Episode 186: The Legacy You Leave Starts with How You Show Up | Tracy Christian | Founder of Sante Grace
For Tracy Christian, fashion is about power, visibility, and legacy. A legendary Hollywood talent agent and the founder of the fashion house Sante Grace, Tracy is on a mission to help plus-size women show up as boldly as they feel. She shares how she built her own line from scratch, why self-love is the ultimate emancipation, and what it means to lead with integrity in an industry that wasn’t built with you in mind. This is a conversation about fashion, confidence, entrepreneurship, women empowerment, and the ripple effect of choosing to do it your way. Tracy opens up about her career, her values, and how she’s making it easier for the next generation of Black women to be seen, heard, and celebrated.
“One day I won’t be here. What value did I leave behind? How did I make it easier for the next generation? Part of my obligation, especially in entertainment, is to be visible, to show other women and black women that you can operate a business of this level and with integrity. ”
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Outliers - book
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Follow along using the Transcript
Chapters:
00:00 Emancipating women through fashion
02:04 Growing up as a bigger person in a beauty-obsessed world
05:10 Building a career in entertainment as a Black woman
08:20 The problem with availability in plus-size fashion
11:30 Why she started designing her own clothes
13:00 The meaning of luxury for women of size
15:20 How fashion became part of her activism
18:30 Clothing as armor—and as freedom
20:45 Pivoting into fashion while still thriving in entertainment
24:15 Lessons from representing Jeremy Piven and iconic bands
27:00 Designing for the women Hollywood forgets
30:10 The importance of female mentorship
32:30 What visibility really means in business
35:00 Her framework for legacy and impact
38:00 The power of doing it your way and still being invited to the table
40:30 Final advice on leadership, community, and being bold
I get to go to Cannes, I get to go to all of these great film festivals, and I didn't wanna show up on a red carpet wearing stretch pants or a polyester suit, right? I wanna look like everybody else. And I wanted to look powerful and more importantly than even how I looked, how I wanted to feel.
That's Tracy Christian and this is The Powerful Ladies Podcast.
Hey guys, I'm Kara Duffy, a business coach and entrepreneur on a mission to help you live your most extraordinary life. By showing you anything is possible, people who have mastered freedom, ease, and success, who are living their best and most ridiculous lives and are making an impact, are often people you've never heard of until.
There are times when you see a woman and you know instantly she's a powerful lady. The clues are in her confidence, her body language, and often what she's wearing. For many plus size women, finding the clothes to show up looking as powerful as they felt has been a challenge. That's what's inspired Tracy Christian, a mega successful talent agent, to create her own fashion house ante grace.
In this episode, we discuss how everyone deserves to look great. The power of being your own advocate. How anything you want in life is just a game waiting for you to play and that the life you want is waiting for you to come and get it.
Tracy, I'm very excited to talk to you today. Welcome to The Powerful Ladies Podcast.
Hello. Thank you for having me.
Let's jump right in and tell everyone your name, where you are in the world, and what you're up to.
My name is Tracy Christian. I'm in Los Angeles, California. And although it says it's only 85 degrees, why does it feel like it's 180 5?
It
really does today.
Yeah, it's hot as HE double hockey sticks today. I am glad I'm not the only one.
No and I keep, getting news updates on my phone about how the rest of the country and the world. Is hanging out at a cool one 10 today. And I'm like, I cannot imagine if this is what 85 feels like today.
I cannot imagine what one 10 feels like in other parts of the world.
Yeah. There's something about the quality of the heat. Yes. That has changed, and I don't know enough about global warming and thermodynamics or whatever, but definitely something is different in the last 20 years.
But that's something for another podcast, A powerful woman who understands whatever, that the science would be.
You are here today because my sister Jordan got to meet you in person and she was like, you have to talk to this amazing woman. She's a powerful lady. She's great.
Her brand's great. So what is your brand and what makes it so special?
Are you talking about my brand Ante Grace? Yes, I am. Oh,
Ante grace, where do I even start? Like it, it's about emancipating women and I know, like we hear that all, we've been locked up and tied down so long that there are a lot of different brands that say that. My experience growing up as a bigger person, but I was always taller than everyone I developed before.
Everyone also, where I grew up, I was often the only person of color. And always being someone who was different. And one of the ways that it manifests in my life was, I just want it to look like everybody else. I just wanted to have the same experiences as everyone else. But you can't, when you're, in sixth grade and you're five seven, and you can't, or at least now you don't have the same experience as everyone when you are a size 26.
And I just wanted to end the crying in the fitting room.
Yeah.
I wanted, in the same way that my friends who are a size four or six, they look in Vogue Magazine and they're like, oh my gosh, that's beautiful. Or, they see a film and the bride is beautiful and they get to look like that.
People who are my size historically have not, and I said I have money. I can solve that.
Yeah.
That's what my brand is about.
Yeah. And you declare it as a accessible luxury brand plus clothing. Yeah. And I think having accessible and luxury next to each other is not something that's often seen.
What do those two words mean to you?
Look accessible. Luxury. Ultimately for me, luxury means being able to have what you want. Yeah. Not what's available, not what people advise you, you should have or whatever it's being able to have and look the way you want. And that's the option that we.
At go to women and we say, this is not gonna be the place where, you know this, you have yet another polo shirt. This is a place of fantasy and whim. If we do a polo shirt, it's gonna be made out of cashmere when we do, a wrap skirt, which is a very simple design, it's made out of, fine linen.
It's a place of kind of whimsy. So we keep it on, we keep the price point accessible. We keep, and it's accessible 'cause it's also on social media. It's not. A rarefied world where only a handful of people have access to the brand or even know that it exists. So as much as luxury can be, we're populous.
We're saying, everybody come in, everyone enjoy. And in the same way that we want great things for our friends and family, the ultimate way that you emancipate yourself and you take care of yourself, love yourself. Yeah. Every day that you walk outside, love the way you look.
