Dreaming Bigger (with Diane Gilman)

Life is too short to waste wishing you'd lived. Fashion designer and QVC icon Diane Gilman speaks with us on what drives her, the value of legacy, surviving breast cancer, and inspiring other baby boomers to continue making the most out of life.
Her new book,"Too Young to Be Old", about taking control of the "third act" of your life, is available now!


Thanks to our Amazing Guest: Diane Gilman
Website
YouTube:  @thedianegilman 
IG: @thedianegilman

Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!
Start for FREE

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Transcript

0:46

Hey everybody, I'm Brandon Fox. This is another episode of Grandpa and Chill. I'm here with our amazing co-host, as always, Phines, our amazing producer, Sierra, Grandpa, of course, and then our amazing guest today is... Diane Gilman. Yeah, we were just getting into what you were all about, but if you could go back and just say what you were saying a second ago, it was really powerful. we were just talking about my book, Too Young to Be Old, and I'll explain the title as we go. And we always ask, in the intro call before the show, what do you wanna be talking about? What do you not wanna be talking about? So I said that the main part of my theme and my life at this point. is about inspiring women in my age bracket, let's say 55 plus. And the big point in my book is making lemonade out of lemons, which is something I never thought had anything to do with me. I always saw myself as a super self-critical, not really totally optimistic person. I was always under pressure, under pressure to perform. I was always sure I wasn't gonna perform. Then I did, and then it was whoop, and then it was on to the next show, 30 years on QVCHSN. So my thought was, when I was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer, I was living in a bubble. When you are a fashion designer in Manhattan and you're on TV too, you are just surrounded. by people that make you function and are always there to sort of buffer you. But cancer is a great leveler and cancer is a great teacher. And I came through that dark tunnel into the light when I was cured. totally reassessing my life. It totally changed my values. It made me a more empathetic person, a more sympathetic person. I realized that, and I realized it through cancer, because cancer doesn't care if you're on television. Cancer doesn't care if you designed the perfect gene, which I did for middle-aged women. Cancer doesn't care if you're pretty. or you have money, or you live in Manhattan in a penthouse. All of that was such a huge learning curve for me. Believe it or not, fashion on its own is really a frivolous industry, honestly. And television is the great deceiver. And one thing I did learn is you can be whoever you want on television. So I had my TV persona, I had my personal persona, I had all of these views on where I'd gotten in life, and then boom, I ran right into that cancer wall. And I'll tell you a story that was probably the most cathartic event during all the cancer treatment. So. I was lucky enough to go to Mount Sinai in New York City, go to the Dubin Center, which is just about breast cancer. And just by the luck of the draw, I got the head surgeon. So I'm feeling pretty okay about everything, stage three, but I had sort of had my Pollyanna hat on. I'm sitting in my chemo room, we all had private rooms, and... You know, I expect to be recognized. I've been on TV for 30 years. I expect people to want to talk to me about what I do because they love my designs, blah, blah. So I'm sitting there. and I'm getting infusion, and somebody walks in next door, a patient. And suddenly all the nurses start screaming, Oh my God, Sheila's here, Sheila's here, come on guys. And they all go stampeding into the room next to me. Sheila, how are you? Sheila, you look great. Sheila, how are you feeling? Oh, Sheila, we've got your favorite lunch today. Cause they used to serve us, this place was incredible. You got a catered organic lunch. It was a... foot massage, a shoulder massage, everything. So no one came in and asked me if I wanted lunch. So I'm thinking, who is this chick, Sheila? She must be like a famous news anchor or someone from a star on Broadway or... So the nurse comes in to see how I'm doing. And I said, well, like what am I, chopped liver? Nobody asked me if I wanted lunch. They said, Diane, you never have lunch. I said, but you could ask me. Okay, Diane, do you want lunch today? Well, no, thank you. But who's Sheila? And you just told her that you saved three lunches for her. Who is this woman I've got to know? Tell me, and I'm expecting. It's somebody like Martha Stewart in disguise with a pseudonym and. Now, they said, Sheila is a homeless mother living in a shelter and the food is so horrible that she goes for days without eating and the only really good meal she has is once a week when she comes to lunch via her. cancer treatment, her chemotherapy, and we try to save enough sandwiches for her. So for the next three days, she'll have one meal a day, but she'll enjoy it. It killed me. I mean, it was, it's only now after a few years away from it that I can even talk about it without bursting in tears. That was the greatest lesson in life. ever learned. And I took that with me. It motivated me to write my book and hopefully for women to see that journey through breast cancer as something that can be the greatest learning lesson ever, something that can put you on the right road for the rest of your life and even give you purpose. and direction. So that's what we were talking about before we went on. you. What do you guys think? It's a very pulling, very pulling story. Is there something about being cured of breast cancer and going through it all different from any other unfortunate serious situation that happens to a person in life? I think, you know, first of all, when I got the diagnosis, it was just horrible. And I just went to some community sonogram center and they came in and just said, you're hopeless. You're hopeless. Cancer everywhere. What they meant was there was cancer everywhere in my breast. But it was, that was... amazing and that would probably be any diagnosis you could get where it basically said the interpretation was your life is over, your life as you know it is over, totally and forever. And I went home, it was Christmas Eve, perfect day to have it happen. 