I'll get started then. My name is James Pepper. I'm the chair of the Vermont Cannabis Control Board. Today is April 4th, 2022. And I call this meeting to order. So today, before we get started, I just wanted to address some of the common questions and issues that we've been receiving from applicants. First, an update on pre-qualification. Just remind folks that this is a voluntary process. It's voluntary. We, it's not a requirement for licensure. We created this process because we determined that there are benefits both for the applicants and for the board. With respect to applicants, first and foremost, if you have a criminal history record, you might not be able to qualify for a license. This is an odd sort of industry. If you're growing tomatoes, no one cares whether you've had a prior conviction for money laundering, for instance. However, if you're growing cannabis, a conviction for money laundering might mean that you can't have a license. The pre-qualification process is designed so that the board can tell you whether you have something going on in your past, whether that's a criminal conviction or a civil or an administrative adjudication, it would disqualify us from granting you a license. And we want you to know that before you make any sort of capital investments in lights or an HVAC system, or you enter into a long-term lease agreement. So that's a benefit for you if you have something going on in your past that might disqualify you. The second benefit for applicants, we've heard from banks, we've heard from insurance companies, we've heard from towns, we've heard from other Vermont agencies that they don't want to waste their time talking to a prospective business owner that might not ultimately qualify for a license. And so a number of those institutions are requiring that an applicant have something from the board, a letter, something that shows them that you are able to participate. So that being said, if you're a person who doesn't have any criminal convictions, if you don't have any civil or administrative adjudications that might be problematic, if you know this is true of all of your business partners as well, or anyone that has a financial stake in your business, if you have a bank account, if you have insurance, if your town has already given you a green light, you probably don't need to seek pre-qualification. And just to be clear, there are benefits to the board as well. We are getting an early picture of the market, which we're using to help inform our decision-making, making sure that there aren't any obvious bottlenecks in the supply chain. But I can tell you there's no financial benefit to the board about pre-qualification. I think anyone who's been watching our work or our testimony in the legislature should know that the fees that we're charging are not sufficient to cover our operating expenses. Essentially, we recommend it to the legislature that they subsidize the cost of fees in order to keep them low so that people have the ability to participate and use a portion of the excise tax to support our functions. So just to sum up, pre-qualification is voluntary and everyone should decide for themselves whether it makes sense for them. A quick update on the numbers. We've received 565 pre-qualification applications. This is in all areas of the supply chain. We've had the vast majority of cultivator pre-qualifications have been for tier one, although we do have pre-qualification applications at all tiers of cultivation. We've had 84 pre-qualification applications for retail establishments. We've had 85 for manufacturing, 25 for wholesalers, eight for testing labs. And we've had nine for integrated. Obviously, there's some confusion in the industry about who qualifies. Those are only available for the existing medical dispensaries. So we'll be in touch with the people that try to pre-qualify for the integrated specifically. I think our plan is to post all those numbers that metadata about pre-qualification so that the entire industry can kind of see how this market is shaping up. And we are gonna be issuing pre-qualification approvals today. We're just gonna start slowly, but fully intend to speed up. Now that we have some procedures in place and infrastructure in place, including our kind of conflict of interest policy, which we'll be reviewing later today, our BRAC background check procedures, our online payment portal. And someday soon, hopefully we can hire some staff, some licensing staff. But an update on our first licensing window opening, we've had 10 applications that have been fully submitted. The board has not reviewed these for completeness, but they've at least satisfied all the kind of mandatory fields and have been fully submitted. We've had over a hundred more that are in various stages of completeness in the kind of draft form. So that's a good early sign for the market. With respect to fingerprinting, just an update on fingerprints. In order to comply with the FinCEN guidance and our statute, the cannabis board is required to obtain a 50 state fingerprint supported background check from the FBI for all cannabis applicants, all principals of these businesses and all employees. And we are required to disqualify people with certain types of criminal convictions. The board applied to the FBI for the authorization to receive these records on April 27th, 2021. So almost the year ago. And we haven't heard anything from the FBI despite repeated attempts for information. We've had a recent, one of our recent inquiries indicates that the FBI intends to deny our authorization because our statutory definitions of applicant and principal and employee are not specific enough for them to feel comfortable releasing these records to us. We've been in touch with some other states that have legal cannabis markets and this exact issue is coming up across the country, including in more recently adopted legal states and some of the more mature legal markets. The themes that we've been hearing as we talked to other regulators is that engaging with the FBI and modifying statutory definitions has not been successful. Modeling these statutes, these statutory definitions on states that have FBI authorization is also not been successful. That the FBI might be reconsidering some of its prior authorizations to more mature legal states and that the FBI is backlogged for several weeks and months. So even if we were to get a statutory fix, it's unlikely that this issue will be resolved by May 1st when we have to start issuing licenses. So we've been working on contingency planning around this. The current plan is that we are not gonna require fingerprint supported background checks for your operating license. During the application process, we were gonna ask you to share with the board all the places that you have lived or conducted business for the past seven years. And then the board is contracting with a third party vendor to conduct background checks in those states. This process is not ideal. It will involve an additional cost to the licensee. And we will kind of reach out to you when the time is right about how to get that background check conducted. We'll also just keep all of our application materials and all of our guidance up to date on this issue. With respect to payments, we do have the ability to collect fees for pre-qualification online. And we will also have the ability to collect fees for operating licenses online by May 1st. You do not need to submit payment until you're prompted by the board to submit payment. See to sale tracking. We've been getting a few inquiries about inventory tracking. So inventory tracking is a very important part of the industry, not just because it's required by our laws. It's also important to prevent the federal government for prioritizing Vermont for enforcement. And it also helps prevent product that's grown out of state from flooding into our markets to the detriment of our in-state cultivators. See to sale tracking is also an incredible source of frustration and cost to every kind of licensee. And to regulators. We do not wanna force the system onto this industry that's expensive, that takes a lot of time and resources to understand and to comply with, only to have us change it down the road. So we have been and we are continuing to evaluate all of the options, both in the short-term and the long-term for see to sale tracking. We're not ready to announce anything more specific at this time, but we will have inventory tracking as part of our regulatory structure as soon as we start issuing licenses. With respect to social equity, we've been getting quite a few calls about people wondering why they don't qualify for a fee waiver. I just wanna say that the legislature gave us pretty strict parameters on who qualifies for a fee waiver. It's in section 11 of Act 62. The cannabis board shall propose a plan for reducing or eliminating licensing fees for individuals from communities that have historically been disproportionately impacted by cannabis prohibition or from individuals who are directly and personally impacted by cannabis prohibition. The second prong is pretty straightforward. The board decided that if you or a family member has been incarcerated for a cannabis-related offense that you've been personally or directly impacted by cannabis prohibition and you qualify for a fee waiver or fee reduction. The first prong was a little bit harder to define. How do you draw lines around which communities have been historically disproportionately impacted by cannabis prohibition and which have not? Other states that have done this have looked at historic records from law enforcement agencies around drug arrests and looked for either zip codes or policing districts that show trends in over-enforcement for drug offenses. These systems are subject to gamesmanship. It's been playing out around the country. A neighborhood that maybe was over-policed 30 years ago has now been gentrified and no one currently living there has actually been disproportionately impacted by those drug arrests. You see companies that are buying or leasing commercial space in these neighborhoods in order to qualify and yet they have no disproportionate impact from they've not been harmed by cannabis prohibition. More fundamentally, we tried this approach in our social equity subcommittee. We looked at data from policing in this state. It was either non-existent or it created these disproportionate impact areas that included large swaths of the state. It looked like everyone in, for instance, Chittenden County or Bennington County was gonna qualify as a social equity applicant whereas no one from SAX or Washington County. And that kind of arbitrary line drawing doesn't really jive with the idea that we're looking for people that have been disproportionately impacted by cannabis prohibition. We also looked at economic opportunity zones which was tied to a federal program that created tax incentives for certain parts of the state. We ran into the similar problem of arbitrary line drawing. Everyone, for instance, south of Main Street and Barry was in an opportunity zone but no one north of Main Street is. How is that helpful in us trying to define communities that have been historically disproportionately impacted by cannabis prohibition? So we did what we felt was justifiable.  