In this episode, fashion and beauty futurist Amanda Cosco speaks with record-breaking entrepreneur, founder, and CEO Kendra Bracken-Ferguson. Kendra is a thought leader, founder, venture capitalist and the CEO of BrainTrust Founders Studio. She is someone who has witnessed—and been a part of—the changing landscape of digital media over the past decade. Her recent book “The Beauty of Success: Start, Grow, and Accelerate Your Brand” is a tell-all about how she built her business from scratch as...

When we think of soy, we often think of candles or an alternative to milk, but what about the role the crop plays in the business of fashion and beauty? In the US, soy is second only to corn in crop size, and it's playing a significant role in transforming many industries. My guest today is Carla Schultz. She's a soy farmer from Michigan and a United Soybean Board Director, and she's here to tell us all about the links between soy, fashion, beauty, and beyond. This episode is spo...

Biotechnology is an exciting frontier in fashion and beauty because it presents a new way forward. Most products on the market today rely on extraction for their ingredients, whether that's from plants, animals, or petrochemicals. Each of these options has a footprint. With biotechnology, there's the opportunity to create new sustainable supply chains with new levels of performance for consumers. Today on the show I'm speaking with a scientist and creative who is inspired by biology and biote...

From leather grown from mushrooms to sequins made from plants, biomaterials is an exciting area of innovation that is projected to reach almost $50 billion by 2025. Briefly put, biomaterials combine science and technology to engineer new ways of producing materials. Biomaterials are rapidly gaining popularity with brands and consumers alike due to their ability to address the fashion industry’s urgent environmental and ethical challenges. Our guest today is Laura Hayes. She’s the Senior...

In today's episode fashion and beauty futurist Amanda Cosco sits down with Heather Lipner, the Head of Product Design + Creative and Geenee AR. Geenee enables high-quality web AR virtual try-on for eCommerce and In-feed Ad experiences to increase sales conversions, reduce return rates and drive return on ad spend performance. Visit Electric Runway: http://electricrunway.com/ Sign up for the Electric Runway Report on Substack: https://electricrunwayreport.substack.com/ Subscribe on Spotify: h...

Recently, black beauty influencers have taken to TikTok and other social media channels to call out brands that don't have inclusive shades. Today's podcast features a conversation with Balanda Atis, a L'Oréal chemist, and their Chief Scientific Communications Officer. We spoke with her in May in Toronto at the launch of L'Oréal's True Match Foundation to understand how she has been advocating for shade inclusivity for years as a black woman in STEM. This episode contains audio from Im...

Snap has come a long way from puking rainbows. The company has been steadily developing its artificial intelligence and augmented reality technologies for years, and is now rolling out a B2B SaaS offering for retailers and merchants. ARES, or Augmented Reality Enterprise Services, enables clients to leverage Snap's 3D viewer, virtual try-on, and fit-finder solutions into their brand-owned apps and platforms. This suite of services is already reducing return rates, decreasing cart abandonment,...

Advancements in science have opened up new possibilities for fashion manufacturing. One promising application of biotechnology in the textile industry is the development of lab-grown or "cultured" materials such as leather and silk. These materials are created by growing cells in a lab, without the need for animal agriculture or the use of harmful chemicals. By doing so, they offer a more sustainable alternative to traditional textile production methods, which often have significant env...

When we think of smart fabrics, we often think of fabrics with sensors inside them meant to monitor our body's activity or temperature, but not all innovations in fabrication are digital. In fact, most of the time they're chemical. Today's guest on the Electric Runway Podcast is Fi Paziana, a Milan-based ex-investment banker-turned fashion designer who is launching her debut collection featuring a patented, lab-verified smart fabric. This fabric acts as a filter, protecting the sun from harmf...

By now, we're all a little weary of talking about digital fashion, and the trend has certainly seen its peak in the hype cycle of emerging technology. By digital fashion, we're talking about fashion that exists only digitally and not physically, and is meant to be worn on social media, on platforms like Zoom, and inside games. Our guest today is Amber Jae Slooten, the co-founder and creative director of the Fabricant. The Fabricant is a fashion studio that collaborates with brands...