Aging with Purpose and Passion

Revolutionizing Fashion After 50 : Diane Gilman, The Jean Queen

• Beverley Glazer • Episode 105

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Join me, Beverley Glazer, as we go on the extraordinary journey of Diane Gilman, the iconic Jean Queen, whose passion for fashion design blossomed against all odds. Imagine this: a young girl growing up in a world where fashion was still finding its feet, only to carve a path mingling with legends like Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin. Diane's story is more than a tale of success; it's a testament to resilience and the audacity to follow your dreams, no matter where or when they start. Her unstoppable drive and creativity not only revolutionized fashion for women over 50 but also opened up a world of possibilities for those willing to embrace change with open arms.

Diane's journey of reinvention doesn't stop there. From a triumphant TV debut in a challenging slot on the Home Shopping Network, to a global fashion phenomenon, her story underscores the power of persistence and innovation. Even personal battles like a breast cancer diagnosis couldn't dim her passion for tele-retail, leading her to break sales records and later embrace the digital age with grace. Now, as a silver-haired influencer and podcaster, Diane continues to inspire with her zest for life. Tune in to discover how we encourage you to live with purpose and passion, and explore how you can transform your life with the same relentless spirit.

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Resources:
Diane Gilman
thedianegilman.com
facebook.com/thedianegilman
instagram.com/thedianegilman
youtube.com/@thedianegilman

 Beverley Glazer
https://reinventimpossible.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/beverleyglazer/
https://www.facebook.com/beverley.glazer
https://www.facebook.com/groups/womenover50rock
https://www.instagram.com/beverleyglazer_reinvention/ 

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to Aging with Purpose and Passion, the podcast designed to inspire your greatness and thrive through life. Get ready to conquer your fears. Here's your host. Psychotherapist coach and empowerment expert Beverly Glaser. Psychotherapist coach and empowerment expert.

Beverley Glazer:

Beverly Glazer. What if your wildest dreams could come true in spite of your age? Welcome to Aging with Purpose and Passion. I'm Beverly Glazer and I empower women to overcome their challenges in business and in life with renewed purpose. And you can always find me on reinventimpossiblecom. If you've ever watched the Home Shopping Channel, you have no need to know who my guest is, because you already know her. Her name is Diane Gilman, and if you don't know who she is, diane is a serial entrepreneur, a TV personality and book author who is best known as the Jean Queen. Diane didn't hit her stride until she was 60, and then she finally achieved the success and respect that she always envisioned as a little girl the success and respect that she always envisioned as a little girl. Diane's journey from a difficult childhood to revolutionizing the fashion industry proves that it's never too late to be and get what you've always wanted. But she doesn't stop there, so keep listening. Welcome, diane.

Diane Gilman:

That's a great intro. Thank you, Beverly, nice, to be here. It's you, diane, it's all you. It always takes a village, it's never just one person.

Beverley Glazer:

It sure does. Let's bring us back though. Okay, set the scene, because this goes way back. Jeans yeah, are we talking the 60s, 70s? Everyone was in jeans back then.

Diane Gilman:

Not really. You know, I was born in 1945. So there were no jeans. You went to a hardware store and and there were overalls denim overalls. I mean there were no jeans. There were no women's jeans. There was one style for men's jeans. It was so stiff you could stand it up by itself. It was pure indigo. It wasn't really jeans as a girl that motivated me, it was fashion. And the interesting thing was there really were no real fashion magazines at the time. So I was born to do something that had not found its time or purpose yet. I just knew I had to do it. I had to design clothing, and yet the only clothing you ever saw was either photographs of impossibly rich families in beautiful made-to-order clothes like the Vanderbilts, yes or jars in impossibly glamorous evening dresses. You know for a premiere, but I wanted to. I wanted to touch the everyday woman.

Beverley Glazer:

When the 60s hit but before you even touched anybody. You were that kid in the 60s, in the 70s and you left home. You just left everybody. You were that kid in the 60s, in the 70s, yeah, and you left home. You just left and went to discover your world. Were you in New York at the time?

