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w N Radio. Hello, and welcome to Fearless Fabulous You. I am
your hosts, Melan A Young and it is midsummer in the South of the
United States and everybody's sweltering around the world. But I'm doing just fine because
I've learned that no matter what the season, and tell me a year and
make it work for me, because this show is about living life on your
terms and figuring it out when things go bad, making it right when things
go right. Share in the good. I love interviewing women entrepreneurs and you
know that as you follow the show. I also love to travel, and
you know that. And if you follow me and my husband David on the
Connected Table our other show. You know that we spend a lot of time
in Italy visiting wine regions in the wine part of my life. Well,
today's guest has had an ongoing love affair with Italy for forty years, actually
more than forty years. But her company that she founded is celebrating its fortieth
anniversary and it started with a trip as a young girl with her sister and
her mom to Italy. Yes, and a dream from that which I found
fascinating. We're going to be talking with Susan Gravelly, who's the founder and
CEO of Vietri. It's a lifestyle brand offering in a beautiful handcrafted tableware and
homeware and garden accessories. If you've ever traveled Italy, particularly to Campania,
you will see some of this beautiful artisan pottery and craftware and want to buy
it. In fact, when I posted that Susan was going to be on
Fearless Fabulous You today, one of my fellow wine writer friends said, oh
my god, I love that stuff. My only fight I got in with
my husband was when we went there and I went to linger In shop and
he wanted to go to the beach and near Positano. We're talking beautiful,
beautiful dinnerware. But we're here for more than just to talk about housing,
because if you also know, I'm not a home person. I'm dealing with
a home right now that I just inherited and trying to figure out how to
declutter it. But we're going to talk about what I consider an amazing entrepreneur
story and a love affair with a country that I adore as well, and
a new book that Susan has written called Italy on a Late It is really
a heavy, beautiful book, gift book if you have friends who love Italy.
It's park memoir, park travel and menus and gorgeous pictures. Susan is
a fellow Southerner. She is joining me from the beach in North Carolina,
where I hope the weather is more beautiful than where it is here in Shadanooga,
Tennessee, where it has been pouring. Susan Graveley, Welcome to Fearless,
Fabulous You and Melanie. Thank you for having me. I'm really really
happy to be talking to you today. But a lot of my friends,
you know, adore you and follow you and around the country, and I
reference my friend Lisa, you have a great success story, and we'll get
to that. But first, you know, you're in North Carolina, where
before the show I was saying, a lot of my friends are moving because
it is such a beautiful state. You grew up in North Carolina, well,
and you had quite the family life. Your dad worked in the tobacco
business. Your mother entertained quite beautifully. Tell us about your childhood. I
like my listeners to get to know the person on the air from their youth.
Well, I did have a really interesting childhood. I grew up in
Rocky Mount, North Carolina, which is the eastern part of the state,
the real farming part of the state, filled with small towns. So going
to Raleigh at Capitol was like going to Washington or New York for others.
We grew up in a town where every set of parents had their right and
privilege to parent us like our own parents. So there were forty sets of
parents that praised us, that told us to go home and tell our mothers
what we had one and encouraged this, and that was a pretty amazing upbringing.
The second part that was pretty amazing is that with my father being in
a third generation to Bacca company, which bought and sold burly burly is the
sweet part of cigarettes. And you can imagine it. From the nineteen hundred
to their early seventies, everybody smoked, and we would have foreigners in our
home all the time. That was not during the tobacco season when they were
all in Georgia. We had a stand up globe and Daddy would say,
d people are coming from Cairo, or they're coming from Zimbabwe, or they're
coming from China, or they're coming from Italy. And look at where Rome
is, and look where Raleigh. Drma would look where Rocky Mount is.
We're only a plane trip or a phone call away. The world is so
small, and so I grew up with this feeling of a smaller world that
you could get to. As a child. The only way that I could
sit and listen to the adults was to serve drinks that my father would make,
or serve the cigarette types that they were smoking, and sit and not
say a word and left spoken to and were my nice Sunday dress. So
that's how I grew up listening to all these conversations and learning about different cultures
and then setting the table with my mother. We had lots of dinnerware we
had lots of place mats and napkins, and she loved to do flowers,
and so depending upon the season, I would set the table with her and
learned how to set a table, and then she would prepare usually you know,
bilet and baked potatoes and spirits, or a seasonal vegetable and then either
a pecan pie or homemade from scratch, you know, chocolate cake with hot
milk cake and chocolate icing. And we got to sit at the table and
listen. So that was my early years, and that was the beginning of
understanding that the world was small. I think that's so interesting, you know,
as you talk, Susan, I think about my own family, you
know, from the South, and my grandmother had all sorts of table where
for every season and coverings, and it was very elaborate, and my mother
inherited that. And as I now, if in December and I'm going through
all this tableware, going my god, and the and the fabrics and the
patterns. My goodness, because you know, I lived in New York most
of my adult life in a very small apartment. We didn't have a lot.
