The Most Brave Woman: Julia Haart on Her Orthodox Upbringing and Changing the Fashion Industry

From escaping an ultra-Orthodox Jewish community at age 42 to becoming a fashion mogul and Netflix star, Julia shares her poignant story of courage, strength, and transformation. Learn about her struggles and triumphs from this intimate conversation with Kristina.

Julia Haart Bio:

Julia Haart is a self-made businesswoman, designer, and bestselling author. She was raised in an Ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. At age 42 she fled, changed her name, and without any formal education or background in fashion launched her career as a designer with her namesake shoe collection.

Just a few years later, she was named creative director of La Perla and would become co-owner and CEO of Elite World Group and one of the most influential people in fashion. In 2021, Julia and her NETFLIX hit series "My Unorthodox Life", which streams in over 190 countries, took the world by storm.

 In her memoir BRAZEN, Julia writes with radical vulnerability and honesty, sharing her deeply personal journey of heartbreak, resilience, and courage to flee a fundamentalist community. Released in April 2022, BRAZEN became an instant bestseller in the U.S. and U.K. Above all else, Julia applies her experience and platform to be a force for positive change in the world and supporting women who have dedicated their lives to building a better future.  

With the right for women to choose under threat, Julia's taken a leading role in the pro-choice movement marching in support of women's rights, rallying her community of influential friends and followers, supporting organizations such as #VoteProChoice and Plan C, and serving on the Advisory Council of the Equal Rights Amendment Coalition. With so much at stake at home in the U.S., Julia has also worked tirelessly to campaign for pro-choice politicians and support organizations such as Emerge America to help recruit and train like-minded women to run for office. 

As a champion of democracy globally, Julia fights for the right to freedom around the world including Iran and Ukraine where she led a mission to deliver ambulances and critical humanitarian supplies.

Connect with Julia Haart:

Loved this episode?
Leave us a review and rating here: She's Brave Podcast on Apple Podcasts

Connect with Kristina:

She's Brave Podcast Website

Instagram

Facebook

Curious about podcasting? Join Podcast Mastery Facebook Group

Transcript

 Hey everyone. It's Kristina Driscoll, host of the She's Brave podcast. I'm so glad you're here with me. I did not start out brave at all, but I learned that we can do brave things one small step at a time.  I want to get brave women's voices out there in the world and inspire women to find their own bravery within themselves. 

A year and a half later. I'm in the top one and a half percent of all podcasts globally. I've interviewed amazing women who've overcome and accomplished so much to live the life of their dreams.  If they can do it, you can do it too. And so can I. Let's go.  Hey everyone, it's Christina with the she's brave podcast.

You guys, you guys, I am the most excited I have  ever been to have a guest. In my opinion, this is the most brave woman I have ever met in my entire life. I think she is the bravest woman on the planet. And once you get to know her, You will feel that way too. Today's guest is Julia Hart. She's a self made businesswoman, designer, and bestselling author.

She was raised in an ultra Orthodox Jewish community. At age 42, she fled, changed her name, and without any formal education or background in fashion, launched her career as a designer with her namesake shoe collection. Just a few years later, she was named creative director of La Perla and would become co owner and CEO of Elite World Group and one of the most influential people in fashion.

Oh, M G. Can you guys even freaking believe it? Julia and her Netflix hit series, My Unorthodox Life, which streams in over 190 countries,  took the world by storm. And by the way, I love your series. It's amazing. Love it. Love it. Yeah. And in her memoir brazen, which again, you guys, you got to read it. I could hardly put it down.

Julia writes her radical vulnerability and honesty. Sharing her deeply personal journey of heartbreak, resilience, and courage to flee a fundamentalist community released in April 2022, Brazen became an instant bestseller in the U. S. and the U. K. Above all else, Julia applies her experience and platform to be a force for positive change in the world and supporting women who have dedicated their lives to building a better future.

Julia fights for the freedom around the world, including Iran and Ukraine, where she led a mission to deliver ambulances and critical humanitarian supplies. Welcome. Welcome, Julia. Thank you so much. That was very lovely. You make me cry. It's too early in the day to cry. It's too early, but you're freaking making me cry too, because you're such an inspiration and your book is so beautiful.

It's so real. It's just you. Like, I feel like I already know you because you just put it all out there and your life has been nothing short of incredible, incredibly hard.  Insane. I can't believe that you completely left  your whole family, everything in your community at the age of 42 to start a whole new life.

But not only that, you've just had this incredible success. I mean, it's been unbelievable. So let's start at the very beginning. Tell us briefly a little bit about Your childhood, tell us a little bit about that. I think the easiest way to understand the world I come from, and it is a different world. I always tell people that I'm a time traveler.

You know, I lived in the 1800s and when I was 42, I time traveled into the 21st century. So I lived in a world that. You want to kind of imagine it, think of Bridgerton, minus the fabulous clothing and the walls, where a woman's only sole responsibility was to be a proper, virgin, innocent bride, and it was all about the match.

And you know, women weren't educated, and they were subservient, and their purpose was to be wives and mothers. That was my life,  right? Kind of, if we want to get in the darker route, I would say, what's that show on Hulu? The Handmaid's Tale. Kind of like The Handmaid's Tale, minus all the physical violence.

There's no physical violence. I would totally agree with that. Cause I watched that show. That's basically what it is. Just, there's no finger cuttings and hangings. That's right. Right. But take away the physical. The law is the same, right? Yes. The law is the same. Yes. All within. Are defined by their biology, you are told from the day you're born  that your only purpose in life is to be a wife and a mother that you're supposed to be subservient and obedient that you have two masters, you've got your master in heaven God, you've got your master on earth, your husband, and you have zero self autonomy in your life.

