EXCLUSIVE: Rebecca Minkoff, Unzipped: Fall ’25, Motherhood, and the Long Game

That bag moved with me through three homes and two states, a tiny totem of womanhood-in-progress. Ten years later, it sat on the desk beside me, still as gorgeous as the day I brought it home, while Rebecca herself sat across from me in the chicest reading glasses I’ve ever seen, layered chains framing an understated black tank. It was a true full-circle moment.

Rebecca Minkoff—female founder, wife, and mother of four—has built a brand threaded with cultural touchpoints and grit. From the early “I Love New York” DIY tee that Jenna Elfman wore on The Tonight Show just weeks after 9/11 (the day after Rebecca’s first runway show), to the heyday of The Hills with Kristin Cavallari, to Lindsay Lohan’s tabloid era, and most recently Taylor Swift rewearing a beloved bag, her designs have quietly persisted while the spotlight swiveled. Two decades in, through near-collapse during COVID, the reimagining of the cult-favorite Morning After Bag, and an expansion into more accessible lines, Rebecca has stayed loyal to a philosophy of smart, lasting style over loud logos and trends.

Our conversation spans the grit that kept the company alive, the principles that shaped her eye, the realities of marriage and motherhood, and the next wave she’s building.

Twenty years into building her namesake brand, Rebecca Minkoff still remembers the first moment it felt real. “I didn't feel like we were going to last until our first investment came in and I looked at that amount of money in our bank account and I was like, ‘Oh my god, I've got to screenshot this' or, I think I took a picture of the check, because I was like, 'we're real,’” she says. “A private equity firm has invested in us and they gave us a lot of money at the time. And that's when it felt like, okay, we can make it, we can do this.” That was 2012—seven years after she started.

Surviving the Near-Collapse

When COVID hit, that confidence was tested. “We almost went out of business,” she admits. Before the shutdowns, the business was reportedly generating upwards of $100 million in gross sales (2019), and entertainment sites routinely pegged Minkoff’s personal net worth around $10 million. From there, the hit was brutal: “Roughly 70% of our business kind of evaporated with all of our wholesale vendors cancelling their orders and not having places to sell to. We had to cut our team by more than half. We had to take pay cuts, defer our paychecks.”

Since the pandemic, the U.S. retail footprint has also contracted: the San Francisco (Fillmore) and Chicago (Oak Street) boutiques have closed, the Los Angeles (Melrose Avenue) store had shuttered by late 2021, and in New York the tech-forward Greene Street flagship was replaced by a Crosby Street space, which closed earlier this month.

Quitting would have been the easy option. “The least friction would have been to go out of business, but my brother and I had a lot of late night chats of like 'we've worked so hard, we might as well go down in flames', you know, than give up. So that was kind of our commitment to not only that, but the team that was left, we felt like we owed them, you know, like we all better fight and see if we can stick this out... and we did barely by the skin of our teeth.” In early 2022, Sunrise Brands acquired the label in an asset sale reported between $13 million and $19 million; Minkoff stayed on in a creative leadership role.

That brush with collapse sharpened her vision for what the brand would stand for long-term.

The Brand’s Core: Affordable Luxury, Minus the Loud Logo

Two principles have guided her from the start. “Fashion shouldn't mean you can't eat or pay your rent,” she says. “I think the goal was always to provide an affordable luxury item that a woman feels is like, ‘Oh my gosh, I get to have this and it's going to last. It's not going to flake and peel.’” The second: keep the focus on the woman, not the hardware. “I never wanted a woman [to] be known for the big plaque engraved on her bag… It's not about the logo or the plaque. It's about how that whole outfit and that whole bag makes the woman look overall.” She admits that restraint may have cost her in her logo not being as visible as other brands', but she also knows the quiet logo stance is why her bags age so well.

“Fashion shouldn't mean you can't eat or pay your rent.”

Still, she’s evolved, especially on price accessibility. “I thought that even though we were affordable luxury, I thought that to go below that was going to be impossible,” she says. Recent launches with JCPenney and QVC changed her mind, though. “To make fashion that affordable... when I saw the non-leather bags that were like 50 bucks, I was like, ‘This is f****** cute.’ [It] was something that I was like, ‘Oh, you can make [it] as long as you have a good design sense... you can make most things look beautiful at a good price.’”