Diane Gilman:

No, I grew up in LA, then we moved out to Whittier because my father had a business opportunity and that was sort of not too great. Then I came back to go to UCLA but really I was more interested in hanging out with music stars like Jim Morrison from the doors than I was taking classes, because there was no fashion curriculum but everything was breaking loose in fashion. And then somebody offered me a ticket, an airline ticket to London, and said his girlfriend had left him. He had this extra round-trip ticket. He didn't know what to do with it. Did I want it? And I said yeah, absolutely with it. Did I want it? And I said yeah, absolutely. And at the time my parents did not want me to be a businesswoman, did not want me to be a fashion designer and did not want me to go to Europe, and that was a breaking point for the family. I took the ticket, I went and lived in London swing in London for six months. It was wild and it was incredible. And Mary Quant had just come out with the mod fashion and the A-line dress and that amazing haircut and makeup Wow. So she set the stage I came back to out. Wow, so she set the stage.

Diane Gilman:

I came back to LA my best friend was dating Jim Morrison from the doors and, um, I just got into the periphery of the music industry and I met Janis Joplin and it was so, it was so easy, there were no barriers. I mean, janis Joplin, I had taken a Levi's men's jean jacket and jeweled it and hand painted it and encrusted it with studs and patched it and flashed it and she was like, hey, man, your jacket is groovy. And I was like, take it's yours. And I met Cher and I met Ann-Margaret and I met Deep Purple and I met Rod Stewart and I was doing hand-painted leather as well for him and I had an incredible time and I had left my family. I was really having fun.

Diane Gilman:

But there comes a time when you've got to grow up and you've got to say to yourself you know what it's a good party today, but it's going to be over with soon. And then what are you going to do with your life? I was living in San Francisco at the time. I had enough money to buy an airline ticket to New York. I knew exactly one person in New York, wound up living with him for 10 years and then I couldn't get a job because I had no fashion education and I had no credentials. I had nothing. I just had this belief in myself. I knew I was talented but I didn't know how to express it in a way that the industry would respect. I was discovered by Bloomingdale's. I was a sales girl there. Recognized fashion coordinator said oh, I've got this little line of clothing. I did it all. She gave me like five.

Beverley Glazer:

I'm going to stopped you here because it's marvelous. Okay, you came to New York. You must have tried to get back into the fashion industry.

Diane Gilman:

A million times. I knocked on a million doors and they all, they all, said no, you know. Here's the point. If you are in entertainment or fashion, if you are in any kind of commercial art, it is amazing that those industries gravitate and rotate around talent, but they have no belief in talent. So here's my best saying to anybody out there thinking of doing something along these lines Money makes blind men see and deaf men hear. The minute I had my own little collection and Bloomingdale's bought it and fostered me and gave me all these gigantic full page double trunk ads in the New York Times, gave me all the windows of the store, the minute my clothing started selling, oh, suddenly everybody was going to recognize me. And so I thought OK, so I get it. I'm not only an artist, I'm a commercial artist, and that means making money. So I did that. I was always underfunded, but I always was looking for a funding partner, which puts you at an amazing disadvantage. They have the money, you don't. You're dependent on them and you hope they tell the truth, but they rarely do. And so, anyway, one day somebody brings me a piece of fabric and says touch this, close your eyes, touch this. What is eyes, touches, what is it? I said suede, buck skin suede. They said no, it's washable silk. And I said, don't be stupid, you can't wash silk. And they said, well, now you can.

Diane Gilman:

So, um, I introduced two designers introduced washable silk into America Diane von Furstenberg and myself and I was, I hand painted all my own prints. The prints were very beautiful, very understandable to the female public and within a few years this was around 1990, 19, maybe 87. I had every department store in America plus Harrods in London. I had my own Diane Gilman department because washable silk was this huge workwear item. Women were now having to support their household and they needed clothes for work, but women were not dressing harshly or they still wanted the feminine side, and that was silk. However, my partners wanted to use my name to go public and I wasn't going to get a fair share and I, stupidly or not, sued them and then I couldn't use my name for a couple of years. It was awful. Okay, it was a big lesson in David and Goliath. Right, I was definitely David.