Nothing. One of my daughter's friends, who she stayed very close with us, even since we left, was kind of like my adopted daughter. She stayed in my house so frequently, she kind of felt like my daughter. And she, of course, stayed in the system, and she came back from seminary a few years ago, like in Israel. 

And what did she come back with? She sat down at my table, because she still comes and visits us,  and she said, You know what I learned? I learned that I don't actually know how I feel. The rabbi knows how I feel. I don't know what makes me happy. The rabbi knows what makes me happy.  That's what the problem is.

You have no sense of self determination. You don't know what's good for you. You don't know what makes you happy. You are defined by your destiny, and that's the world I lived in. Right. Right. And your parents were high up in communism in Russia and you guys fled when you were three years old. You lived in Texas for a number of years.

And it's interesting that your parents just gradually became more and more fundamentalist within.  Well, yeah, this is, this is how I see it, but it's, you know, I mean, again, this is my theory. I can't actually ask them because they don't talk to me, but this is how I think about it.  If you look at communism and any fundamentalist religion, it's almost identical because what does communism say?

All for the greater good. The government, some higher power knows what's good for you, right? They choose your job. They choose your career. They choose what you're supposed to do. You don't matter as an individual. It's all about the greater good. And when I was  Around 16, I think I wrote about it in the book.

Actually. I met this guy in Brighton beat. It was during through a striker when all these Russians are coming over. And for the first time I got to meet other Russians  and  everyone hated it. No one had one positive word to say about Russia. Everyone came out of there with a fuck. You are so grateful to be out of that horrible country. 

And this one guy was moaning about how much he missed Russia. And I'd never heard anyone say that before. So I asked him what it was.  And he said to me.  I miss never having to make a decision  and that's any extremist religion. You don't make decisions, right? They make the decisions for you. So my parents, when communism disappointed them, they went looking for another extremist ism.

And they landed on extreme Judaism, but in the end, all of these fundamentalist religions and communism in any other kind of isn't where it's my way or the highway where you don't follow this way, you're evil, any kind of isn't like that. It thrives on isolationism it thrives on. This is good. Everything else is evil.

And so my parents grew up that way, and they just went searching for replacement. That's what I think. I totally agree. I love that. So basically, you guys ended up becoming more religious fundamentalist moved to Muncie, which is near New York. It's just the 18th century. Yes. Yeah. And I love that. That is like, yeah.

People listening right now are probably thinking, what the heck? What do you mean? Like you actually were living in 18th century. I was, you read the book, you were, were truly living in the 18th century, and I want you to explain how and why, like explain a day in the life when you were a teenager and a little bit about your marriage to Joseph.

Well, I think the, the biggest way to explain this, so. When I wrote the book, because I got accused of exaggerating or lying about my community when the show came out, and I knew I wasn't obviously, for the book I asked Penguin Random House if they would give me a website where I could just bring all the proof points.

I'm like, unfortunately I don't have to make anything up. I don't have to exaggerate. It's crazy enough in and of itself. So this time I brought proof points and it worked because this time no one accused me of being a  And then a few months later. The New York Times did a whole expose on this exact school system that I was talking about.

And lo and behold, I was not exaggerating. But  when I did the proof point, I went back to the Talmud and the Mishnah and all the places where all these laws exist. And I didn't have time to source them myself. So I found this amazing person named Penny,  who is a transgender woman who actually went to yeshiva in the same school as my brothers did. 

Penny remembers when Penny was a boy  going down the street and spitting on women who are not appropriately dressed.  Okay. Penny left, Penny lived in Brooklyn. Penny and I actually left, we didn't know one another, but it happened to be that we left simultaneously, same time, different communities, same time. 

Penny told me that when they left 11 other people from their community left.  So we're talking the same year that I walked out the door and Penny walked out the door, 11 other people walked out the door.  All 11 committed suicide. Penny and I are the only two left standing. Oh my gosh. I cannot even believe that.

Well, yes, I can believe it, Julia, because the book is so descriptive, like about how there were no radios, there were no TVs. You didn't have a smartphone. You have literally no, I mean, it was like the handmaiden's tale. This is what's so shocking, Julia, that I want to get out to into the whole world, right here in freaking America.

The handmaiden's tale is being played out. Yeah, well it's so hard for people to understand that's why it's easier to just think I'm exaggerating, right? Because it seems unbelievable. It's one of those It's too detailed to Facts are stranger than fiction. It's too detailed and heartfelt.  But there's now, unfortunately, there's too many proof points.

Yeah. These women committed suicide. In my community, we were always told that. See these women who leave? Most of them die. Most of them kill themselves. And we were taught that in school to be used as an example of why Women who leave are somehow demented and deranged and they're suicidal. What we're not taught is the reason they commit suicide is because they are not equipped to handle the 21st century.

There's this movie. It was very cute. It was Meg Ryan and. Hugh Jackman. He was like an 18th century inventor who invented the elevator and he falls through a wormhole and dive and he lands in the 21st century. I can't remember what it was called. And he's a time traveler, right? And he lands in the 21st century and there's cars and there's television, there's noise and that disorientation.

That's what it feels like because I didn't know until I was in my mid 30s that it was legal for a woman to live alone in this country. I'd never met a woman who lived alone. When I watched sex in the city and it's like so surreal because Candace Bushnell is a very close friend of mine now. And when I watched sex in the city, forget about the, Oh, there's such a thing as a clitoris, which was a big shocker to me.

