Lesea Berry is a fashion designer based in New York City. I called Lesea on a lovely Sunday afternoon to chat with her about where she finds inspiration, what it takes to start a fashion design company, her goals, and of course to hear her best beauty tips.

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Lesea has spent her career in fashion PR. She has had experience in all aspects of the industry from design to marketing, to logistics and shipping. While surrounded by all things fashion and grasping the industry, she became inspired and started creating dresses for herself on the side. Her business has grown to offer dresses, tops, skirts, accessories, and bespoke pieces, including bespoke bridal! Lesea explained she gains inspiration from interior design, traveling, nature and flowers, and vintage fabric.

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The fashion industry, especially in New York City, appears to be the ultimate cool kids club full of smart driven individuals that are prepared to put in serious work. We have all seen how the fashion industry is portrayed in the movies, so I wanted to see if Lesea could share some helpful insider information.

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What advice would you give to someone about pursuing a career in fashion?

‍Don’t stick with the trends, stay true to your style.

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What is the best advice you’ve received?

‍When you're looking for someone to work with, look for someone with the opposite strengths as you.

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What are some myths about your industry you would like to debunk?

A lot of people think it is a very cut throat industry, very devil wears prada, and i think that you just need to surround yourself with the right people because there’s room for everyone. We help each other, it's secretly very supportive, and we want to help women succeed.

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What’s the craziest truth about your industry that you’ve learned?

‍The amount of waste that's happening. I am looking to use a lot of deadstock fabric. Big fashion houses buy an insane amount of fabric and throw it out. I'm using old fabrics, vintage fabrics to not have as much waste.

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The immense amount of waste in fashion inspired Lesea to create Fashion Face Lift. We all know those dresses that are hanging in our closet and for whatever reason, they never get worn out into the world. Maybe they don’t fit correctly, maybe there's just something about the silhouette that does not work for you. Lesea helps people fix this by going into their closets and seeing what they haven't worn and helping them bring it back to life, making it more wearable.

“I took my rehearsal dinner dress from my wedding and cut it into a mini, did some adjustments and wore it for New Years!” Lesea explained.

Lesea let us in on some of her beauty secrets, tips, and inspiration as well.

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If you were a beauty product what would you be?

‍A face oil for sure.

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What 3 beauty products are you bringing to a desert island?

‍The Cleanest Lab Cream (coming soon!), the Goop sunscreen, Aquaphor.

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Who do you look to for beauty inspiration and expertise?

‍Clémence von Mueffling. She takes a very natural approach to skin care and makeup. She, her mother and grandmother wrote a beauty book: Ageless Beauty, The French Way.

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Have you had any wild beauty experiences? What’s the craziest thing you’ve done for beauty?

‍I went through a home beauty phase, which I don't recommend. I was making my own masks and products like yogurt, honey facials, and weird stuff. Never worked.

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Do you have any beauty hacks you want to share?

‍The one that I would say, and I don't do this daily, when I go out I put a little piece of tape at the corner [of my eye] to do my cat eye.

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Now time for my favorite question! What’s your favorite The Cleanest Lab product?

‍The face cream. I am obsessed with it! My skin looks so good that my friend thought I got botox recently. I’ve had multiple people ask what I'm doing for my skin. My husband always tries to steal it. The first time I used it was after a cocktail party and I woke up the next morning not feeling great and expected my face to be red and blotchy but I was glowing.

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The Cleanest Lab face cream is coming soon! Stay tuned.

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What’s the biggest revelation you had when you switched to clean beauty?

‍I have recently become a clean beauty person. I am really focused on cruelty-free products because I love animals so much. Ever since using Sam’s [The Cleanest Lab products], I am not looking back!

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Keep up with Lesea Berry on social media @leseaberry_

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Check out her website https://leseaberry.com/ to shop her designs and learn more about the Fashion Face Lift.

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Written by Ellie Wells

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