And that's something that all people of all walks of life struggle with at such, both shallow and deep levels.
And I think it's one of those sneaky things where okay, I've broken through that, and then a life event happens and you're like, dammit, I have not conquered that at all.
Yeah. It sneaks up on you.
It does. In addition to looking great, what are you doing to remember how amazing you are?
Oh my gosh. That is a, that's a fantastic question and really no, and it really shows your humanity if nothing else. So thank you for that. It's a deep question. So really like during the pandemic, these were like the most tumultuous two years. Yeah. So we had. A number of people of color that didn't survive their interactions with police.
We had, January 6th, we had the Trump, wherever land on the side, the Trump presidency. We had, there was so much going on and then people were not just getting sick. People were dying in this pandemic. And I think all of us unfortunately, have been touched by it.
We have a friend or, it was a crazy time, but here's what I took out of it. I said, this is a, if I survive this or one, my number one job was to survive the pandemic, but when you survive, you don't want to come out of it. The same person you went into it.
Yeah.
And I took out I know this is gonna sound so seventies, so t.
That I am. Okay. So the way I lived my life before the pandemic was. Always trying to do not just a good job, but a great job and never being satisfied with my efforts. If I was the kid that, if I got an A, why didn't I push myself to get an a plus? And if I got an A plus, what can I get beyond that?
Why did I even, that there had to be so it was I could never gratify myself, nevermind what other people thought of me. I was never happy with myself. And today, and it's a, it's like I'm an aa 'cause I practice this, not just day by day. I literally practice it minute by minute that I have to continually tell myself that, Tracy, look at your track record.
You show up. You always do your best. You do the research, and what you do is good. It is good enough. Stop beating up yourself. You don't become. Any better, any more proficient, by beating up yourself. In fact, you diminish yourself. That's a practice that I have every minute of every day. I have those negative tapes running through my head like a lot of us do, and it's a fight.
Not to have them never, I don't even know how to shut them off, but not to have them be the focus of my day.
Yeah. Yeah. And there's a lot of effort that goes into telling that boys to shut up. And and my Thrive membership, which is all female entrepreneurs, like group coaching we were talking about this one day and one of the women says, oh, I call that voice Fran, and I'll say, fuck you, Fran.
And then I got married, and that's my mother-in-law's name. So I had to rename Fran, but secretly I'm always calling her Fran.
Yeah.
It's like that is amazing, but it's so true. That's a great story. We have to say, fuck you, Fran, some days because. We know it. Like even the voices that say the worst things to us, they're, they are coming from a place of wanting to protect us of survival.
And they're just stuck on the dark side of fear. And it's no, it's okay. We don't need to, I don't need voices from that side today. Thank you. Show up when I'm in the woods and it's a bear coming, but today, no, I'm good.
You, I realize I made a change because I watch a show called, I, there's just two shows I love.
One's called Naked and Afraid, and the other one is alone, right? Where they just drop someone both
petrifying Uhhuh,
right? So there's one show where, this guy is dropped in an inhospitable environment and there's bears, there's grizzly bears everywhere, and he's trying to avoid the grizzly bears, obviously, and not let the grizzly bears eat his food.
And I said, hunt the grizzly. Why aren't you hunting the grizzly? And I was like, oh yeah, that's such a Tracy thing to say. That's such a Tracy thing,
just become the alpha,
right? Oh, just take out this 600 pound apex predator with what?
Yeah. With wit and knowledge and determination.
Yeah. I would be the p person who hunted the grizzly, killed the grizzly, and been like, it's not good enough.
This is this is enough meat for me, but not the crew.
You
failed again, Christian.
Oh my goodness. It, we are such our worst enemy sometimes. It's amazing.
And where do we get that from? Why is it so universal? Why do you find so many successful people? I used to believe that it kept me sharp.
But it didn't, it really was diminishing me and making it harder for me to be excellent. Where do we get that and why do we keep it,
This is something that I have asked myself a lot because I'll go through phases where. I'm in that competitive space and I'm really energized and making things happen and like I, I feel empowered by it.
And then I'll go through another phase where I should be doing more rest and relaxation. And that voice is you're being lazy. You're being lazy. And I'm like, shut up. And so I think for me it's a work in finding when to lean into it and when not to, because there are just, sometimes I feel like I am, I have a hard time connecting with people who aren't seeking more and who are satisfied.
Also because of, my story of what satisfied means and I'm like, is that like really that's what you're gonna choose, like as good enough? Like you, whether you deserve more or you're capable of more, as a coach, I get, I have to really separate my own personal feelings about what is enough for other people because.
I'm always like, yeah, but it's this close. Or you could just do this and then you'd have this. And they're like, yeah, but I don't want that. And I'm like that's no fun. I'm gonna go find someone else to play. What, tell me how you define an
ano. Like success?
Yeah. 'cause I think
you're a lot like the people I hang out with.
I do think it's a very personal thing. And per, for me personally, success is always about how am I finding enough optimization in the spaces that I care about. Like, when I coach people I have this eight spheres of success that we use as a measuring tool. And so half of it has ones that come from other ed books and leaders in this space about common ones like career and business, relationships, love, money and finances, health and wellness, like those are the common four.
But I know for myself and a lot of people I work with, we also need. A self-expression bucket. We need a learning bucket. Are we being curious? Do we have playtime? Because I know that all the common four, I'm pretty good at having a to-do list for the other four are what really fill me up and I tend to sacrifice for the other side.
So really trying to balance those values and what does thriving for me look like? But I'm constantly writing that down so I know, because I do think there's power in using a very alpha kind of male process to make sure achievement happens. Once it's written down, how do I go back into a more relaxed feminine space?
But I think that there's just sometimes you can see from the outside people who say they're happy, you're like. I you're saying you're happy and people who act happy tend to act different than you are. Maybe that's something we can talk about. So that's usually where I'm looking to push people instead of, making a million dollars instead of $250,000 a year.