The biggest shocker was wait, is this fantasy? These women are living by themselves in their own apartments.  Literally an hour for me. I couldn't, I couldn't believe it. Can you imagine not knowing until your thirties that a woman could live alone? Think about that. I didn't know anything about anything.

Never been on a date. I'd never been to a bar. I'd never been to a dance. I didn't know anything about the outside world. Zero.  Yeah. I don't think people understand the massive disconnect.  And then I think the other thing people have a hard time imagining is what it's like to be truly alone.  And. I think, you know,  many people feel very alone and I think there's a lot of loneliness today and I think community is not as strong and I think that causes a lot of depression and misery.

I think we need to figure out a way to build strong communities wherever we are. However, you have your people you went to, to elementary school, to high school, your first job, your summer camp, you have points of connectivity, right? Unless you lived in the mountains by yourself, somebody knows you.  When you walk out of a world that's completely isolationist,  and you're walking into a new world where literally no one knows you, not a single breathing, living human being.

I don't think people know what that feels like.  It is the biggest aloneness on the planet. And when you transfer from a community,  Obviously an extremely problematic community, but a community that is still a very strong community, right? When my brother died, everyone in my community rallied, people came to my house and washed my floors and fed my family and could not have been lovelier, right?

As I always say. There are no villains in my story. I love my community. That is part of what I love about your book too, is you're not trying to make a villain out of your religion. You're saying there's fundamentalism in every religion in the world. And so we're talking about fundamentalism and the treatment of women.

We're not just picking out one particular thing over here. And I was truly gobsmacked and amazed how sweet and Forgiving and just how you, your own husband, who's your ex husband, you had four children with him. You were supposed to have 10 children with him because that was really pretty much,  that was your only duty was to have children after children.

But he was so indoctrinated into the system and he was not physically abusive at all in any way. But He just believed he was so enmeshed into this fundamentalism that he just lived it and breathed it. And like, when you read the book, like when I read the book, I was like, you have completely forgiven him.

Like, or maybe there was nothing to forgive. Like you understood that he was just doing the best he could. He was as much of a victim as the system as I was. That's how I see it. It really was not his fault. That's the problem. The problem is what people don't understand. I love the people in my community.

I want them. As I want every woman  to have autonomy, to not feel like a second class citizen. Look, I'm actually, I haven't had a chance to post about it yet, but I will be. You know what's happening with women in Afghanistan, right? Now they're not allowed to speak in public,  right? My community of women's not allowed to sing in public.

It's all the same garbage. The minute You say  God made women to be subservient to men and we have to cover them up, whatever way that is, whether it's a wig and don't sing in public, or it's head to toe, you're putting your life through a scarf and you aren't allowed to speak and you can't go to work or school like they're doing in Afghanistan.

The freedom that everyone wants, you know, these women in these universities across the country that are. Pro Hamas. Do they not understand? It's the same people forcing women not to speak in public in Afghanistan. This is the freedom they're looking for. Fundamentalism is the  scourge of humanity.  It is evil  and there is no positive that can come from the denigration and degradation of women.

Period. In whatever form it takes. And that's all I care about. And I cry, you know, so when I see these Muslim women in Afghanistan, my heart breaks, I just want to go there and hug them because I know what that feels like.  Yeah. Do not have a voice to be silenced and it's wrong and it's everywhere and it's spreading like wildfire and to see modern women defending fundamentalist Islam, the same fundamentalist Islam that is silencing women in Afghanistan, forcing women out of high schools and elementary schools in Iran.

It's incomprehensible to me.  We have to fight fundamentalism, period. Yeah, 100%.  100%. I just, I want to share a paragraph in the book. There's just like a million fabulous paragraphs, but I just want to read this because this was so powerful.  This is really you too. You say, I don't care if I'm inappropriate. I don't give anyone the right to tell me what is and what is not appropriate.

I spent the first 40 years of my life trying to be appropriate and let me tell you not only did I suck at it I hated it every religion Or society's definition of what is and what is not appropriate is different. In the religious world, voicing an opinion at the dinner table was inappropriate. In the secular world, wearing a miniskirt to a business meeting is inappropriate.

Too fucking bad. I should not have to worry about inappropriate thoughts a man has when he sees my décolleté.  It's not my problem. You're a grown ass man. Take responsibility for your own thoughts and actions. The whole appropriateness thing is something I feel very strongly about. We are so conditioned to be so polite, to not offend, that we spend years of our lives miserable and unhappy rather than offend someone's sensibility regarding what is proper and appropriate.

It was inappropriate for women to work outside the homes, a hundred. Years ago, appropriateness is just another form of slavery conditioning to get women to police themselves, to limit themselves, because they're so afraid of being deemed appropriate. Stop worrying about it, ladies.  Oh, and then this last part is to borrow from the title of a book by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich.

Well behaved women seldom make history. Fuck appropriateness. Make history instead. Amen, sister! 

Yeah. I mean, but just, I just want to spend like a couple of minutes just  guys, guys, you got to read this book. Like just when you started having kids, you're a very tiny, tiny woman, naturally very, very slender and very, very petite. And literally your first daughter who you absolutely door about Shiva. She kicked you and she kicked your ribs and they cracked and they couldn't give you any pain medicine word at the time.

You had. For, well, no, your third pregnancy, actually your third delivery of Miriam went actually really well, but you really remember everything. I'm very impressed. Wow.  Yeah.  Well, your children are amazing. And in watching your show, it really shows the deep connection that you have with them. And it's amazing that you were very calculated.