Advice to Her 20-Something Self

If she could send a voice note back to her founder-era self? “Take the vacation. You don't need to work yourself like a dog. It's going to be okay,” she says. “And let yourself enjoy every single painful part of this journey because that's what makes the great moments so wonderful… you finally feel the wind at your sails and so really soak that up.”

The Morning After Bag, Reimagined

The cult-favorite that started it all, The M.A.B. (Morning After Bag), was born from early-aughts New York and Sex and the City swagger. “As a 26-year-old woman looking for love in New York City, I wanted to reclaim this idea that a woman goes out, stays out, and you know, and walks home and that's shameful,” she says. “And I was like, you know what, she is her own independent woman. There's nothing shameful if she had a great time and she was determining her destiny. So that's where the name came from, the morning after bag.” Rather than a straight reissue for the brand's 20th anniversary, she opted for a fresh take. “We were toying with, like, do we bring the bag back because there's so many legacy brands bringing back their classics? But it just felt dated. So we said, okay, what does an undated version of that look like? So that's what the new one is for.”

But legacy doesn’t mean nostalgia—Minkoff is quick to pivot to what’s next.

What She’s Wearing (and What She’s Canceling)

Daily favorites: “Currently I'm wearing The Perfect Tote in this really beautiful sort of khaki suede. I wear our Darren Sling bag all the time in the olive suede… and then the Frankie Woven Tote. I'm big on suede, so that's also in suede.”

Trend forecast: “I'm done with the head-to-toe brown… that can go,” she says, while cheering on modern tailoring. “I think suiting is really making a comeback, but not in a cheesy corporate way. It's very tailored or strong shoulders or a nipped waist. There's a lot of shape and silhouette happening in suiting that even I'm like I just want to wear suits all of fall, which I never ever thought I would say.”

As for the Y2K overload? “I appreciate the women that are into the 2000s, but I don't want to revisit that era personally. I feel like some people are like a train wreck... they have the hair pieces coming out and they're bleached and then their long nails and the weird-ass glasses and the baggy pants and I'm just like chill girl. There's got to be other ways to get attention.”

Playing the Long Game on Sustainability

Her answer to fast-fashion churn is durability and discipline. “We aim to make a quality product, like you said, you're still wearing it 10 years from now. I think that as much as you want to get hooked on that drug, a lot of those products don't last. I've been guilty of ordering some of those things and I'm shocked at how terrible they are. I think it's more about everyone having the discipline to say, I'm going to buy something that's a little bit more expensive, but it's going to last me for 10 years or 20 years.” Newness is measured, not manic. “We're not overwhelming you with thousands of products... Even I love to shop, [but] I wear probably 5% of my closet.”

Her Personal Uniform

“It's a little bohemian. It's a little rock and roll, or a masculine-feminine sort of,” she says. “If I am wearing an oversized blazer, but I'm going out, I might wear a mini dress or a mini skirt under it, or if I'm wearing a pair of wide leg jeans, I'm wearing a little crop top. If you're wearing a lot of clothing, I feel like you should show some area of your body off in order to make it so that you're not just looking dumpy."

When it comes to home, comfort rules. “I'm in a matching sweatsuit. Big shocker… I have this hot pink one from the Gap that I love [if] I'm feeling in a bright mood. But also Fabletics just launched their Lux 360 line and that's really cozy and really soft.”

On apparel for fall, she’s candid about tariffs. “The offering that we're giving you is very small. The tariff announcements hit when we were in market and the cost to make the goods was going to be so excessive that I knew my customer couldn't afford it. And so, we really paired back. We'll be back soon once we figure out how to make a garment that actually you can afford.”

Date-Night Energy (Even If It’s Work Dinner)

Pieces that make her feel her sexiest: “We have this incredible cropped moto jacket that I love. It has a little bit of an oversized sleeve and it's cropped. I wear it all the time. Sometimes I'll pair that with a mini skirt in leather and then this faux snakeskin that I love and then I'll put on a sports bra and you see a little sliver of stomach. That's definitely a fun look for me."

As for actual date nights? “Date nights with my husband don't exist right now, but when I'm going out to dinner in the city for work, that's what I'm wearing.”