It's wonderful tradition of bringing people in your home and how lucky you were,
Susan to have that entree to the world, all these global guests coming.
And I can see your father in that globe because my parents traveled around
the world. When I was a little girl, they went around the world
and left me with my grandmother and they gave me a globe and I would
follow their trep on my globe right exactly. And I don't know if I
think I'm a little older than you are. But when when Daddy would call
us, it would be a set time through an operator, and we would
wait all day for that call, and it was always collect And then also
he would he would sail by ship many times over and meet these glamorous people.
And Daddy was very charismatic, very handsome. My mother tells the funny
story about the first time she went to New York to wave him goodbye,
and they were newlyweds, and you know, he was waving to her,
and she never saw him because she saw sitting standing there in the boat carry
grant, and that was the carry Grant time. And Daddy was furious that
she wasn't looking at him. But you know, those were glamorous years,
and the whole essence of work was very male dominated. There was a woman,
believe it or not, in Rhodesia that became the first and only woman
in the world to work in tobacco, and her son and his family ended
up moving to Chapel Hill and they're great friends of mine. So it created,
like with your parents, a smaller world with friends all over the world
as well. So I feel very lucky to have had that upbringing and have
tried very hard to encourage travel and broadening those that array of people you meet,
especially women's relationships, and make it more global. Well, that kind
of set the stage a little kind of a foundation for what you have was
just truly a global company. Now, unfortunately you lost your father at a
at a fairly he was fairly young, and he was very young, yeah,
very young. And you so your mother was a widow with two daughters,
right, three daughters actually, and for two daughters and two sons,
that's right, four children, Okay, yes, and that's hard back then,
I mean, you know, this is this is a different time.
So she's got four children, she's a widow, and when did you take
that faithful trip to Italy with her? So what happened was Daddy um as
a little boy had rheumatic fever and that always impacts your heart valves. And
so when he got to be about fifty three, he started having to have
to replace his mitral valve. And it was so new in medicine that they
gave him a children's valve and it took three different valves to get it,
so it worked three different surgeries, which had a huge, you know effect
on his help for many years, but he got it back. Believe it
or not, was down in valve us to Georgia, introducing the Italian conglomerate
because tobacco was owned by the government. Two the new owners of Katco,
the tobacco company because he was selling it, came back. Felt badly called
my three siblings didn't know where I was because I was working somewhere else and
had a heart attack and died that night. The difficult part of was what
you said. My mother was fifty five years old with four children. What
ages were you all then? We were thirty two, twenty nine, twenty
seven, and eighteen. And Daddy had kind of said to us, always
do not expect anything, because I promise you everything I've saved. I want
you a mother to spend every penny, and so that was a lovely thing
to say to us, because all we wanted was her happiness. And she
asked my sister and me to take the trip she and Daddy had planned to
take before he died, and so it was a trip that we would never
have been able to afford. And for the rest of her life, whenever
she called the four of us, two of us, whoever, and said
I want to take this trip where you go, we would stop everything and
go with her. Because their attitude was if you can't travel, and your
parents were the same way, you can't travel better than being at home,
why leaves? And so we were able to run into people that Mom and
Daddy knew, or go to places that were extraordinarily beautiful. And this was
the trip that Mama invited us to in nineteen eighty three, to fly to
the Room, then to the Mouth Because, then to Florence, then to
Venice and home, and that's when we came upon Edge and Aware and decided
to start a company. Now it's obviously you at that time, Susan,
did you have a were you working doing something else? Oh? Absolutely,
I have worked since I was fourteen. I was the kind of child that
would you know, have lemonade stands, or would help somebody at a camp,
you know, with handicapped children. I was always on the go.
