Tory Burch is tired. It is a Tuesday afternoon in New York, but for the designer it feels like Wednesday morning, Thailand time. She has just returned from spending New Year’s in Phuket with her three sons, a mini break after opening a new store, her 24th, in Tokyo’s Ginza district.
Jet lag, it turns out, is fast becoming de rigueur for Burch, and she fears it will remain that way for much of 2010. This year she’s set to open up to 25 stores, including ones in London and Rome, and is in the midst of an overall push to increase foreign sales.
It has been six years since she launched her company, but ironically she insists that her original goals were modest—vague, even. “By five years, I think we had planned for three stores,” Burch says of the initial outline for her business, which she cofounded with Chris Burch, her former husband. She’s sitting behind a desk in her hazard orange–painted Flatiron District office, corn-silk-blond hair tucked behind her ears, a gob-stopper-size gold cocktail ring on her right hand. “And, you know, it was a very different kind of plan. We had no idea where it would go.”
From top: A tunic and espadrilles from Burch's first collection
Such ambiguity isn’t typical Tory. She may look like a teacup of a woman, fine-boned and delicate, but she is direct, relentlessly professional (her inspiration notes for her collections are often three paragraphs long and ready for editors days before the show) and, by her own admission, tough. And that’s the way it has had to be: Since she launched her first collection (out of her Daniel Romualdez–appointed apartment at the Pierre hotel), Burch has weathered a high level of public scrutiny. After splitting with Chris in 2006 following 10 years of marriage, she segued from wife to friendly colleague under the lens of the tabloids, all the while dodging more than a few well-manicured fingers that pointed to her socialite status as a shortcut to her fashion fame.
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Regardless, Burch’s high profile helped her nab a 2005 appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, lending the company such huge exposure that millions flocked to her Web site. “I’m not really defined by who I socialize with,” Burch says. “For me, my life is really diverse, and I have really diverse friends. But I would also have to say that I’m sure it helped in a way, you know?” She pauses, then levels her gaze and smiles. “It’s not something that, you know, I would say I’m mortified by. I just think that [socialite] is sort of a funny word.”