We waited until your youngest. Your oldest three were pretty much grown and flown for the most part. Your youngest not quite. I just can't wait anymore. I tried. You couldn't wait anymore. You were literally  I was, it was death or move that was, and I am so proud of you for admitting that because I think every person on this planet gets to the depths of despair in our life.

And then most of us say, okay, well I guess since I have depression or I have anxiety or I have this, I have that, well then I can't be like you, Julia, like I can't be president of a company. I can't do all the amazing things that we don't even have time to get into today that you've done. And the fact that you just recognized that it was suicide or leave and I just I thought the way that you chose to leave was very, very clever.

Very clever. Can you just tell us a little bit about that?  I say, I pulled a King David. Is that what you're talking about? I'm guessing?  I had planned for this day for eight years, but when it came push to shove, I was too scared to walk out the door. And then my daughter Miriam got accused of cheating because her paper was too good to be written by a girl.

She was literally being punished for her excellence, which.  Hey, that literally happened to me two and a half years ago. I built a billion dollar business. A guy comes and says, but she didn't have a degree. It can't be her. It had to be me. Therefore, and everyone bought it. Why? Because wow. Well, how did she do it?

She must have slept her way to the top, right? So sometimes women get punished for their excellence. And unfortunately it is not.  I thought it was only in my community. Unfortunately, it is true and live today. I had proof. I had documents. I had everything. I had all the documents. Nobody cared. It's taken two and a half years for people to realize I was telling the truth.

Two and a half years of being called a liar. So yeah, we get punished for being excellent. We get punished for being extraordinary.  And that's what happened. So now I'm out and I need to leave. I don't know how and I don't like, how am I going to do this where I can get everyone out the door and no one's going to stop me.

And so I remember the biblical story. There's a story in the prophets where King David is on the run from Saul, who was at the time king and knew that David was going to be king after him. He had received this prophecy. So he decided to kill the guy. So where does David go? David flees to the Philistines because those were arch enemies of the Jews.

So no one would think to look at him for him there. But what ends up happening is the king of the philistines finds out that king david is hiding there  and king david is hiding out in this cave And the king of the philistines comes to kill him  and what does king david do? King david's decides his only way to save his life is to act like a crazy person So as the king of the philistines comes in king david's like saliva dribbling talking gibberish going like this And he looked so crazy that The court laughed and said, how he's not a threat anymore.

This is perfect. Let's leave him here. And that's how he saved his life. So I pulled the King David. I went completely crazy. I started throwing things and screaming literally like I'd lost my mind and everyone was so shocked. You just didn't know what to do. I've never behaved like that on and your husband thought that you were just having a mental breakdown and that you  would come back and I think that was very  calculated.

He was just like, oh, wow, she's having a mental breakdown. Okay, I'm just gonna let her leave and I'm just gonna be like, just she'll come back when she's ready and she's better. That was brilliant. That's what I mean. Hey, I just took it from the prophets. Act like a crazy person. No one will stop you.  Oh my gosh.

I do not recommend this as a normal general rule for life. This was a very extreme situation. So yeah.  Yeah, yeah, definitely I felt like it was a life or death situation for me. It was it was it  really really really was and I know that your oldest daughter But Shiva she had just gotten married herself and it was hard  As a teenager.

So everybody got married. Women get married as a teenager. I remember stories how when you married your husband, he would have his friends over. And if you had to spend all day cooking all your kosher food, and if you talked to them, I wasn't allowed to talk. Yeah. You weren't allowed to talk to his friends.

Yeah. And serve the meal for four hours. But yeah. And just be invisible. Yeah. The handmaidens tale tale. I mean, it's unbelievable. It's unbelievable.  Unbelievable.  So  you leave and I mean, and this next chapter was so interesting to have your life managed to work out with your husband where you were trying to build this shoe business and kind of half living in New York city and then spending time at home with your husband who you technically weren't divorced for six years.

Was it? But you were there for your kids. And I mean, your husband was okay. He, I don't know if he was okay with it, but he accepted it, accepted it and I yet another thing. I mean, I admire everything about you, but I'm going to bring up one thing to just how you were so passionate about. fashion and you, I mean, and to think that you had to wear dowdy oversized things that covered are down to your ankles and to your wrists and no collarbone showing your whole life, all of that, like so crazy.

And so you decide to. start designing shoes. And what I love about that part of the story is that you basically said, I don't see a kind of shoe that I like. You were like thinking outside the box. Like, instead of following everybody else, you were like, I want really, really cool shoes with like these incredible, like rhinestones on them and stuff like that.

And you just proceeded to Bulldoze your way through and get it done. Right? I am a bit of a bulldozer. I know  I'm a stubborn woman. What can I tell you? I mean, I love that story because I think that in our world today.  The way to success is obviously a hundred percent be yourself, which you are. You are uncompromisingly yourself.

You don't,  you, I  don't care. Yeah. And you tell everything about you. We know everything. If you read the book, you will know everything about Julia. That was the thing, like being accused of not being truthful when I literally, I was I shared the most in like, who does that like I hear the most embarrassing personal.

Oh yeah. Why? Why would I do that? I'm not like a glutton for I did it because I know that you can smell when someone's not telling the full story and it doesn't help other women if they think it was easy. It doesn't help other women if I don't tell them about the mess and the mistakes and the embarrassing shit because That is actually life.