I was always volunteering or doing whatever. And at that point I graduated from
college. I had gone to Boston and worked for an architectural firm because I
love design. But I was a secretary, the worst secretary in the world
because I cannot proof reread, but the best as far as socially organizing those
guys, and they were mostly fellows at that time. But I volunteered at
Boston Children's Hospital and I came upon and was mentored by a woman named Anita
Oles, who started the pediatric play program at Boston Children's Hospital. And I
was so taken by how play create a venue for a child to express their
pain or worry that I started my master's at Ratcliffe. Daddy got sick,
I flew home and finished at UNC, and then started the outpatient pediatric play
program at Duke. How value pediatrics a totally different world. I did that,
but it was during a time where I was aiding a medical student.
My father was having surgeries, and my focus was on failure to thrive infants,
and after about three years I burned out. Wow I UM then went
into retail just for fun and worked with a great gal and um ended up
with her opening three retail stores. I was the one hiring training, being
the you know, the the salesperson, while she bought and was the glamorous
you know owner. But it was great fun. I then had a personal
trauma. I was raped by an unknown person in my house and in your
house? Was it? He was unknown, So it was a break in
total break in midle of the night through a window in the bathrooms, And
that really changed my life. I went from an independent thinking go out any
time day or night, felt safe, was always cautious, of course,
to someone who on the outside still looked outgoing and great. But boy,
when the lights went out at night, I couldn't move. I could no
more walk down a street in Little Chapel Hills than anything. But what it
did is it changed the compass of my life and I ended up going back
up. I went to New York and went to the New York School of
Design to be invisible. I just needed some time to breathe and be invisible.
And after I finished, that was when Mama called and said, would
like to take this trip? Would you and Francis go with me? And
there we went to Italy and happened upon this dinnerware and met this lovely man
and started a company. So from bad comes good, right, it's all
about. First of all, I'm sorry that you went through such a traumatic
experience. I can only imagine how that would instill fearing me and distrust a
lot of things, including going out and being alone. You know, the
fact that was in your own home. Though, would I don't know how
I would react if I was attacked in my own home. I don't know
if I would no longer why I probably Susan would want to burn down that
home. That's coming back, how yeah, yeah, yeah, well you
know, I think I come from again, a very pragmatic and realistic parents,
who of course came up the next morning. But the at my father's
approach was well what are we gonna do about it? Versus showing anger,
And it was well, we're going to try to get him and to go
to court, which we did and he pleaded guilty, But but it was
never now. I didn't go back to that hyn. I never slept in
that hymn again because it was too frightening. I've rented it, of course,
and it took it took a long time to even talk about it.
But I find now how important it is when we who have been successful in
whatever you define success, that we let everyone know that we didn't have a
perfect life either. Maybe my childhood was perfect and perfect. My father was
extremely strict and demanding on us because he saw it a little bit like um,
you know, the doa deer female deer, the family of von Trapp
family, where we were supposed to be perfect with people that visited, but
we were just children right right. But anyway, and now bring it up
often because often and speeches, because I want people to know that we all
are vulnerable, even when we are the most protective of their laughs, and
we can all survive. It's a very good point. And I've interviewed a
lot of women who have gone through incredible trauma. I tend to gravitate to
them in some kind and the level of inspiration that they have brought to this
show in rebuilding their lives and doing really amazing things. I mean, I'm
thinking about it a couple of them right now, and it's and from it.
I find it's interesting, Susan. With everyone I've interviewed who've gone through
some trauma, how they rebuild has an interesting way of developed also what happened
so in your case, and I'll give you an example. You know,
I interviewed someone who was homeless most of your years and abused in foster homes
and she became a leading owner of an interior design school. So she went
from having no home. Right, So you've built a business that helps make
a home a beautiful place. You grew up in a beautiful home with beautiful
things. Clearly you had a privileged life, but you also experience one of
the most traumatic experiences of your life in what was your home? Right?
And so you've reconciled home. And one of the last questions I have and
how do you define as home? For many is a buildings. In fact,
I'm going to ask you this now before we get into place. Find
given everything that you've gone through and that you have a leading company theatry that
makes it home, We're beautiful. It is it is a built around the
home your product, rightw do you define home? I define home in a
lot of ways, about being around a table, about a gathering place a
and I use the table as a metaphor, and I loved it when you
were describing your companies. You know, it's gat It's a place where you
walk into, whether it's your physical home or your emotional home, where there
is comfort and there is caring, and you feel cared for and you feel
loved. And I see that place as very diverse, with it not mattering
one bit if you're pink, green or orange, what your faith is,
what your political views are. But it's a place where you feel safe to
express yourselves. And I feel that way about my home and about gathering and
eating together and being together around a table. I like to think that people
leave our home having had a wonderful time and maybe learning something they didn't know,
or meeting somebody they had they would like to see again, or just
being satisfied with the time spent. Many of us are tired, we are
overtired, We work hard to balance, and you just don't want to really
go out, even if it's going to be a wonderful night. How wonderful
when you go out and you leave and think, thank goodness, I was
there. What a special place? However you define special right So that's home
for me. You know. Home is home is where I want to be.
