Recho Omondi

Recho Omondi
Born (1987-03-02) March 2, 1987
Nowhere, Oklahoma, U.S.
Alma materUniversity of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Savannah College of Art and Design (B.A.)
Occupations
  • Fashion designer
  • podcaster
Years active2013–present
Known forThe Cutting Room Floor
LabelOmondi

Recho Omondi (born March 2, 1987) is an American fashion designer and podcaster. After graduating from the Savannah College of Art and Design, she moved to New York City and founded the ready-to-wear fashion label Omondi in the mid-2010s, which she shut down in 2020. She launched the fashion interview podcast The Cutting Room Floor in 2018, which, as of 2025, is released through Patreon. Several of her interviews on the podcast, including those with stylist Law Roach, blogger Leandra Medine, and designer Steve Madden, went viral on social media in the 2020s.

Early life

Recho Omondi was born on March 2, 1987[1][2] in Nowhere, Oklahoma to Kenyan immigrant parents.[3][4] Her family frequently moved and she was raised throughout the Midwest in Kansas, Illinois, and Michigan, also briefly living in Georgia.[5] She also spent her childhood summers with family in Nairobi, Mombasa, and Kisumu.[6] She became interested in fashion as a child due to her older sister's affinity for fashion magazines, including Elle, Vogue, and Interview, and the Canadian television series Fashion File.[7][8] She also did ballet and participated in dance competitions as a child, where, according to her, she was often the only black girl competing.[9]

Omondi graduated from Champaign Central High School in Champaign, Illinois, where, according to her, she was voted "Most Outspoken". She briefly attended the University of Illinois as a pre-med student, where she dated football running back Rashard Mendenhall.[10][11][12] She later transferred to the Savannah College of Art and Design, graduating in 2011 with a Bachelor of Arts in fashion design and pattern making, after which she moved to New York City.[13][3][14]

Career

Design

Before starting her own brand, Omondi worked in retail at Barneys, as a freelance pattern designer for Calvin Klein, Gap, Kimberly Ovitz, and Suno, and as a full-time pattern designer for Theory.[11][15] While working as a nanny in Harlem and after receiving a $15 thousand investment, she launched her self-named, ready-to-wear fashion brand, Omondi, out of Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn[7] in around 2013.[a] She has described her brand as being based on her Kenyan heritage.[6] In order to finance the brand, she called friends of hers to ask for money. Her first collection, 001, was released with a lookbook and her second, 002, premiered with a fashion show.[3] She released her third collection, 003, in February 2017, which included embroidered sweatshirts bearing the N-word.[7] The sweatshirts became popular online after one was worn by Issa Rae's character on the season two premiere of Rae's HBO series, Insecure, which premiered in July 2017.[17][16] She closed the brand in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.[13]

Podcasting

Omondi launched the biweekly fashion interview podcast The Cutting Room Floor in 2018. Following its launch, guests on the podcasts included designers Christopher John Rogers, Phoebe Philo, Martine Rose, Peter Do, Heron Preston, Lana Johnson, Mara Hoffman, and Ava Nope, businessman Mickey Drexler, model Bethann Hardison, modeling agent Mina White, creative director Ibrahem Hasan, journalists Cindi Leive and Teri Agins, YouTuber Luke Meagher, and bloggers Diet Prada.[11][13][19][20][8] It was briefly the most listened-to arts podcast on Spotify prior to 2021.[21]

In June 2021, during the podcast's third season, Omondi began exclusively releasing The Cutting Room Floor on Patreon.[14] After Leandra Medine, founder of the blog Man Repeller, stepped down from her head role at the blog in June 2020 following allegations of racism within the company, she appeared on The Cutting Room Floor in July 2021 in the first of an intended two-part episode titled "The Tanning of America". It became widely discussed online due to Medine stating that, until the George Floyd protests in 2020, she believed that she had grown up poor despite living on the wealthy Upper East Side and attending Ramaz School, a private Jewish day school.[22] Omondi's comments in the episode about Jewish involvement in American slavery, Medine being a "Jewish-American princess", and Jewish people getting nose jobs and changing their last names in order to assimilate, also received backlash and were criticized online as antisemitic.[21][23] The episode was later edited to exclude Omondi's comments and she soon issued an apology to the Jewish community, calling her statements "crass and reductive"; she announced the following month that she would not be releasing the episode's second part.[24][25]