I don't, that's less of an indicator for me, even though I also know the difference between those two is actually very small from an effort perspective, if you want it.
Sure.
But that's my, it's like
selling houses. Same effort to sell a hundred thousand dollars house as a million dollar house.
Yes.
Yeah. So that's usually what I'm looking at. Is any of that makes sense to you?
All of that makes sense.
Yeah. Where did San Grace come from? Were you working in fashion and apparel before you started this? Was it brand new to you? What's the origin?
Yeah. So the, or it starts with my grandmother.
I don't know if I told you guys this story. So my grandmother is from Chattanooga, Tennessee, and got married, prohibitively young as they used to do in those days. And, like at 25 years old, found herself like with five kids and in a bad marriage and what have you. And she just didn't know how to extricate herself, so she was praying about it and she had a confrontation with her husband, and she told him, she pointed to one of the kids and said, you see him as soon as he's able, he's potty trained. I'm leaving you. And her husband laughed in her face and said, you don't have an education. You're nobody. Yeah.
Where are you going? And to a degree, he was right. There weren't the same level of social services and society was like, yeah. If your husband cheat on you and still comes home, you're lucky. Yeah. And you're this uneducated black woman in the deep south, sit down, shut up, take care of your kids.
And she just, she didn't know what to do. So she was at church and there was a, she calls her stout. There was a maybe it was the pastor's wife or a woman in the church who was complimenting my grandmother on her dress. And my grandmother was really tiny, like five one. And she said, oh, grace you wear these great clothes.
I wish I could dress just like you. And my grandmother said you can dress like me. I made this dress. I didn't buy it. I'll just make you one. I have some extra fabric. And so she made the dress and brought it to the church, and the woman paid her for it and said, I love the dress. And and then when the woman wore the dress to church, more women asked about, where'd you get this dress?
Oh, I got it from Grace. And so she started this kind of sewing business and didn't realize she, it hit her one day oh, I'm making money. Yeah. And she saved the money, literally putting it under her mattress. And one day her husband came home and there were divorce papers sitting on the, banquette and she'd packed up the kids and found a house in New Jersey and said, bye-bye.
Wow.
And so she raised me with this notion of, being independent. And always, having your own resources. And my grandmother was the person who taught me to sew and we would she would make herself address and then we would make one in my size. So we were twinsies and then we, yeah.
And we'd make one for my Barbie doll, or my little doll. So that was my first role. That was hardly fashion, that was like entry level sewing. And then I think just like a lot of women, I like clothes, I like fashion, I liked the gossip about different designers and, but I never worked in the fashion industry beyond working in the mall or working at a clothing store.
And then I worked for a converter like a textile mill. So I learned a lot about the composition of textiles and dying and things like that. And then I always wanted a clothing line. I thought, I designed, I couldn't find the clothes that I wanted for my career. I'm a talent agent and.
I have a great life, like the rest of the world is watching the Oscars and I'm there. Yeah. I get to go to Cannes, I get to go to all of these great film festivals, and I didn't wanna show up on a red carpet wearing stretch pants or a polyester suit. I wanna look like everybody else and I want it to look powerful and more importantly than even how I looked, how I want it to feel.
Yeah.
And it's also a weird dichotomy where you're like negotiating a multimillion dollar deal for someone and you can't find close the fit, like just clothes that fit. You can't find a suit. I'm forever showing up in leggings and a nice sweater, with a $10,000 handbag.
I wanted to look the way I wanted to look the
way you felt.
The way I felt about myself. Absolutely. So I started designing my own clothes. I found a seamstress and started designing my own clothes, and I got lot compliments and I thought, oh, I should start a clothing line. But that was like, 25 years ago.
And there wasn't the technology where you could do this kind of thing on the fly. And then when the pandemic hit, literally like at three o'clock in the morning, there was a voice that just said, start your clothing line.
I love when that happens.
I love, right? So Parsons was online, so I got into Parsons and I started attending Parsons online at the same time starting.
A clothing line and develop developing a collection. Yeah. That's a long, that's the truth of it.
No, but I love it. There's the fact that the fashion industry has been around since humans started putting anything on their body, and it really isn't an industry that works the way that it should. Any woman who buys clothes off the rack, it is a miracle if it fits you the way it should having a tailor in your back pocket for women who don't unlike get one.
Clothing is about humiliation. Even if you're a size four. Yeah. No, literally like in my business, I won't name the names, but I've represented some beautiful women who to us all, you look at them and you're like, they have a beautiful figure.
Yeah. Doing Pilates every day and my job is to say okay, we're a padded bra when you go to this meeting with Leo. And they're like, what? I graduated from tit. It's not about that. The character has to like nobody's body is perfect. Nobody's body is perfect. And when you walk into, in the old days, Barney's, sax Fifth Avenue, the designers let you know that these male designers, they have something in their mind and that's what they design.
And generally you don't look good in it or fit it without some shushing.
Yeah. And I think that's part that we don't talk about the ing enough like women to woman. We don't, because, I'm not from California, but I've lived in Orange County six years now in LA or California for 10. And moving to California, Southern California.
I had gone out to dinner with a cousin who's really like my dad's cousin and his, at the time, wife, who was very much you would expect from a stereotypical orange county. Wealthy woman, like had work done, was petite. Like she knew all the things and she's we're gonna have to give you a California makeover guy.
And I was like, what? She's
killer Botox.
Yeah. I was like, part of me was like, tempted to be like, okay, what's on that list? But I was just like, I'm good. But it's so interesting to know that no matter where you are in the world, there are these things that women are doing that are allowing them to look great.
Whether it's, just simple things like wearing sunscreen and going to bed early to, you're like. Wait, how old are you? How did you make that happen? It's thanks and nobody
Exactly right. Nobody tells men like, you need your full eight hours or use salicylic acid or, yes. Yeah. They get to just show up in the wor look. And I'm sure they have their thing too, a bit. But they get to just show up in the world. World. Yeah. I love going to the beach in Europe. 'cause there are these like gorillas on the beach. Like you can't even see the banana hammock they're wearing because their stomach is covering their genitalia and this is hair and it's gray.
