The Working Wardrobe: Emma Grede

If you’re one of Emma Grede’s 865,000 Instagram followers, you’ll already know she has impeccable taste. Whether she’s in the office wearing a suit by The Row, a Bottega Veneta bag and her treasured Cartier ‘Panthère’ watch, or at a glamorous event in a floor-length Alaïa gown and Saint Laurent heels, the British-born entrepreneur always dresses for how she wants to feel – call it a style manifestation, if you will. “If I’ve got a great outfit on, I know I’m going to kill it that day,” she says, via video call from LA, where she now lives with her husband and business partner, Jens Grede, and their four young children.

As the CEO of Good American and founding partner and chief product officer of shapewear label Skims, Grede knows what women need in their closets and is often one step ahead when it comes to trends; her magic power is intuiting how the two connect. “I know what I’m good at – and that’s having a pulse on the customer; I really know my girl,” says Grede. “I have a feeling for what she wants, and I have a feeling for what’s coming next.”

It’s crucial to Grede that her brands champion size inclusivity and body positivity. “Being inclusive, having more diversity and a broader customer base in what you do, makes sense,” she explains. “But I also think there’s a responsibility because when you have large segments of customers who are totally left out of a conversation, that’s just not how we operate in this day and age,” she adds. “We don’t segment our friends like that, we don’t segment our relationships like that, so why would we do it in business?”

Being an advocate for equality across all areas of the industry has allowed Grede to connect with women around the world, from the customers she meets in stores to aspiring entrepreneurs. Knowing first-hand the struggles women often face in business, she is passionate about using her platform to help others and believes in the power of open, honest conversation as the vehicle for driving positive change. It’s one of the reasons she decided to host her annual Seat at the Table dinner, which so far has been held in London, New York and LA, with more locations to come. “I thought, what happens if I bring together all my younger founder friends with all the powerful women who I meet every day – my bankers, my lawyers, women who have sold their companies – and put them in a room? Magic happens because all the vulnerability is sucked out of the air,” she says.

As someone “obsessed” with sharing information and who gets thousands of DMs on Instagram from people asking for business advice, it makes perfect sense that Grede has also decided to launch a podcast. Aspire with Emma Grede offers data-driven advice on how to achieve your goals – in business and life – with invaluable insights from a few special guests. “I thought, how do you scale mentorship? How do you give more people more access and more information? [A podcast] felt like a really easy way to do that because, sadly, I can’t answer all those DMs,” she says. “And you know, I’m a chatterbox. I’m naturally very interested in people.”

Read on for Grede’s thoughts on personal style and building a timeless capsule closet…

“I invested in the most beautiful brand called The Elder Statesman. It does the yummiest, most heavenly cashmere. The colors are insane and they make beautiful buttons and trims. I feel like that’s my way of doing casual LA beach, Malibu vibes, but still feeling like I’m in an outfit, like I have a look on.”