2017 I went home and I locked the doors and I thought, I'm just gonna sit here for about five days and absorb this. But the guy that had actually said, you've got to get to some kind of diagnostic center immediately, my excuse was always, my career's too busy. I was truly peaking in my career. I was flying all over, well, that's interesting, Europe and... UGH What are you doing? It's really cute. Okay, never seen that before in a podcast. So anyway at the peak. I was always in some European city because I took my brand global, but they needed me for TV. And I don't think my diagnosis was any different from saying you've got diabetes or you know, you've got Crohn's disease or you've got any kinds of disease that is really going to limit you. And I'd never actually, it was so healthy. I had never been in a hospital my entire life. So I remember calling my friend who was a doctor that said, you better go find out what this is. It doesn't look good. And he's leaving New York City Harbor on a cruise. So I felt so deserted. And he said, no, I'm gonna call a friend of mine. That friend happened to be a very famous doctor, Alyssa Port, who is now the head surgeon for all cancer at Mount Sinai. She was lifted off the ground to go to Marrakesh for Christmas. And she just got off one text to me, see you January 5th, 8.45 a.m., coming straight from JFK. And when she looked at me, And you're very lucky if you get anybody in the medical community who truly speaks your language as a layman. She looked at me and looked me up and down and said, hmm, if I had to guess, I would say you are a perfectly healthy individual with a containable disease in a part of your body you don't need if we have to take it away. And I thought. my kind of girl, I get it. She knew me from television and she said, women like you, Diane, always do best in treatment because you have worked so hard all your life, this just becomes another job. And I in fact did go on there about two, three weeks later and said to my audience, I'm leaving. probably for about a year, I've got a new job saving my life, but I'll be back. And I was back in nine months. But the point is, when you are in a position like that, where the news is stunning, where the, you know, I think I was in shock for about a year, you've got to believe in yourself as difficult as that is. And I did, I believe that my body had the resources, especially if I had the right attitude to make this happen. And so where I felt that many times in my life, I treated an event as if it was a dress rehearsal. I remember the night before chemo saying to myself, this is not a dress rehearsal. This is a real deal and you better recognize it and work with it. And the one thing I really wanted to do was not battle the chemotherapy, but work with it and get into the flow of it. And get through it in one piece, mentally and physically, which I did. But it is equatable to almost. And the. Huge event in your life that looks insurmountable, and, you know, did I expect that to happen at 72 years old? Never. I thought I was just going to sail through. I felt I paid my dues, but not quite yet. But I was so clarified when I came out the other end that it set me up for the rest of my life and hopefully becoming a spokeswoman for women my age and making their lives better. Was it initially almost even harder because you always had been so healthy and like it was even bigger of a shock? Huge, beyond huge, seriously. I'd always been healthy. I'd always, I never had a serious disease. I never had anything. So the hospital atmosphere for me, amazingly enough, Dubin Breast Cancer Center was founded by a woman who married. Actually, she was Jeffrey Epstein's better half for, I think, about 15 years. But then she married a guy from Wall Street who became a billionaire, and she got breast cancer, hated the way she was treated, and took everything she hated and turned it around into an environment for women that was so soothing, so welcoming. I lucked out again. I mean, you really felt like you were being nurtured down to everything, down to even the decorations. You always had fresh white orchids in your chemo room. And so that was an incredible experience as well. And then she and I became friends. And then I got chosen as like patient of the year because they always want to tell a good story. So, you know, There's me and I had just been this sort of hardworking, but pampered New York fashion designer and TV personality. And suddenly it was like, take a number, you're just another patient. I had a lot to learn and quickly too. Never resented it, never said why me, never was bitter about it. I just thought to myself in the most pragmatic way, it could be any disease. It could be a chronic disease that you can't. get better from, but it's not. It's a disease where you can contain it. And at the same time, I said to myself, I am not going to box myself in with a stage three cancer diagnosis. I am going to come through this and just see it as another period and episode in my life and damn it, I'm going to make the most of it. And so I did because I'm very proud of the book I wrote and that back Christmas Eve after talking to my... doctor friend and finding out I had a surgeon. I called a good friend of mine, Jan Tuckwood, who was the senior editor at the Palm Beach Post, had written a lot of good fashion stories about me and said, guess what? I've got stage three cancer. Let's write about it. If I don't make it, it's a legacy. And if I do make it, it's a great story. And I knew I needed something to give it purpose and to occupy my brain so it wasn't constantly whirling around with stage three, stage three. And so that turned out great too. It sounds like you have a very positive attitude and that's... It does sound like that, but actually, no. I mean, I would go to do shows and I'm like, I've got such stage fright. Why am I in television if I've got such stage fright? Well, I mean, I just got in there by accident and that made the most of that, but no, really? I think. faced with the biggest challenge of my life, which was breast cancer. I just said to myself, it is not a dress rehearsal. You cannot screw around anymore and say, oh, maybe I won't make it, oh my God. No, all of that had to go. And I had to purify my brain and say, okay, we're gonna go into this with the best attitude ever. And the one thing I did that was very deliberate I thought to myself, these chemo nurses are under phenomenal pressure. They don't get paid well. They're dealing with very sick people and people that hate being in this position. And in a way, I hated it too. I mean, I felt like I was caged. I was caged by the disease and the treatment, which is so brutal. So I said, I'm gonna be the most popular patient. I'm gonna make them love me. So when I come in, there's like, ah, Diane's here, ray of sunshine. So every time I came in, how are you feeling? Great. Here, let's get this into your veins. Okay. I never complained. I never put pressure on them. It was the weirdest thing. I just knew what to do. I knew what to do and I knew I had to do it. Something in me activated another Diane. And that, yes, that Diane was very positive. And you know that positivity has stayed with me. Amazing. When you have breast cancer, do you suffer pain or discomfort from the cancer itself? Not even. Nothing. Didn't feel sick. Felt a lump, but just fooled myself and said it was, oh, it must be calcium deposits. I had no cancer in my family at all. So I thought, well, genetically, it can't be