VoxVibe

Recho Omondi's Podcast 'The Cutting Room Floor' is Changing How We Talk Fashion

Recho Omondi was voted most outspoken her senior year. It's a fete the fashion designer and creator of her namesake Omondi brand says she was none too proud of when she was first crowned with the title by her Illinois high school peers, but it's a genuine trait that has essentially aided in her success.

"I remember being annoyed because to me it just meant that someone's a loud mouth, and I didn't see it coming. It wasn't something that was joked about [in school]," she told Newsweek's Ndelible. "So I was like, 'What's that supposed to mean?' Because I always thought I was just saying things that needed to be said, like common sense."

A degree from Savannah College of Art and Design and four Omondi collections later, the young, black and independent designer's candid and outspoken nature seems to be working in her favor.

It might be what caught the eye of actress Issa Rae, who donned Omondi's signature hand-stitched sweatshirt on Season 2 of HBO's highly popular Insecure. (Rae had the gumption to rock the tongue-in-cheek sweatshirt, which debuted in 2017 for Black History Month, but it was Omondi who had the ingenuity to make it).

Omondi's newest endeavor is her deliciously juicy and insightful podcast, The Cutting Room Floor, which launched on iTunes and SoundCloud in May.

Initially, Omondi, who is a follower of fashion news (she reads Business of Fashion every day), created the podcast for herself. "I got so tired of being like, 'I wish someone would just do this,'" she said. "I was just wanting a podcast that was a bit more down to earth. So I figured I'll just have to be the one to do it."

The platform has spawned into something bigger than just a way for her to express her thoughts about the ever-intimidating, all-too-stuffy and starkly white high fashion industry. Omondi's content on The Cutting Room Floor challenges the elitist and routine norms that have historically shaped fashion while raising questions of where the industry is headed as a whole.

Her debut episode, "Who Killed the Fashion Critic?," guest starred The Fashion Law founder Julie Zerbo and Emilia Petrarca of New York Magazine's The Cut. It tackled everything from unbiased and perspective industry commentary—or lack thereof—to the and loose and heavily aggregated reporting sometimes featured on fashion's most current and buzzy news sites.

The second episode, "Everybody Wants to be a Stylist," guest stared A$AP Rocky's stylist and Awge director Matthew Henson. It detailed the differences in styling men and women, establishing relationships with brands and what it actually takes to make a name for yourself in the business.

Through Omondi's naturally frank and inquisitive disposition, the hour-long show also serves as a teaching tool for fashion followers coming up in the game as well as those less fashionably inclined. "It's weird because fashion is one of those things that's a cornerstone of culture like music is, but it's not something that a lot of people know about," she said.

"Fashion still has a huge wall behind it. [Shoppers] can't name one manufacturer," she continued. "So I thought, well at least let's start talking about the things that I know and the things that I can call out as bullshit. It's a really diverse group of people that follow me and they won't understand how certain things work if someone doesn't actually keep it real with them."

While the expected release of Omondi's fifth collection is still TBD—she's awaiting her potential acceptance into the CDFA Vogue Fashion Fund—the third episode of her coveted podcast is on the way. The topic and guest(s) have yet to be revealed, but one this is for certain—it'll be unapologetic and hit the nail on the head of something that needs to be said to move fashion forward.

"I would love to just open up the conversation. That's why I called it The Cutting Room Floor because that's where the edits that don't make it are left behind," she said.

(Showcase Image Credit: Lars Niki/Getty Images)

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7r7HWrK6enZtjsLC5jqebnqSZl7mme9GemqGnXaS6sLrDoqpmqJ%2BZsKK%2F02aroZ1dmMK1wMinnmaqn6S6brLLqKarZZmoeqS0wKeeoqaXYrWww4ywnGaskaG4brLArJ%2Bip55ihng%3D

Larita Shotwell

Update: 2024-04-16