Ken Downing Fashion Tips w/ Anneliese Aeria Video

Ken Downing reveals the "one fashion piece" needed for looking your best!

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Transcript:

Anneliese Aeria: Hi everyone. I'm Anneliese, and today I will be stepping inside of Neiman Marcus to talk with Ken Downing, head of Neiman Marcus Fashion. Let's go inside.

Hi everyone, I'm Anneliese Aeria, and today I have the honor of interviewing Ken Downing, head of Neiman Marcus Fashion. I figured today I'd start off with a question. What inspired you to devote your career to fashion?

[00:00:30]
Ken Downing:

[00:01:00]
You know, I think I decided to devote my career to fashion, one, because I had a fashion-obsessed mother. I think that from the day of birth, she was determined that I was going to be in this industry one way or the other. And, I just love beautiful things. It's interesting. I'm sure that I had toys as a child, I just don't always remember them. But I remember how people were dressed. I remember how a room looked. I liked going to birthday parties with kids my own age, but I really liked going to weddings and big celebratory things, because it just had so much more drama and vibrato to me.

[00:01:30]

[00:02:00] Even as a young boy, I saw life in living color. I saw life in a very pretty lens, and I wanted to continue to live as an adult and work in an industry where I could be surrounded by beautiful things and where I could bring beautiful things to people. Not in an esoteric way, just about how a man or a woman dresses, but bring to the world inner beauty as well. I think that fashion is certainly all about how we present ourselves, the clothes we wear, the makeup on our face, or our hair. Certainly the trappings of beauty are involved in fashion, but I think that truly fashion is about confidence. It's not about age. I think it's about a great hunger and a desire to be great-looking no matter how old you are. I think that beauty really comes from inside. We can wear the most expensive clothes in the world ... it's not about wearing expensive clothes. But I think when you can instill confidence in an individual, that's when they're truly their best-looking and when they look most radiant.

I decided that I wanted to really fill people with an inner confidence and help them find their inner beauty so they can enjoy life and see the world through a lens that I enjoy as well.

[00:02:30]
Anneliese Aeria:
I love that. I love that answer. That's so amazing. I really agree that without confidence ... It doesn't matter what you're wearing, it's just you're missing that important aspect.

Ken Downing:

[00:03:00] What's the one piece you have to buy? What's the one thing a woman has to have her entire life. What's the one piece a guy needs to look cool? It's not about items. It is about confidence. You know, one never goes shopping with a girlfriend, because I don't think your girlfriends every tell you the truth. You know when you're in a dressing room, you know when you look good because you feel good. I think when you feel good, it's when you're really your most remarkable. It's not about expensive clothes, inexpensive clothes. I certainly think clothes that fit instill confidence in an individual. The idea of body type has become such a boring conversation. It's like a hemline or a heel height.

[00:03:30]

[00:04:00] I think something I'm most excited about currently on the runways in fashion is all the diversity. We're seeing models of every race, creed, color, and body type. We're seeing girls that aren't six foot and six foot one. We're seeing girls that aren't just a size zero and two and a four. We're seeing size 18s and 22s, and girls that aren't terribly tall, because fashion has decided to celebrate the globe, because fashion is a very global industry, and we all love to look our best, I hope. That ability to celebrate different people of different body types also, I think, instills that confidence.

Anneliese Aeria: Yes, I totally agree.

Ken Downing: People look at a magazine and think, "Oh, I want to look like her, but she's six feet tall." I think it's nice to see role models in the fashion industry who aren't just super-young and super-tall and super-light. I'm excited about that moment in fashion right now. It's been a long time coming.

Anneliese Aeria: It's exciting, yes.

Ken Downing:
[00:04:30] It's certainly something that's an important moment and a watershed moment on the runway, and I think it's something we're going to see continuing as we go forward in fashion, because fashion is certainly a forward industry. We look back to redefine the future, but we're very much a futurist industry.

Anneliese Aeria: Thank you all so much for watching and I hope you enjoyed my visit with Ken as much as I did. See you next time.