cancer, but it was. And I was just fooling myself. And that probably is the hallmark of cancer, but most particularly breast cancer, is you feel nothing. you. Absolutely nothing. And then one day, whoa, there's this big lump there. And I was just in such a state of denial and I was on such a hamster wheel, the hamster wheel of, for me, my television, which is Teller Retail, QVC Europe, HSN America. You're the creator of the product. You're the face of the product. You've got to be there. And it was London and back, Florida and back, Toronto and back. I was just relentlessly traveling and I just kept telling myself, I don't have time to be sick, number one. Number two, my karma is good. I'm not, I'm not gonna be sick. That's ridiculous. Uh, and so that it was only through my own denial that it was such a surprise. If I'd been honest with myself, I probably would have recognized it a couple of years earlier, not sure how different the treatment would have been. But in the state I was in, they did have to give me chemo, the strongest form of chemo for the longest amount of time a body can tolerate it. And boy was I happy with that last treatment. It was just sort of unbelievable. But you know, chemo becomes your point of sociability. And then I went back to work right away. I got radiation, had a suitcase in the dressing room in the basement of Mount Sinai for radiation and grabbed a suitcase the minute that last treatment was over. went straight to an airport and went on TV. And then four months later. I was about to go to the studio. I was down in Tampa where HSN is and I weird, I looked at my phone and there was this like big red light and it said, caution, studio closed COVID. So I got back to the city just in time. And because I was in a delicate state without a full. fully functioning immune system, we all became prisoners of our dwellings, but me especially, because I live five blocks from Mount Sinai. So Mount Sinai was like COVID central. I was scared to go outside. We were doing shows through Zoom and Skype out of your home. So I was still able to work, but that was strange. Did you have a best friend or someone that you were really relying on during this time? You know, I had to make some serious decisions about who were my friends and who weren't. I will say on one level, and I was very touched, people signed up. I mean, I had a list of people that wanted to come to COVID with me. And so I never went alone. There was always someone there with me talking to me in the room with me. I didn't rely on any one person. I had a boyfriend, kind of a friend with benefits. The minute he heard cancer, he was out the door. He could not handle it. And that's what I found with a lot of people was they treated me like I was surely gonna die. So I couldn't have anybody cry around me because I never cried. I didn't want pity, I wanted support. And some people just had to leave my life because they weren't good for this situation. And some people then dropped into my life. It turned out that my head salesman at my company was diagnosed with prostate cancer at the very same. time. And I would say if I had to say there was one person that was going to help me through, we helped one another. That was an incredible symbiotic relationship. And I also remember him calling me and he said, you know, it was right after the diagnosis. And he said, how are you doing? And I said, well, I got an MRI and this morning I'm going to find out did cancer spread throughout my body. Um, or is the cancer contained and we can move forward with a plan to cure. And he said, well, who are you going with? And I said, nobody, I wouldn't put anybody through that. And he said, no, you're not going with nobody. I'm coming up there immediately. So he actually had a much rougher time than I did with the chemotherapy really made him sick. And yes, if I had to say there was one support. What are the odds that your head primary salesman and in touch with the whole sales force would be diagnosed and freaking out as we do. And so yeah, from that point of view, I think that was just an amazing coincidence or karma or something. And we really helped one another out. You have fun. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Ah, cool. A lot of cool things. Let's see. What should I nerd out about? I guess I...what... Okay, the thing I want to nerd out about, I'm just gonna go with it. Like, the cancer...I'm also learning about, like, Joseph Campbell and, like, the hero's journey. It's about the hero's journey. It's the story of the hero. right? The human existence, why humans do the things they do. And there's like a part where it's like, you know, this, this near death experience that wakes you up, that makes you unlock your purpose. But I think you're really cool because also your, your doctor, your cancer doctor that was going through saying people like you do well. And I was saying that in my notes, I think the reason why you do well is because you make a purpose almost everything that you do be. Yeah. be the most sociable person. I mean, you just said some of these things you were talking about, like, you just had something that you had to do and you were fixated on it. So I thought it was funny that you had near-death experience already as a purposeful person. So then you had even more purpose, which is, I guess, now the writer and podcaster is what you're doing from that and being a spokesperson. And I guess I was gonna ask about what your podcast was about, because I didn't really know. So, even so, just knowing my fashion history, middle age hit me very hard as a woman. I'd become a widow. I was really, really sad for a long time. I gained a lot of weight. I went up to almost 200 pounds. So I was huge and I felt bad about myself and, ugh. Nobody wanted to pay attention to me. And even the customers on air were writing in and saying, Diane, you're so fat. You can't even wear your own clothing. I mean, it's awful. So I had to get a grip on middle age. And one thing I had done in my youth was I had been on the periphery of the whole music scene in LA in the 60s into the early 70s, and San Francisco too, and dressed. Rod Stewart, hand-painted leather jeans for him. Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, the Jefferson Airplane, Sly and the Family Stone, Cher. So I couldn't believe middle-aged Rob me of being a cool chick. I was like, I couldn't believe this was happening. And so I designed, I couldn't find a jean because jeans were everything to me. That's what I used to do. Embroider them, paint them, jewel them, slash them, patch them for rock and roll stars. Their denim, I would take their denim and do it. So. when I couldn't find a jean that fit because jeans were just for the young, I was so upset. I was so angry. And then I thought, don't be stupid. Just go out and buy three yards of denim, take your measurements, make a jean for yourself. I did. And I remember the first day I wore it, I was 59 and a half. I was walking down 34th street in Manhattan. Two guys, two young guys were... in a manhole, Con Ed guys, one guy looked up and went, hey lady, you really got it going. And I thought, whoa, okay, feeling really good. This sets me up for like a whole month. That was how big I felt the compliment was. And then I started thinking to myself, makes me feel good. Wouldn't it make millions of women feel good? Aren't there millions of middle-aged women out there that feel invisible and unheard and underappreciated like me? So I brought it to television executives. None of the male executives got it at all. They were like, why do we wanna see old women in jeans? Thank you. And then we got a female CEO who had been there with Ralph Lauren when he, and she helped found. Polo jeans, she gave me a chance and boom, it was like a rocket ship. And we wound up year after year as a hundred million dollar a year brand and international, cause my next thought was, I don't care whether you're eating fish and chips in London or you're eating a plate of pasta in Milan, you're going through the same hormonal change as I am. So I became a champion for middle-aged women. And I said, this gene is gonna be hope in a pant leg. It's gonna miraculously re-energize your social life. People are going to approach you and see you differently as hipper, younger, more vital, smarter. And you know what? It was all true. Cause I only wanna speak from an authentic voice. And I have now. I've taken that and moved on to become a silver-haired influencer and spokeswoman for my Silverella sisterhood and I'm really loving it. I'm just eating it up, loving, loving it. So there's another thing. I took a chance at 77 years old. I could have stayed. as the number one fashion personality on teller retail forever. But the thrill was gone. And I thought, these are your precious years. Time is your most valuable commodity. Is this really what you want to do for the rest of your life? The answer was no. And I just took the plunge. And so I've been away from it for, this will be my seven month mark at the end of July. And wow. Just. having the best time of my life. Who is that bird on your shoulder? I'm sorry, but that's a 600 pound gorilla in the room. I must ask. It's Rosie, and she doesn't get along with these. I have two other birds in another room, and she'll fight with the other one. The other one will try to kill her. So the other bird will try to kill her. So I've got two separate rooms totally filled up with birds. Do you need a bird, by the way? Well, my cats would probably love that, but I don't think the bird would survive for long. I don't think so. But very cute, very, I see Rosie wants to be in the middle of everything. Yeah. I'm a little bit confused. Are you, did you start out as a designer basically? Okay, so you're basically an artistic person that designed clothing. Okay, yeah. I started out, I always wanted to design. I was obsessed with fashion, even as a very little girl. And I just broke into it in such a unique way because I was in LA, I was at UCLA, and my best friend was dating Jim Morrison from the doors. Another best friend was dating Steven Spielberg, who didn't even take classes at UCLA. He just would come in and hang out in the class every once in a while. It was a very different era, the early 60s, and there were not a lot of barriers between new generation artists like Steven Spielberg. And so... It didn't take much to sort of get into that crowd. And then I started a store that was fashion cooperative. All dresses were $10. We sold them all ourselves. One day, and it was right, it was on Fairfax Avenue, right across from Katz's, Delicatessen, where all these big celebrities used to hang out. So one day, White Rolls pulled up, Sonny Bono got out, Cher got out. He went in to get his usual pastrami on rye. She doesn't eat that stuff. And she saw our little boutique came in and bought every dress, every dress. We had to close the store down for days. And so like 24 hours a day. But that was how I got into the periphery of the music scene. followed it up to San Francisco, and then one day woke up and said, hello, you're 25 years old, you wanna be a designer, it's never gonna happen here. And the party eventually, I mean, it was fun, I'm not gonna tell you that youth was not wasted on me, but you're wise if you leave the party at the height of the party, not when there's just two guys left, you know, stale beer and smoking cigarette butts. So I came to New York. you weren't hanging around with all these singers, vocalists, as a groupie, you were interested in the design, you weren't a groupie, okay. No, I would never have, I don't have the emotional capacity to be a groupie. That's a whole different thing. Are you in any way involved, I don't know very much about the breast cancer situation, but I know they have this ribbon, the pink, and they take marches and all kinds of things to be able to support a cure for breast cancer. They have like a. advisory board of Dubin Mount Sinai through my donations. And now I'm a mid-level sponsor of American Cancer Society as well. The one I'm talking about, it's like a ribbon. It's kind of a ribbon that they wear. It's like a ribbon that they have for breast cancer. It's a pink. get that through how you support your local hospital. Or so I'll get that when I go to, I think, um, October 17th is the big breast cancer American cancer society party luncheon in New York. And so I want to take my podcast too young to be old and make all of October. a celebration of breast cancer and have on guests who have been through it, come out differently on the other side and really have an inspiring story of which there are many. So it's just culling through all of it. Hey, I just wanted to ask the, it's a bit dark, but the death, the mortality aspect of when you got the diagnosis and stuff, like. Never. Yeah. I was not going to hear that. I was not, I believed from the minute I got that diagnosis with the MRI results that no, for some fucking amazing reason it had not spread. And I had the chance, she said, if it spreads Diane, you're maintainable for years as it will be a chronic disease for you. Yeah. If it hasn't spread, you are 100% curable. That's what I clung onto. Nothing else. I don't think about it in terms of, oh, it's been five years or oh, it's been six years. And that's, you know, the mortality rate is if it's gonna come back. it's going to come back within five or six years. But my attitude was, I am not going to die. I knew that with the certainty, absolute certainty. And I never thought about it in any other way. So. like a self-fulfilling prophecy because the positive attitude and sort of the hopeful outlook, it's really helpful, I imagine, during that time. You know, that's, I had this crazy theory and I said it to my oncologist that I believe that if you have a lot of laughter in every day of your life, including the days post chemo, pre chemo, the chemo day, that it would