Raising Sane Kids in an Insane World

Her take on date nights might have a little thing to do with currently being a mom of four. At home, non-negotiables start with earning and ownership. “Anything that's like, ‘Mommy, can you buy me or I want,’ I immediately go back to them and be like, ‘How are you going to earn it?’ I do not say yes to a lot of things that their friend's parents buy them or that people would think at my level of success that I would just buy for my kids. I say no all the time. I make them work for it. I think that's important to instill early on.” Food rules are simple: “no treats before they have either a serving of vegetables or fruits.”

Problem-solving is coached, not outsourced. “When they come to me, at least the older two, with problems, rather than me trying to solve it for them, I'm trying to get them thinking of how do they solve it for themselves. So, I'm usually going, 'how do you want to handle this?'… especially with my daughter right now because she's getting into the tweens and those girls are real mean to each other, let me tell you.”

On the topic of social media and screens, Rebecca keeps them tightly managed. “With the older two, they have a phone that's not theirs. It's ours that they get if, like, my son is going to play basketball, you know, I want to be able to reach him. There are some nights during the week where I very cautiously let them use it, like if my daughter wants to do group chats. But the minute I find them on something else, whether it's Instagram or YouTube, it gets taken out of their hand. The only YouTube I'm allowing my son to watch is basketball highlights from games. My son has an Instagram account that's private. So does my daughter. They don't really go on it. They don't really post or if they are, I'm watching them do it.” One hard line: “We were very strict about Roblox… after an incident that happened with my friend's daughter this weekend, I was like, there's no more Roblox. I don't care if it's a private server.”

"I do not say yes to a lot of things that their friend's parents buy them or that people would think at my level of success that I would just buy for my kids. I say no all the time."

As far as entertainment goes, Rebecca notes: "We do movies and TV a couple nights a week, but we're trying to encourage that as a family activity versus everyone somewhere else."

Do her kids want to get involved in the business at this age? Rebecca says they have the entrepreneurial spirit in them already. "My son's really into basketball and so he'll sell and buy basketball cards as his sort of business. [He's also] going to be starting a sports podcast with another kid his age... I think he's going to launch that in the end of October." Her daughter, on the other hand, seems to be gearing up to step into Rebecca's perfectly-worn in leather boots one day: "My daughter often will say [things] like, I'm designing your kids line. She wants to model and so I've been able to get her jobs through my stuff and roping her into that. She's working on a kids collection and then doing a bunch of content and modeling as well."

One thing our MAHA moms are going to love hearing? She’s openly “crunchy.” “I'm kind of crunchy when it comes to being a mom. Whether it's all organic food [or] I breastfed my kids as long as I possibly could. Sacrificed a lot to do that. [I] firmly believe that if you can make milk, you should feed your kids that way. I co-slept with all my kids until they were about three.”

A parenting approach she’s proud of: “Whenever my kids get injured, rather than go into the you're okay, you're okay [mode], we've always just really gone quiet and then asked [them to] tell us what happened or show us what happened and that sort of snaps them out of it. [The opposite] I feel like creates a kid who's then looking the minute they're injured for attention or sympathy. I think my kids have always just learned to like, yes, I got injured. I'm going to tell you about it. I'm going to show you about it and then I'm moving on.”

On something she'd like to learn from in motherhood: A mom she admires taught her about gratitude. “I have a friend that had to go through IVF to have babies and her gratitude for her kids, she is never complaining about them. They're 11 and to this day there is just this all-consuming gratitude when she's with them... like I'm so lucky. And I think sometimes as a mom you're like, 'Oh my god, get away from me. Like give me some space.' And so I wish I could be more like her and just never feel that way.”

Marriage, Boundaries, and Hard Conversations

Sixteen years in, she’s intentional about protecting her relationship. “I've always taken the approach that I'm never complaining or bad mouthing my husband to my friend group. I don't think that any solution has ever come from that except other friends piling on and magnifying the issue. If I have a problem with my husband, I go to him or my therapist. I think just keeping that eliminates a lot of the opportunity for other people's opinions to weave their way into your thinking.” she says.

Honesty matters: “Whenever I've done something that I feel bad about or guilty or that I shouldn't have done, telling him directly, and getting that off your chest is always helpful.” Needs evolve, so they check in often. “You have to reassess often more than you think: what you need and want from each other. It's not always an easy conversation. We just had one… I've changed. I've evolved. This is now kind of what I'm looking for in you and how I need you to show up… And also, what do you want from me? And then you have to decide together in that new unit of time, can we both do this?"

When asked about a career choice she made to protect her family, she didn't hesitate: “Going off reality TV.”

