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Leandra Medine's ManRepeller website is known for its no-apologies, zero-f***s philosophy on living lifeâand wearing itâauthentically. And it's exactly that signature candor that's helped her to shape and build a model for the media empire of the future.
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00:01Welcome to Unstyled. I'm your host, Christine Barbrick, co-founder and global editor-in-chief
00:06of Refinery29. Each week, I invite a notable person to come in and talk with us as we explore
00:12the funny, inspiring, sometimes heartbreaking tales of life, work, and love, as told through
00:19the things that we wear. Back in 2010, a 21-year-old New Yorker, Leandra Medin,
00:30noticed a shift happening among her and her friends. Unlike their peers and the generations
00:36of women before her, they weren't getting dressed every day with the thought that they might capture
00:40a man's gaze, or would even want to. In fact, it seemed the opposite was true. Leandra and her
00:46friends were getting dressed for themselves, wearing things like acid wash harem pants and
00:50shoulder pads. No matter that regular guys didn't get it, or even felt repulsed by it, this is
00:56precisely when the term Man Repeller was born, and with it, a cultural phenomenon launched by
01:01Leandra that mixes up joy-inducing fashion, practical advice, neo-feminist ideals, and plenty
01:08of armed parties. Since her launch six years ago, millions of readers around the globe have flocked
01:13to Man Repeller's no-apologies, zero-fucks philosophy on living life authentically. And that's exactly what
01:20Leandra does too. Through her honesty, her personal convictions, and fearless sartorial pursuits,
01:26Leandra has grown Man Repeller from a blog to a millennial manifesto about the importance of
01:32expressing your true self, whether it be in ugly overalls or on the brink of a major breakup.
01:37Now, Man Repeller is a full-fledged lifestyle media brand with editors, designers, and strategists,
01:43bringing Leandra's original vision to life on a global scale. With a forthcoming shoe line in
01:49collaboration with Net-A-Porter, and design partnerships with Nina Ricci, Danny Jo, and
01:54Etra Cecil, Leandra continues to grow and expand. But she's also remained candid, and it's precisely
02:01that candor, an honest, funny, irresistible, sometimes abrasive voice, that has become her calling
02:08card in an industry just beginning to recognize the value of being real.
02:14Hi, Leandra.
02:15Hi, Christine.
02:16Thank you so much for being a guest on Unstyled today.
02:19Thanks for asking me to come on.
02:21So I wanted to talk a little bit about when we first met. And I remember a meeting that I
02:25had
02:25with you, and I remember what you were wearing. And you probably don't remember what you were
02:28wearing, because why would you? But I remember.
02:30I really remember that meeting, because I had stopped.
02:32We were at a coffee shop.
02:33I had stopped at this clothing store called Necessary Clothing on my way to meet you,
02:38and I was like, you're not going to believe it, but I'm pretty sure I just found a pair
02:42of Philip Lim shorts for $9.99 at Necessary Clothing.
02:45Interesting. I don't remember that part of our meeting.
02:48I remember it.
02:49Necessary Clothing.
02:50We met at Clementine, didn't we?
02:52Yes, we did. Yes, we did. At Cologne. We met at Cologne Coffee Shop. And you were wearing,
02:58I remember, you were wearing something of your mother's. You were wearing like a fur stole or something.
03:03I think it was, it might have even been your grandmother's. I'm not sure.
03:05No, it was amazing. And you were telling me about how you were living at home,
03:09and you and your now husband had just started dating again. And we were talking about the-
03:14Wow, I really got into it with you, huh?
03:16No, we were talking, we were getting to know each other, because I really wanted you to write for
03:19us, even though you were just starting to get busy, and things were starting to really
03:23accelerate around Man Repeller. But I think why I was so drawn to you, and why I still admire
03:29you so much, and obviously just like love hanging out with you, and we actually get like stolen
03:34moments, but is because of your voice. And I guess pre-dating Man Repeller, you had a blog
03:42when you were 20 years old called-
03:43I sure did.
03:44It's called Boogers and Bagels. And the byline read, just kidding, this has nothing to do
03:48with bagels.
03:52It's still on the internet, but it's been made private.
03:55So tell me about that time when you realized you had something to say.
04:01It's funny that you asked me that, because I was talking about this with someone on my team
04:06earlier today. And she asked if I felt, we were talking about street style, and she asked
04:11if I felt uncomfortable, knowing that if someone were wearing the same exact outfit that I'm
04:15wearing, the probability of their getting photographed by swaths of photographers was
04:20considerably smaller than the probability of my getting photographed. I said, no, it doesn't
04:24make me uncomfortable. I almost feel like, you know, those kind of people who after something
04:30happens in their life, and they feel like they've come into their own, like, I almost feel
04:34like becoming recognized and, and like internet famous makes me feel much more comfortable with
04:41my place in the world, because I always felt like I had something really important that
04:45was worth being heard. I always felt like that. And I used to act out and like lash out in
04:50ridiculous ways because I wanted to be heard, but nobody would listen. I feel really, really
04:54at ease and comfortable with my voice.