flow through your bloodstream. more fully and you get more benefit from it. And as nutty as that sounds, and I think they looked at me like I was slightly insane, but halfway through the most difficult chemo, the one they call the red devil, that's very difficult for a lot of women, halfway through my surgeon, Dr. Lisaport came to me and she said, do you know, you're tumors have already shrunk so much that we could walk into the operation operating room right now and I think at that point I didn't, I believed in myself. I believed in myself even more. And I said, okay, so let's do it right now. I don't wanna do chemotherapy anymore. And she said, no, you have to go through the rest of it. Radiation was nothing for me. And well, I don't know, I just, maybe I took my whole headset and just put it into a bright, sunny contained space and made sure it stayed there for about a year and a half, but I did, I did. And you know, My doctor said something so telling to me because it is so difficult. I personally did not find the double mastectomy difficult at all or really even painful. But I said, you know, I asked her about what was mastectomy going to be and da and she said the human body, especially women. have a mechanism where you may go through the pain now and three or four days later, your body will not remember it. She said, think of all the women that go through childbirth, how painful it is. And a month later, they don't even remember it. And that was really true for me too. I never held any of the pain or any of the bad sick days to me. They just blowed off of me. And I think maybe that does come from a very strong mind. I don't wanna give myself too much credit, but if I can pass on that hope. and that wisdom and encourage every woman that's inside of you, you have this strength. I am not unique by any means in this situation. Then I would like that to be my legacy. Then I will have done my job on earth. That's what I believe. Yeah. And of course you, you wouldn't wish the diagnosis on anybody, but it's almost like, yeah, it's almost, yeah. Um. you are going to know within your lifetime, 50%, 5.0% of the people you meet will have had cancer. And now they just published it, I think in the Washington Post, and said that we should start to view cancer as a chronic. disease that can be so your life can be maintained. So for melanoma, they've developed a vaccine. If they can cure you of your initial melanoma, you will take a vaccine and you can't get it again. The same is true, I believe, for some forms of lung cancer. So I'm sure the breast cancer is right out there. And as a matter of fact, my doctors told me I was in the last generation of women that were going to get chemo. it will go to immunotherapy, which has its own challenges. But, you know, I don't think I would have the attitude that I have today if I hadn't gone through what I did. And I see life as such a privilege and such a gift. And I wanna make every minute count and I want to do good. for others because honestly, my life has been tough, but I was given so many gifts to begin with. The ability to speak, the ability to design, the ability to better a lot of women's lives. And so I'd like to use every plus I have to somehow package that into a big bubble of hope. and pass that on. Yeah, I'm in a really good place. And honestly, I came out of cancer in a zone of gratitude that never lessened, has only built as the years go by. How do you think that people not going through something like that, but like just younger in their lives can take that advice and like feel like they're living their fullest lives, you know? You know, I always think of people that are younger, and I was that way too. My whole youth, all I did was bitch and complain. Oh, I haven't been discovered yet. I'm 30, it's too late to design anymore. Then it became 40, then it became 50. Not many designers were even still designing at 60 years old, and almost nobody. except Coco Chanel, who designed the Chanel suit at 72 years old, had their big moment at almost 60. So here's what I would say. You're never too old to dream. And you never know when your greatest moment or your big out karmic opportunity is going to come. So you got to hang in there. And not only you're never too old to dream, but if you're gonna dream, dream big. Why not? And I had a dream all my life from the time I was a little girl that I would live in New York, that I would be a famous fashion designer, that I would be glamorous, that I would live on Fifth Avenue, that I would have a view of the Empire State Building. Guess what? It all happened. is on Fifth Avenue with a view of the Empire State Building. I got to be pretty well known. I triumphed in my field, fashion design, albeit late, 59 and a half, 60 years old, but you know what? Those years of being on top were so amazing and so sweet and so satisfying. And now I'm gonna do it again. at the age of, I'm back to turn in a couple of weeks, 78. And I'm gonna do it again. And I'm gonna become a beacon of light for women on the internet and social media and YouTube. I've got a message. It's authentic. I'm dedicated to it. I'm devoted to getting it out there. And I believe in it. Thank you. Yo, that's great. I love it. It gives me life and I'm so happy that you're... I'm so happy you made it. I'm so happy that you deserve it. Very proud of you. You know. Yeah. It's true. and contentment and feeling good about themselves. But sometimes I need to know how. What? Okay, this is a quirky question because I was kind of writing about it. Because you brought up karma a couple times. Do you think getting breast cancer was good karma for you? Okay. That's what I was thinking. Alright. totally. You know, you become so, you just, if you're a designer, if you're in two fields that are all about you all the time, 24 seven fashion, you're sort of off in this ivory tower. I mean, you're designing, but. just as a pure fashion designer, you're not facing your customer, you're designing what you think they want. And so you're cut off from society and you kind of like to keep it that way. And then if you're lucky enough to make some money, you can really build the castle around you and never go out. And then television, you know, Marsha McClough and the medium is a message. If you're on TV, you must be important. If you're on TV, you must be bigger than life. That carries a huge cache. And I don't think that I could sail into my third act, old age. with the kind of drive and the kind of, to get out the message that I believe in, you have got to have tremendous empathy. And you've got to realize that not everybody is born talented and if they are not everybody, hardly anybody knows what to do with it or has the drive to see it through as an adult. as many years as I did. So do I think breast cancer had a reverse effect from what most people think, which is it's just gonna consume you and you're gonna be whacked out and bitter and scared to death of your own shadow