I want to be in Florence in an apartment we ran, or I
want to be here at the beach, or I want to be in my
house much more than going out to a restaurant, you know. I want
to bring life together in a place where everyone is comfortable. So that's that's
home for me. I think it's a great example. I lived in New
York in a small apartment, which was not home. New York was home,
but I spent a lot of time leaving. I spent much of my
life leaving. And before the show, I was telling this Susan A inherited
a house my mother and fathers, and I'm grappling with it being their home
and not mine and how to turn it into you know, And so a
home for me is where I can gather around a table, wherever I am
with friends, and also where I can sleep in peace, because I'm a
big if I can't sleep in peace because I have been living on the road
for two years. I sold my home in August twenty twenty and have lived
on the road as a nomad for two years. I've slept in a lot
of guest room Susan. I could write a book the better way to have
a guest room, but it's been creating. So I had to come home
to care for a mother, and that was it was weird. I'm learning
to adjust to the concept of home, which is why I wanted to ask
you that question, because it is so much more than what many people sometimes
think. It's just the showpiece, you know, the structure. It's such
a state of mind. It's a state of mind. And you know,
I would say to you, hey, four rooms that you think you're going
to spend a lot of time and just paying them creamy white, not dead
white, but a white was a little bit of warmth and start over unless
what we're trying to do. That's what we're trying to do. It's a
little complicated in this took her house, but I have taken all the paintings
and I love. I basically moved everything into my childhood bedroom, got a
better bed, and put all our paintings. That everything I love is in
my bedroom. Because my mother died in one room, my father died another
room, so it's kind of creepy, you know. So we we're basically
taking three areas of this fairly large house and making it ours the dining room,
the living room, in my bedroom, and then then we travel a
lot. So let's get back to I love the fact your sister Francis sounds
like a really fun person. I mean, you are too, But she
was like went to the she's like me. She had to go to the
bathroom on a plane and just had to go first class to go to the
bathroom, which is something I would do. And she chats up this man
Fabio, which is I would do, because the drink cart was in her
way. So that man was kind of like a good fortune guy because you're
still he helped you when you got to Italy and then you're got robbed.
He did. He Fabia Puccinelli was his name, and we've gotten to know
very very well now. But he came back after he met Francis to meet
this mother and two daughters. Very fascinated with that, and in conversation gave
us names of three restaurants in Rome and his phone number and said, oh,
please call when you're in Florence. Well, we thanked him very much.
We tried the restaurants. They were fabulous, and never ever would we
have called him accept we had Mama's pocketbook stolen. So we went from Rome
down to the amount he coast, which I'm sure we'll talk about where we
had this idea of a company. But when we got to Florence in a
southern way, my mother said, okay, to remember the trip. I
want to value all a piece of jewelry. That's what you kind of do.
And those are the years of only cash and traveler's checks. So Mama
had all of it, plus the passports. We roamed ponte Vecchio and up
that via Guiciardini, didn't see anything yet, but had dinner at this lovely
restaurant, drank a couple of miles of wine, toasting Daddy, toasting Mama
talking about how lucky we were, came out, had a one and only
argument. It was a moonlight evening. Francis and I wanted to walk back
to the hotel. Mama wanted a taxi. She lost, and then walking
down a cobbled stone way, too small street and not lit well, two
motorcyclists came by and Mama grabbed her pocketwork and we lost everything. So we
then went to the police station, and as you I hope don't know.
Spending time in an Italian police station is not your best use of time.
And after two or three hours it was sure, it's one button to debt
and they were flirting with Francis and me, who were young at the time.