04:57With your first blog, you were living at home, and you have three brothers. And you lived at home
05:02until you were 23?
05:0422.
05:0422. So what about that time in your life felt like a rich opportunity for you to start talking
05:11about what was happening?
05:12Yeah, I was starting to feel more and more comfortable with my place in the world. I think
05:16that's really it. I had just gotten back from my semester abroad in Paris. And when I was in
05:21Paris, I was keeping a blog, and that was called Four Months in Paris. And I would just
05:24chronicle the time I was spending there. And I developed a readership beyond just my parents
05:29from home. And that was really interesting. And I'd been at school for writing, and it
05:34was so satisfying to self-edit, aka not edit at all, you know, and like write over misspelled
05:40words. Like, I spelled that wrong, not going to fix it. Moving on.
05:44I feel like you kind of still do that sometimes.
05:46I do. I do.
05:47You leave words out.
05:49It's all right.
05:50Because it's fun. It's silly. And it's not supposed to look perfect, especially not on
05:54social media. Or that's how I feel about the Man Repeller Instagram, at least, is like,
05:58let's show some real life on here.
06:01I think there's a level of spontaneity that's just really refreshing and really hilarious.
06:06Oh, that's so nice of you to say.
06:07When I launched Man Repeller, I was a junior in college, and I just started writing it because
06:12I was looking around one of my nonfiction classes one day, and I was thinking to myself
06:17that we were all going to be graduating together, and we were probably all going to be fighting
06:21for the same two reporting jobs that exist in media. I just wanted to work at a place where
06:27I could defy the odds of looking like a fashion girl who worked in fashion. You know, like fashion
06:33shouldn't make you feel like you are less than really smart. You're interested in fashion.
06:39Yeah, well, your interest in fashion is not supposed to minimize your intellect the same
06:44way that your disinterest in fashion doesn't mean you're not invited to participate.
06:48But so anyway, I started it because I wanted to hand it in with my resume when I applied
06:52for jobs. By the time I graduated, I had started monetizing on Man Repeller in a meaningful enough
06:59capacity that I didn't have to seek outside work. But it was always very honest and very real.
07:07There was no impetus to make it bigger. And there was no impetus to sound a certain way. I was
07:12truly
07:13just doing me, you know, so all of like the confidence stuff and make women feel good and
07:18dress like a crazy person if you feel like that's how you want to look. All of that was coming
07:23from
07:24inside. And I didn't even mean to do it.
07:26But do you think that that was always who you were?
07:30That was always who I was. But I think I spent a long time while my husband,
07:34Aby and I were broken up trying to fit into the box of like the woman that I thought he
07:40wanted to
07:40be with. And I'd become such a shell of a human who was so far removed from who I was
07:45that I was
07:45just like, fuck this. I'm going back to being me. And Man Repeller rolled up really beautifully.
07:51Exactly. Exactly. Oh, for those who are not able to see this, which is all of you, Christine just
07:59removed her upper lip. I pulled her smile. I pulled it back to reveal the I don't know why I
08:06do that.
08:07I don't know. But I like it when you do it over and over and over again on our Insta
08:12stories. And it
08:13just makes me laugh so hard. And just for everyone that's listening. And Elisa, I really hope you don't
08:18cut this out. But it's a really funny little gesture. She just sort of pulls back the her upper
08:26lip to reveal her her gummy smile. And but it's it's not a real it's a stoic smile. It's not
08:32really
08:32an enthusiastic smile. It's just very yes. Precisely. Exactly. That's my thing with jokes. I throw them
08:40until they stick and I will not let them die until one person laughs. I think another thing that's been
08:45interesting, an interesting parallel in our lives is that we've both been really open talking about
08:50our difficulties or our experiences trying to have children. I'm a woman in my 40s, and you're in
08:56your 20s. And we both had very different experiences. But I have to say when I listened to Leandra's
09:01podcast called Monocycle, and listening to you share in such a personal space, it was quiet, it was
09:09private. And there was such a sense of intimacy, you know, with you talking to me and to all of
09:13your
09:13listeners about getting the results back from your recent IVF. I would love to hear from you. Like,
09:20why did you feel like you wanted to share that? First, I was only going to share that if I
09:25was
09:25sharing it in real time. So my doctor called me, it was like four o'clock in the afternoon, I
09:30was
09:30sitting in that little park on Kenmore Street by Lafayette. And I was waiting for the call. And she
09:36called and I was so sure that she was going to tell me I was pregnant because she had told
09:39me that there
09:40was almost no way I wasn't going to be pregnant. She's like, there is there's nothing medically
09:45wrong with you. Like, you're responding really well to the medication. We got so many eggs off
09:51your ovaries, so many of them fertilized, so many of the embryos fertilized. Like, because I asked if
09:57we should put back two. And she was like, absolutely not.