Like all. And they are fine. They're fine. They're like, I belong. I fit in. Thank you. And they're swimming and they're living life and all of this. Yeah. And then there's some woman who's like a size eight who's wondering if she is allowed to wear a bikini. Yeah. Are you insane? Yeah.
I don't know. Like those are the things that we have to change
it. We do. And I think it's also it's to remember to share that information, but also not to be afraid to ask. I think also in entrepreneur circles or even in professional circles, we get, it's a no-no to ask what are you charging?
Or what are you making? And we had a whole workshop for creatives.
And
everyone agreed we're gonna talk about what we're charging. Because the more you know, the more you can do something with it. Either figure out how to make your services worth that, or is it a money conversation with yourself or just to know that the woman next to you is making double for no other reason than because she asked.
And it's there's just these things that shouldn't be taboo to talk about. If it's making everyone happier, more successful, more fulfilled, and we don't need to. Not we don't need to keep it to ourselves because
why? 'Cause we're afraid, we don't wanna we don't wanna make waves.
Again, the pandemic has actually been, excellent for me. Now I feel like I really show up in my life and I'm honest, and I ask questions that I never did before, and I do my best and I recognize, and I'm like, oh, that's great. Yeah. I'm happy with myself and what could we do if girls started out, like at eight years old, if we could, like as soon as we were hitting puberty or 13 or whatever, if we could feel that way about ourselves if they didn't look at, a Britney Spears and like why is it my stomach concave?
Yeah. It, someone was asking me recently who I admired growing up from a female perspective, and I realized. All of my female heroes as a kid were fictional characters. And I didn't even realize it because I'm like, I just didn't think about it at the time.
And I was like, oh, babies, there's Club and Nancy Drew and Jim and the hologram, like they all happen to be teenagers running businesses. So it's no surprise what I'm doing today, but I was like, oh, those weren't real people. They occurred to me at the time. It was very real. But so it's so interesting when I'm asking, and I'm gonna pivot this question back to you.
Besides your grandmother or in addition to who were women that have inspired you or mentored you or helped you along your journey?
Oh, interesting. So definitely my grandmother. I'm very fortunate. I have a very loving, nurturing present family. So all of them, but so my grandmother and in, sixth grade, Mrs. Trouten, my teacher's in the gifted program. And she was just a person that made you feel seen and smart. And that was a good thing. That it was a good thing to be a girl who maybe talked too much Yeah. Or read too much or had too many opinions. Don't pipe down.
Yeah.
It's okay. So Mrs. Trouten, and I know I'm probably gonna miss people 'cause nobody's ever said that in life to me. Another woman,
I dunno, maybe, my mom. Yeah. I dunno. But my grandmother really stands out because life what's that? What's that movie? A Beautiful Life.
Yeah. That's a, you remember
many years ago won an Oscar. And the reality was they were in a concentration camp. And, probably gonna be killed.
But the narrative that character created for his son, like that they found joy wherever they were. And my grandmother was that kind of person. So I never realized, it wasn't until I was an adult that I realized oh, she didn't have much of an education, or she somehow put people through college and bought a house by being a bathroom attendant, like the lowest of the low.
That doesn't sound good for me to say, but, not a fancy job at all. And and just always was a person like so full of hope and joy and love.
Yeah.
And I, that just takes so much character.
How did you become a talent agent?
It's a dirty story.
Now you have to tell it when you start that way.
A dirty story. It's a dirty story. So I was a groupie.
And when I came home from being on tour, I exhausted my college trust fund and couldn't move home. So I had to support myself and I had to finish school.
So I started like a really schlocky modeling agency to put myself through school. But we made money, I made money. And I went to a fairly expensive college and paid for everything and supported myself. And one day I was speaking to a guy named John Singleton going, went on to become, really well known director and my friend Joseph Doherty, who's an acclaimed writer.
And I said to them. What do you guys think I should do for a living? Like this modeling thing is not for me. I feel like one step removed from being a pimp. Like as soon as I finish school, I'm out of this. And John said, yeah, you should either be a madam or an agent
because they're all just one degree away.
Yeah. They're just one degree. Same job. So I didn't wanna go to jail I let him set me up at a meeting of his agency and in my mind, agents were all, it was like the Ari Gold character Yes. In Entourage and funny, I ended up representing Jeremy Biven amazing for a number of years.
But that's what being an agent was, and I didn't look like that at all. I had blue hair and I was black and I, like this rocker chick. But when I went on the interview and I heard what the agent had to say. Something struck a chord. And I ended up, I got a job in the industry and I can remember my first week there, when you have a position you're like, I love this.
Yeah.
I like it fit.
Yeah,
it fit somehow instinctually I knew what to do, where to go. And then, I have a very strong work ethic. So I, I read every book that I could get my hands on, fictional nonfiction about the industry. I was the person, I think I was making $400 a week, and still I, was going out to lunch every day with people and I would just cold call, like I'd read an article, someone would be interviewing Ron Meyer.
Who was the head of you? He was a, was he still an agent at CAA or was he at NBC then? I can't remember. And he would say oh yeah, I wanna be supportive of young people. And I would just cold call him, Hey, let's go to lunch. I'll take you to the ivy. And he is who's this person?
Don't worry about who I am.
I'll spend my whole paycheck. No big deal. Let's do it.
Yeah. Yeah. And I would my credit was horrible then. 'cause I would, I just invested everything
in yourself.
Yeah. I put it all on the table and it paid off. That's how I became an agent.
I love that. No it's, there's moments in life when you know, and I really appreciate that your story keeps bringing up these moments when you knew like it was time to start the clothing business.