Yeah, that's what happened. And  I'm not, I mean,  Yes, sometimes I'm embarrassed. Sometimes I think to myself, what, sometimes I'll like lay down. I'm like, what the F am I doing? But then I remind myself there's a reason I'm doing this. And when I first came out, I got this thing through Vogue and I got this opportunity to meet some of the world's biggest designers.

I met with Donatella Versace and.  Albert Elba's and such incredible people. And like, I loved hearing from Donatella because she was so real. She talked about her issues. She talked about the difficulties. And then there was this other female designer. I'm going to leave silent because I don't want to gossip who someone asked you, like, wow, how is it that you balance family, motherhood?

Design all these things together and she's like, oh, I love doing homework with my children and like,  that's just a lie. I'm sorry. You're not going to find any person on earth who loves doing homework. It's a lot. It's a lot. Yeah. By making it seem easy. We're not doing anyone any favors because it's not easy.

It's not easy. Yeah, for sure. And, and you're unapologetically yourself, like getting back to the shoes. I feel like how people get really successful in life today is by doing it different. You just like did it different. You were like, I don't see shoes like that look this way that are this bright and this colorful and this flashy and this unique.

And I'm just going to go ahead and do it. I'm going to do something so different from everybody else. Everybody's all doing the thing, trying to copy each other. No, no, no, no. You like broke the fricking mold. You just went out there and did it.  You did. I think that's my biggest advice for thank you. First of all, that's very kind of you.

And I think my biggest advice for people who want to start businesses is see the spaces in between  it's empty spaces. That's where  everything is, is in the unknown. Right. And I've done that in every industry, which is why people, when they talk about it, they say, Oh, Julie, disrupts it. Businesses, right?

Because what have I done when I went into shoes? I said, no, we're gonna make shoes that are comfortable and luxurious. When I went into. Lingerie, La Perla, I made the first ever stretch leavers lace. I said, why do women have to suffer for beauty? I was told by one of the biggest editors in the world, Julia, I like you.

You're very talented designer. I'm going to give you a piece of advice. Comfort is a dirty word and fashion. And I looked at this person who I admired, but I thought was very wrong. And I said, not anymore. Women's fashion should be for women. Okay. Not just for women, right? I'm going to care about what they feel like, not just what they look like.

And comfort's not a dirty word anymore. But I'm telling you, when I came out into this industry, people attacked me for using the word comfort. For saying, I care what women feel like. I didn't put a single thing on the floor in La Perla before wearing it. Before testing it before seeing if I can move in it and live in it and breathe in it.

I don't want women to suffer. I don't want them to feel pain. And so I disrupted every industry. I've been it. I come into the talent management industry and I turned that on its head. Right? I make marketing and quantifiable and tractable. I create systems. I. Literally change the, I don't want to say shelf life.

Let's call it the business life of models and actors and tennis players and athletes, because once they leave that stage, whatever their stage is, whether it's a runway or a tennis court, if we transform them into networks, while they had that audience and made the people understand who they are and what they stood for, then they could create product.

I created avatars in 2019 and everyone told me I was crazy. People literally accuse me of being nuts, right? And everybody thought me, oh, Julia doesn't know what she's talking about. Except two years later, lo and behold, Avatars, Metaverse, it's all everybody talks about. They wouldn't let me put it in my bank presentation when we were going public because no one knew what I was talking about.

That's what I've always done. I don't care about what it says. I care about what should be. And all I see are the spaces in between. And that's how you make a successful business. And everything I've done, my products, my plus body brand, what is it? It's the first shapewear in the world that looks like lingerie, right?

It's colorful, it's patterned because we change the way color is put into clothing so that women don't have to be embarrassed about wearing shapewear. And for my second collection, I've made the first ever, um, I mean, we haven't seen it. So someone tell me if I'm incorrect. I don't want to say anything incorrect, but I don't think it exists.

Hybrid that's ready to wear the bra built in and it's shapewear. So you can buy a t shirt, a tank top, a camisole, a bodysuit where it's not just by your dress size. It's by your cup size.  So you're a medium, you're a medium C.  Your body suit will have a Sea Cup bra built in. Yeah. Yeah. And here's the best part.

What's the first thing you do when you get home? I, I think every woman on earth does it. The first thing I do when I get home, I unsnap my bra. Yeah. And you have to have that  moment because it's, it's not comfortable. Yeah.  Yeah. So my clothes, we use the structure of the clothing  to keep the cups in place.

Mm-Hmm. . So you don't need a strap. Mm-Hmm. . No Strap. Mm-Hmm. . Brilliant. Literally a t a shirt with a bra built in, your size. Not bralette where it's extra small, small, medium, large. I'm talking 34 to, I think, extra, extra, extra large, double F cup, in clothing. Which shape we're built in all in one garment. And that's what I've done in every industry I've gone into.

I've seen what isn't there.  And I have to bring this up because this is one of the things that, well, I admire every freaking thing about you, Julia, but like in watching you guys, you got to watch my unorthodox life on Netflix. It's so freaking good. But in that show, you're working with models and they're in all different shapes and sizes.

And I'm like, Oh my God, this is amazing. Like, and they all look beautiful. And you've got them like, and them in shapewear that looks gorgeous. And then you've got like your daughter in the business and Batshita is working with models, helping them because eventually models have a shelf life. Like, I think this is so freaking brilliant and so generous what you guys are doing, how you're like, okay.

They need to learn what they're going to do after their modeling career is done and to be making money when they're 90. I want to think about generational wealth. Who has done that? No freaking body but you! And to see all those beautiful models and like literally they're just like Every shape and size and color and about that, you know, and hide and I mean, it's so freaking beautiful. 