09:59And you and your husband had been trying for about two years?
10:02Yeah, well, I hadn't gotten a natural period in about two years. So I don't even know if it's fair
10:07to
10:07call it trying because you have to be ovulating to try. But anyway, so she called and she was like,
10:12hi, you're not pregnant. I like really quickly got off the phone. I said, okay, thank you very
10:16much. What are next steps? And she was like, well, you can start taking the Lupron again,
10:20and we can go in for the next transfer. And I was like, let me sleep on it. I could
10:24not imagine going
10:24back on those hormones. I had been like, well, I mean, I was still taking the antibiotics and the
10:30steroid. But I think in the last like two or three days, I was just on the progesterone. And it
10:34felt so
10:35good not to be taking a steroid. I got off the phone was not crying. I called AV, my husband.
10:41And I
10:41was like, hey, we're not pregnant. And then I started hysterically crying. And I got really mad. And I
10:46got mad at him. And I was like, how could you make me do this? And he was like, what?
10:50And I was like, I
10:51have to go. And I started feeling terrible for all of the people I know who've gone through
10:55miscarriages. I'm like, how could you actually have this embryo in your stomach this like
11:00little I was literally talking to nothing in my uterus, you know, and so to know that something
11:05is in there, and then to not have it anymore, one day, it's very, very difficult. I started getting
11:11upset at my uterus. And I felt really bad about myself. And like, my purpose in the world was
11:17being questioned. And I knew that if I had waited even 24 more hours and recorded the episode the
11:22next morning, it wouldn't have been the same. And while I was still so foggy and so scared,
11:26I had to talk about it. Because what we find is that people are always sharing the plight of their
11:33lives after they've come out of it. And I don't understand why nobody shares it while they're in
11:38it. Specifically, because as humans, when we are in our most vulnerable positions, we are also our most
11:45honest. And that was that's something that's really, really important for me not, not even just
11:51because I want to share honesty and see how people react to it, but because I need to hear it.
11:58Sometimes
11:58I listen to that episode also, just because I remember that at the end of it, I did feel this
12:05like very strange twitch of hope. And sometimes I listen back just to hear it again. The series of
12:11emotions that you that you feel when I listen to you in that moment, it's really powerful. I think that
12:17when I was going through all of my miscarriages, I didn't, I couldn't find anything anywhere about
12:22any woman that I could relate to that talked about what it was like in the middle of the experience.
12:27It was always after she'd had a healthy baby, or a family had a healthy, you know, had this great
12:32family that they talked about this, you know, this hardship that they had had. I wasn't in that place
12:38yet. So I couldn't really relate to what that was going to be like, because I didn't know if it
12:42was
12:42going to happen for me. I think there is something similar in the tone of that episode for you,
12:49because you can tell that you just heard it. Yeah, you just got that you were still processing
12:55that information. Yeah, I was a little hysterical. I heard it in my voice. When I listened back,
12:59I was like, you're 27. You and your husband want want a big family. Yeah, we want an ass load
13:05of kids.
13:06You want an ass load of kids. I want to like fill a minivan with kids.
13:09Part of what makes this whole process challenging is that you have so many different opinions from
13:15doctors and people who have been through it and people who have had success stories and people
13:19who haven't. What do you want women who read Man Repeller to learn from you sharing these experiences?
13:26That it's okay to talk if you feel like you have something to say. As women, we get so caught
13:32up in
13:32the shame of not being able to do things or of doing things. And with Man Repeller and with Monocycle,
13:40the most important thing for me is to create a very healthy and comfortable environment where women
13:45feel good and interested and excited to share. I know that sometimes when I talk to my mom about
13:53her life and she had a fairly challenging childhood. So she was born in Iran, then fled,
14:01went to Italy. Her dad lost everything. They went to Israel. She lived in like a tiny basement
14:07apartment in Bat Yam, which is like a decrepit part of Israel, kind of close to Tel Aviv.
14:14And then she came here and met my dad and she lost her parents really quickly after she met my
14:18dad and
14:18then they got married. And my dad's parents were like very fancy Turkish European people who like
14:24wanted nothing to do with this new daughter-in-law of theirs. And my dad was 23 years old when
14:30they
14:30got married and she got pregnant immediately. And she went through a lot. And my dad is a wonderful,
14:35wonderful guy. And he, by the way, he's the one who like pushed me to launch Man Repeller. And when
14:40I
14:40was growing up and the norm was for women to like not even really go to college and just get
14:46married and
14:46be housewives, that's like a very Middle Eastern mentality or was a very Middle Eastern mentality.