This was the role for you. Yes. Call that person, is that listening to yourself? Is that something that. You were? Is that how you were born? Is that what you've worked on? How have you had the courage and maybe sometimes the audacity to be like, I can do it. Let's try it.
You ask very good questions.
They're very deep. I want it to be very linear and you are just digging in there and I am like, I'm not giving, usually I can speak in sound bites. I feel like I'm all over the place. I don't know how this is gonna be edited. You're doing amazing. Yeah. Look, thankfully because I had a family that loved and nurtured me.
I trusted my gut. Yeah. I trusted my gut. And even when I was afraid, like my first real estate transaction, it was a house. I bought an apartment building and I, other than reading a bunch of books about real estate, I didn't know what I was doing, but I thought to myself, other people have done it.
Yeah. If I mess up, let's say I lose the house, I lose the building. Other people have done it. It's okay. I i'm not Henry Kissinger negotiating whether or not, we go to war with Russia, it's okay, nobody will die here. Yeah, I just, I I would say, oh, there's something that I wanna do and I would reverse engineer how to do it.
And I knew I. May not have even done it the smartest way or the most whatever. But I'm gonna, I'll figure it out as I get there.
Yeah.
And I trusted that I could figure it out. That look to be a groupie, that's what you have to do. You're like, I wanna go on tour with Guns N Roses, but I don't know anybody in Guns N Roses.
Don't anybody that manages Guns N Roses. Nope. Are anybody at the label? Nope. But you set a goal and then you just reverse engineer and you wake up maybe I'm not on tour with Guns N Roses, but I'm on the road with Rolling Stones. Not bad. Yep. Oops.
Worked out great.
Oops. I'm hanging out with Mick Jagger.
Okay. Yeah.
You mentioned earlier about your gifted teacher. And I had the honor slash pleasure of being in a, in the gifted classes in school. And we were born in New Jersey, so I don't know, were you going to school in Jersey? I'm from Jersey. Okay. So I was born there. I don't consider it.
I'm from there. I left when I was three. I my family moved, but we were outside of Philadelphia, so it was similar alignment with some educational things. And it breaks my heart in hindsight that every kid didn't get to go to the gifted classes because it was one of the first places I was at besides home where they said, try it.
And so I just I really hear a lot of similarities to how you and I problem solve, where it doesn't have to be perfect. We might want it to be, but we'll try it. We'll, we're okay with some AB testing. We like, there's a curiosity in like the, it's almost becomes a game of I want that, how do I get it?
The gamification
of life.
Yes. And I just think it's, so there's not enough of that is taught in any other curriculums. Maybe once in a while it shows up in college level or grad level, places where you have to try things and test things and be creative in how you get to a solution. But it's not encouraged enough, I don't think.
And it, it breaks my heart that there aren't more people who are asked that question because I, I don't. The I don't really know how I ended up in that class. I do from a why, like what the steps were, but I don't even know if everyone else was tested. I don't even know if 'cause it wasn't like a standardized test that got me in there.
It was someone saying maybe that person.
Wow.
So I, I think there's just such a missing in education. 'cause look at what opening that question has done for people like you and I we don't even realize how ingrained it is into who we are.
Look, I got into, in San Francisco, we called it the GATE program.
Gifted and talented and whatever. Yeah. And my mom had to fight to get me an opportunity to test. Yeah. So when I was in New Jersey, I went to parochial school. So of course I was a little head when I got to San Francisco and went to public school. And so I, I'd finished my work and started talking.
So the teacher just shut me up to keep me busy. She had me like running errands around the school for her and making coffee, which, I love being teacher's pet. So one day I went home and I told my mom how I was making coffee for the teacher. And my mom's what? So she goes to school and she's talking Hey, should we have Tracy skip a grade or what should we do? And the teacher said to her, she's not any smarter than any, like literally said, she's not gifted, she's not smarter than anybody. She just reads faster than everyone. And my mom said, okay, you're the expert, but maybe we can have her test for this program if she fails the test.
No big deal. She passes it, and the teacher said no. And so frustrating. So frustrating. And I will always, my mom is like unstoppable, she's one of those tiger moms. My mom went to the Board of Education and demanded that I'd be allowed to take this test.
Yeah.
I took the test, I passed and, then was in the gifted program and then they had to just deal with all my anxiety.
But it the self-advocacy is I think that other piece, and, I am, I'm so fascinated by. How people became outliers, how people became exceptional. Malcolm Gladwell has that book, and it touches on it briefly, but there's so many choices people make every day to move them into a space that maybe they wouldn't have belonged or didn't belong.
And sheer determination, of course, is one of them. But that the self-advocacy pay place and having other people doing it for you before you can do it for yourself it's the original. If you don't ask, you can't get,
That people get, you get what you negotiate, not what you deserve.
And look, and when my mom was going through that process, I was a little kid, but I wasn't supportive of her. I wanted to like, this is Mrs. Whatever, leave her alone. Don't you know. Yeah. But once I got into the program, that was the first time that I saw Oh. The establishment or the administration, they're not always right.
Just because it's there in black and white doesn't mean that it's correct. Yeah. And that opened up a whole world for me. Yeah. I just, I always felt free, once I identified something that was interesting to me or something that I was curious about. It seemed very natural to follow it.
As a teenager, I'm curious about this band. I think this guy is cute. It's not enough for me to play the album. 'cause we had albums then I wanna know more. I want to be as special to them as they are to me. How do I make that happen?
And
then I would just do it.
Yeah. I'll often ask people, if 8-year-old, you would imagine that this is your life.
8-year-old me I was supposed to have a more conventional life. At least 8-year-old me thought, right? Because what did I know about the world? 8-year-old me thought. That I would be single and I am, and that I would not have kids, but I would live in a very, tall apartment building with views of the city that I would work in, international trade and banking, something like that.