Throughout 2024, Omondi conducted interviews with rapper Yasiin Bey and stylist Law Roach for The Cutting Room Floor, both of which found popularity online.[26][27] She also started a YouTube channel for the podcast in January 2024.[9] According to Danya Issawi of The Cut, The Cutting Room Floor had become "one of fashion's most popular podcasts" by 2025 due to Omondi's "honest and straightforward" interviewing style.[28] She interviewed fashion designer Steve Madden on a May 2025 episode of the podcast, where he discussed his imprisonment for securities fraud and criticized international tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump. Clips of the interview went viral on both TikTok and YouTube, with commenters widely praising Madden;[29] online searches for Madden and the stock price of his namesake fashion brand rose soon after.[30][31] She also appeared as the moderator for the first episode of Instagram's Ask It Anyway interview series in June 2025, which featured rapper Tyler, the Creator.[32]

In August 2025, Omondi posted a job listing on LinkedIn for The Cutting Room Floor's full-time office coordinator, which was described as combining the roles of a personal assistant, bookings administrator, and studio coordinator. It prompted social media backlash against her, including from writer Ira Madison III, due to its listed yearly salary of $55 thousand before tax with no benefits, which users widely criticized as too low.[33][34] Omondi stated in a TikTok livestream soon thereafter that the job was intended for candidates who wanted "to come to New York and hustle in the early years of their careers", but later froze the job listing and stated in a voice note for her Patreon subscribers that she had "made a mess out of this unintentionally".[28][35]

Notes

  1. ^ Publications have variously written that Omondi was launched in 2013,[11][15][2] 2014,[6][7] and 2015.[16][17][18]

