Inside Vanity Fair’s First Founders Fair with Reese Witherspoon, Sasheer Zamata, Tory Burch, and More

At Vanity Fair’s inaugural Founders Fair last April, entrepreneurial women—including Tory Burch, Reese Witherspoon, and the co-chairs of the Women’s March—talked about what it takes.

While there’s ample evidence that there are still ceilings for professional women to shatter (Exhibit A: the White House), female entrepreneurs are having a moment. This was plain to witness at the first Vanity Fair Founders Fair, at 1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge, in April, where risk-takers, business leaders, and investors shared stories of having ignored naysayers and turning bright ideas into businesses. Tory Burch, in conversation with Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, explained why she firmly believes retail still has a place—alongside e-commerce—in her eponymous fashion empire. The national co-chairs of the Women’s March told how they turned angst from disparate Facebook groups into 1.2 million placard-wielding, pink-hat-wearing demonstrators the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration. Reese Witherspoon—a producer, Oscar-winning actress, and the founder of lifestyle brand Draper James—revealed how she still isn’t taken as seriously as her male counterparts. “A guy has one hit and they say he deserves an Oscar. One guy will have a hit at Sundance and he gets Jurassic Park,” she said. “A woman has a hit at Sundance and it takes her like six more movies to get a big movie.” Indeed, grit was a theme of the event. Julie Deane, founder of the Cambridge Satchel Company, described how she started her business by calling a shopkeeper every 35 minutes for almost two days until he revealed the name of a key supplier. “This is where being the most tenaciously annoying person and the best nagger in the world really comes into its own,” she declared. With founders such as Deane growing in force, the glass ceiling doesn’t stand a chance.

(Vanity Fair)