No, I, I mean, to me it, all of these kinds of things, like being an athlete, you can't be an athlete and you're not playing tennis. People retire from tennis. They retire from modeling, they retire from sports, but I want them to have longevity in their career past the point when they retire from whatever.

What I look at it is it's all platforms. I don't care if you're a deep sea diver or mountain climber or a tennis player or a fencer. I don't care what you do. I'm thinking when the day you retire from your career, what will you have? I want to give you generational wealth. And the way to do that is to utilize the time that you're in the public eye to build yourself into a network, to help you become a brand, an authentic brand for what you stand for and what you believe in.

So that the day you're not walking the runway anymore. You've got  70 years more of business ahead of you because you created something of true value. That's how I see it. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. I just, I have to unwind because go back to when you were having babies, because when I read that section of the book, you were working two jobs.

So in your community, I mean, again, I was just gobsmacked, like how, how your community ran that basically you worked two jobs teaching, which was just basically teaching. Your fundamentalist religion, two girls only because men and women were always segregated, pretty much always segregated, always segregated.

You were teaching two jobs. You were having babies, getting up in the middle of the night, changing diapers. Cooking kosher is extremely challenging. Something I never thought about, but it is right. Like it is very, very challenging and it's time consuming. You were doing all that. You were sleeping four Four hours a night.

This was your life for many, many, many years. Yep. Because women in my world, not only are we supposed to take care of the house and have babies and cook and clean and do all of that, we're also supposed to bring in the money. I know. And that's what I wanted to bring up to them, men, your husband for many, many years.

So what, yeah, the part that I didn't explain was that your husband was married. Doing religious studies. That's right. That's what he was doing.  I mean, that's what you're supposed to do. A woman is supposed to remove all distraction so her man can achieve greatness, right? So she can never be the scholar.

She can never achieve greatness. She can only achieve greatness by proxy,  by being the doormat on which the man steps towards greatness.  So you have to do everything. And Now,  on the one hand, you're supposed to support your family, you're supposed to make the money, you're supposed to interface with the doctors and everything like that, you're supposed to just do everything so he could just contemplate on Torah and law,  but you're not supposed to go to college, so you can never actually have a career or a profession, you only get a job, right?

So what do you get to do? Most women in my community,  when I was growing up, it was teacher in the schools, of course, in my religious schools, babysitter, Nanny  or secretary of some kind, right? All within the community. Now they've expanded a little. They have like, religious online courses where you can get like, an OT or PT position.

And of course, it's going to be in that same religious school where you're going to still make 25, 35, 000 a year. So. On one hand, you're forced to support your family. On the other hand, you're never given the opportunity to actually build something of value because you can't go to college. You can't work outside of your community and there's only certain jobs.

You're not the doctor, right? You're the doctor's assistant, right? You're not going to school to be the doctor.  So you're always forced into menial jobs and menial roles.  With eight children or 10 children and you're again, you're not just shopping and it's not just cooking kosher. That's the problem. It's  I made Thanksgiving meals every weekend, right?

Shabbat dinner is a four course Thanksgiving meal. I remember the first time I came out of the community and I saw what a big drama people made out of Christmas dinner and Thanksgiving dinner, the months of preparation. I thought to myself, I was making Christmas dinner and Thanksgiving dinner literally twice a week, every weekend for like 34 years.

34 years, five course meal, 20 people on my table, full on Christmas. What you guys think of as Christmas dinner, minus the ham, but I did that every Friday night.  And can I just add, you were an interesting situation because you were an only child when you first came to America and then when you were around 10, your parents started having children again and they had seven more children and guess who did everything?

You were cooking, cleaning, taking care of changing diapers, getting up with them in the middle of the night. So you had that all throughout your teens and then you basically went right from that into being married. Yeah, exactly. Crazy. Crazy. And my kids, I always say, and people think, again, that this is an exaggeration.

This is not.  My siblings called me mommy. And I don't mean that, like, they actually thought that families have two mothers and a father because they literally call me mommy. I was so much older than they were. I'm the one who put them to sleep. I'm the one who did the homework with them. I'm the one who I don't know how you did it.

I do not know how you did it. To the point that when I got engaged. And was getting married. My siblings packed their bags.  They thought they were coming with me. Yeah, that's in the book too. They literally thought they were coming with me. And I, again, it's not hyperbole. They actually packed.  It didn't occur to them that they were.

When I was like, guys, no, I'm getting married and you're staying here. They went crazy.  I was their mom. I know. So I have raised 11 humans in my life. Exactly. I'm good. I'm good. Yeah. Yeah.  Yeah. Yeah. Now you never got an education. You really had zero education. So you literally go from the 1800s. Now the audience, we all know that.

What you were living and all of a sudden you're in the modern world. And I loved how you built that first shoe business, like how you were clever enough and you basically just, I don't know where it came from, but you developed a confidence in yourself. You had a faith, a belief in yourself. And at some point, like where people would like maybe question you like, well, what fashion Institute did you go to or whatever?

And. Didn't you just say something like I'm self taught, but like you always said everything with like integrity and authority and you just had so much confidence that everybody would just be like,  uh huh. Yep. Yeah. Like, yeah, yeah. Let's let's yeah. Well, we'll buy that confidence. I traveled and I survived and I said to myself, if I can travel  a couple of hundred years and I'm still standing a shoe brand. 

