Huddled in the corner of a softly lit change room at her eponymous store on Madison Avenue, Tanya Taylor giggled as she recounted the "scared, very introverted, really insecure kid" she was growing up.
"I don't know why," Taylor smiled. "I had the best parents, and everyone told me I was great, but, for some reason, it took me a long time."
It's funny to think that the Canadian fashion designer ever played it safe.
Nearly every milestone of her career can be traced back to a leap of faith: Had she decided not to sign up for the fashion show at McGill University, where she was majoring in finance, Taylor would have never discovered her passion, never enrolled at Parson's School of Design, never created garments that injected a much-needed boost of optimism in an intimidating, high-end fashion industry. She most certainly would not have dressed the likes of former first lady Michelle Obama, Beyoncé or Taylor Swift nor opened her own flagship store on the luxury strip of Manhattan.
It can also be a little bit scary naming a business after yourself, Taylor told Newsweek. Whether it's on a storefront, label or billboard, putting a personal name on a brand requires a level of vulnerability. She recognizes that now, but she didn't give it much thought when she launched her namesake brand.
"I was 25 when I made that decision," Taylor laughed. "I don't think there was a lot of strategy involved in it."
What really motivated her to put her name on the brand was a strong conviction that whatever she invested her time in had to be a true reflection of who she is as a person.
"I really believe in being as personal as possible with almost everything," Taylor said. "In hindsight, I'm happy it is my name because it represents a journey, those years of changing, the different times of your life."
So, who is Tanya Taylor, the brand? Vogue, the Council of Fashion Designers of America and Elle have all described it as joyful, colorful and functional. But they may well have been describing the designer herself.
"I've always lived a little in my own world," Taylor said. "I'm an only child. I feel like I've been kind of unaware of what was different."
Living in your own world, however, doesn't mean living alone. Taylor has a unique ability to bring people into her world, both figuratively and literally.
As the noise level in her store's front room rose, she offered to move to the back, nestling into one of the fitting rooms—cotton-candy pink and soundproofed by plush, fuchsia carpet and heavy, blush-colored drapes. The conversation with Taylor felt exactly like climbing into a little girl's world. It gave off the kind of girlhood excitement of sharing secrets on the playground and staying up past your bedtime during sleepovers.
"I remember when I went to Parson's, I would always get dressed up in really weird outfits," Taylor said, this time wearing a French blue dress printed with cream-colored florals. To complement the Cassandra Dress from her latest collection, Taylor also has a cerulean sweater draped over her shoulders.
While at design school, classmates described her as "the one who looks like she's walking on a rainbow all the time," a portrayal her friend had to explain was only trying to get at the "fairy dust" nature of the designer.
"Tanya is truly a unicorn," Adrianne Kirszner, CEO of Tanya Taylor, told Newsweek. When Kirszner joined Tanya Taylor in August, it was the first time the brand hired a CEO. Taylor continues to serve as the creative director and executive board chair.
"She possesses the rare balance of impeccable style and fashion credibility with a deep commitment to the customer who shops our brand," Kirszner said. "This balance she brings to her design process is truly reflective of who Tanya is as a person. She is an achiever who sets the bar high but is always warm, open and curious about everyone in her life, professionally and personally."
"I don't know anything different," Taylor said. "I design wanting things to be as happy and beautiful as they can be. People have probably felt that. Fashion has never felt like that. Fashion, to a lot of people, can feel scary. So, it's probably refreshing to find things that aren't."
Taylor, the designer, is eager to welcome people into the world of luxury fashion, and so her brand must be too. That concept includes making it approachable for those who have long been left on the outskirts of high-end retail.
When Taylor debuted a five-piece capsule in 2017 that offered sizes up to 22, she was one of only two contemporary brands to do so. And even after she unveiled extended sizing to high praise, department stores did not understand why they would carry those items.
"We kept saying, Two friends can be different sizes and still want to shop together. They still want to go to the same rack. They're not going to go in the elevator and have one go here and the other go there because their bodies are different," she said.
Taylor's efforts to expand sizes was among the first designer-led moves to do so. Many in the industry soon followed, but after the pandemic forced stores to slash inventory, Taylor found herself alone in her efforts once again.
"We kept going," she said. "We had to take a lot of responsibility on. We had to ask for more feedback from our customers. We had to make sure that what we were making was really solving a problem."
Her leadership on the front goes back to the authenticity of her brand, of being true to who she is, not just as a designer but as a person.
"Nothing is worth designing if you don't care about the woman wearing it," Taylor said. "And so, I think thoughtfulness is something that exists in the brand. The way we talk to our customers, the way that we think about details, the way we really care about the fit."
Taylor will join Newsweek at this year's inaugural Women's Global Impact forum. The August 5 event, hosted at Newsweek's headquarters in New York City, will bring together some of the world's top female executives and connect them with rising stars across industries and job functions.
For more information on the event and entry guidelines, please visit the Women's Global Impact homepage.