On the Podcast: How Tory Burch Built a Fashion Empire—Plus, Anok Yai Is British Vogue’s New Cover Star

Reported by Vogue.

Tory Burch launched her namesake brand out of a Nolita storefront on Elizabeth Street — chosen, she has said, because "the rent was cheap." Two decades later, that single shop has scaled to 400 locations worldwide, making her one of the few women to build a luxury fashion empire from scratch, on her own terms. According to Vogue, Burch recently sat down with editor Nicole Phelps for a live recording of The Run-Through podcast, where she laid out exactly how she did it — and what nearly broke her along the way.

The honest answer: a lot. A very public divorce. The 2008 financial crisis. The pandemic, which took the life of a longtime colleague. Burch didn't soften any of it. "What people need is just honesty," she said — and that transparency, more than any trend cycle or retail strategy, seems to be the throughline of her brand's resilience. Her creative process runs just as deep. Every collection, she explained, is rooted in art — a painting, a color, a period. "It's how it makes you feel," she said. That emotional specificity is rare in an industry that too often confuses volume with vision.

The Foundation of It All

In 2009, Burch launched the Tory Burch Foundation to give women entrepreneurs access to capital, mentorship, and community — a mission she says was baked into her reason for starting the company in the first place. The numbers back her up: foundation borrowers repay their loans at a 98% rate. Her conclusion? "Women are a great investment." Not a radical idea, but one that still, somehow, needs repeating.

For anyone trying to break into fashion right now, Burch offered the kind of advice that doesn't feel like a LinkedIn caption: "Negativity is noise. Thicken your skin." And more pointedly — stop waiting for someone to hand you authority. "Women have the power. We're not bestowing power upon anyone." Also worth celebrating this week: Anok Yai is British Vogue's newest cover star, a reminder that the industry's most compelling faces are finally getting the real estate they've always deserved.

Burch built an empire by treating honesty as infrastructure — and that, more than any single collection, is the blueprint worth studying.

Read the original at Vogue.