And at the end of that the next morning, Mama said, let's
call that nice gentleman on the plane in Fabio, which we did, and
he happened to be there, which he now will tell us always that he
was there because he knew we were going to be in Florence, because he's
a big fisherman. He picked us up, he helped us get passport,
he lent us money, and at the end of lunch he said, and
Mamma, where do you want to go? And she goes, I'm dying
to see the leaning Tower of Pizza. So all we go to see the
leaning Tower of Tiza. We spend all afternoon, have dinner, and then
since we've told him about our twelve plates, in this dream, we end
up in the hills over Florence, going down this long driveway to a beautiful
villa and knocking on the door of this beautiful home that was one of his
best friends, Tita Uzilli. The first chapter of the book, and she
has worked for Macy's and she goes fabulous designs, but the factory their crooks.
I wouldn't do it. And that was the beginning, and we thought
at the end, you know, well why not give it a try.
You know, Southern women, we can do a lot of things. Of
course, we gave it a try, and here we are forty years later,
and Tita continues to be a wonderful friend and early the mentor, well,
I love Tita. Just to underscore every chapter, you start with a
family or a dear friend, and many of are have been involved in Vatri
for a while, or personal friends. I loved you know. I've been
to Campania several times on wine trips, and where it all started. You
named that. You named Vatri after the village where the first pottery. I
call it pottery, but it's plate ware YE made. And you, like
you guys, had no experience an import export, which I's unfascinating because I'd
love to start an import poses myself. But something did the research you right
since break you got like a postage stamp area, and I could I usually
as you wrote this, I could see this because I got the fancy food
and I know those small booths. You got this tiny, little but well
situated at the trans display area, and you did everything right. You got
to tell you waiters, sister Prosecco. You did everything and you ended up
catching the eye of Name and Marcus. Let's talk about can you believe it?
Well episode, yeah, somebody like remote, but you got Name and
Marcus and they loved it. There you go. Life was good. You
know, you can look at your career path and say, oh, yes,
it was a lot of luck. There's there is luck involved. There's
a lot of hard work, as you know involved. But but this was
one of those lucky moments. We had were told we could the show was
completely sold out. I had spoken to mister Wolf. I said, please
just let me show you my plates. They're coming in in six months,
I have you know, this is their chance to start selling, and can
I just come and bring them to you tomorrow. I was in North Carolina,
but I told him I could need him in New York that next day.
When he said yes, I quickly got a plane ticket and went up.
We were right beside the registration desk and friends had brought a table in
a hutch and it looked great. And Mom and I were standing there and
here come these very well dressed threesome who walked barra booth and looking those were
the days where they did not wear any kind of signage to know who they
were. And ask a few questions, and then this woman said, we'd
like to place an order. This is what we'd like to do. And
the order totaled up to twelve thousand dollars and twelve million dollars and that was
Neiman Marcus and they have been an account of hours, four four to years.
That's just an incredible story. I mean, I believe it. I
believe hard work, luck and serendipity, those are there. You go,
and you know I'm Southern two. You don't give up. I mean,
you know you're fairly. That's wasn't fabulous because I just would not give up.
And I've been knocked down enough times where I just keep bopping up.
Sometimes I'm a maze, but I'm curious. You know, I'm a shark
tank addict. So I have to ask how you managed to scale the business
because I know one of your challenges and the and the woman you met with
in Florence said be careful first of all their crooks. You got to get
in partnership and collaborate with people that you know have a way of doing things
their way. We know the Italians, they're setting their way, and you've
got American businesses that are like, I need it by this date and need
this quantity. How did you manage to scale and bridge that tradition with contemporary
business needs where it's like meet this deadline or you're going to use the account
right. Well, the first thing we did, Melanie, is we set
our mission and vision to always be on the luxury high indside good of tabletop
and decorative accessories. And what that meant for us also was to start with
specialty stores. In nineteen eighty three, when we started, every small town
everywhere had a beautiful gift store. You know, Bridle was really big at
the time, and there were a scattering of large department stores. That's how
we started, so we built with The first sales trip I went on was
going down to a wedding in see Allen, Georgia. My mother and I
drove down. We stopped in every nice town or city on the way down.
Found went to the nicest clothing store and asked them what was the nicest
gift store in town, and then we would go there and I would go
in with my basket of plates and my prices. We limited the number of
counts we had in the beginning to build our inventory, and we did not
go with sales reps until we could build their inventory. And then we started
with reps from Seattle, Washington. I went the longest place I knew I
could not get to to test what it was like to work with reps.
So I scaled in the beginning according to what I could get in inventory.