the rest of your life? It turned me inside out. I became... different person. I'm not saying I'm Mother Teresa, but compared to what I was, close to it. So the worst, the worst thing in your life can become the best thing. I'm living proof. Here I am. Yeah, yeah. It's funny. I love it. isn't it? It is, but if something scary or something bad or something happens to you, just think back on me. And I think if you can put your head in the right place, you can make it into something great. Diane, this is I got jokes. It's great. No, sorry, grandpa. Don't worry about it. Don't worry. No, no. Play it, grandpa. Yes. You gotta put the microphone next to you. really a different subject, but I was just going to ask you, as a clothing designer, do you go out to another manufacturer to manufacture the clothes? Is it manufactured overseas? Because I know it's very expensive to manufacture. Yeah, you can't manufacture here. for the price points we had to reach, which was $39 for a jean, and was a really good jean too, it had to be China. There are no factories left. I mean, Made in America for fashion is almost an impossibility, and a $39 jean, it's a because we priced it, there's still a little bit of labor left in LA. I'm not sure it's legal, but it's labor. And the jeans would have been close to$300. And then to oversee that, before I really got heavily into television, I lived on and off in Hong Kong for two years following the production to make sure it was just right. So... I had a small item that I had made samples of and so forth and it sold and I went to American company to produce it where they had like 300 sewing machines and only 100 people working and they wanted three times as much to make the item as what it would be sold for here in the United States, it was impossible. Yeah. you know, this homemade in America thing, I think you've got to put some reality and practicality into that. And it may not be actually the best place to produce. But, you know, when I was a kid and I was born in 1945, there was not even mass produced fashion. My mother I like four times a year, we would go to a seamstress. It was kind of really fun. Pick all our fabrics and then, oh, I wanted a black felt poodle skirt, but I wanted the poodle to be red. You know, I, so I already was doing my designing at the age of five. And then it doesn't seem to me that we really went into mass production. until the early 70s. And you know, Made in America doesn't mean it's good. It just means it's made in America. I hate to say it, but Chinese had an incredible work ethic. And they work, those factories are actually, you have living quarters in them. You're there 11 months of the year, one month, Chinese New Year's, you go home to whatever province you're from and your family. You're fed three meals a day. And I mean, the labor is obviously like a dollar a day, but it's called fast fashion. And that is really where I made my mark. And I was very sad to see what the garment district was when I came to New York around 1974. And what it is today, which is a sign in the garment district, I mean, one or two buildings, that's about it. So. Thank you. Amazing to be in a career long enough to see it go through massive changes. Were you, I know they use your name and you're the designer, but are you actually involved in the production, in the distribution, in those areas? course. Oh yeah, I was 100% involved. I loved my product. When I designed that jean, the DG2 jean, and I saw... The response from the audience, that was my baby. That was my child. Those women that love that gene became my family. I was involved in it. I worked 24-7. You know, the old saying, the harder you work, the luckier you get. That was absolutely me. 24-7 on the job and loved every minute of it. So, Actually When I went into cancer treatment, I remember coming home from chemotherapy the first day and thinking to myself, oh, so this is how some women live. They don't work, they get to watch their favorite soap opera. I mean, there was a novelty to it. I had never, from the age of nine, worked almost every day of my life. So there was that. But yeah, of course, I watched production and I did not win a lot of popularity contests in factories because I wanted it done the right way. I wanted the women to always feel that they had gotten a bargain, that what they bought was so worth it and more. And That's a good ethos for selling product and building your customer. And I appreciated my customers. same thing today in Hong Kong with the situation between China and Hong Kong? You could never do it. And no, Hong Kong did not. And Hong Kong stopped being a production center, probably about... 15 years ago, there's a tremendous amount of chafing and hostility between Hong Kong and China. I would not stay in China when I was watching production. They would come to me in Hong Kong, but they were right across the border. And then when COVID hit, even for people within my organization, Nobody was going, I think you're crazy if you go to China at this point, crazy. From the COVID point of view, from the hostility point of view between the two countries because of Taiwan, I just, and I do not know where the next great production center on the planet would be. So they've tried, trust me. So, I live in New York. Um, where is the garment district? What is that? Where is that? And that's how that between 42nd Street and 34th Street. And then it used to be Seventh Avenue and Eighth Avenue. But now there's almost nothing left. There's some showrooms. You know, COVID changed everything too. COVID not only broke up that rhythm that you needed office apparel. You were in an office every day. And you were willing, I think, to suffer a certain lack of comfort for... the look, but COVID changed all of that. COVID taught everybody, right? Now you can do business and be in a pair of sweatpants and a sloppy T-shirt and be uber comfortable and not go through a four hour a day commute and it's all good. So that meant if you were gonna do clothing and needed to be cheaper still, and you needed much less. of it. And that was also a real deciding factor in me leading. I had been in fashion for, since I was 25, so I left at 77. So let's just say I was in fashion for 50 years. And I felt that the final change, the COVID change, everybody was waiting for the COVID effect to fade. But it didn't, because once you get people comfort at very small prices, why would they ever want to go back to being uncomfortable and spending a large part of their paycheck? So fashion, if I was gonna do fashion again. Thanks for watching! I would go for fashion that was sensitive to global warming. I would make clothing that made you cool in the summertime. I would make clothing that superheated you in the winter time. I would go for it from that point of view. And once again, give people something they might not know they need until they see it. but then realize they really can't live without it. That would be my deal.