Why not? The minute that I survived the time travel, I literally felt like anything is possible, anything.  That's how I felt. And also I think  I am completely self taught, right? I read everything I could get my hands on. I am a  Eternal student. I am a I love to learn. I love to study and I think my elasticity of mind has been a tremendous help to me and that I don't get stuck on popular belief or this is how it's done.

I don't care. I don't care how it's done. I don't care what the world believes. If I lived in my world and cared what my world believe, I'd still be making shabbat dinner. And sad and miserable,  I believe in what I see with my eyes, what makes logical sense to me, what I know is true. And  that really stood me in great stead because I didn't know how crazy it was to start a shoe brand knowing no one.

And I was so ignorant that it seemed perfectly doable. And so I just went and did it.  That was it. I just like looking back now, like if I knew what I know now about what it takes to actually start a brand, I probably never would have started. Well, because to me, it was like, Okay, just try and travel a couple hundred years.

Hmm. I have this idea about shoes. That should be easy. Of course, I'm just going to go do it. That's how I saw it.  I also want to mention to everyone in the audience that Um, your parents cut you off a hundred percent and  all of your siblings who called you mommy and packed up when they thought they were moving in with you and you got married.

There's just one of your siblings. Is that correct? No, there's not any, not anymore. After the show came out, her community, your school gave her an ultimatum,  either denounce your sister or kicking your kids out of school. And she chose her community.  Hmm.  I mean.  That's that's the ultimate of bravery. It's just like, it's not their fault.

Look, here's the thing. You have to understand  my parents. They made that choice. It's a bit different, but my siblings really didn't. And that's the thing. Like, you have to understand they genuinely believe. Have been indoctrinated to believe that  being friends with me hanging out with me is dangerous for their souls They're not doing it to hurt me to get to harm me.

There's zero intent of unkindness This is what they actually believe you can't you can't blame them. They're not trying to hurt me They're really not no and my doors always open to them and I yeah  I freaking love them with all my heart and soul and I have zero anger, zero,  zero. My doors open. I understand where they're, I totally, I get it.

I was that. How can I be angry at a belief system that I believed?  I so understand it that it's again, there's no villains in my story, which is freaking amazing. Oh my gosh, I love it so much. So then let's talk about your kids because it's beautiful to watch the Netflix show and see this incredible bond and how much your children.

Like they literally will talk to you. They come to you for advice on anything and everything. Like nothing's off limits. You're oldest and her husband came to ask you about sex. They were like, we don't know what we're doing.  We just got married and it didn't happen because we didn't know what to do.  Oh, I love how transparent you guys all are.

It's just like,  just never lie to your kids.  That's my big rule. Never lie. And there's all these sweet lies that people think are okay. I mean, I don't want to mess with the Santa Claus thing because I'm not a Christian. But honestly, to me, my strong belief is don't lie to your children. You really shouldn't ever lie because the one time you do it, they'll never trust you to tell the truth again. 

And my kids, whenever they were young, and they asked a question that I honestly didn't think was appropriate to answer, I would literally say to them, I think you're too young, I'm not comfortable answering this question, come to me in six months, just don't lie. Because the day you do, they'll never forget it, and they'll never trust you to tell the truth again.

Don't lie to your children. Wow. It's amazing to me that you  were able to walk that tightrope and that your children adore you.  I am very blessed. I feel so grateful. I think as embarrassing as is to say, I think the biggest part of my parenting was when I was younger, I chronicled and journaled.  My childhood, right?

I wrote in my diary every day from the time I was probably  eight years old, and I would end every single year in a journal. With a reminder of what not to do to my children. Wow! And Miriam found the journals a few years ago, and she read them.  And she came to me and she's like, Ima, you actually kept those promises.

You never did any of those things to us. Wow. And that really was my parenting, was every time I wasn't sure what to do as a parent, I would think to myself, I mean, I know this is like, silly to say, but it worked. Think to myself, okay, what would my mother do?  And then I would literally do the opposite. Wow.

And it worked because we have a choice. We can either let our past define us. We can repeat our past and be the same kind of parents our parents were to us. Or if we suffer, we can use that to our advantage. To be the diametric opposite of what was done to us. We can use that as a lesson as to what not to do.

And I think that's why my children and I are such close friends is because I literally remembered what was done and I chose  constantly daily purposefully not to. Repeat those mistakes. I told my Children 500 times a day. I love you out loud. They screamed it out every morning before they went to school.

I said it to them at breakfast, at lunch, at dinner. I wanted them to know that my love was unconditional, that they could do anything. I would try and help them. I would try and fix it with them. I would try and help them do the right thing, but I would never judge them and I would never let it mess with my love for them because I never felt that I never felt unconditional love.

And I think every human being needs to know that they are loved just as they are right. The 2nd, they are loved. And I think if we can transmute that to our children, if we can pass that true, actual, love. 1 Love. And I, the other thing is I didn't have any preconceived notions of what my kids should be or what they should do.

I love that. My business.  By the way, like I adore your children. Obviously I've only seen them on reality TV, but all four of them are, they're so different and yet they're all such beautiful humans. And All their different ways. They're so different. And I let them be different. I didn't say, I want you to be a doctor and you should be a this and this is how we behave.

All I wanted was I wanted them to show me who they were.  And then my job as a parent was to help them blossom in that direction that they wanted to go and help them get there. That was my job as a parent. And so I never expected. Them to be anything. And so they got to be whoever they wanted. And they knew that whatever they were was exactly what I wanted them to be.