And that I would be on the board of the Philharmonic or something like I, that's what I thought of myself as a kid that I'd be wearing like a power suit. Yeah. And, be a contributor in the city and eighties
boss lady. Yep. Yes. Eighties boss
lady. I'm wearing a Donna Karen rap dress.
Yeah. Notice how fashion was always apart. But yeah that, that's how I would live. And yeah. That's not how I live. Maybe it's not too far. 'cause I do work in the arts. I do work with money. I dunno. Yeah. But I thought that's who I would be. Yeah. I would be like Sigourney Weaver and be like working girl
when I'm sick.
I'm also, I'll ask you what your movie is when I'm sick, I always end up watching baby
Boom.
And I always think about her as like the quintessential like eighties. Eighties Yes. Powerful lady who like gets the curve ball and I just I adore that movie. So when you're sick, what's a movie that you watch?
Okay.
I don't, I'm not that girl. I'm not like I Ice cream and watching a movie. Yeah. But here are the films that I watch over and over again all about Eve. The Godfather, Godzilla. Dracula Le Haine over and over and over again. Yeah. In the days where people actually painted their own nails, the godfather's on.
Blowing out my hair. Lehe is, yeah. Those are the films that are like touchstones to me.
Just over and over and over and over again.
What makes you most proud about your journey so far?
That I try to hold space for women. I recognize like one day I won't be here. And when I'm not here anymore, what value did I leave behind?
How did I make it easier for the next generation? And I think part of my obligation, particularly in entertainment, is to be visible, to show, other black people, other women, you can do this and you can operate a business at this level and operate in, in, in integrity. Yeah. It doesn't need to be about me pulling the knife outta my back to stab somebody else with it.
We don't do that at our agency. Yeah. There's no screaming, there's no. And it's that's what we've been trained, that business is, that you've gotta be roofless. And I just say you actually don't have to do that. I make a lot of money. I've made great careers and I have not screwed anybody.
Yeah. And I don't lie to people like, you can be a decent human being and be successful and it, maybe it's harder. I don't know. But it's the way, it's what we should strive for. It's easier to be the crook. Don't be the crook and help somebody else. And be honest, and don't be afraid of questions. Someone tried to teach me that, questions diminish you and why don't you?
And it's no questions. Educate you and questions build coalitions. And allow people to trust you. What, but what am I most proud of is I did it my way. There's a lot of people out there like when I grew up, you were supposed to, the way that you were supposed to be successful is, you went to a certain type of private school and then you went to a certain level of college and you got, you then you either got a law degree or you went to B-School.
If you didn't become a doctor or whatever, and you didn't really work in the arts unless you had family money. And there was, there were these kind of priests, suppose lanes or scripts that we were supposed to follow. And I think someone can look at my life and say yeah, you can do that way and it might work and that's great, but you can do, I totally did it my way.
And I'm still going to lunch with those people.
Yeah. So I get such satisfaction out of. Proving people wrong. It's definitely on my, list of things to probably work on to be a better human. But usually it's because what I'm doing isn't just to prove them wrong because it's like the right thing or it's the way to do it differently.
And I think sometimes just living a life of our own design is just that at a lifetime scale.
I'm gonna say that living a life of my own design at a lifetime scale. Yes.
That's a better way to sum it up.
When you look at what you've achieved with Santa Grace and people who are so appreciative that it exists what are the conversations you've had or the messages you've received that have really touched your heart about that brand?
Girl, why are you trying to make me cry on this thing?
You're allowed to, people have cried before on this podcast
oh my God. Literally you have women. Saying things like, look, I had an experience, my mom a few years ago, she had a high school reunion and she didn't, she ended up not going to her high school reunion.
Why? Because at the time she was overweight and she couldn't look the way she wanted to look. Now for a lot of these people, it's probably the last time they're gonna see one another. So for her to forego that because she couldn't find a dress, like clothes mean something. Yeah. Like when they say, it's not about appearances.
No. It is about how you show up in the world, especially when you don't have a choice.
Yeah.
Yep. So when people tell me that, they got the promotion right? That wearing this outfit gave them the courage to get the promotion, or they really wanted to start dating again, but they didn't feel sexy.
They felt like a, dowdy or whatever. And they found some grownup clothes that allowed them to feel like a woman to feel desirable. That some, that, to feel like a creature that someone else might wanna take care of or spend time with and that they didn't feel like I, I also have a lifetime of walking into a store and always looking at what's the largest size.
That's where I start. What's the largest size? Oh, okay. They don't have anything that fits me and people having the experience of coming to our website and that things are too big. So women saying, in my life, nothing has ever been too big for me. Yeah. There's something that you might find really weird.
I, is we make we use silk a lot and I, if I had a dollar for every woman who said that she's never worn silk, I, because they don't make silk, they don't use silk in plus size, we might get a really nice poly Yeah. But no, no silk and women being like, look, I'm 37 years old, and it may not seem like a big deal, but it was great that, like I had on a beautiful silk dress it meant everything but, oh, what actually is inter even as interesting to me is the people of negative comments about ante grace.
See, you've got that prove people wrong thing too.
Uhhuh. I definitely do. The people who are like, how dare you? This is too expensive. How dare you. You're encouraging these women to stay obese, and I just say we can agree to disagree on the fat acceptance or whatever.
What does she wear today? Yeah. If she is a size 24 and your advocate she's gotta lose weight. Okay, whatever. What does she wear on Monday? Yeah. What does she wear on Tuesday? She's not losing 65 pounds in a week.
Her
job
interview is tomorrow. How do we fix that problem?
Does she just lie in bed until she gets smaller?
I like the people. People are really angry about clothes. I get emails, messages all the time. We have a calf tin that's $400, 3 95. It's a hundred percent Italian silk, whatever. I. I get so many emails about that damn captain. Why is this so expensive? This is ridiculous that you think these, fat people make less than skinny people that you would charge this.
