not Stop Fighting
“I think my relationship was, 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. I would say it was a l…”
The MoMA Design Store Launched Its First Website Featuring the Ray Bowl
“They saw it, and they launched, literally launched their whole website with an image of that ball.”
Sandy Chilewich Sourced Her Tabletop Material From an Alabama Furniture Mill
“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.”
Sandy Chilewich Warns That a Great Product Is Not a Sustainable Business
“And a product is not a business. The Ray Bowls was a great product, and it was not a business.”
Chilewich Aggressively Sues Large Competitors Over Design Infringement
“And we've sued people, and we've made big companies stop when they get too close to our designs.”
Chilewich Forces Retailers to Drop Knockoff Competitors or Lose Her Inventory
“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.”
Sandy Chilewich Attributes Success to Endurance and Negative Feedback Over Luck
“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 s…”