Taeste Buddies: Brett Heyman
The Edie Parker founder on The Row loafers, shopping with Wes Gordon, and the best NYC Martini
Happy new year and welcome to the newest edition of Taeste Buddies. It’s a bi-weekly interview series that explores the idea of taste: How it’s shaped by our identities and spurred by our creativity. Each edition I chat with someone whose taste I admire, whether as a friend or from afar.
This week, meet Brett Heyman, the founder of Edie Parker. I first came to know the brand for its sparkly acrylic clutches, but she’s gone on to grow it into so much more, with a budding arm called Flower, devoted to cannabis and its accoutrements. We sat down in our respective NYC apartments in early December for a Zoom chat that covered everything from her favorite thrifted home decor (secured with help from Wes Gordon) to the controversial Nike sneaker she swears by. I hope you enjoy!
How would you define taste?
It's personal preference, right? What speaks to you, especially in a world where we have so much of everything at our fingertips. It's what I see every day in my home, what I put on my body. I have fun taste, but certainly I don't think that I am the most elegant woman at all times.
By virtue of living in a city like New York and having exposure to all the things we do… the media, the buildings, the museums, the fashion, the movies… over time your taste gets honed. You see things that are part of the zeitgeist or they're not, and they flip everything you think on its axis. I remember the first time I saw an Almodovar film, everything I liked before it totally changed.
Where do you think that your sense of taste comes from?
I always look backwards. I've always been a vintage lover, whether it's film or clothing or photographs, I respond to things that feel nostalgic and glamorous, even if it's just on the surface. Like a Slim Aarons photo, when you see one in person the color and the way that everything is perfectly set up feels like a weird dream land. Everybody has a fancy dress on, they're all sipping martinis. I like vintage that feels transportive, it connects you to people through generations and decades.
What was the last great thing that you purchased?
I bought these new sconces from The Future Perfect (similar here). They're plaster and they look like ears. I'm obsessed with them and I have plaster walls, so I'm very much responding to those.
What was the last great thing that you made?
If we talk about things we've made at work, we do all these jelly tabletop lighters. We basically taught our factory how to make these and they've gotten so much more advanced in every drop that we've done. So for holiday we did this shrimp one. It’s freaky and surreal.
But also, I sent you a picture of these muffins. I've been on a real cottage cheese journey. For a year I've been making this buckwheat bread, and then I added cottage cheese to it, and then I finally got sick of it. I've evolved into these muffins that don't have cottage cheese, but they're banana and almond butter, you don't have to use any flour or wheat substance. I put oats in it, but I haven't perfected that recipe, I'm making various versions of that. Every kid of mine, I have three kids, likes a different version of the breakfast bread, so I'm constantly baking something for them.
I've always had this impression that baking is not for creative people. Cooking is for creative people, because baking is recipe following and cooking you can sort of go with it. In some ways, that's very true, but I've found baking to be fairly creative. Some versions of ingredients are always the same, but I'm enjoying following instinct, and my end results are quite delicious.
How would you describe your style?
I’m embarrassed to say that this is not even close to all the jeans that I have. Since high school I've been buying vintage Levi's, and I never tire of them. I tried to buy a Toteme jean, I bought a Miu Miu jean, but I always come back to Levi's 501s or 517s, I love them. And again, I like the story of where these jeans have been, who wore them.
I shop from this one woman, Meg, who goes by Jean Genie, and lists what the actual measurements are and what they feel like. I try to buy things that I don't have to tailor too much because you do lose some details.
With Edie Parker, what you were hoping to do at the beginning, and how has that evolved?
I had this job at Gucci, it was a dream job. But I was traveling… I was in Italy six times a year, I was going to regional events in North and South America, and I had just had a baby. At the time, it couldn’t fathom being apart from my newborn for so long. I started thinking about when I leave this child and go to work, what am I doing that for?
Because I had had all this accessory experience, and because, as I touched on, I love vintage, and I collected all these vintage bags, I naively set out to make something that I thought didn't exist anymore. There's nostalgia around this category, acrylic bags. I had all this accessory PR experience and knew that people don't really do evening as a category and maybe there was an opportunity. I didn't think much further than that. I thought I would make some pretty bags and sell some, and that would be fine.
But it did well. It was well received.
So we kept growing and adding categories. The idea of cannabis accessories and also cannabis flower… we sell THC products in 11 states… was born out of that same idea, what doesn't exist in the market. I grew up in Los Angeles, so cannabis has always been something I was aware of in my life. There was this green rush in California starting in 2015, but we would go into a dispensary and it was so masculine, medicinal, and minimalist. So we thought maybe we could make cannabis accessories in the same way people make bar accessories that are collectible and giftable. In 2019, we launched cannabis accessories and cannabis flower only in California to start. We wanted to normalize cannabis and make it mainstream. We had a store on Madison Avenue at the time, we obviously couldn't sell the THC there, but sold all the accessories. We thought if we could present it in a way that didn't feel intimidating or gross, frankly, then we could help in the conversation with normalization.
How has your work informed your own personal style, how has your personal style informed your work?