We have about fifteen minutes left, but diving into your book: 1:03:51

at the beginning, you mentioned– I wanted to ask you You realized that, as you got older, that sort of invisibility that you felt. And all that. It’s natural! I mean, you get to 50 years old and guess what? There's two generations right behind you, breathing down your neck. And they're young and they're perfect and they're brave and fearless and they wanna have a good time and you're slowing down and you're gaining weight and you're getting that tire around the middle and you can't have kids anymore. And it is an entirely new ball game and not one that many women look forward to. And men do not suffer through that the way women do. But I noticed as I got into my 50s that I was an attractive younger woman and I was at Studio 54 every night. I mean, I liked the nightlife. I liked what New York had to offer. terms of sophisticated nightlife. And I think I was pretty glamorous at Studio 54, although I look at some of the pictures today and think, oh my God, was I really wearing that outfit? So as you get older, especially if you're not married, I lost the guy I live with to cancer, you start to see you don't count anymore. You are not on the availability market. Now you may still feel the same inside, but you're not looking the same outside. And what in New York, there's 10 women to every man. So you, if you're going to survive middle age as a woman. You've got to develop something of consequence in your life. For me, it was my company and doing a hundred million a year at retail that became my calling card. That became my identity, not how men saw me, but how the world and my audience saw me. And then television gave me a voice and I was forced to. learn communication skills. And television gave me a lot of prestige as well. That helped me get through middle age. And now, you know, I came out of cancer. I decided I wanted to have white hair. I didn't wanna dye my hair. I didn't wanna get chemicals next to my brain, but I also, I wanted to give off a truthful message about aging, which is you can really find your niche within aging and make it pretty great. And, you know, as a white haired woman, it then becomes totally different. So, I don't know, it's just the whole thing is a challenge. And I think each individual woman, if you're lucky enough to have a lasting marriage and have someone that stays by your side most of your life, that's fabulous. And and you're gonna feel a little different about aging because you've got a mate that's aging with you. And I think it sort of softens a blow. But I became the equivalent of a widow at 52. And it, honestly, it was tough. I mean, I couldn't believe it. How much weight I gained, how different my hair looked, how different my skin looked, and oh my God, and now I'm... and what am I going to do about all of this? But I would say that. Having an accomplishment, designing a gene that went around the world and really revolutionized tele-retailing fashion-wise and my industry fashion, that's often the blow because I was still getting, when you think of yourself as a younger female, you're getting a lot of attention. And as a middle-aged female, I went on getting that attention. It just shifted from men to a female audience and that was satisfying enough. But yeah, it was tough. Being a widow in my 50s, that was, and he died of cancer. So you can imagine when I got diagnosed with cancer, all I thought about was the suffering he went through and was that gonna be me? Because at that time, prostate cancer and colon cancer, you sort of didn't stand a chance. So that was all mixed in to me. and my journey or my tumble into the dark pit of middle age. Yeah. It’s a lot of personal shifts that you had to make, but I feel like, societally, there should or needs to be a lot of shifts as well, right? Oh, I mean, there has to be, and I think the shift now is, you know, 20,000 Americans a day turn 65. Hello, we are the 800 pound gorilla in the room, and yet we don't have any role as a female, a white haired female. Thanks for watching! There's nobody where I could go and say, yeah, oh, she's a big star. She wears her white hair that way. I'm going to try that. I was like being in the Amazon hacking through the jungle with a little dinner night, there is the next big societal shift in this country will be recognizing that we are a graying nation. And that. Silver should equal gold in the marketplace, whichever marketplace that is. Entertainment. take it from there. But, you know, having Martha Stewart at 81 on the cover of Sports Illustrated, that was a great step forward. Having Michelle Yeoh at 65 years old, win best actress, having Jamie Lee Curtis at 65, win best supporting actress, and having the other nominee, Angela Bassett at 64, nominated. Those are the societal shifts I'm watching closely. to see how the biggest generation on earth, the baby boomer, who also had the biggest mouth and loudest megaphone regains, how we regain our voice and become a force again. Well, advertising, you can see it's all changed now, the type of models they're putting on. I see they have some, I'll say large women doing some pharmaceutical ads and yeah. Large women. Yeah. older women, but that will come. That will come. Yep. Yeah. Because actually, actually my head salesman who also got through prostate cancer, the guy that we helped one another through the whole thing, his daughter is a large size girl. She's, I think, a 16, 18. And she was just chosen as the first Victoria's Secrets angel whose large size and she will walk the runway this fall. And that is a huge accomplishment and step forward. So, bravo. saying. They really change are trying to change the image. Oh, it’s working! Trust me! Well, you've got an army of women that are making the change. You've got one third of American women who are a plus size. Now I believe it's actually one half. And they're also, where's their representation? I mean, it's absurd that we keep to this super young, super thin image when it is so disconnected from reality. And the same thing is true for businesses. You can't ignore us. We're here and we're probably gonna live to 99 or 100. And you can be, don't be stupid. You can be making money off of us for the next 50 years if you just recognize how worthy we are. We're no longer an old aggraying nation where You turn gray and you're shoved aside. And you know what? If you are, if you are in the corporate world, which does not value age at all, then get out of the corporate world and do something else. But... don't think it only applies to women. I think it applies to men also. I know a fellow who was a writer in Hollywood. Now maybe he's turned and became a businessman, successful. But he used to tell me that after a certain age, that you can't make it as a writer, which makes no sense to me. it's true because I had a friend who was a really well-respected writer in Hollywood and actually wrote the script for a big hit movie with Reese Witherspoon. And when she turned 59, 60, her agent said, your chances of getting another script through are nil. Think about doing something else. write for a newspaper, write for a major publication. So you can't ignore us now. There's too many of us and we're living too long. So that is my other mission in life is dammit, respect us, work with us, honor us and embrace us. Wow, Brandon disappeared. Okay, okay. Yeah, you know what? This is the first time I'm gonna, I don't usually disagree that often, but I'm gonna disagree just a little bit. One, before I disagree though, I wanna say that I always love hearing a viewpoint that I... do not get to hear from that very often. So hearing from like middle-aged fashion and the woman's perspective is like cool to eyes, insight, like great. The only thing I would be like, maybe not. I would go say like silver hair for going hair wise and then age wise and representation. Oh, white women are all old, Betty White. That's the first person I thought of and I could think of a whole list of people. I was like, as soon as you were saying this, I was like, I can think of all types of old white women that are everywhere in movies. And Martha Stewart, what's that one lady that was a cook when she taught herself that her husband died? Shoot, like London or something. It's like, what's her name? She's a cook. She's a very