Diane Gilman:

Then, one day, when I'm almost down to zero because I'm paying a huge amount of money every month in legal fees, I'm up against this huge Chinese conglomerate. I get a phone call. And the phone call is hi, is this Diane? And I'm like, yeah, and she said, well, hi, I'm a talent scout for C and we know all about you and we would like you to come on air and design a collection. And I said, wrong time, wrong place. I said I'm in the middle of a lawsuit, I can't use my label. And they said, oh, that's no problem, we'll just call you Diane, and we have a bunch of people like you that are in the middle of law school. They're professional names.

Diane Gilman:

I went on there. I liked it. I thought it was very weird. You walk out on a kind of an empty stage and you're sitting in a high stool and I don't know. The whole thing was like. I didn't even like to be photographed at that time, but I sort of got to understand this was a whole new audience. Obviously it was a precursor to internet, but we didn't know that yet.

Diane Gilman:

And I really liked the idea of having the control over describing my product, selling it, and there was a big kind of Las Vegas win it all or lose it all feeling to it. You know when you got finished with the show and they said, oh my, you sold a million dollars in one hour, wow. So I love that. However, you can't have two control freaks at the helm. At one time, qvc definitely wanted all the control, but I knew I needed to be someplace that gave me the creative control to do my best. So I called up HSN and they were thrilled to have me and even though it was smaller now the two have merged so they're the same but even though it was smaller, I felt I could. More creative freedom was going to give me more potential for moneymaking. The washable silk was more accepted on HSN. I shot to number one fashion personality and then, um, my husband passed. That was huge and monumental for me, but I just dove into my work. I was 52 at the time. By the time I was about 57, I had gained over a hundred pounds. I was just very psychologically. I transferred all my emotions from my husband to food. So I'm heavy, I can't wear jeans, what, what? I was the cool girl. I was the blue jean baby. What are you talking about? I go out on a quest to find a jean that's going to fit a middle-aged body. I can't. And then I think to myself wait a minute, you've got a sewing room, you've got professional machines. Go out and buy three yards of denim, make your own, did it off of my measurements and it changed my life being back in jeans again instead of middle-aged, baggy clothing that was hiding your body. I got more respect from people. They thought I was more intelligent again. They thought I was much hipper. They wanted to include me. More socially Relevant events goes on and on. So I'm thinking to myself okay, this one gene has really changed my life. And I've spent almost a year taking every either Saturday or Sunday and shopping for middle-aged denim. There isn't any.

Diane Gilman:

Well, at the same time, we got a female CEO at HSN brilliant woman CEO at HSN, brilliant woman and Mindy Grossman, and I brought the idea to her and she said okay, you realize, there's no history of ever selling a fitted bottom on television. I don't know if women are going to believe you or buy it, and I don't know if this customer is too old for a pair of jeans. The average age was 55. She said but I'll give you one hour and the hour on air she gave me. I'm thinking, okay, prime time, it's going to be great, there's going to be so many people watching. She then said but I'm not going to give you prime time, I can't afford to.

Diane Gilman:

So, with no choice, I got a Sunday morning at 5 am Eastern Standard Time in February, when it's dark until like 10 am in the morning, and I got it with a large-sized host who was a 3X at the time or a 4X, and hated jeans and burst out in tears and was screaming at me I hate jeans, I'll never wear jeans and I'm like I'm begging you if you don't wear them as a host, there's no validity to this. Nope, nope. And we screamed at one another until the camera light went on. And then it's like good morning and, um, I explained the product to the customer. I was wearing it and I wasn't so thin at the time, I was like a size 10, uh, 12, and we sold out of all 5,000 jeans in three minutes, wow. So now you don't need to be a genius to know that there is a pent-up need for something. So we go wild and we go straight off the charts, and there were many shows where we actually burnt down the phone lines because they couldn't handle the number of calls and they're taking orders by hand, and it was crazy, and at which point I thought you know what? If this works for America, why wouldn't it work for other nationalities? I mean, it doesn't matter whether you're eating a bowl of pasta in Milan or fish and chips in London. You've still got the same hormonal issues crossing over in menopause, and that's what these genes are about, although you weren't really allowed to say that on air at that time.