There are a large number of reports nationally and in Vermont that demonstrate the disproportionate impact of the war on drugs on black and Latino Americans in traffic stops, in arrests, in charging and in sentencing. So this isn't to say that there aren't similar impacts on other demographic communities. We know there are many people in this state and nationally that are discriminated against because of the color of their skin, because of their ancestry, because of their sexual or gender identity, because of their socioeconomic status and any other reason. If you feel like you're from a community, however you want to define that, that historically has been disproportionately impacted by cannabis prohibition and you're not black, you're not Hispanic, you've never been incarcerated for a cannabis related offense, you can still make your case to the board. Let us know and we'll evaluate that case individually. And if you're frustrated by the social equity program or the decisions the board made or if you have comments or concerns, I would encourage you first to go back and watch our subcommittee meetings and our board meetings around this decision. And then two, reach out to me directly. My email address is james.pepper at vermont.gov. Our staff did not have any input on this decision and they really don't have the time to kind of explain the process that the board went through. One last piece on social equity. We are pausing our social equity networking events for the short term while we kind of turn our attention to licensing. And if anyone has any just general questions, a lot of our guidance is available on our website at ccb.vermont.gov slash creep qualify. If you're not seeing things there, you can always email the board. It's ccb.info at vermont.gov. We do have a phone as well for trying to kind of diligently get back to people as quickly as we can. The phone number is<PHONE_NUMBER> and it's option zero for the adult use program. All right, other than that, we just need to approve the minutes from March 28th. Is there a motion? To move. Seconded. All in favor? Aye. All right, so first on the agenda is we need to formally adopt rules three and four. We've done this for one and two. So same process for three and four. They've been through Elkar and now we just need to formally adopt them. Yeah, that's right. Not much more to say than that. Elkar approved them on Thursday. We just got the formal letters of approval this morning. The only edit that came during the Elkar process was that the term fine in rule four is now going to be called an administrative penalty in order to make our rules as confusing as they could be. I'm just kidding. It does make it a little less clear. We'll have administrative penalty to find them and rule them of course. And our many guidance documents will be clear about what administrative penalty means. But that was just to bring the rules in line with standard legal usage in Vermont regarding what we call non-criminal monetary penalty. But that's it. Everything else exactly the same, not even any other technical edits really to rules three and four is very much what it was when it was sent to Elkar. It's ready for your vote to adopt. Thanks for your hard work. There are motion to adopt rules three and four. I'll motion to adopt rules three and four. Can we do it together? I can. Can we do it in one fell swoop, David? Yes, you can do both at once. Yeah. All in favor? Aye. All right. So next we're going to move towards approving some of our pre-qualification applications. Before we do that, we spent some time last week in the week prior developing a conflict of interest policy that the board's going to follow. And I'd like to go ahead and just maybe walk through some of the finer points on that policy. Sure. So I'm going to try to put up a PowerPoint here and I'm just going to run through the statute that really drives the board's requirements on this front and explain how the statute sort of translates into how this will be used. So we'll do a little bit of a policy in process. Should be, I don't know, five, six minutes here at the most. So the statute that really governs board conflict of interest is 7VSA 843D, which is in the chapter 31 of Title VII, which lays out the board's existence and duties and all of that. Some parts of state government aren't driven by conflict of interest stuff that's driven by policy. The governor's ethics guidance or document is it drives other parts of state government. But in this case, the board really has a statute that's going to be controlling a lot of the key issues. So I'm going to read through sections one, three and four of this and then we're going to return to section two. One, three and four are really just prohibitions and things that the board members simply can't do. No board member shall during his or her term or terms on the board being officer of or director of, organizer of, employee of, consultant to or attorney for any person subject to regulation by the board. Rule three, no board member shall during his or her term or terms on the board solicit, engage in negotiations for or otherwise discuss future employment or a future business relationship of any kind with any person subject to supervision or regulation by the board. And section four, no board member may appear before the board or any other state agency on behalf of a person subject to supervision or regulation by the board for a period of one year following his or her last day as a member of the cannabis control board. So that's all pretty straightforward. Just doubt, shout nots, can't do it. If you were to do it, it'd be in violation of the law. We're turning now to section two. Well, pull that out and tease it apart a little bit. It's as in a lot of statutory language it isn't the most straightforward but I'll read through it and then we're going to pull it apart and show how it is translated into the policy the board will follow. No board member shall participate in creating or applying any law, rule or policy or in making any other determination if the board member individually or as a fiduciary or the board member's spouse, parent or child wherever residing or any other member if the board member's family residing in his or her household has an economic interest in the matter before the board or has any more than a de minimis interest that could be substantially affected by the proceeding. So I'm sure everybody understood that perfectly reading through it, but just in case we did break it down a little bit. So it'll be a little more usable when board members are trying to determine if they do have a conflict. So if we look at that first sentence there this basically sets up the provision saying no board member shall participate in creating or applying any law, rule or policy or in making any other determination if they need a set of criteria and that set of criteria is a conflict of interest and there's a constant conflict of interest. So in the sort of beginning of our little policy it just says no board member shall participate in creating or applying any law, rule or policy or in making any other determination if the board member has a conflict of interest. Okay, great. So what is a conflict of interest? Well, the rest of the very long sentence here lays that out, but let's go through it. Actually the last piece of it that lays out what the interests are. So it's saying that there's a conflict of interest where if you're in a certain group of people and we're going to return to the certain group of people in a moment, but if you're within a certain group of people that has an economic interest in the matter before the board or has any more than a de minimis interest that could be substantially affected by the proceeding there will be a conflict of interest if you're one of the following people. If the board member individually is fiduciary the board member's spouse, board member's parent, board member's child or any other member of the board member's family residing in his or her household. And so when you pull it apart like that I think it's a little bit easier to use and I see there's an error here that should be A, B, C, D, E but we'll pick that. And that's basically the policy you can see how it's really taken directly from statute and this is I should say it is in addition to 843, D, 1, 3, and 4 which are just the prohibitions on board behavior but this is the one where board members are gonna have to take a look at the application applicants, the individuals and entities to determine if they fit into one of, if they are one of these individuals and if they are is there an economic interest or is there any more than a de minimis interest that could be substantially affected by the proceeding? And then de minimis is defined in many, many ways depending on the context and place just doing a little research on this. It's certainly not defined in this statute it's rarely defined other than by the specific context in which it's being used. So as a guidance but not as a definitive definition well the board can be guided by this knowing that there will be other things that will have to be discussed if there is any issue but a de minimis interest could include but it's not limited to an interest that is no greater than that of other persons generally affected by the outcome of matter or an interest that has such negligible financial impact as a negligible financial impact such that it could not reasonably be seen as influential in a person's decision making. So that's the sort of policy and then just briefly on the process it's really pretty simple. When determining whether they might have a conflict of interest in the context of licensure decisions board members will review names of persons and or entities having control of proposed cannabis establishments principles and financiers without knowledge of their associated applications. In other words board members are gonna take a look at lists of people who have applied or lists of entities that have applied to make sure that that list does not contain somebody who's within that group of people that could create a conflict. They're not gonna look at the associated applications and they do that in order to just keep focused on the individuals. And then obviously if there is a conflict of interest they'll accuse themselves and then in determining whether to grant licenses board members will generally review anonymized applications and that's both to ensure trust in the conflict of interest process that applications will be anonymous. Obviously if there has been a conflict determined the board member will be recused but just to add an extra layer. There might be some cases where a name itself like the name of entity itself could provide an issue with respect to a potential rule