With time I found out about gift shows. Fabio became our sales agent in
Italy. He had never worked today and of his life. We found out
he was from royal background, and he did it out of love for what
we were doing and for nothing else. So for eight years I was either
working full time, you know, twenty hours a day at home or over
there, traveling with him, going from town from factory to factory, looking
at product and kind of building this look, building a dhry look. So
we grew the company according to the amount of product and the look we had,
and so we were doubling in size every year. Of course, you
know we you know, we did three hundred thousand dollars the first year,
unheard of. We went to a million dollars, We went to a two
million dollars, and up and up and up, and then when it became
the size where we had to scale really largely, we we really scaled always
according to what we could get without undermining the luxury market. So we chose
not to go into mass markets. And that's what we've done, and it's
it's fair very well for us. It's a really good strategy. You know,
a lot of luxury companies, brands, particularly in the fashion world right
they have had to go into the they called the bridgeline or mass market because
they can't sell their luxury market goods fast enough. And we all know those
names. There are many. You're lucky you're able to do it in this
area and at a time when I am told many young people are not buying
china and nice things now for the table, I mean at the local Fisher
Evans and Chattanooga shutting down their china department. Yeah, uh, do you
find for And you've been a business forty years running, Va Tree, have
tastes changed? Has the client changed? You know? Really, before the
pandemic, I would have been saying yes to all of what you're saying.
And now I would say this than a real resurgence of being at home and
dining at home. And before the pandemic, you know, there was just
young people making so much money. It was just unbelievable, and all they
were doing was eating out. Their houses were painted white, they probably had
two plates, two mugs that were given to them, and they were very
mentalmalistic. They spent their money on fashion and a look. You know,
it was what do I look like? In what restaurants am I going to?
Well, then we all had to be home, so people reassessed their
homes and suddenly they got back too. We need to cook at home,
so let's cook something delicious. Let's be at home. Let's set a table.
How do you set a table? Amazingly many young people did not know
how to set a table. Well, this is continued to transcend into warning
a pretty table or combining things that their parents have given them with new minimalist
things. I really believe that a table does not have to be formal or
casual. It does not need to be everything looking alike. A mix and
match is always more interesting and you don't have to stress over it. You
do not have to stress over cooking. You can make a few things and
bring in a few things, right. You can light some candles and have
an apperall sprits and some good wine and you are a happy camper. But
there is this, especially in the South. The bride has come back and
abandoned and abundance, and they are buying again. Now they know what we
sell is not porcelain. So the fine fine China's struggle those some of them
are coming back the whole time. China look is coming back. But we
sold better stonewares and ceramics that you could mix and match and create your own
look. Well, they're very fun. The designs are incredible, I mean
their eye catching. Um, they're fun. I happen to love pottery.
Thank god, my mother did too. I've inherited a lot of purple pottery.
She loved purple. So I have a lot of purple pottery, but
beautiful, beautiful pieces of handmade pottery, which I always find because I happen
to love supporting artisans. Yes, yes, good, thank you, thank
you. And what you do at Ventris you support I mean, and it's
clear because as going through you, your ventry supports families. We do we
you know, from day one, we wanted to support artisans, We wanted
to support families. We wanted to support women in business. We do work
some in India and a few other small countries, always women run and always
with no child labor. We will never work in China. We will never
work anywhere where it's not safe practices and um and properly run businesses. We
do work a little bit in Portugal to supplement what we do in very simple
product lines that as we were talking about, can be scaled to bigger mass
market bigger markets. But we always we do not work in decalt We do
not. We always work in hand paint because that is what we are about.
I think it's important, you know, I don't even like to try.
I am becoming a conscious traveler when it's you know, my dying my
time, as I say, versus hosted trips, which obviously accept with glee,
right, you know, because those are learning experiences. But I think
about when I travel now, if I'm if I'm investing my personal money into
traveling or anything products, restaurants, I check and make sure that there's no
violations that are offensive to me. With starting with human rights, I've had
I've had a tough time with the whole restaurant outing of how people are treated.
I've dined out lesson Listen. I come from a career promoting restaurants.
So the home is important. I think, you know, going back to
the definition at home. Home needs to be where you're comfortable and safe,
and you also can have your identity. It's where you can have fun with
your personality with no judgments and underscore no judgment, no judgment. And you
know, I speak a lot to women who aren't confident in creating their home
that they and I say women, but also men. And the real key
to it is if you want a clean palette, that is fun, but
you've got to figure out who you are and how you want to make that
your identity. Not look at a picture and say I want exactly that,
because that's not who you are. And when I go into someone's house and
it is so sparse and so so accepted, I think that's the word.