Diane Gilman:

So I went, I called up management, knocked on the door of qbc management and said please give me a chance with your international business and please can I start it in a country where I speak the language like the UK. We immediately blew out. All sales records shot to. Number one went to Milan, italy. Number one opened up Paris, france, for them. Number one Dusseldorf, germany, munich, germany as well. Number one then went to Toronto for Shopping Channel Canada, and then the Shopping Channel in Australia, and it was an international sensation Women everywhere who had counted on their sexiness and how easy it is to look sexy in a pair of jeans, had lost that whole mojo and I gave it back to them and I knew what I spoke of because there were those jeans every day of my life. And so the business shot up to $100 million a year at retail and we were for almost 30 years the number one fashion entity in tele-retail.

Diane Gilman:

Then in the middle of it all, at 72, so at 60, I had my major lightbulb moment in and I'm cruising along and life is pretty good. Schedule is killer. I'm like commuting to Europe like three weeks out of every month. It was killer. I'm diagnosed with breast cancer. Now I got to take time off. I don't know how to do that. I announced to my audience I've got a second job saving my own life and please don't desert me, and I'll be back as soon as I can. I think I'm going to be gone about a year. I wasn't gone a year, I was gone nine months. I actually got off the. It was almost like getting off the operating table from a double mastectomy with a packed bag and going to Florida and doing TV show.

Diane Gilman:

But the holidays were the biggest money earning days of the year Labor Day, memorial Day, thanksgiving, 4th of July, when people are home. So I went back for Thanksgiving weekend and set an all-time sales record in teller retail. We sold 225,000 jeans in about eight hours of one day Incredible. When that happened, I really felt it was a peak of tele-retail. Now Amazon had come in, the internet had come in. You could shop 24 hours a day. You didn't have to wait for special hours, overnight delivery, free shipping, free return and on top of it all, my health was different. I mean, chemo was a killer, and so I. So I went on and did it for a couple more years. That was 2017. I was diagnosed 2018 and 19 was treatment. 2020, covid hit. So now we're doing shows from home through Skype and I thought, whoa, this is really nice. You get to do this remotely, eat your own good food, sleep in your own bed. I'm really liking this. This goes on for about three years, and when COVID receded, they waited a little while and then they wanted everybody back.

Diane Gilman:

And I thought you know what? I can't? I'm not physically equipped to do this anymore, physically equipped to do this anymore, and sometimes for somebody like me that always needs to feel they're achieving something, growing something, breaking new ground there was no new ground here to break. I had done this for 30 years and I asked myself the question had done this for 30 years and I asked myself the question isn't there anything else I can do? I want to feel refreshed again. I want to feel like a pioneer again. I want to feel like I'm treading on new ground and I'm an explorer. And I thought you know what I'm an explorer. And I thought you know what? What about podcasting? What about being a silver-haired influencer? So, with absolutely zero experience in social media? I thought you know what. How different can it be? You're in front of a camera and you talking and it's your ideas and and well, it was really different.

Diane Gilman:

But after four weeks of retirement I retired at the age of 70, 78 in 2022 and a half towards the end of the year, actually December I was not doing anything for about four weeks and I thought, oh my God, I hate this. The world's passing me by. This is awful. What did I do. And I get a phone call, just like QVC out of the clear blue sky, and this guy says hi, my name is is. I've got a podcast for over 50. I want more of a female audience. You'd be great. Do you want to be my co-host? And I thought, whoa, okay, and that's how I learned a lot about podcasting. Did that for about six months and then thought you know what I want? An all female. I really want a female audience. I want to talk female stuff. This poor guy I'm, I'm just walking all over him. This isn't good, because he let me choose a guest and so I separated and we started our own.

Diane Gilman:

It's been going for about a year and a quarter now and we're doing all these little clips, viral clips. And you know, the unbelievable thing, beverly, is we have one short clip now from one of our podcasts. It just went over two million views. The next one just went to 1.5 million views. The next one is at 800,000 views. So I'm beginning to understand my audience. I feel really invigorated. I feel really refreshed. I have a million ideas. All kinds of people are coming to me now because they see I can garner a big viewership and saying do you want to do this. So lots of opportunities.

