Statement Piece

We walk through hip hop stars’ historic influences on fashion, including Vanessa Simmons’s own influence through her experiences on the television show, “Run’s House” and being the creative director of the brand, Pastry. We also highlight Vanessa’s career as CEO of Sugar Me and Glitter & Lace, in addition to her passions for clean beauty and women in business.

Get to know more about us as we answer some of your most pressing questions, celebrating the end of our first season and the beginning of our second. Follow us on Instagram @statementpiecepod, TikTok @statementpiecepod, Twitter @StatementPiece_, Facebook and LinkedIn ("Statement Piece: The Podcast") to get more updates about future episodes!

We reflect on Man Repeller Global Sales Director Jasmin Aujla’s career before and within the fashion publication, Man Repeller, zeroing in on her most recent article, “Netflix’s ‘Indian Matchmaking,’ Unpacked by 4 South Asian Women.” We inquire about South Asian representation in media, reflect on cultural differences between being Indian in the United States, United Kingdom, and India, concluding with a reflection on multicultural family dynamics.

We walk through Diandra Barnwell’s career in fashion, journalism, and entertainment, including her experiences at Cosmopolitan Magazine and on the show, “So Cosmo.” We highlight how she got to her present involvements in philanthropy, activism, and entrepreneurship. Additionally, we discuss how tokenism has impacted Diandra and how institutions can limit their complicity.

We analyze findings from the 2020 Boston Consulting Group x Highsnobiety report, “Culture Culture Culture: Quantifying What Matters Most to the New Fashion & Luxury Consumer” and the 2018 Highsnobiety report “The New Luxury: Buying In is the New Selling Out” by Train Trunzo, Jian DeLeon, and Emily Dreesen. We answer what the New Luxury mindset is and how we ourselves invest in subcultural knowledge and pay a premium to feel included in cultural conversation. To read the papers, check out our Instagram @statementpiecepod, Twitter @StatementPiece_, and LinkedIn and Facebook pages, “Statement Piece: The Podcast.”

We discuss TikTokker $ERIC’s (@MoneySignEric) creative process, how he won the Chipotle x David Dobrik challenge and received free access to Chipotle for a year, how COVID-19 has impacted his content creation, and how activism interacts with TikTok. Finally, we conclude with analysis on a potential federal TikTok ban.

Kathryn recalls her experience as an extra in a music video, leading us to discuss the idea of labor in the entertainment and fashion industry. First, we review the trade-off of time and skills experienced in unpaid internships. We continue to examine unpaid modeling work, the effects of the pandemic, and the potential growth for unions within the modeling industry. Last, we emphasize the need for worker-driven protection agreements to ensure that every worker is happy and healthy.

With Trishna, a pre-dental former Pop Talk radio host, we explore American body politics, or the ways in which society regulates, controls, and struggles with the human body. We unpack how coronavirus may impact cosmetic surgery procedures and how that relates to the age of the “Instagram face.”  Furthermore, we discuss body politics’ intersectionality with Tik Tok culture, race, age, culture, data, governmental politics, and personal finances, specifically women’s investment in their own bodies.