Yes. Everything. I'm like, why do you care? Let's say nobody buys it. Why
do you care? And even if we just do a price to price comparison, you can buy a TV or you can buy this. You choose
I say all the time You can buy a Honda. Yeah. You can buy a Mercedes. They both do the same thing, right?
Yeah. They both do the same thing. Who does anybody care which vehicle you're in? Just you.
And I've seen statistics about how. You know at this, at the C-suite level, people who are taller, people who are married, people who are in better shape make more money.
Yes.
But like I haven't seen that statistic at lower management levels.
And if that really wasn't argument and there are statistics to support it, then maybe they didn't get the higher paying job 'cause they weren't dressed for it.
There's a, there are some statistics that talk about after a certain size your ability to rise in the ranks is diminished. The only thing that directly counters that is, are you speaking the same language as your boss's boss? The language of appearance do you have a Cartier love bracelet? Are you carrying a Louis Vuitton? Never full, are you? And it's because we, as human beings, we build tribes. Yeah. And when we promote people, we wanna see that they are communicating in the language of our tribe.
So if I'm wearing some fast fashion leggings, if I don't look like the tribe, I gotta work five times as hard to convince them I can actually do this thing.
Yeah.
And I remember my dad told me this thing, when I was a kid, he said, don't dress for the job. You have dress, dress for the job that you want.
And there's that, all of that seventies and eighties and even nineties. Think about dress for your boss' boss. And I think if people wanna do that accessible luxury is the way to do it, but even more importantly, I really just want women to feel good in their clothes and to be able to show up in the world in the way they want to.
So some, all of our clothes are so personal to me 'cause a lot of them are just my fantasy clothes that I always wanted to wear. Yeah. Jen Wilder, who owns the Plus Bus, where I think we met she was my first product manager. And, we are working on things and she says to me one day, are we gonna have any blouses?
Are there gonna be any tops in this line? And I said. I don't know. They could just wear a T-shirt. And why? Because I'm a tall person, so all my life I've had trouble finding pants. Yeah. So I was like, and then we're gonna have these type of trousers and this jacket and the sleeves are gonna be like this.
I don't have, I don't have a problem finding tops. So I wasn't designing tops. I was like, you can get tops anywhere. It was sacked. You can get tops anywhere. But I had 10 patterns for different pants. Yeah. But not anymore. Now we have a more realized line.
And it's, the, I worked in product for 20 years and it's like one of those things where you start and then you're like, oh, then we can add this and we can add this.
And the hardest part of running a brand is. The skew creep and okay, we gotta rein it back in. Because I know PA's curve, even though we love it, we got a whole lot like it's what ends up on the drop floor is like the hardest, most crushing part of getting the power to create things that you want because you want it all had a reason.
Don't even say it like you're the growth the ghost of Christmas past. I never wanna drop anything. I'll develop it. Yeah. And then I like cost it out and it's okay, we can't do that just yet. I don't care. Oh my God. My mom, I have a video of my mom asking me where her furs are and I'm like, because I wanted to have fur in the line, so I went to my aunt who wasn't paying attention and to my mom and I took their furs and rework them.
So that we could offer fur in the line. I'm bad.
Yeah, it's well, and there, there's so many, there's so many things that intersect within fashion all the time. So I'm, it really is a thi once you start you can't stop. There's accessories, there's shoes. It's oh, you need, I'm a resort wear. I'm going to con, what can I wear in con?
And it just expected her. Yeah. I wanted
to be, I want the, to have a closed orgasm. I want a woman to step into ante grace and be like, okay, so for the staff meeting, I'm wearing this. Bam. Take that accounting. And then, when I see my ex, 'cause we've gotta go to, I wanna be like, bam. Not even a boob job.
These are real like, like I want people to have, we all have some favorite outfits that we put it on. We know, we're like, yeah. And I said, I wanna have a closet full of those outfits. Not just one or two a closet filled. And then I talked to my girlfriends and said what makes you feel Yeah.
That way? What makes you feel like you're getting the raise? And then that's what we created.
I did a video recently where I was asking, everyone, whoever was listening, all five people, when do you ever skip working out because you look cute that day. And it's not that you have to go for drinks, the outfit does anyone else do this?
Because I didn't a few weeks ago. I was like no. The outfit has to go out. Like I don't need a drink, but it'd be a shame if this outfit never left my house.
Oh, I do that with makeup. Yeah. Myself and my client, Mona. If we get our makeup done and lashes and everything, it's like, how do we, it's disgusting.
Like how do we keep this makeup look and how many people can see that we gotta go out to drinks? Yeah. We gotta I can't just do whatever event we're made up to do. Yeah. No. We gotta be all over la The window's gotta be rolled down. People gotta see. Look at the
walk. Yeah. Thank you. This is not every day.
We gotta go. This is not every day.
Look. There's no freckles. There's no there's yeah. Yeah. I never, no. My favorite workout and the only workout I do other than walking up and down my stairs is Pilates. Which I am obsessed with. And I'm horrible at, do you do
reformer or Matt Pilates?
Both. Both girl. Tracy is on the Cadillac. I do floor work. I love it. And I'm like, competitive. Look, come on now. This is the real my, and I'm competitive. And my instructor's always who are you competing with?
Like me yesterday, me, tomorrow, me in two weeks. Yes.
How many reps I'm able to do, how quickly I'm able to get through the routine.
She's Pilates is not about that.
I don't know, but I am, see, I challenge that when people say that in yoga, I get it. 'cause it's about a practice and not about winning, but Pilates comes from the world of ballet, which is so competitive. Yes. Yes. There's no zen in Pilates, nice try instructors.
Nice try.
No, you wouldn't
make a reformer if Zen was involved in that practice.
Honey, first of all, it looks like a middle Ages torture device.
Yes.
I'm not sure that it isn't.
I know. When you hear the words powerful and ladies, what do they mean to you individually And do they change when they're put together?