violation like a misleading representation or something of that nature. So in a circumstance like that it may be impossible to do a fully anonymized review but short of that hopefully we won't see too many of those. This will be reviewed anonymously and I should say applications will be reviewed anonymously and that's it. Can I ask a question? So this is about really about approving applications and that specific group of people but then we also talk about not answering direct questions for potential licensees and I know that you talk about this almost the beginning of every public meeting but can you talk about the reason for that just so that there's no confusion that we're not changing anything. This is additional but we're still not able to answer those types of questions. That's exactly right. There's really a few reasons why you can't answer those types of questions but I mean the main thing is that when you're answering questions and a sort of question answer session you really don't have all the information that you're gonna have when a license application comes in. I know that folks answering and asking the questions are not trying to hide anything and trying to tell you the full story but it's just the nature of how that happens. A license application gather a lot more information than just a question answer session. So what you're doing in attempting to answer a question like that or give some sort of potential signal about what might happen is you're sort of giving an assurance to somebody about how their application process might go without any ability to make a promise on that basis. And so people could change their behavior or make an assumption about how something's gonna happen or even make an investment on the basis of something like that when in fact that may turn out to be wrong in the full light of complete license application. And then you as a board member have put yourself in a position of having made an indication about how this is gonna go when it comes before the board which is not something you can be bound by because it isn't in the normal process and you've potentially harmed an applicant by doing that and you put yourself in a it may or may not be a technical conflict of interest in the way the statute defines it but you certainly put yourself in an ethical brazen where you're saying, hey, we think this is okay. And then you have to turn around and reverse yourself in a formal meeting later which is not a good place to be in and it could give an applicant some sort of a cause of action against you at least to not end up sort of like going to court sense but certainly like challenging how the board process had happened and potentially the administrative law judge. So for all those reasons that's why you shouldn't be answering questions and I know the pepper gives those caveats probably very similar to what I just said at the beginning of those meetings and it's similar to the conflict of interest issue not exactly what you'd like to say. Okay, thank you. Any other questions for David? Thank you, David. No problem. That was great, thank you. I would just say also though that we all also assign the governor's ethics pledge when we're creating our rules we're all operating under that ethics pledge we continue to operate under it but I think it's pretty clear that the three of us don't have and will not have a financial stake in the way that we drafted the rules when we're moving to a new phase where we're actually issuing licenses I thought it was important for us to have this clear with respect to the people that are gonna be receiving these licenses. Oh, that's a good point and you certainly are still bound by the governor's ethics pledge for anything any question that isn't answered by your statute specifically. Great, all right. So I think now we can move on to actually reviewing the or approving some of the qualification applications. Yep. So I do have a document for us to go through with the pre-qualification application review submissions that we're gonna look at today but first I thought this is our first time doing this review and I thought I would go through a little explanation of what was reviewed and what the staff recommendation is based on. So because the pre-qualification inquiry is limited in scope because if it is what it is it's not a license to operate. This is going to be a much simpler process than the review process would be for the full license application. So the reviewers for pre-qualification applications are checking for four things. Completeness of the application, the sufficiency of each requirement within the application whether the criminal history record reveals any presumptively disqualifying offenses and then a confirmation that the business is not the business applicant isn't in violation of the one license rule. This is our first batch today that will inherently not be true today. So for completeness of application just a reminder of what that means for the pre-qualification application is the pretty limited list. We are looking for the business name and the point of contact with the board. The names of all the principles and controllers and any relevant documents that demonstrate any control relationships. Also federal tax IDs and social security numbers for that list of folks. Documentation that the applicant is an entity that's registered to do business in Vermont. The applicant's full legal name, any aliases, their address, their date of births. A copy of their driver's license or other government issued ID. And a fingerprint supported identity history record from the FBI that's required through our guidance that's the criminal history record check. And then the narratives that they are subject to provide which include the description of any criminal action against the applicant or any principal or controller of the business. Description of any civil action then the proceeding 10 years for the same group of people. Description of any administrative action that's been commenced against that same group of people. And a description of any disciplinary action against a license registration or certification that's been held in any jurisdiction by that same group of people. So that as long as all of those criteria are met then the application can be considered complete with respect to that portion of the review. And then the sufficiency of each requirement is reviewed. So all information conveyed has to meet the criteria that's set out in the rule. Whether the entity is registered to do business in Vermont they have to submit some documentation that supports that for example, articles of organization or a business registration certificate that's been filed with the Secretary of State's office. Is the identification provided sufficient? Is it issued by the government? If it has a photograph. And then is the criminal history record conveyed in the appropriate format? Is it given to us the way our guidance requires it to be given to us and a sealed envelope from the FBI or electronic copy? And then does the narrative provided regarding the criminal history record match with the actual record check from the FBI? Assuming that all of those are sufficient then we move on to the next two inquiries. The first is whether the criminal history record reveals any presumptively disqualifying the census. And lastly a confirmation that the business is not in violation of the one license rule which will be a more complex inquiry as we move on and people are issued pre-qualifications or licenses. So applicants that are pre-qualified will be provided a letter certifying that they have been pre-qualified by the board and they will also be notified of their submission number so they can watch the board meeting at which their application was reviewed. So today we have four pre-qualification applicants up for review and as the chair mentioned that the outset our staff really have been focused on setting up like the internal framework for receiving and organizing and storing applications. Now that that process has been established we anticipate having a greater number of patients to review each week. So here's our list of four submissions that are up for review this week. And as we just went through the individuals involved in the business are going to remain anonymous. So for submission number 12, that's how we are anonymizing these and assigning them a submission number and leaving out the individuals in the business name. So for submission number 12, they are seeking an outdoor tier one cultivation license. They are not an applicant or a licensee for any other license type and they have met the criteria for sufficiency, their application was complete, their criminal history record demonstrated no presumptively disqualifying criminal offenses. So therefore the staff has determined that they are suitable for pre-qualification and recommend our qualification. Submission number 36 is seeking an indoor tier one cultivation license. The submission also did not, the applicant isn't an applicant or a licensee for any other license type. And again, they demonstrated sufficiency of all of the requirements and their criminal history record revealed no presumptively disqualifying offenses. And so board staff finds them suitable and recommend the submission also for pre-qualification. Submission number 60 is seeking an indoor tier one cultivation license. Again, they are not an applicant or a licensee for any other license type. They have met the sufficiency requirements, their criminal history record revealed no presumptively disqualifying offenses. So board staff found this application suitable and recommends them for pre-qualification. And lastly, submission number 140, seeking an indoor tier one cultivation license. This applicant is also not an applicant or a licensee for any other license type and their application was also sufficient, complete and their criminal history record revealed no presumptively disqualifying offenses. So the board finds their application suitable and recommends mission 140 for pre-qualification also. And the rest of this document, I think you've reviewed already which is the submission summary. Not first, so I won't go through that. All right, any discussion about either the process or any questions about these four applications? Nope. Okay, and we've all reviewed, we don't, it's anonymized, but we've reviewed the principles of each to ensure that none of us have any sort of conflict of any, we don't implicate the conflict of any policy. Yes. Okay, then why don't we vote to, is there a motion to approve these in two weeks? Can we do it all at once? I'm sure we have some more. Oh, excellent. I'm prepared. All right. Move that the board accept each of the recommendations for pre-qualification approval as presented to us by staff in this meeting. Wait, is there a second? Second. Any discussion at all? All right, all in favor? Aye. Aye. So Brandon, now you're gonna notify these 12, or these four applicants. Yep, each of these applicants will be notified given their submission