What Reality TV Taught Her

The experience was brutal—and clarifying. “I gained a level of unbreakability and unkillability that I think had I not gone through that it would have always been a fear of mine. The show airs, the comments start, the press starts going, you're like, 'I'm going to die tonight and tomorrow I'm going to wake up and I'm going to have no business and no friends and nothing.' And you wake up and you're like, ‘Okay, that was fake. That was false. That was untrue. That sucks to hear. Oh, but I'm still alive and I still have people that love my brand and what I do.’ After that happening for, you know, six months or whatever, you're just like, unless I openly decide to cancel myself... I think that that gives you a strength. I'm willing to take a lot more risks.”

"The show airs, the comments start, the press starts going, you're like, 'I'm going to die tonight and tomorrow I'm going to wake up and I'm going to have no business and no friends and nothing.'"

The cost of appearing on that season of The Real Housewives of New York was her attention at home. “I would get the episodes on Monday nights... I'd watch it. I'd be in a spiral and I would completely stop paying attention to them. It took my attention off of my children frankly. It reminded me of in the early years of building my company where... you're doing bath time, you're doing bedtime, but you're like hurry the f*** up, fall asleep already. I have to get back to work. And so I had that same feeling again, which is a feeling I had relinquished. I was like I can't believe they're stealing these golden moments from me. Or not even [them], letting it be stolen from me.”

Women, Money, and the Unsolved Gap

She’s long championed women in business, co-founding the Female Founder Collective in 2018—a network, certification mark, and education platform that now spans 20,000+ women founders. Minkoff serves as co-founder and president of the FFC nonprofit and stays hands-on with programming, grants, and brand partnerships. So when it comes to women in business, she’s frank about the stubborn inequities. “I think our challenges are talked about, but they're not getting better, and no one is figuring out how to solve them. When it comes to women getting loans, women getting investments, women selling at a higher multiple, like it or not, I think that we're still getting dinged for being a woman."

She dives deeper: "If you're a woman who doesn't wear makeup, it's even worse. There was a study done that women who get dressed up and wear makeup make 15 to 20% more than women who don't. So, it's just like there's still something in the world that a woman's company will exit for less and the consequences that that has. No one's figured out how to aggressively solve that."

She clarifies: "I think it still should be merit-based. But if you're comparing two things and the only difference is woman and man, they should be treated in the funding space or in this equity space... similarly."

Even so, she’s far from finished building.

What’s Next for the Brand

The next decade is about range, not reinvention. “We've just launched a new diffusion line. [It's] really affordable; bag, shoes, and clothes,” she says. “We're bringing back jewelry, bringing back eyewear after a COVID hiatus, and swim, lingerie, hosery, socks, slippers… starting next year all those categories will be launching.” Consider me seated front row.

As for those impeccably chic readers she wore to our interview—no spoilers yet. While we wait (patiently, sort of), let’s jump into a few rapid-fire questions.

Lightning Round

• At home, I’m strict about… “I'm strict about screens and relaxed about bedtime.”

• A mom duty I’ll never outsource: “Cuddling.”

• One policy change for female founders this year you want to see: “Tax write offs for school and caregivers.”

• What her kids take (and roast) from her brand: “[My daughter] she steals a lot of my bags… she stole my stadium bag that we just launched. She roasted me for a lot of my early designs, and I'm roasting myself. I'm starting on Instagram a series of like, why did we even design this? How come we thought this was good?”

• One fashion rule she happily breaks: “Wearing white after Labor Day. Like why? There is such a thing as winter white.”

• What’s in her bag right now: “My wallet, my keys, my sunglasses, my lip gloss, my [wire] earbuds because we know what the magnetic ones do to our brains… my readers… and that's it.”

After two decades of building, iterating, and refusing to take the shortcut, Minkoff ends on something disarmingly simple—the posture she hopes her kids remember. “If my children remember one thing from my example,” Minkoff says, “I hope it's not taking life too seriously and the ability to laugh at yourself.” It’s the same spirit that animates her work: confident, wearable, and built for real life.

Follow Rebecca Minkoff for more behind the scenes on Instagram and TikTok, and shop the Fall ’25 collection now.

Listen to her weekly on Superwomen with Rebecca Minkoff wherever you listen to podcasts, and follow along on her mission to break barriers in female founded and women-owned businesses with Female Founder Collective.