14:51And my dad was like, that's that's just not my daughter. And it's not going to be my daughter.
14:55And he did whatever he had to, to make sure that whatever dreams I had would be actualized and
15:00realized. But again, he was a 23 year old man with like a hot 22 year old wife who got
15:07really fat when
15:08she was pregnant, which is beautiful in its own right also. But my mom didn't feel beautiful.
15:13And we were talking about this experience one time. And she was like, you know, I really needed
15:18a place like Man Repeller. Those were really, really difficult years for me. And it occurred
15:22to me then that that is exactly what I wanted to create. I am definitely a natural born sharer.
15:29I like to share experience generally, good, bad, whatever. I'm not a private person. So when my mom was
15:36telling me about that instance, I was like, that's that's actually what I mean. I'm sharing this because I
15:40think it's important for you to know not because I want you to feel sympathy for me. It's really,
15:45really difficult. And whenever I learned that someone is about to start the process,
15:48I give them my number. And I say, you let me know if you need anything. I mean, to the
15:54point where
15:54some readers have direct messaged me on Instagram on my personal account, and we have developed like
16:00really strong rapports. I just gave one of my doctor appointments to one of them literally like
16:04yesterday. That's amazing. Yeah, it is amazing. It's really special. It's really important. And I know
16:09that I needed it when I was going through it. So I hope that I can give it to other
16:12people.
16:20I want to come back to voice Man Repeller is a business. It's a company. It's a business.
16:25How do you describe it as a business? Man Repeller is a community. It is definitely a media brand as
16:30it stands right now. But at the crux of Man Repeller is this community of fiercely intelligent
16:35people who are just interested in talking to each other. And no topic is off limits for intellectual
16:40dissection. And being interested in fashion doesn't make you an idiot the same way that not
16:44being interested in fashion doesn't exclude you from the conversation. Agreed. I don't it's just
16:49it's a cool place to hang out. It's where I would want to hang out. Oh, I do hang out
16:55there.
16:56Well, in terms of how you're scaling the company, you haven't taken any funding.
17:00Tell me about like what your role is in the company now and how that's kind of impacting
17:04your life. I'm trying to release myself from the day to day operational CEO ish stuff.
17:13I think that I'm a strong like business and creative strategy mind. And I believe that to
17:19be extremely true. I think it's always been true. I'm really bad with details. I'm in a position
17:26where I'm privileged enough to have started this company and can therefore make my role
17:30whatever I want it to look like. You know, I'm doing the stuff that I really love. And
17:34sometimes it's kind of menial because it's just as simple as like styling a sponsored post
17:39or putting clothes on myself. And then other times it's much headier, like figuring out the
17:44business strategy for what our future pop up is going to look like, or figuring out like
17:50how we're going to monetize some version of a print man repeller, things like that.
17:55It's really, really fun for me to think big picture. I don't like getting caught up in the
17:59now.
18:00These kinds of big life moments give you a really necessary clarity in kind of checking
18:07yourself. For someone who is going through a big change in their life, what do you think
18:12is the best advice in terms of how to use clothing as a tool?
18:18I thought you were going to ask for my advice and I was going to say journal, journal, journal,
18:23write everything that you're feeling down, no matter how silly. But so here's the thing
18:28about clothes to answer the question.
18:30As a tool for growth, take the time to think about the woman you want to be. And I'm not
18:37going to say dress for the woman you want to be, but I am going to say take the time
18:40to
18:40think about when you feel like the best version of yourself. Try to metabolize what it is you're
18:45wearing when you feel like that person and put those fucking clothes on and don't take
18:49them off until you can do it naked, meaning be happy.
18:52I love that. Thank you, Leandra, for being a guest on Unstyled. I loved having you. I hope
18:56you'll come back.
18:57I loved being here. I'll come back tomorrow if you want.
18:59Okay, good.
19:00I hope you're inspired after hearing Leandra Medin's story. For even more Unstyled extras,
19:06check out Refinery29 or my Instagram at Christine Barbrick. You can also join the conversation
19:11using the hashtag Unstyled across your social media. And of course, we'd be super grateful
19:16if you'd please subscribe to Unstyled on iTunes and rate us while you're there. You can head to
19:20refinery29.com to find this episode and more and make sure to sign up for our exclusive Unstyled
19:26newsletter delivered straight to your inbox every week. Our show today was produced and edited by
19:30Elisa Kreisinger with production assistance from Rebecca Easley for Refinery29. Copy and research
19:36support provided by Lila Brilsen. Our theme music today is by the artist Koff. Hannes Brown produced our
19:42episode music and we recorded Unstyled with Paul Ruist. We'll see you back here next Monday for a
19:47conversation with Ashley Graham on revolutionizing the female form.