number and only to the meeting and also they will be presented with a letter. Sorry to find them as pre-qualified. Okay. All right, anything more for pre-qualification then? Not today. Okay, and our plan is to do more on next Monday. And really, I think, start with the small cultivators. Really trying to get them done with all the people that kind of have their application window open on April 1st. I think it's smart to start there to get them qualified and then kind of move through the rest of the applicants based upon that kind of statutory timeline. All right, well, then why don't we move to public comment? We'll handle it the kind of same way we always do. If you have public comment, please raise your virtual hand. Then we'll move to folks that have joined by the phone just to reiterate that the board really cannot answer questions during public comment sessions. They're designed for the public to provide feedback and participate in the decision-making process of the board. We really can't be in the position of answering people's direct questions. And we do have an email address that people can submit their questions to. Do try and keep our frequently asked questions up to date. And we use your questions to help inform those. But why don't we open it up to public comment and maybe Nellie could help us with the order. That's the plan. Dave is up first. Hey all, good morning. I hope that the pace will pick up as 565 prequels at four a week will take a few years. Regarding background checks, I guess my thought here is my clients, the applicants will go through whatever process you guys put out there of course. But we have found that the prequel background check process was workable of getting your own FBI background check results and submitting those to the board. And it just when you mentioned earlier the idea of having a vendor go state by state to each state where you've lived in the last seven years, it just sort of seems like that's a cumbersome process when we do have a way to get you the 50 state fingerprint based background check results. So just thought I would put that out there. Thank you very much. Thanks, Dave. Next is Jesse. Oh, with OGO? I could just one other people have their hand up for me. Hi, little taking them back. I just had a quick question for you guys. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding, I don't have a question. I was just gonna say pretty much the same thing as the last person did. And also just suggested maybe, I don't know if you guys you probably have thought about it, but people that did the prequel and already did the background check and sent like a sealed envelope. If maybe that would suffice for full licensing instead of the state-to-states because I have a couple traveling hippies in my gang and oh my gosh, you guys do not wanna see the states they've lived in the past seven years. So that's all I have. Thank you guys for your hard work. Ian, I will see you next week. Thanks, Jesse. I don't see anyone else with a hand up close. Jason, Jason Corsano. Yep, you can hear him on now. Thanks, I appreciate it. I actually have a question, maybe a concern and then maybe a recommendation. So I'll start with the question. I didn't necessarily hear for the pre-qualification. Does the fee have to be paid 500 in order for us to get pre-qualified? I didn't hear it that clearly. And then as far as the network that we're working on, collecting all individual data from bank account to everything, I do have some concerns with just the security of the network. And I just thought that maybe I'd bring that up and maybe you can build some confidence by addressing what you have done and maybe some simple things with a basic text or email code verification simply like every other platform that has secure information. And then as far as maybe a recommendation for next year concerning the budget for the CCB because that's really what dictates the flow of things over the years, the growth, the success of this whole program. So if your budget doesn't work then the program is not gonna work. So with concerns with that, I guess one solution in my mind would be for the integrated licenses that are going to be issued and in the future most likely no more of them possibly. It just would behoove the CCB to maximize that fee to the minimum of if an Apple can applies for all the tiers that an integrated license can apply for and have unlimited, I believe, canopy. It would make sense to go to $149,000 versus a hundred because that would be each individual license at its maximum and that would just be a little bit more, make more sense, it'd be more fair even though the start of it doesn't seem that it started that way. But I think that would bulk up another $50,000 for each one of those licenses and that might be a quick solution. Thanks a lot for listening. I appreciate all the work you guys are doing. Thanks, Jason. All right, we have THC analytics. Yeah, just a quick one and this is more of a concern than anything. We pre-applied for the pre-qualification and we never received any follow-up emails. That was it. Thank you, appreciate it. Thank you. So I don't see any other hands. If there's anyone that joined via the phone, you can unmute yourself by hitting star six. All right, we'll close the public comment window. Just with respect to the pre-qualification, yeah, the fee is a prerequisite of being pre-qualified. We didn't have the ability to collect that online. We didn't have the authority, I should say, to collect it when we open our pre-qualification window. But if you sought pre-qualification, you will be notified by the board about paying the fee and THC analytics. I'm sure someone will follow up with you after the meeting to make sure that your application was submitted properly. Anything else, anyone? Did you want to reiterate why we can't use the information that's already been submitted for the background check? I think you sort of touched on it in the beginning, but. Right, the 50-state support fingerprint supported background check is set up by statute. The process is set up by statute that we have to work through the BCIC, the Center for Crime Information Center to request the information from the FBI. It's a very specific process that's laid out. And so we've evaluated whether or not the kind of process that we use for pre-qualification could satisfy what we need to do. We're not sure that it actually meets the kind of specific statutory language. So we've created an alternative system. We've evaluated this proposal, though. And so I would just say we're going to keep our guidance on this up-to-date and our application materials will reflect what we need. So I would just say that we have a backup plan if the FBI doesn't give us this authorization by May 1st. And we'll just make sure that anyone is seeking the licenses aware of what's required. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. I would just reiterate, because I know we at least heard from one commenter there was only four today. But I want to applaud our staff for even getting us four. There's a lot of processes that we need to set up. Part of that is also making sure folks are giving us all the information that we need, and that we're not constantly hunting down that information to pre-qualify somebody. So that's a two-way street, and I would expect there to be those to climb it. These, hopefully, an exponential rate, but at least a linear rate over the next couple of weeks. So have no fear. Great. Well, it's the end of our agenda. So I will adjourn the meeting, and we'll be back next Monday. Thanks, everyone.


Welcome to the Brooklyn Museum. My name is Lauren Celia. I'm the director of public programs for the museum. It's truly an honor to stand here before you for the first time at this podium since February 2020. And on behalf of the museum, but also as your neighbor, I want to extend our deepest condolences for any hardships, any losses that you and your loved ones have suffered this past year and a half. I also want to shout out some healthcare workers and essential workers that I know are here in the audience with us tonight. We appreciate y'all and thank you to everyone here for coming out and continuing to support arts and culture and showing up for a community, especially our members. Thank you, it means a lot. We hope you'll continue to see the museum as a place of refuge, inspiration, joy, and comfort in the years to come. Now for the reason for our gathering. We are so excited to welcome you to tonight's Brooklyn Talk, The Sartorial Vision of Michelle Obama. We're gathered on the occasion of the Obama Portraits Tour and these two culture shifting artworks surely need no introduction, but they're here on the screen just to remind y'all. For the first time in Brooklyn, we're excited to present the official portrait of Barack Obama by artist Kehinde Wiley, who you may remember, had his first solo show here at the Brooklyn Museum. And of course, the portrait of our first lady, Forever First Lady, Michelle Obama by Amy Sherrill. And it is this portrait, which serves as inspiration for tonight's conversation. I'm also happy to shout out Michelle Smith, who's the designer of the iconic dress that Michelle Obama wore for her sitting in this portrait and she's here in the audience with us tonight. So thank you. And then of course, our auditorium shows beautiful images, but you can see the portraits in person. Our galleries will be open tonight until 10 p.m., so you can check them out after the talk. Before we introduce tonight's esteemed guests, I just want to take a moment to thank our supporters at Bank of America and the new hotel for making public programs like this possible. I also want to shout out my dear colleagues, Eugenie Sy and Jane Deney, who's here with us tonight. They curated Brooklyn Museum's presentation of the Obama portrait, so let's give it up for them. And I have so much more gratitude to give, so thank you for sharing it with us. I just want to thank the entire operations, security, audio-visual marketing communications, visitor experience, exhibition teams who made tonight's program possible. And most of all, shout out to Dolores Farrell, our director of exhibition planning, and Margot Cohen-Risderucci, our public programs manager for making the magic happen. So without further ado, we are beyond honored to host a conversation with two brilliant trailblazers who are at the forefront of shaping our culture through a thoughtful consideration of dress and expanding the conversation around the intersection of fashion, politics, and history. First up, we have Kimberly Jenkins. Kimberly Jenkins is a professor in the field of fashion studies, which examines why we wear what we wear. As an educator specializing in fashion history and theory, Kim became best known for her groundbreaking course and exhibition, Fashion and Race, at Parsons School of Design, and has shared her insights globally in various industries, cultural institutions, and media platforms. She is also the founder of the Fashion and Race database. Please give it up for Kim. And then here as her conversation partner tonight, we are so honored to have the fabulous Meredith Koop. Meredith Koop is an acclaimed fashion stylist, image strategist, and consultant. Profiled in the New York Times and Vogue, Koop is known for her work with long-time client, Michelle Obama. Koop curated the content of the former First Lady's message into a dynamic and impactful wardrobe during her tenure in the White House and of course on the Becoming Book Tour. Their partnership continues until this day. Koop also styles and edited a private selection of powerhouse individuals. She brings her intuitive and thoughtful approach to all of her clients' lives. In addition to styling, Koop consults with brands and companies that aim to have a positive cultural impact. Born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, Koop was drawn to the creativity of fashion while pursuing her additional passions of dance and psychology. Relocating to Chicago in 2003, she worked at a high-end clothing boutique where her fashion career began. There, Koop built up a comprehensive knowledge of fashion as well as a flair for styling a variety of people. Please join me in welcoming our first speakers to the stage in over a year and a half, the wonderful Kimberly Jenkins and Meredith Koop. Hi. Hi.  