References

  1. ^ @omndi; (March 2, 2016). "thank you to everyone who made my birthday the best one yet. ✨ xx Recho" – via Instagram.
  2. ^ a b "Recho Omondi: BoF 500 Profile". The Business of Fashion. Retrieved September 4, 2025.
  3. ^ a b c Mayard, Judnick (February 22, 2017). "Meet Recho Omondi, The Designer Who Merges The Playful With The Political". The Fader. Retrieved September 4, 2025.
  4. ^ Samavai Manian, Shriya (September 27, 2021). "Recho Omondi Is The Designer Turned Podcaster Telling the Truth About Fashion". Teen Vogue. Retrieved September 7, 2025.
  5. ^ "Recho Omondi". Gossamer. Retrieved September 7, 2025.
  6. ^ a b c Peoples, Lindsay (October 27, 2016). "How a Proud Black Designer Thrives in Fashion". The Cut. Retrieved September 3, 2025.
  7. ^ a b c d Sargent, Antwaun (February 14, 2017). "Recho Omondi is The Color-Happy Designer from Bed-Stuy Changing the Fashion Game". i-D. Retrieved September 7, 2025.
  8. ^ a b Rodgers, Daniel (April 19, 2021). "'Fashion is bathing in its dirty bathwater': Recho Omondi says it as it is". Dazed. Retrieved September 7, 2023.
  9. ^ a b Brannigan, Maura (October 23, 2023). "How Recho Omondi Turned Her Fashion Design Career Into a Media Empire". Fashionista. Retrieved September 7, 2025.
  10. ^ Gregorio, Czarina (August 24, 2004). "Boutiques offer shopping alternatives". The Daily Illini. Retrieved September 7, 2025.
  11. ^ a b c d Bedolla, Daise (September 2023). "Recho Omondi's Glorious 3-Step Skincare Routine". Into The Gloss. Retrieved September 7, 2025.
  12. ^ Strazzante, Scott (April 25, 2008). "University of Illinois running back Rashard Mendenhall with his girlfriend Recho Omondi by his side speaks to the Chicago media at the House of Blues after being drafted as the 23rd pick in the first round by the Pittsburgh Steelers on Saturday, April 26, 2008" (Stock photo). Alamy. Retrieved September 7, 2025.
  13. ^ a b c Childs, Emma (May 1, 2024). "Podcaster Recho Omondi Is Fashion's Fearless Truth Teller". Marie Claire. Retrieved September 7, 2025.
  14. ^ a b Subair, Eni (September 4, 2024). "Recho Omondi is behind the best fashion podcast in the world right now". The Face. Retrieved September 7, 2025.
  15. ^ a b Petrarca, Emilia (March 7, 2017). "As Fashion Month Ends, Meet a Designer Who Wants No Part of It and Is Making It Work". W. Retrieved September 3, 2025.
  16. ^ a b Hargrove, Channing (July 24, 2017). "Where To Buy Issa Rae's Red Crew Neck Sweatshirt". Refinery29. Retrieved September 7, 2025.
  17. ^ a b Espinoza, Joshua (July 25, 2017). "Here's Where to Cop That 'N*****' Sweatshirt Issa Rae Wore on the 'Insecure' Season 2 Premiere". Complex. Retrieved September 7, 2025.
  18. ^ Bauck, Whitney (December 12, 2017). "Emerging Designer Recho Omondi Isn't Scared to Call Out the Fashion Industry". Fashionista. Retrieved September 3, 2025.
  19. ^ Allwood, Emma Hope (April 29, 2019). "Vote for Recho Omondi on the #Dazed100". Dazed. Retrieved September 7, 2025.
  20. ^ Adeniji, Adedoyin (May 28, 2021). "Meet The Fashion Podcasters Giving An Inside Look Into The Industry". Nylon. Retrieved September 7, 2025.
  21. ^ a b Sales, Ben (July 13, 2021). "A fashion podcaster wanted to call out white privilege. Now she's being accused of antisemitism". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Retrieved September 7, 2025.
  22. ^ Ukenye, Lawrence (July 8, 2021). "Extremely Privileged Blogger Leandra Medine: I Grew Up Thinking I Was Poor". The Daily Beast. Retrieved September 7, 2025.
  23. ^ Fox, Mira (July 13, 2021). "Canceled fashion blogger is easy to hate — but it's no excuse for antisemitism". The Forward. Retrieved September 7, 2025.
  24. ^ Lampen, Claire (August 17, 2021). "Upper East Sider Realizes She's Privileged". The Cut. Retrieved September 7, 2025.
  25. ^ Cai, Delia (August 3, 2021). "The Girlboss Apologia Era Is Upon Us". Vanity Fair. Retrieved September 7, 2025.
  26. ^ Fitzgerald, Trent (January 13, 2024). "Yasiin Bey Thinks Drake Makes Pop Music Compatible With Shopping". XXL. Retrieved September 7, 2025.
  27. ^ Durney, Ellen (May 10, 2024). "'If You Say No, It'll Be A No Forever': Law Roach Named The Luxury Designers That Zendaya Never Wears Because They Refused To Dress Her At The Start Of Her Career". BuzzFeed News. Retrieved September 7, 2025.
  28. ^ a b Issawi, Danya (August 28, 2025). "Would You Work In Fashion for $55,000?". The Cut. Retrieved September 7, 2025.
  29. ^ Donohue, Meg (May 27, 2025). "The Steve Madden Shoes Everyone's Adding to Their Cart". Elle. Retrieved September 7, 2025.
  30. ^ Haridasani Gupta, Alisha (May 28, 2025). "A New Generation Is Loving Steve Madden, and He Is Here for It". The New York Times. Retrieved September 7, 2025.
  31. ^ Hawkins, Eleanor (May 29, 2025). "How a Steve Madden podcast interview went viral — and paid off". Axios. Retrieved September 7, 2025.
  32. ^ Gee, Andre (June 12, 2025). "Tyler, the Creator on Backlash to 'Cherry Bomb': One of 'the Greatest Things' That Happened to Him". Rolling Stone. Retrieved September 7, 2025.
  33. ^ Good, Anna (August 29, 2025). "The Cutting Room Floor controversy: How a $55K job listing turned into a flashpoint for fashion's wage debate". The Daily Dot. Retrieved September 7, 2025.
  34. ^ Alston, Trey (August 30, 2025). "Fashion Podcaster Sparks Debate With Listing for Low-Paying, Highly Demanding Job". Complex. Retrieved September 7, 2025.
  35. ^ Mowatt, Robyn (September 1, 2025). "Why Is 'The Cutting Room Floor' Receiving Backlash?". Essence. Retrieved September 7, 2025.
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