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Daisy Fuentes is grateful for her MTV roots.
Fans of the media personality, 58, have followed her from her VJ days to the growth of her personal brand, Daisy Fuentes. Speaking with PEOPLE in a recent catch-up, Fuentes explains how her time with the network was a good foundation for breaking out on her own with her personal brand.
“I remember getting the show House of Style. It was towards the end of my MTV run, and I was feeling like it’s time for me to do something else. And I always loved fashion so much, and MTV by that point had merged the two worlds beautifully, fashion and music,” she shares.
House of Style aired from 1989 to 2003, with Fuentes serving as a host from 1997 to 2002, picking the brains of the era’s most famous models and designers. The opportunity gave Fuentes, “a whole new lease on life and a whole new direction.”
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“Doing that show and traveling the world at that time, going to all of the top fashion shows, speaking to the designers and to the models, and to every style maker of that moment led me to want to be involved with my own brand. It made it kind of a dream for me,” she recalled.
“[I felt like], ‘I like this world. I feel like I can flow in this world a bit longer. What else can I do?’ ”
Figuring that out was a challenge, with Fuentes noting, “At the time, branding was the wild, wild west. There was no such thing. Right now, [you hear] everyone use that word. Everybody and
their mother has a brand. Everybody is a brand.”
“Back in those days, we didn’t even know what that meant. And it was at a time when it was at the very, very early stages of licensing and branding. A lot of the top A-listers were being offered these types of partnerships, and they were all turning it down because they thought, ‘Oh, no, it’s going to dilute who I am and what I do.’ And I just thought, ‘Well, this is what I do. It’s perfect. I don’t know what it is, but I’m going to give it a shot.'”
It was hard work and involved “learning as it went,” but it was well worth it for Fuentes. “What’s interesting is that my brand became the blueprint for celebrity licensing and celebrity branding, but it was something very new and it was something that we all learned as we went.”
“Something that started off as, ‘This could be an interesting side hobby, a little side hustle,’ became a full-blown brand. I could not have imagined that, over 20 years later, it would still be going and I would still be working on it and growing it.”
Having her brand also helps Fuentes continue representing the Latina community, something that’s been important to her throughout her career.
“One of the reasons why I was approached was to address the Hispanic market in the United States. They said, ‘We really want a Hispanic name. We want to address the Hispanic customer.’ And I thought, ‘Okay, if that’s why you think you want to work with, that’s fine. Yes, I for sure represent the Hispanic customer. I am Hispanic, however, I plan on making clothes for everyone.’ ”
“Hispanic women, we love style. We love fashion, and we like to look good. We’re maybe a bit more glam than other cultures, but we as women have so much more in common than we think. Regardless of our background of our culture and our traditions and where we come from, we’re women. And when women are into fashion, I think a smart fashion woman doesn’t become a slave to fashion. You should never have to decide between your rent and a handbag. And a smart woman
knows that she can look totally apart without spending a million bucks,” she says.
With the development of her brand, Fuentes found herself at the heart of fashion and her community. Today, that’s expanded to even more areas for the lifestyle brand.
“They started testing it a couple of months before the official launch party. And I remember at the launch party and the CEO of Kohl’s, who was the department store that I was partnered with at the time, said to me, ‘We were waiting for the launch party to give you the good news. We are launching you in all stores, because it just resonated and it’s selling so well. We’re not just keeping it in Hispanic stores.’ And to me, that was the real success,” she says.
“To have a Hispanic name, a Hispanic representative for the Hispanic people, where they thought it was just going to be for the Hispanics, and that it resonates to all women. To me, that was the real success, because I am that color, and I do want to be represented, but I don’t want something that is dumbed down just for me because I’m Hispanic. I just want to feel included, and I want my people and my heritage to be represented. That’s all we want. We are a part of this country, and at the end of the day, all we all want is to be well represented.”