We are going to be talking about the power of style, the impact of dress, and if there's anything that you know about dress and style is that it helps to express our identity, it constructs our identity, it expresses our politics, where we've been, our history, our emotions, it mediates our emotions, and it's an intermediary between us and society, how we feel about ourselves, how what we want to express to the world, and also it's shaped by how society views us. So one woman in particular who we're going to be talking about, Mrs. Michelle Obama, she has an extraordinary role to play, and that is being at the forefront as the former first lady and expressing sort of our politics, our nationhood. There was a great deal weighing on her shoulders, and when it comes to dress and style, you need someone to help mediate all of that, and so that is why I'm so thrilled and honored to be seated with Meredith Koop and why this talk is so important, because oftentimes when we see key figures in the spotlight, we think that they've dressed themselves, maybe in some ways, some of us think that, and what we don't know are kind of the hidden hands behind constructing that entire look and really strategizing the image that that person wants to convey. So that is what we're going to get into tonight and what will make this conversation so unique. So the way that we've have framed this conversation for you, Meredith thought it would be a really good idea to kind of take you through the evolution. So when we put together this slideshow, it's gonna be taking you on a journey thematically through the evolution of Mrs. Obama's style from the portrait, of course, where we'll start, and then we'll take you into the inauguration. We'll take you into when Mrs. Obama has spoken at the Democratic National Convention, and then we'll look at special events and kind of lead into the final stages, which is the becoming book tour.  So buckle up, we're gonna get into it. It's a pleasure to be here with you. Yes, you too. And thank you all for coming. I'm very grateful to be here. And first event in a year and a half, it's pretty extraordinary. Okay, so we need to start with the portrait, and then we'll take a step back into the history of Meredith with Mrs. Obama. So the portrait, which some of you may have seen in person or you may see tonight. Here we go, here's the image. And so before we get started, one of the key focal points, aside from Mrs. Obama, in this painting is of course the dress. And so we've got an image here of Mrs. Obama seated, getting ready for the portrait. So Meredith, take us through this and sort of what led to the dress selection and just sort of the construction of this look here. Yes, absolutely. So this portrait was special for a lot of reasons.  And so when it was brought down to me that Amy Sherild was gonna be the artist that Michelle was gonna work with, I went and I looked at her work and I studied what I could of what she's done. And one of her paintings at that time that was notable and had she had received a reward for was called Miss Everything. I don't know if any of you have seen it. I feel like some of you are art people in here. So when you look at that painting and some of her other work, I was looking at the clothing that had been used and had been painted and I was seeing something that referenced every day and also like a 1950s or 60s aesthetic. And so I started working and pulling together some ideas. And at that time there were two looks that I was interested in that were very, very different. So one was a brocade look with a very 1950 silhouette, very traditional, had very much a first lady connotation. And then I was looking at this gorgeous dress that ended up being the dress, which was a Millie dress from the spring summer 2017 collection and really I just loved the pattern. I thought the pattern was gonna be so striking. Amy had told me a little bit about what she was thinking in terms of the pose and how the painting was gonna be laid out. And so I knew that the dress was going to take up a significant amount of the canvas. And so the pose and thinking about the way she would sit and the way she was over on her hand and how the dress would flow at the bottom, I just thought this could be amazing. And so I contacted Michelle and we lengthened it and changed a few details. And I had a fitting, which is what I normally would do. And it was just so clear that this dress was so comfortable for her and that this was something that she would wear for her life. Like if she was hosting a party or going to a party, this is something that she would wear. And I love that because for something as significant as a portrait, you might think, okay, I'm gonna put on like, it's like school outfit day. I gotta put on my special outfit and it's like, no, this was just more of a casual, her being true to herself. And I think Millie at that time and Michelle Smith's work so much embodies what real women like to wear day to day. So I felt like it was the perfect marriage of ideas. Here it is again. This is just, that was just the other pattern of the other dress that we were looking at. And I put that up there just to sort of a point, especially if people in here are thinking about fashion, looking to be stylist, I think it's just interesting to talk about all the things that go into it. And this was a very specific case where we talked about what it would be like, Amy was telling me what it would be like for her to paint certain things and what would be easier and what would be more difficult and the geometric images of the dress that we chose were so clearly graphic and really showed up on the canvas. So now before we get into these images, I want to take a quick step back. I mean, the audience got to learn a little bit about your background in the bio that Lauren read. But I think on many people's minds is how did you get here? How did you get to this point? How did you get to such an incredible job that many people would probably love that? I just answered an ad online. It was so simple and set my resume. Yeah, you know, life is extraordinary. And I really, it was a combination of things. So I started working in fashion after college. I worked in a retail boutique, a high end retail boutique in Chicago where I was selling clothes, I had a client book and working with clothing from designers like Alexander McQueen, like these big fancy designers that I'd never seen in real life. I grew up in the suburbs of St. Louis, Missouri. Making, like going to an even Marcus was like crazy. So I didn't have the experience of seeing any of these pieces in real life that I was working with when I got to that point. But I had looked at magazines and really big into MTV and visual imagery. And so I had all these fantasies in this imaginary world about it. But I started working there mostly to be honest because I needed a job and I really didn't have a lot of direction and this seemed like a good fit for me. I was not offered the job when I first interviewed but I begged for that job and I got it. And I really loved working there. I worked there for about five years on and off. During that time, I also went back and got my master's degree in clinical psychology. That's a little tidbit about me. So got that degree. I think I use it but maybe not in a literal sense. Decided I didn't wanna practice psychology in that way. I wanted to apply it in other ways. So yeah, so through that employer, that is how I became connected with Mrs. Obama and ended up being an assistant stylist at first for the first year of the administration and then became her primary stylist after that. And so let's get into the work of this. And before we start that, what would you say is the work of a stylist or also sometimes you might call yourself an image strategist so people can kind of get a feel for this kind of work that's at play whenever we see Mrs. Obama conveying a certain look or image. What goes into this? Yeah, that's a great question. Thank you. So I'm curious, are there any people here that are stylists or wanna be stylists or designers? Okay, couple, couple. So I think it does vary. So for me, for my work and for what I do, I create looks for individuals and that's based on a lot of things. That's based on what I find aesthetically pleasing. That's based on what is current. That's based on energies. That's based on psychology. It's based on a lot of different things. My work with Mrs. Obama was very specific and I think now I'm seeing some stylists, not all stylists, but some stylists taking into consideration the narrative behind a certain piece of clothing and that could be the way it looks, who designed it, what the references are and building that story as part of the look versus this is just a gorgeous dress. I mean, how many gorgeous dresses have we seen so many? I mean, there's tons of pretty, pretty things out there for people to wear, but I've always been more interested and became more interested, especially in this role with what is the story? What is the through line? What does this reflect of that person? But also keeping very much in mind what makes a client comfortable. All of my clients, I want them to be comfortable and happy and feel great because there's nothing more powerful than feeling a certain sense of confidence or a certain sense of self-esteem and yes, I do believe that comes from the inside. That's an inside job for sure.  It's that individual connection that I have with my clients and seeing them go out into the world and thrive and frankly, for many of them, not think about their clothes. Like, leave the thinking to me and you can go and do what you do, whether that's being the first lady or a lawyer or an artist or whatever your career is because I don't know about you guys but I find it stressful. You know, I can style other people all day long but getting myself put together, it's a different process and it can be very stressful to shop, pick out your clothes, go online, go to stores.  