Oh, interesting. Yeah, they definitely change when they're put together. When, look, I think I have that kind of male thing, like powerful is big, strong whatever. And then when I hear powerful ladies, immediately I think of breastfeeding. I think of, I don't have any kids, but I look at how busy and full my life is and I think.
How on earth do these women, particularly like whether the single women married or whatever, navigate having a partner, having a child. And that's a physical, emotional and spiritual Yeah. Void and financial void that you have to fill 24 7. 24 7. And then having your own desires for your life. I do not know how mothers do it.
I don't know how they do it. And that is that seems so powerful to me. I think if you can be a mother and turn out a successful child, you can work for me any day of the week. Yeah. Negotiating a $5 million deal is nothing compared to, getting a 7-year-old in the right school and doing homework each night.
Yeah. Let alone making them eat vegetables. Yeah.
Make, and you making the vegetables, that you bought them and then you actually made them, they didn't just go bad in your refrigerator and then you convinced like, that's I'm not BSing. That's the alchemy. That's the
yeah. I thought, like I learned the secret code of how to be successful when I went to a friend's house for our client's house for a coaching session, and her housekeeper was there and she was chopping vegetables, so they were all precut.
I'm like, wait, you can delegate that task. No one told me about delegating this task that is instantly going on the list. And she's yeah it's how I stay so healthy. It's already pre-chopped. I'm like, okay. More people need to know about this. Going back to what we were saying before, like the secret code of women like that needs to be in the book because
The secret code of women and the sisterhood of women, right?
Yes. Like in the black community you always have and probably other ethnic communities, you always have a bunch of aunties. Yeah. And and I'm sure like when your mom is just at her wits end, when she's about to pop your head off your neck, suddenly you're having sleepover at Auntie's house or auntie will take you back to school shopping.
But there's always these, this community of women supporting one another, and or people that my mom would do laundry with or, go shopping with. And we really have to get back to that. That's what we have to do in the workforce as well. These young women should not be operating on a silo.
You should be. And whether you believe in the bo and in the Bible, it literally says like the older women are supposed to teach the younger women, like you should have. Three or four home girls who at the same level that you, where you can let off steam, you should have two older mentors that are, giving you the story of their life constantly and helping you navigate.
And you should be bringing up some little snot nose brat. That's how we move business forward. Not, like not trusting the next woman, and know they're gonna fail you. These women are gonna fail you. They might sleep with your boyfriend. They might not keep your secrets. They might not be there for you, but we are human and you have to extend grace to them.
That's one of the things that the guys do that women are so challenged with. Like our girlfriends. Screw us over and we're like, oh, she's persona non gra, she's out. Extend grace to that person. Think therefore the grace of God go, I, how would I want people to treat me?
And then just do that, yeah. Don't loan people money. Give people money.
And your time and Yeah. All the things that way. Yeah.
All the things
we ask everyone on the podcast where they put themselves in the powerful lady scale. If zero is average everyday human, and 10 is the most powerful lady you can imagine, where would you score yourself today and on average?
I would say I am an eight, aggressively working to be an 1111. My, yeah. I I have huge fucking supernatural goals, like ante grace, like I wanted just huge, my agency. Powerful. A place that people depend on and, known as a haven for artists. Yeah. And that excites me doing that hard work.
That sweaty grind. I love it. I love getting my clients there. I love getting myself there.
Yeah. Describe for people who haven't, who don't work in this space, what is it like to help create someone's dreams with them? Oh.
It. It's a gift from the universe. Achieving my own dreams feels good. Helping someone else achieve theirs. It's the reason that we're all here. Yeah. Period. When you do that, the universe bows to you. That's truly how you get ahead. Like I said, one day we're not going to be here. What is the legacy that you leave behind for your community?
For your family? That's the question that we have to ask. That's what the work is about and actually that's where the fun is too.
Yeah. Yeah. For everyone who is now in love with you and wants to support your brand and you and be a part of it, where can they find you, follow you, and support you?
If they're interested in following me as a talent agent on ig, they can follow us at T-C-A-M-G-M-T and if they're interested in seeing my clothes, which you'll love 'cause the clothes are fly, you can follow us on IG at Ante Grace, which is S-A-N-T-E-G-R-A-C-E.
Love it. We've also been asking everyone this year, what do you need? Because this group is powerful and connected and likes to make things happen for each other. So what do you need? What are you wishing for?
I love you. This power. Oh my God, it's, nobody ever asked me what I need.
I don't know. I don't think anybody has ever asked me what I needed.
It's, yeah, it's a powerful question that they don't usually ask boss ladies.
You know what I need is a tribe.
Okay.
That, yeah. What I need is a tribe, like I'm there for people. I need a tribe of people who will be there for me.
Yeah. That's a great need. All right. Good thing you're on this Powerful Ladies podcast. There's a few other powerful ladies that might want that too. Great. It has been such a pleasure to talk to you.
Thank you for the space that you're creating for women to feel great and look great and to exemplify who they are on the outside, so it shines out to everybody else. Thank you for helping make other people's dreams come true and chasing your own along the way. And just thank you for your time today.
This has been such a fun conversation and I really appreciate it,
and thank you. This was completely different than I imagined, and you guys are doing such powerful work. I hope everyone not just watches the podcast, but really studies it as you're doing great work here.
Thank you.
All the links to connect with Tracy TCA Management and Santi Grace are in our show notes at the pal to ladies.com. Please subscribe to this podcast wherever you're listening and leave us a rating and review. They're critical for our podcast visibility and getting us in front of more people like you.
Would love to hear this episode. Come join us on Instagram at Powerful Ladies, and if you're looking to connect directly with me, visit kara duffy.com or Kara Duffy on Instagram. I'll be back next week with a brand new episode and new amazing guest. Until then, I hope we're taking on being powerful in your life.
Go be awesome and up to something you love.
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Created and hosted by Kara Duffy
Audio Engineering & Editing by Jordan Duffy
Production by Amanda Kass
Graphic design by Anna Olinova
Music by Joakim Karud