I wonder what they think about, and I do find that I'm asking questions
about what are their loves, what do they do with their spare time.
What are they reading? Just to help understand who they are. I happen
like you to love Italy and love textures and love a feeling of mixing fabrics
together and UM thing in a place where you can take off your shoes or
keep your shoes on and put your feet in the on the sofa and who
cares, and and that is um that's that's a home. It's a restaurant
that you're comfortable in when someone greets you and they say bunjourn or they welcome
you, and you're going, this is going to be a wonderful night.
Great and again no judgment. You know, you know I dread. I
won't go to a restaurant where I feel like it's like, all right,
do you have a reservation? We're only doing five and eleven. You know,
I could write a book on snootie and hoodie. And I'm particularly since
I moved out of New York. I'm so keenly aware of the rest of
the country and attitudes. UM. I have to say. You're friends with
someone who is one of my um I have a book. She inspired my
selling My House. Francis Mays, who's featured in the book she wrote a
book, not mat her I want. She wrote a book called I think
it's called A Year in the World. Yeah, and I sold my house
to live a year in the world, like Francis. Unfortunate that COVID had
so we didn't go in the world, but we went all around the United
States for two years, trying on different places to live, finding I knew
home, as we say, and then I ended up had to come back
to my original home to care for my mother. So home has been a
recurring theme because people say, where do you live, where's your home?
And I'm like, well, home is where we roam right now, and
it's where we're happy together, my husband and I. Right. But she's
an amazing writer. You have to do have a beautiful section about visiting her
home, she's a friend and entertaining at Bramo Saul. I mean, I
have to say it's Italyana plays a beautiful book because you bring the people into
it, and so it's not really a book. Let's say it's a book
of friendship and people you have met. It's very much a memoir as well,
because I learned a lot about your story. But I'm a big fan
of hers and we will do that year in the world in Europe soon.
We're just waiting for the right moment to do it, probably next year.
But it was an inspiration to me and her writing. So how lucky you
are to have wonderful friends like her, and how lucky she is to have
a good friend like you. Well, thank you, and she is somebody
you should meet and you should get on your program, and I can certainly
help you with that with a gentle gosh, there's something about her and Ed
that when you are around them you feel a gentle spirit of enthusiasm, like
you said, acceptance of anything and everything, a love for nature, a
love for food, a love for people, a love for the arts.
And no one is a stranger, no one. One of the times I
was so taken was I was visiting and were I was there. We were
talking about the book and we were going to walk into Coartana and we saw
this car with these two young people looking up to at her house and she
was commenting on how many people, especially during the summer, come to see
Brahma Soli and she said, let's go speak with him. So we go
down the driveway. She opened the gate and this gal did not start crying,
but could have. And they were from Switzerland. They were driving around
Italy and one of her things she wanted to do was see Brahma Sole.
Well, so you know, Francis stood there and talked to her. And
the question they get all the time is is there really an Ed? And
yes there isn't Ed. And she called Ed and Ed came down to meet
them, right, you know. And that's the kind of person she is.
She's she's quite giving, loving and so interesting. Well, I love
how you The chapter of six is kindred spirits and I can tell you are
and I think we are too. I have to we have to meet in
persons sometime. I've really enjoyed speaking with you. This was so fast as
the end of the show. I have loved speaking with you. Susan,
we've talked with Susan Gravilly. She is the founder of Vietrie, which is
a wonderful dinnerware, beautiful painted dinnerware, just gorgeous. But her book Italyana
Plate is new just releases year commemorating the fourtieth anniversary of the founding of Vietrie
and really part travel memoir, will travel memoir and profile some of the wonderful
people she has connected with in Italy like I have, and wonderful menus that
they have created. Many we're going to try as well. We can't wait
to get back to Italy. We'll probably get to North Carolina sooner, but
you never know. But I've enjoyed speaking with you very much, Susan,
So thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. Well,
Melanie, Mahouse is waiting for you and your husband, so right down
Chapel Hill as part of your trips North Carolina. Okay, oh, I'm
sure. Well, we have a very good friend that just opened a distillery
and Durham, so we will be She's a walking and she's amazing, so
we will be there. So for all my listeners, I hope you're inspired.
I hope you find your definition of home your way because always my show
Fearless Fabulous Shoe is about learning to live life on your terms, your choice
always. So thank you for joining me and stay for your loss and fabulous than you