It's a real job. And we also know the power, like when you look good, you feel good. So you really need to put this work in capable hands and one last thing I'll say and we'll get on with this is one thing you and I were chatting about is gender assumptions that oftentimes women in the spotlight that they just naturally love fashion or thinking about this or is it so vulnerable? You know, just knew what you wanted to wear and things like that and sometimes maybe they don't. Maybe they're just ambivalent about it and they just need someone to do this work. That's what I think is really interesting. I mean, there's so much that we could talk about and there's so much in this conversation but this assumption that someone who identifies as a woman needs to automatically be interested in fashion or needs to have a certain knowledge base of fashion or care about fashion, I find really just an interesting point of conversation and I often experience that and I often thought about, you know, Michelle and her background and being a lawyer and then being in this public eye in such an intense, intense way and having all these people look at her and one of the first things they were looking at is what is she wearing? You know, it's just a different level of scrutiny. I was gonna say no one was looking at what her husband was wearing but then I was thinking about the mom jeans. Or the dad jeans, sorry, dad jeans. And the beige suit. The condemned beige suit. So yeah. So this is the work. So let's get started with the work, starting in 2009. So if you wanna take us through these looks. Yeah, I just thought it'd be interesting to take a little bit of a different process here and just kind of look over, you know, the years. These, we're gonna go through four inauguration looks. First two inauguration looks are for inaugurations for President Barack Obama. And so you can just kind of see like the change and I see a change not only in the clothing but the way that they look and their energy and the time that has passed. This first look over here, the Isabel Toledo look, the lemongrass that was chosen styled by E. Crom Goldman, who was my previous employer and who is very amazingly talented. And Isabel Toledo unfortunately passed away, also an amazing designer. And then this look over here, I'm pointing to it but it's behind me, so. It's Tom Brown and at the time that I was looking for a look for this event, you know, one thing people don't really consider when they look at pictures like this is all of the practical and logistics that go into clothing, like for example, if I told you, you know what I'd like you to do? I'd like you to go outside in January in the East Coast and I want you to stand there for three hours.  What are you gonna wear? You know, that's kind of what this is. And so there's a lot of practical considerations about warmth and weather. Is it gonna rain? Is it gonna snow? Is it gonna be a little bit unseasonably warm or perhaps unseasonably cold? So there were all these features of these outfits to think about from linings and scarves and all the accessories and layers. But at this time, Tom Brown, who is now a very well known designer was not very well known. And so I had been following his work and I was just in love with what he did and I really wanted to do this play on stereotypes around gender. So this print that she's wearing is actually a tie print. Like that would traditionally be seen as a male tie used in this coat. So yeah, and then I just added a couple touches. You know, we did a little high low moment with the J crew, of course, just to tie that story through. And I think part of why I wanted to group some of these images together is because I always thought it was interesting to see like the through line of a story, like as though when you're watching a movie and a character is you kind of see the connections and the costume and what they wear. If you're watching a series, you see those connections and what they wear. And I always tried to do little things like that if for nothing else, for my own amusement because I had no platform and I couldn't control what people would say about it. But yeah, just to carry that storyline through. Well, and this is a very interesting juxtaposition, you know, where everything is so bright and kind of soft with the lemongrass and the bare legs and this look that you had put together for 2013 was just very much more like suiting, almost armor, but still in a delicate way, very elegant way. And that was one of the reasons I wanted to do like a color. I mean, these are things that I, I can't tell you how many sleepless nights I've had thinking about gloves and turtlenecks, but I was very much wanted to do like a little pop of color, a little bit of like, again, a stereotypically feminine touch with the sort of pinky red. But yeah, if you look at the Isabel Toledo, it's definitely, there is something soft and quilt like about it versus the more sculptured look. Okay. Then we have two more inaugurations. So we have Jason Wu here for 2017. Not gonna get into the politics of that inauguration, but we were warm. If nothing else, we were warm. And one thing a lot of, you know, and this will come up with the next slide, but a lot of people have asked me and all these designers, I mean, I feel so personally attached even though I was in DC, I didn't spend a lot of time with people. Our main relationships were on email, but it was just, I felt such an affection and gratitude towards them. And Jason is someone who, people are like, why did she wear Jason Wu so much? Why did she wear Jason Wu so much? Let me tell you, Jason Wu knows how to make clothes really well. And I've worked with now hundreds of designers, both domestically and internationally.  So for, you know, just to say it plainly, a lot of times when you see models, and I know that we're seeing more inclusivity, but we have a long way to go and you see models and it's very much straight up and down. You know, the old adage about a model's body being like a hanger. And so a designer can have a beautiful idea and construct a garment to go to look great on a hanger. But once you start adding curves, circles, in different directions, it requires a different eye. And Jason, we would call him our A plus student because he would always come through very minor alterations and that's very rare. So that's that look. And then of course, Sergio Hudson. Ah, Sergio, such an amazing designer. This was so awesome working with him. And again, a lot of this was about practicality, but one of the things that we had been doing in the book tour and up to this point was moving into wearing more pants. After the White House, it was just like, ugh, dresses, ugh, skirts, pants, suits. Let's do something a little bit more, for her, a little bit more comfortable. And so I was thrilled that she was open to wearing pants for this inauguration and working with Sergio. We're just, we very much see eye to eye. And so it was just like a perfect, I think a perfect marriage for this event and it was really strong. Obviously the mask added a level of what some were calling super heroishness and the gloves. And the gloves. And yeah, I mean, I love this outfit. It's honestly better in motion. I wish this was our video because it was just so fabulous in motion. And it was so strong and just so self-possessed. I loved it. I noticed on social media, and perhaps many of you did as well, there was a strong reaction to it. People thought, wow. People liked it. What a statement. Well done. And then for softer looks, we've got the inauguration celebrations here. Yeah, so inauguration, obviously a big moment in our country's history. And again, Jason Wu both times. And there were some people, there were some critics and whatnot and everyone has a right to their opinion, but the truth is, is that I always pull a few options for each event. And so I was hoping that certain things, you never know how things are gonna be until the dress comes in. You can look at a sketch, you can plan, you can prepare, you can do everything to make something work. But again, Jason's dress was the best dress and it was comfortable and easy and I love the color and the texture. And so I thought it was pretty, it's incredible for him that he dressed her for both of her, the inaugurations. But I love looking at the different vibes. I mean, from those four years, just how much changed in the attitude. There's a sense of consistency. I'm getting like a classical or a Grecian silhouette. Yeah, I think for me, I was very happy to do this second look and sort of continue this story. And I loved, it just checked every box. Like it doesn't wrinkle, it's cut beautifully, the fabric is amazing. Like we worked with Kimberly McDonald to do the little detail. Kimberly McDonald is a jewelry designer and we did the little detail at the neck of the dress. And red is such a powerful color. For me, I love thinking about, we were talking about colors before. As you can see, she's wearing red. Which, I have this theory, I'm noticing. And then when I saw you when you arrived in the red, I thought, okay, there's something to this. If you all noticed, so her gloves, I mean, it might be a purplish, but what my eyes are seeing is kind of this deep, kind of burgundy or oxblood red. So that was kind of like the first taste of it. And then, once again, Jason Buu 2017. It's kind of red ensemble. And then Sergio Hudson again. Well, I'm gonna tell you the truth. All these colors appear very different to my eye. So each of them are like their own unique things to me. But I also see that they look very similar. Now that I'm looking at them side by side, they are kind of similar.  