Fashion Exec Lauren Santo Domingo Uses a Closet App to Get Dressed – The Wall Street Journal

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Here, Santo Domingo, who is also the chief brand officer of Moda, tells WSJ. about her top three beauty products, how she broke a bad habit with hypnotherapy and how she gets dressed in the morning using an all-important closet app.

What time do you usually get up on Monday mornings, and how do you choose an outfit for the day?

Usually around 6:30. I actually use a closet app. Basically it has all my items because I buy most of my things online. The images are uploaded into this app, Smart Closet, and everything’s there. It’s done by category. And when I have free time in a taxi, in a car, in a waiting room, I can just create looks. Then in the morning, I have these looks ready to go. So I wake up and I feel a bit like a robot. The app is telling me what to do. I wake up, I check my schedule, I check the weather and then I check my closet app and they all tell me where I’m going to be and what I’m going to wear and that’s it.

It also keeps track of statistics, of how many times you’ve worn things, so it’s helped me become more of a mindful shopper. I try to get things I can wear year-round and I take my time in organizing and cataloging them digitally. I organize things by category and then I go by color with dark on the left and lighter or softer pieces on the right. And then I have an area for evening and beaded sparkly things.

What do you eat for breakfast to start the week off right? Do you drink coffee?

During the week, I’m less inclined to have breakfast. I was actually delighted to read about this thing called intermittent fasting because I realized that I’ve been doing it my whole life without knowing it. I basically spend my mornings trying to put as much caffeine into my system as possible. As I get older, I can’t drink caffeine past 11 a.m., so it’s encouraged me to wake up earlier so I can drink coffee earlier. I have a husband who makes great coffee and I also live in Gramercy Park where I have in every direction some of the best coffee in New York City. I do a cappuccino with whole milk. Is that crazy? Even in the summer.

I also spend a good hour of my morning obsessively trying to keep up with the news. The Telegraph and The Guardian are my top stops. Axios and the Washington Post have great newsletters. Obviously, Business of Fashion and WWD are musts [for] water cooler chat. It’s almost impossible to keep up with every story, every continent, every crisis… but I do try to be well informed in areas that interest me. I do a lot of skimming in the morning—I’m a fast reader—and I bookmark articles to read later.

Do you ever work out on Monday mornings?

I do. I alternate between New York Pilates and Ballet Beautiful. I’m a low impact kind of girl. Although as I get older, I’m thinking about cardio.

Tell me about your beauty routine. What are your top three favorite products?

I would say I’m pretty low-maintenance. No one believes me when I say that, but I really am. The one product that I have probably used the longest is there’s a Trish McEvoy mascara. I love Elta MD sunscreen. Then I live for the Gucci Westman Super Loaded. It’s basically a highlighter and a blush combined.

Is there a bad habit you’ve broken over the years that’s helped you optimize?

I quit smoking in October. I went to hypnotherapy out in Los Angeles with Dr. Kerry Gaynor. I don’t know if he’s a doctor, now that I think about it, I think he’s just Mr. Kerry Gaynor but he’s probably hypnotized me to call him a doctor.

Moda just secured another $100 million in funding—is there anything you do to treat yourself when you hit a milestone like that?

Before I started Moda, I wanted to open a small luxury boutique, kind of like a Colette in New York City. It had always been a dream of mine and then you know, the internet and the recession [happened] and that plan got scrapped.

But I was lucky enough with Moda, to see a need to have a physical space, so we have a location in Belgravia in London, in New York on the Upper East Side. We recently opened in Hong Kong. For each of those locations I bought myself a piece of jewelry to commemorate because I always felt like that was what originally set me on this path.

What time do you usually get into the office on Monday?

By 10 a.m. typically. We work around the fashion calendar. I like to joke that it’s always Fashion Week somewhere. We can launch upward of six or seven fashion shows a day. During fashion weeks, we’re obviously much busier creating content and working with clients to help them choose items and shop mindfully on our site. When it’s not Fashion Week, we are really getting behind jewelry designers and home products. And then throughout the year, [hosting] compelling events. So it’s really nonstop.

You tag things on your site that are in “Lauren’s Closet.” Do you pick them all yourself?

Well, it started because I look at all the collections and I’m seeing everything. When I’m sitting in the front row, I’m always thinking of our customers and I know a lot of them at this point, so I’m able to really identify who things are for, so we just got in the habit of recommending things. I love a sparkly evening dress as much as I love a monotone pantsuit. My closet represents that. It’s a very broad point of view that I think people can relate to.

When it comes to e-commerce, part of the digital experience is that it can feel like a robot is sending you algorithmic suggestions of what the robot thinks you’re going to like. With Lauren’s Closet, it’s something that we’ve chosen that we all really love.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.