My personal style is eclectic. I wake up and my mood dictates the look. I've said this 1000 times and I don't think it's particularly clever, but I think it's true: Life is serious, so your accessories don't have to be. I am definitely a joyful accessory person. I always love a pop of color in a bag. I love a fun shoe. But generally my whole wardrobe is around where I'm walking.
I am an obsessive walker. I love to walk everywhere. In New York, I will walk from uptown to downtown if I have the time and the weather is manageable. So while I'll wake up and I’ll attempt to make a cool outfit and something that feels eccentric and stylish and fashionable, I very often will spend 10 minutes trying to get dressed and then throw on Levi's and a button down or a sweater. My day wardrobe is very classic, very menswear inspired, very comfortable. But at night, that's when I throw on the big girl shoes, I always have a fun clutch. Love a mini skirt, love a vintage dress. I like to have a party girl vibe at night, but, you know, it's different from my day.
Any cute walking shoe recommendations?
Look the cutest I get, to be candid, is a loafer. I have an addiction to The Row loafers, I have too many pairs. And I also have their satin Mary Janes in multiple colors for when I've got to spice up my outfit.
You know what I wear a lot that's very controversial? I've been wearing them since 1999 or 2000, the Nike Air Rifts, the sneakers with the split toe. That's my perfect summer sneaker, because you don't need a sock and you can wear them with a long trouser. They're weird, but I am addicted to them.
Outside of fashion, what's something that inspires or excites you?
Well, I'm very into my kids. I have three of them, so they take up a lot of my headspace.
I played guitar when I was younger, and I just started picking that up again. I'm bad and I have a bad voice, but I think that I'm a folk hero at home. I like the solitary aspect of it, I go into the room alone and I'm singing to myself tinkering. I think it's one of those lifelong things where you pick it up, you put it down, you pick it up, you put it down. One day I imagine that when I'm an older lady and the kids are gone, I'm gonna take it on the road and perform.
You'll already know all the right people for your tour outfits.
Exactly, does anybody make a good loafer for the stage? Perfect.
Your home decor is impressive, what is your approach to building a home? What's your approach to vintage shopping?
Stages of life dictate so much. We moved into this apartment when I was pregnant, it was going to be a total mid century apartment. But things had jagged edges and chrome, and we had a baby who would impale herself on half of our furniture. So then we wanted to cover the house in cork and soft stuff. I had a beautiful dining room that I had one dinner party in, and finally I converted it this year into a lounge for teenagers.
We have this apartment in New York and we have a house in Connecticut, and to be in those two homes, I look like a totally different person. Connecticut feels like a retreat, it’s a vacation home. I go there and it's shades of green, and it's not as eclectic and crazy as this house.
[When I’m vintage shopping,] first I'm looking at Etsy. I see something in a gallery or an auction, and then I try to find a cheaper version, or go down a rabbit hole with that designer. I'll go to a flea market, there's this place in Connecticut called The Elephant’s Trunk. It’s this huge flea market and you have to go early, because all the dealers get there at 5am.
You have a little bit of imagination when you flea market shop, it blows those doors wide open. The one thing that I will always buy is pretty glasses and little plates. They don't take up that much space, and it's fun to change your whole table aesthetic with small details.
What is something unexpected that you have really good taste in?
The things that people text me about the most are plastic surgery recommendations… What doctors are good. I don't know if that that means I have great taste, but I do the most research on it, and I think that I've chosen and recommended wisely.
I don't want to give you the impression that I've had stuff done, but when it’s time to press go, I'm ready. I have a very dear friend, and we have this joke that we're probably never going to do anything, but we like to spend hours researching it.
What is most precious to you?
Wes Gordon is an old friend, and when he was closing his line and before he started at [Carolina] Herrera, he helped me design our Madison Avenue boutique. He's very talented at interiors. It's not something he ever talks about, but he's so good at it. So many times we went to this antique marketplace on 26th street. There was a guy who had a store, and I think he's since died, but he had all these very kooky, eclectic pieces. Wes is the foil to my kooky, he's very classic and he makes fun of me all the time for my taste. But this lamp was this one thing that we agreed on.
Can you share a few recommendations?
Do you know Amy Griffin? She invests in female founded companies, and she's a real force. She wrote a memoir, The Tell. I went into it very naively, and it stopped me in my tracks. The subject matter is a lot, and it's this very brave thing that she's put out into the world to help other people. That it comes out in March.
I'm still on my cottage cheese journey. My latest is making cottage cheese pizza crust at night and then topping with sauce, cheese and veggies. Now, I'm not going to lie and say it's as good as regular crust, but it is thrilling how much you can do with cottage cheese and how it transforms. Because I'm not obsessed with meat, getting protein in this way makes me feel like I've accomplished something sneaky.
I have it on good authority that the Eighth Day serum is a game changer. I have not yet tried this because it’s so expensive, but a guru told me and I trust her.
Around the holidays if I go out for dinner I only want martinis at classic NYC joints. I recently went to Monkey Bar and could have moved in. Tens all around.
She’s the coolest and now I need an apartment tour!