What are you talking about? But that was one of the things with the Sergio Hudson look. All these, there were journalists calling it purple. And I was like, Sergio and I were like, this is not purple, what's going on? Which seems so silly to even talk about, but. It's like that moment years ago when we were all arguing over the dress. Like what color is it? Like is it gold or is it blue? Yeah. But it really, I think colors are very important. And I think there, certain colors are about tradition. Certain colors are about history. Certain colors have, you know, the wavelengths of colors and how they hit your eye, it is an energy. And so it is, each color is gonna have its own unique fingerprint, in my opinion. And speaking of significant colors to represent something, thinking of red versus blue in this nation. Here we start seeing a different silhouette also. That very much, I do wanna ask you about these silhouettes that you picked for D&C events. If there's anything to the cut, you know, showing more arm or just having something where the hemline is a little shorter because it's really more about getting to work. And just, you know, it's less of something that's kind of getting in the way, like too long of a hemline. It's really kind of working this look for what the First Lady is called to do. Right. Yeah, so you can see here 2008 versus 2012. I, it's interesting. So first of all, 2008, this was styled by Echrom Goldman again. Maria Pinto is a designer out of Chicago. And then for 2012, we did this Tracy Reese look. And I don't know if anybody remembers, but everyone was like, I was reading, I was looking back at these images and I was seeing these images of nail polish bottles. I was like, right, everyone was like, looking for this nail polish that she was wearing. How funny is that? But really, yes, things definitely changed. And the truth is, I commissioned this Tracy Reese dress, worked with Tracy, and it had sleeves. Because at that time, one of the things that kept happening over and over again, especially in the first term and into the second term was this obsession with her arms, which at some point I was like, this is getting weird. Like, this is really not okay. And every magazine shoot we would do, every photography thing, people would be like, you know what, we would really love if she would show her arms, her fabulous arms. I was like, no, what, this is crazy. What are you talking, it's not, this is not something you can commission. Someone to show their body parts, like come on. But we got the dress and it looked better sleeveless. Sorry, that's just what happened. But we cut, we were really getting into a groove of women and men and people. You know, as we change, different things suit our needs better. And so we were doing more of a cut in sleeve and the silhouette was becoming looser on the bottom just because it was more comfortable for her. And she really liked the way it looked when she walked across the stage to have some movement. And so we started leaning into that more. And so you see that here. Tracy actually ended up making this dress after we did this custom project. She made it for, and sold it through Anthropology, I believe, which was really awesome. And then in the next slide, you'll see the Christian Siriano look, which is more of even a fuller circle skirt. And so things were just becoming more, having more movement at the bottom. Here it is. So 2016, Christian Siriano. Oh, that got cut off a little bit, but that's all right. So yeah, it was really, one of the reasons, again, there were a few options for this event, but this was the most comfortable and ended up working the best. One of the reasons that I really wanted to work with Christian for this was at the time he was being very vocal about working with women of different shapes and sizes for dressing them for the red carpet. One notably was Leslie Jones from SNL. And I felt like that was a really important message and one that I wasn't hearing from a lot of designers at that time. And also I thought it was cool that like working in fashion, I'll just say there's a lot of snobs, okay. And people often, you know, project runway alums would not be allowed to mix with the upper echelon of fashion. So I really wanted to support his career at that time. And then 2020, just gosh, when was that? Oh my gosh. It was a long time ago. So by Shari was someone that I, a lot of people will ask me, well, how do you find designers? And a lot of times I'm just looking through Instagram, like trying to find new people. I'm always looking for new designers from all over the world, you know, just seeing what's out there. And I had seen her work and I had, I actually didn't know that she had made a vote necklace. I guess she had, but I just really wanted, since I knew this was gonna be on Zoom this year, I wanted to find something that could speak in this small little frame that people were gonna see. And so I asked her to make this vote necklace. And it was quite anxiety provoking because I wasn't quite sure if people were gonna be able to read it on camera at their TVs at home. So it was a little concern. I also wasn't there the day that they filmed. So I was just texting people like, make sure the letters are turned the right way. Make sure you can see it. Can you see it? Can you see it? Everyone's ignoring me. No response. So, but I was so thrilled that people really responded to this. And again, I just love tapping into what people are thinking about, you know, that point of accessibility and that point of relationship. And a lot of people went out and bought this necklace. A lot of people also knocked it off or made it and sold it for a lot cheaper. But Shari, the designer really, I think helped her business a lot. And so that's pretty cool. And I think that's interesting in that moment when most things were virtual last year, you pivoted and realized, okay, this isn't gonna be so much about the look, the whole look. It's like an accessory to express something. We need something, we need an accessory. And it worked. Yes. Okay. And now special events. Some of my favorite looks in here. Okay. This. I want to talk about risks. So when it comes to a First Lady, there's also these sort of assumptions or expectations or sometimes moral expectations of how a woman should be presenting herself and representing the nation and things like this. And also the fact that this is a widely known luxury label. So take us through the thought process of this and also what the reaction was. And also Mrs. Obama's reaction to this. I could cry. I just love, this is just one of my favorite all time looks. So much to say, where do I start? So this was for the Italian State Dinner in 2016. And so there's so many designers out of Italy. I mean, it's known for design, fashion, production, manufacturing. So like all of these events, I started out researching, okay, what designers do I want to work with? And put together a list, started putting together look ideas. I really wanted to work with, I'm going to say Versace, that's how I pronounce it.  But I really wanted to work with the team there and with Donatella. I didn't work directly with Donatella, but I'm just saying her name because she is the designer. But they, the look, the Versace look is very sexy. And I definitely played around with that throughout the terms like, because I'm going to say something controversial, I get maybe, but I find Michelle to be a sexy woman. And so if she feels inclined to express herself in that way, I'm in full support. So this dress was definitely, okay, I'm going to take this risk. I really want this to happen, but I'm going to have a backup.  And working with them was amazing. They sent me so many, they must have sent me 25 sketches, which is way too many. And chain mail, which is the material that this is made of, is a really intricate process where you need to literally affix each piece together. And it's something that the house is known for and they have an Atelier in Italy and it's a big production. So they sent me these dresses and they sent me one in silver and one in gold. And I kept looking at back at the sketches, processing them, sleeping on it, looking at them again. I was like, it's just, it's reading too disco to me. I really want something more pink. Like I want, okay, there's silver, there's gold. What's the other, bro's gold? So I reached out to them and they were like, yes, we'll make it happen. I was like, yes. So they made this beautiful rose gold chain mail dress and it was, it probably weighs like 40 pounds. So it's a lot, it's a lot to deal with. So I, until the very day of the event, I was like, she's not gonna do it. She's not gonna do it. She's not gonna do it. Don't get excited. She's not gonna do it. She's not gonna wear that. She's gonna say no, it's not gonna work. It's not gonna fit. It's not gonna be right. Cause we, it's very difficult to alter and we had to do a little bit of an alteration but she ended up going for it. And I was just like, oh my God. But I loved it because a lot of times journalists, what they write or what they've written in the past, they don't really get it right. But this time, someone did talk about sort of this contrast of this, again, stereotypical feminine look of a rose gold, of a rose colored garment and the strength of a chain mail, which is literally like an armor and that sort of parallel contradiction, however you wanna say it. And it was just, it was so beautiful because that is the strength and the femininity and the vulnerability. Those things are the things that I think are part of what make Mrs. Obama so accessible and wonderful to people is that combination. So the dress perfectly reflected hair, makeup, on point, jewelry, shoes, everything, check. Everything. I mean, she looks like, yes, if you wanted to go on. It was great.  Also the heels, you know, just take her right up to Mr. Obama's height. So she's also just right up there with him. So it's a powerful look with how tall she is and how the dress is hugging her body and also the hairstyling too. That was one of the first times I saw her really, you know, giving us that, you know, so. Inside, inside, yeah. The side, you know, so it was just such a look, the symmetry, everything working out. And would you say this was kind of the first time where you both really kind of went for it and did a look that was so sensual was this the first time or was there? There were others, they just didn't get as much press. Okay. Yeah, there were definitely others. I mean, there was a time back in the first term where she went to, because I was looking at this image, actually, she went to the Nick, I don't want to say it wrong, Nickelodeon's Kids Choice Awards. Okay. I'm not, it's not really my demo. But she wore, and this was really early on, she wore this great pair of helmet-laying metallic faux leather tight pants with this sequin blazer, Wes Gordon, before he was at Carolina Herrera. And it was just, it was just super like modern and youthful and very sexy. And there were all sorts of things people said about it. I'm not gonna repeat them, but yeah, it was something that like I, we were playing around with and this, but this was, but it was not like a spoken thing. We weren't like, hey, let's be sexy.  But this was definitely such a huge, I mean, these state dinners were so well covered by the press, so it was a huge moment. Again, playing with more cuts, silhouettes. So this was in, so one of the reasons this was in the slide show. This was one of the first looks post-White House. And so I definitely wanted to do something different and something that we really, there was really no events in the White House where she could wear this. There was just, they just didn't exist. So really wanted to do something really different and clean and modern. This is Krishna at Ox. And you can see in the runway look, it has this sequined piece to it that we changed.  