Diane Gilman:

And it's beautiful, at almost 80 years old, to be going into totally new territory, to totally new territory, to be so much falling in love with it, to be honing your skills, to be discovering new ones. The only, obviously the only issue is money. So I have to say to myself okay, this can go on for X amount of time. And then I've got to get affiliate, but we're getting them. But the bottom line is, too many people, especially women, just feel like life is over with at 60. And don't wait around for other people to give you an opportunity Because, trust me, america is a land of ageism. They're not going to give it to you. You have to get it for yourself. This may wind up being, from 55 years old on the most proactive period of your life, whether you believe it or not. You may think always that, past a know, past a certain age, you're retired, you have no voice anymore, you're sitting back, it's a ton of doctor's appointments, everyone's telling you what to do, but that's your choice.

Beverley Glazer:

Yes, yes, yes, and you know what. You answered my question. Uh-oh, the question was what would you tell women who, at 50 plus, feel that their life is over for?

Diane Gilman:

And so say it again loud and clear and we all are so prone to absorb that negative nature of ageism. And God, this country is so obsessed with youth. And listen, even during a political period right now, so many awful remarks about what age the candidates are and what it does to them, and that you just think to yourself there's nothing left to do in life. I'm in past a certain age. It's just going to be this horrible decline and decay. That is absolutely not true, and you know for myself.

Diane Gilman:

I felt also that, yes, it was very comfortable to be in a professional and semi-private position where you were iconic, Everybody allowed you to be what you were. You could just go on doing the same thing forever and ever and ever. But the minute you realize that what you're doing you could actually do if you were in a coma, it's not good to do anymore and you can make your own opportunities for yourself Now. The other thing I would say to any woman over 55 is you are not trying to regain your youth or even your middle age. Your latter years are are unto themselves. It is its own particular time. Yeah, you can use cosmetics and all kinds of skin products where, yeah, you go back to looking 20 years younger, but that may be an aid to what you want to do, but it is not a solution and you have got to stimulate your inner self and give yourself new purpose.

Diane Gilman:

Maybe you raised a family all your life and you never thought about yourself. Well, now, this is your time. Maybe you're in the corporate world forever. This is your time. Maybe you're in the corporate world forever. That corporate world is never going to respect you or even want to employ you past the age of 50. So you can't look back. You can only look forward, and you've got to trust yourself that there is plenty to do and learn going forward and it may actually wind up being the best period of your life. Yeah, for real.

Beverley Glazer:

Well said, well said. I hope everybody is listening to those words, because it's true Change your mindset, go out there, open up, open yourself up. Yes, show up. Thank you, diane. Diane Gilman is a serial entrepreneur, a TV personality and a book author who's best known as the Jean Queen. Diane didn't hit her stride until her 60s and when she finally achieved the success and respect that she envisioned as a very young girl. Where can people find you, diane? Where on the internet? What are your links?

Diane Gilman:

Okay, so you're going to go to thedianegilmancom all in small caps. You're going to find me on YouTube with my podcast Too Young to Be Old and my second podcast, fashion Thursdays with Diane. Then you will also find me on Instagram, tiktok and Facebook. Then we've got our own YouTube channel too. It's been amazing to learn as much of this new stuff as I've learned on the run and on the go. One of the things that is the most successful path you can take to aging successfully is to and to always remaining too young to be old is to keep stimulating your brain and your spirit. Feed your soul, feed your soul, whatever that may be. Find the way, find the purpose, find the passion, and you will find the pleasure as well.

Beverley Glazer:

Well, well, well said. If you didn't catch her links. By the way, all those links are going to be in the show notes right below this episode, as well as on my site too. And now, my friends, what's next for you? Are you just going through the motions or are you really passionate about your life? Get my weekly self-coaching tips to empower you through your journey, and that link will also be in the show notes and on my site, reinventimpossiblecom. You can connect with me, Beverly Glazer, on all social media platforms and in my positive group of women on Facebook that's Women Over 50 Rock and you can also schedule a quick Zoom to talk to me personally. I want to thank you for listening. Have you enjoyed this conversation? Please subscribe. Don't miss out on the next one and send this episode to a friend. And remember you only have one life, so live it with purpose and passion.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for joining us. You can connect with Bev on her website, reinventimpossiblecom and, while you're there, join our newsletter subscribe so you don't miss an episode. Until next time, keep aging with purpose and passion and celebrate life.