famous cook. She had a cooking show. Julia Child? There it is! There it is! Wouldn't she... Didn't she... Wouldn't she a famous older person? but you have to understand something. I don't wanna be Betty White. I don't wanna be one of the freaking golden girls. I want to be a freestanding, respected, active woman who's included in a lot of interesting things at ground level. and not shunted aside. So I am not a golden girl. And I do not see my life as a comedy. Right? So. Okay, okay, Hillary Clinton. All right, all right. What about the... Oh wow, RBG, RBJ, RB. Oh my God, I'm so bad. I'm terrible at names. That’s not what she’s talking about, Phines. She said I want the Keke Palmer treatment. She said, I wanna be everywhere. I want that podcast, I want that TV host, I want that show, I want my own show. I want people inviting me places. Yeah, yeah, and you know what I know something, here's the total advantage, and I'm just hearing a disconnected female voice here, but the total advantage is, if you can keep yourself vaguely together like I have, and I'm really inching up there to 80, oh my God, they never see you coming. They never expect you to be. what you are. And so I went to a really cool fashion event out in the Hamptons last week and they were like, oh my God, you're so fabulous and all your fabulosity is just too much. And it wasn't that I was so fabulous. You just don't expect an 80 year old to attend the event and still be standing and still look relatively okay and still have a functioning brain left. So The big advantage to growing older is you'll ace it almost every time because no one expects you to. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like that. I can see that. No Betty White. I'm gonna go to bed thinking about that tonight. Like, I don't wanna be Betty White. I liked Betty White, but. love Betty. I love Betty White. She's very positive. She's extremely funny. Look, I'm just saying. A great artist. Just saying. I like Morgan Freeman. I would love to be like Morgan Freeman after I get. I'm just saying. He'd be great. yeah. Truly, truly, but on the other hand, just from the women's perspective, you know Morgan Freeman has a girlfriend who's 58 years younger than him. Al Pacino at 83 is having a child with a 29 year old and Robert De Niro just had. That's nasty. child at the age of 80. Now, let's. And then we don't even bat an eye at it. I'm just sorry, like, if it was the other way around, it'd be all over. we do. around. And if I walked out in public to a New York event or a Hamptons event with a guy 30 years younger than me, I would be so shamed. I would go crawl under a rock somewhere and never come out. So we're not talking about apples to apples and oranges to oranges here. Women age differently. They age harder. They have more societal eyes on them saying, you can't do this, you shouldn't do that, you shouldn't be this way, uh-uh. And that's why it's so confusing to ages of female and why we need leaders. We need women to look up to and say, I love the way she did it, now I have a guideline to doing it that way. So I hope to be one of those guiding lights. I appreciate you being able to, that'd be my last word to getting out of here is, I appreciate, always have a place for someone to be able to like, you know, talk about this stuff. So someone can hear it and be like, I mean, exactly, I think, I mean, I don't, I can't speak for Brandon and grandpa, but it's always nice to be able to hear a point of view that you just don't get to, like, I wouldn't have, I wouldn't have to even think about it that often until it's put in front of me, unfortunately, and I appreciate you for doing that. thank you. I appreciate that. Um, I agree with a lot of what you've said, and I'm really glad that you've been on the show because, you know, you're right. I think, I think that's really interesting what you're saying about having a role model that's like, not just like someone to look up to that's like, okay, well this is also like an older woman. This is that, you know, just does their thing, but someone who's maybe more active or like almost like, like a leader, like a leader. Someone who's more active in... advocating for like their peers, I think is maybe a good way to put it. Someone who's saying like, I'm out here, I want the rest of y'all out here. We should like being more of a representative instead of because I feel like Betty White's thing was just like, I mean, I'm Betty White. I'm her. I don't know what else to tell you. I'm Betty. I do my thing. And we love Betty for that, but we need more people that are able to say, because now in media, as a black person or as a black woman, we do have a lot more public facing mentors and leaders that are saying we have... Yeah, but... a million gorgeous black women from the music industry and the movie industry, and you can say, oh, I wanna wear that dress. Oh, I want, I love that hair. Oh, blah, blah. But when you get to be me, think about it. When is the last time on the red carpet or in a magazine online or not, or in a fashion show? You saw a white haired little lady like me. your generation, your group, you need like some Kekes, you need some Issa Raes that are saying, you know, I'm here, I do this, and I am looking hard for anybody else like me that also wants to do this because. I do that, and that's why we go to at least one, if not two special events a week. I want to show women you can come out of your hiding place. You don't have to hide as an older woman. You can come out of your shell, and there's plenty for you to do, because otherwise it can be a really lonely time in your life, and you really don't want that. You want to celebrate these years. is as deadly as heart disease. That's what they're telling us now. So absolutely. I'm so glad that you came and I'm so glad that you're able to share like all of your positivity and you know what you've learned about going through it. Yep, and still going through it. still going through it. So gentlemen, yes. Well, you have a lovely, positive attitude, and I can understand why you've been as successful as you are. And just stay, keep that positive attitude. Forever. Where's the bird? Where'd the bird go? He went into his cage by himself now. He went into his cage, yeah. She's like the main character of the show. is so cute. So thank you. I think that positive attitude at this point is pretty baked in as a survivor of many of many Mount Everest climbs in my life. And what about you sir? Do you have parting words for me? I guess... Okay. we have had a string of maybe five or six very serious episodes of very sort of like life and death topics, very cancer, dementia, all these really difficult things. And I just think that your approach to it and your power and positivity is just incredible and really inspiring. Yeah. And I'm super grateful that with all you've done, you decided to come to our show. This is a very different kind of podcast than I've ever done before. So I can see a couple of you, I can't see the other two of you, so I'm sort of speaking to disconnected voices, but if you've got a passion in life like I do, and I discovered my passion from being on TV and designing that middle-aged gene and realizing at the height, of my television, tele retailing career, I had 750,000 women as a fan base. So I knew I could, I was giving a message that women were resonating to, but I couldn't give a big enough message because it was television for selling and you had dollars per minute on your brain all the time and in your earpiece. It was refreshing. to step back from that, take that message, broaden it, start to perfect it and make it right for social media and YouTube and I love doing podcasts. And so good place to be valid message to give authentic human being. walk in the walk and talk in the talk. And I thank you so much for giving me a venue where I can speak about what I'm so invested in. Speaking of socials, where can people find you? So it's thedianegilman.com, or The Diane Gilman. You can go to YouTube and that will have my, and everything, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, it's all The Diane Gilman. And the name of my podcast is the title of my book, Too Young to Be Old, which is all about what's in your brain. And for all of you, I wish for all of you that you are forever. Too young to be old. Thank you.