I mean, we've turned tops into dress. We've changed just so many things. So one of the reasons I'm even bringing that up or vocalizing it is, because I just think it's so important for women and people and men and whoever you are, individuals to be able to wear what they want the way that they want to wear it. And one of the things that happens in fashion that I still find shocking is like big design houses will be like, you can have this, but you can't change it. Or we'll make this for you, but you need to wear it exactly as it is. And that only happened to me once with Mrs. Obama where someone had told me, okay, you can have this, but you have to wear it just, you have to tell her she has to wear it just as it is. Or I don't even know what they said. I was like, no, we're changing. I'm just not gonna tell you, but we're gonna change it. Cause I just think that sort of again, this theme of like wanting to control, wanting to, you know, in particular wanting women to do this certain thing. Like I just, it just bugs me a little bit. So that's why I'm bringing it up. But yeah, so we modified this a bit to work for the event and to make it super, super clean. It's very sporty, appropriate. Okay, now becoming. Okay, so this was a part of the, we're now on the book tour. We've time traveled into 2018. And so this was one of, surely one of the most covered books of that tour. The tour was so great because we got to just break out of the mold. And in the beginning when this was coming, first of all, who goes on a, who writes a book and then goes on a worldwide tour and sells out stadiums? First of all, second of all, you know, when I was planning this and you know, she was like put, we hadn't really had much time to stop in the White House. So there wasn't really a lot of conversation. I was just doing things, getting things prepared, showing them to her, fitting them. And then she was going off. We actually had a little bit of time and what I said is I wanna do, you know, let's do different things. Let's do things we haven't been able to do or felt like we haven't been able to do. And so this was definitely, I mean, this is wild. This is out the box. This is off the chain. So this Balenciaga look was shown on the runway in yellow. And I just, I really liked not only the color but that it was a longer skirt. I just thought it was interesting and something that she really wouldn't have the occasion to wear other than this very thing. And as always, I was super duper prepared and I had multiple shoe options. One was the boots. But I came in real light with the boots because I was like, these boots are scary. I need to like come in real soft. Like maybe the boots. I don't know. So I had some more sensible, stilettos prepared. And then I was like, I don't know. I think these boots could be really cool. Like they're very different. I don't know, what do you think? Would you be up for that? Okay, yeah, she's up for it. So they're really difficult to put on. I don't know if anyone has experience with these, these are the Balenciaga knife boots, but you have to like roll them down and then kind of roll them all the way up. And so it was just a little bit of a commitment and something that we wouldn't normally do. Like she's not one to necessarily suffer for fashion. So I was really, again, it was one of those moments where I was like, she's not gonna do this. Like we're gonna, they're gonna go, we'll put them in the suitcase, whatever, but it's never gonna happen. So it's fine. I'm not gonna get excited about it. And then she was like, yeah, Brooklyn, let's go. I was like, okay, so it was all about Brooklyn and that's really was it. But I think, again, I think because it was so strong and so impactful and so in a way, polarizing, like you can't look at this and not have an opinion. Like you have an opinion about it and everybody's entitled to their opinion and fashion is a subjective thing. I think because of that and because we've never in, this just never happened. We've never had a first lady like Michelle Obama. We never will have another first lady like Michelle Obama because she's unique in who she is. This was just so out of the box and different and interesting for people. And I think also like, again, there are all these rules.  And it's all nonsense. What you should wear, what you shouldn't wear. Nonsense. She knows Brooklyn goes hard. Yeah. And just taking a moment before our last slide and last look is, I think this is also a good point to make something you and I were discussing privately is, you know, I wanna ask, you know, what is frequently misunderstood about Michelle Obama, especially now that we've see all of these risks that she takes and, you know, just how she shape-shifts with all of this, but it's still authentic. But what is something that's often, as someone now who's been close to her for 10 years? I, well, I wouldn't really know because I don't know what people, you know, I couldn't say what other people think or what there is to be misunderstood, but. Or what would you like people to know? I think what I would like people to know and recognize, not really specifically about Michelle, but just in general is that we're all human. And celebrities or people in the public eye, you know, we are all, we all have something in common. And I think there's a certain celebrity worship that happens that can be a little bit negative for society in general. And so I'm not really speaking specifically about Michelle, but I think just because she is so well-loved and regarded and respected, and I have that same love and respect for her, but I also see that everybody that you see, every celebrity that you see, they're all human. And we're all pretty much doing similar things in a lot of ways. Putting our Balenciaga boots on one boot at a time. If I could just highlight that statement for tonight. Right, well that totally contradicts my whole point, but. Our finale look, this is one of my favorite images in the slideshow, so beautiful. Take us through this look. I love this look. Again, Sergio Hudson, who I think is an amazing, amazing designer and also craftsman because I know that he works, actually knows how to make clothes. He doesn't just design them, he makes them as well. This was just such a beautiful suit in this color. It was made custom based on one of his collections. I believe it came in orange and white, but we wanted to do something special for her, so we did this in purple, which is a very regal color. And it didn't come with anything underneath. So yeah, we had to figure something out for that because we're not doing the whole tape situation. So the tailor that I work with, Christy Rilling, who has her own atelier here in New York, she makes beautiful custom clothing and she was making these beautiful bustiers at the time and really just wanted to not only just get one for Michelle, but also to make one for this outfit. And I ran around the garment district looking at every black sequins piece that I could find until we found just the right one. If you don't know, sequins come in many different shapes, sizes, and levels of sheen versus madness. So I really wanted to find the perfect sequin so you can see just a little photo there of us just testing it out to see how it appeared. And yeah, it just worked beautifully. This was in Atlanta. It was Gail King interviewed her that evening and it was just a beautiful night. And I think this is something that, again, like she felt totally comfortable and very cool in and something that a lot of people would like to have in their closet. Well, and so before we wrap up, in what ways, now that we've seen this journey or at least this kind of curated journey for tonight, in what ways would you say that you've seen Mrs. Obama's style evolve? I think... And also what you learned along the way in styling. Yeah, I mean, I've learned so much.  So a lot of First Ladies in the past have worked specifically with one designer or a couple designers or a very small group of designers. So taking this on was a huge endeavor that I really didn't understand to be honest and I'm still processing it. Yeah, I think it's just a very specific unique thing and I've learned a lot about, through her, you know, I've learned a lot about what is important when it comes to dress and she is such a pragmatic person and so into comfort and so into meeting her audience where they are, you know, she wouldn't wanna show up at an event for school counselors in a ball gown. That's just not her.  What are we doing? It's fashion, right? And it was like, no, we're gonna do the practical thing. This needs to be comfortable. This needs to work. This needs to be similar to what the other people attending are wearing their level of dress and that's something I really always respected a lot. You know, I thought that was a really beautiful thing. Thank you for this concept. Thank you. Wow, I miss you guys so much. No one knows how to bring the Q and A like Brooklyn. Thank you. And thank you both for being so generous. We are truly in the presence of greatness here. Thank you to Kimberly and Meredith for sharing your expertise and for really doing so much to shape our culture here. Thank you so much for being with us tonight. Thank you, Lauren. You're welcome at any time. I also want to thank Nicole, our interpreter tonight. And of course, all of you for rocking with us and bringing your good humor and hard-hitting questions again. Seriously. So you can see the Obama portraits here in Brooklyn for the first time tonight until 10 p.m. So you can head up to the fourth floor and check those out. They will also be on view through October 24th. So if you liked what you saw, come back and bring your family and friends. And then of course, I have to plug another program to bring you back to the auditorium. So we have a few spots left where these tickets are selling pretty hot. But you can join us on October 14th for a talk with the official portrait artist, Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherrill. They will be here in the pink chairs. That is amazing. Yes, come back. And if you are a fan of fashion, which I'm assuming is something that brought you here tonight, next week we are opening a Dior exhibition at the museum. So this opens next weekend. So please come back, kick it with us, see some more art, bring your friends and family. Again, thank you so much for being here, getting vaccinated, staying safe, looking out for others and community.


The world's most famous radio personality and TV host Ryan Seacrest underwent a major upheaval in his life a few years ago. At this time, he decided to move to New York City and live full time in the Big Apple while recording his popular morning show Live with Kelly and Ryan. In the process of making the move, Ryan bid farewell to a couple of stunning Beverly Hills properties that took him years to offload. One of these was a stunning and expansive estate that he originally bought from Ellen DeGeneres back in 2012 for 36.5 million. Built by architects Buff and Hensman in the 1960s for the Monturian candidate star Lawrence Harvey, this home has since been owned by celebs like Dane Joan Collins and Willan Grace co-creator Max Muchnick before the keys were handed over to Ellen and then Seacrest.