And my one thing with our own, as I always said to 'em, like, if you wanna become a rabbi, I will support you. Yeah, I will fund you. I just want you to have choices. I want you to educate yourself after that, your choice, your way, your own thing.  Learn first, study, open your mind and then do what you want to do.

So that's the only thing that to me, I've always stood very strong on education, education, education, education.  Yeah. Yeah. Like on the Netflix series, there's like a conversation where Arm's living with his dad and you're at the house and it's amazing how well you get along with your ex husband. It's amazing.

It's amazing. It's amazing. He's a great guy. As I said, he's No illus. He's not a villain. Yeah, no villains. Good guy. Yeah. Yeah. He really is. And, and he comes, he comes home from summer camp because he was like 14 at the time. And then he was like, okay, I'm not gonna, I'm gonna stop looking at girls like I'm not even gonna look at them.

I looked down on the street because he'd been in this very fundamentalist, like summer camp all summer, and you didn't realize how fundamentalist it was and you were like, oh, crap. It's like, oh my God, I sent him to this place, so I indoctrinated it. Yeah. And just. The way you handled that conversation with him, like was such grace and acceptance.

And I mean, it was, it was incredible. Yeah. Yeah. So with that being said,  I just want to say.  Thank you so much for taking the time today to share your incredible journey, because if you can overcome all the things that you've overcome, anybody can. I mean, you are the most incredible human I've ever met. I keep saying it, but  it's just, but you guys, you guys got to read her book, Brazen.

It's so, so good. And. And if nothing else, watch the Netflix series, which is more now about today. It's those after the fact, but  still really, really great and really insightful. And again, like what I said, like, I love the way you parent and I feel like a lot of people can learn from you. I want to end on just one note, which is, I know That I mean, you went from being extremely religious, right?

And now on the show, you basically said at one point, yeah, I'm not religious. And so my heart sank a little bit because I was like, Oh my gosh, does she not like she an atheist? And then I realized that you're not. And I read and I did more research and. Yeah. You basically believe the same thing that I do, which is that all forms of religion have a common thread of golden truths.

And so we don't, we don't have to be religious. We don't have to like follow a certain religion. We can still believe in that higher power. We can still connect, try to be the best human we can, but then we also need to be aware that if we choose to participate in a religion, to just be mindful and careful that.

There's always a chance that we could become quite fundamentalist. Yeah, that to me is the biggest danger. I mean, again, I don't want to ever denigrate anyone else's beliefs. I really don't. That is not my place. But I do want is  if these religions are there and they exist and people want to follow them.

Okay.  Don't.  Do cruelty in the name of God. Don't tell women that their only purpose in life is to be wives. I love being a mother. Greatest job of my life. That doesn't mean I'm only a mother. Doesn't mean I'm a woman. I have to be a mother. I think every woman is not just a woman. She's an individual. She's a human.

She's a soul. She has creativity and uniqueness. And I want every woman to feel free to have autonomy in their life. I'm Whether you're in a religion or you're not in a religion. I think we are all connected. I do believe in a higher power. I believe that there is unconditional love. I believe that there's this universe of energy that connects all of us.

And I know it sounds so weird, but I feel so close to  every woman that is suffering.  And I just, I have this dream of us.  I don't know. I mean, think about it. If the Muslim women of Afghanistan and the Israeli women and the Jewish women got together. Their enemy is the same enemy. Fundamentalist Islam is as much of an enemy to Muslim women as it is to Jews.

If we all got together and just said, no more fundamentalism. No more telling women, cover yourself. And I don't care to what level. The minute you tell a woman, cover,  it's over. Because that's just the beginning to the end.  I totally whether it's cover your elbows or cover your face or cover your body or don't sing or don't speak the minute you try to diminish a woman to make a man more comfortable.

Don't blame that on God. It's not God  or Allah or Jesus or anything else.  It's just fundamentalism, and it's wrong, and it is the destroying factor of our society, and if we don't stop it, if we can't find points of connectivity,  we're in big trouble, and I think it's going to be up to us women.  We've all suffered.

We got to get together and stand up against all this crazy and be like no more.  This is my dream.  Global female army of empowered women. Oh my gosh, Julia, you are a force to be reckoned with. And It will happen. It's just, it's just a matter of time and I mean, that's one of my messages too. And she's brave is we will never achieve equality until we start working together until we start uplifting each other, helping each other instead of criticizing or trying to one up each other.

And that's part of my message. That's why. I just keep it a hundred percent real too. I'm just like, whatever, like you might like me or like me. I don't care. I'm going to be me. Yeah. And your, your podcast is amazing. I know I did some research, obviously, before I came on. You've impacted a lot of women. I mean, your reach is.

Really impressive. So we need more of you. We need people teaching more of you. Let's clone, let's, let's clone each other.  Oh my God, Julia, this has been nothing short of amazing. Thank you. So, so much, because I know you have a million things going on every day in your life. And I so appreciate you sharing your wisdom and your message that needs to be heard all around the world.

I appreciate you. Really. Thank you.  Thank you for joining us on the She's Brave podcast with Christina Driscoll. I hope today's episode inspired you to embrace your courage and step boldly into your own journey. If you enjoy the show, we'd love to hear from you. Please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform.

Your feedback not only helps us improve, but also allows more braves. Souls like you to discover the show.  Don't forget to follow us on social media for updates and join our vibrant community. Connect with me on Instagram at She Brave Podcast, or check out my website at www.shebravepodcast.com.  If you're interested in learning more about podcasting, join my Facebook group, facebook.com/groups/podcast mastery journey.

Until next time. Stay brave, be bold and keep shining.