Miami Film Festival: Q&A with Elie Tahari & David Serero (2025) at the Silverspot Cinema.
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00:00What drew you to this genius?
00:04I want to answer for David.
00:08David had shown me in getting an award
00:12and he had learned about this story and he was singing on stage
00:16and he said to me, I want to make a documentary about
00:20your body. I said, did you make one? He said,
00:24no. He said, yes, that's a man.
00:28He did a great job.
00:32So, of course, now when I watch
00:36that movie, there's a lot of emotion because I really learned how
00:40to make a movie on that movie. So now when I see it, I'm like, oh, this maybe
00:44should have been here. But I tried to change
00:48the film to bring it to another, you know, with all the
00:52knowledge that I have now in terms of filmmaking and I realized
00:56there was nothing you could change because if you could change
00:58a thing, it was not anymore Eddie
01:00because Eddie is a very simple
01:02guy but in the most elegant
01:04way. And he's
01:06very humble and you needed a movie
01:08that reflects that.
01:10So, no, I, to be honest with you,
01:12when I start to film him, I think
01:14I'm just going to do an interview. I don't know
01:16yet what kind of movie it will be.
01:18I didn't know it would be in movie theaters. Before I knew
01:22it went to over a hundred film festivals, you know, Jewish
01:26film festivals, fashion film festivals and film festivals like this one.
01:30So, it was really, I really learned, I was going on YouTube to see tutorials,
01:36you know, how we do that and that, but it was a beautiful experience.
01:40And Eddie really had a lot of benevolence. You know, he was always, I believe in you,
01:46you know, naked, I believe in you, you know.
01:48Please explain the Ellie Tahari special source of perseverance.
01:56I, my mother had epilepsy at six years old. I was in orphanage and religious orphanage.
02:08And we had nothing and everybody was volunteering. Most of them from America. The donation was from America.
02:16So, I called myself a lucky American boy. I came to Israel through American donation and I grew up in orphanage.
02:25And so, I went into business without having anything and without knowing much about it.
02:40I never thought that David would make me look like a star today. But he did.
02:46And I'm a really simple guy that loved what I did. And one thing led to another.
02:54Well, some years. We had difficult years. We lost a lot of money. I had to borrow money to continue, to pay the payroll, to pay the expenses.
03:06But, we continued and continued. I believed what I did. And every year I used to say, if I have another year that I make less mistakes than I made the previous year,
03:20it's going to be a great year. And that's how it kept me going. Year after year after year, till it became a big business.
03:28So, how do you navigate being an evergreen in this ever-changing world of fashion?
03:40When COVID hit, I decided not to sell stores anymore. And I started licensing our name. And it became a big business.
03:50And my son, he's 24, he's sitting right up there. He took over Jeremy. And he's now in charge of fashion. He has a good taste. He's smarter than me. And he's going to do much better than me.
04:16And it's time for Jeremy's generation. He's 23. He's very bright. He has a real estate company that he started. And he has many buildings. And he has a brokerage firm.
04:35He's 20 people working there. And I'm very proud of him. So, he's taking over, slowly by slowly, by shortly, by shortly. It's not too much better than me.
04:46I always said, I made millions. He's going to make billions. So, I'm very proud of him.
04:52Wow, that's great. So, I guess David's going to do a sequel to this movie, right? The next generation, right?
04:58Okay, so I have one final question. If you need to give the Elie Tahari advice to the future generation, besides your son, who obviously is doing very well, the future generations of fashion designers, what would you impart to them?
05:18I would tell them the same thing I told my children. Always do what you love to do and be good at it. My son works seven days a week, 16 hours a day, and he loves what he does. Maybe too much.
05:33And that's really what it's about. You've got to love what you do. Love people. Treat people correctly. The way you want to be treated, that's the bottom line. And be humble. Always be humble.
05:49Humility gets you. There was time that the ego got into my way, and I made a lot of mistakes. And when you become humble, and you realize it's not about you, and you become to understand life more and more. Humility is a secret to life, in my opinion.
06:11That's great. I'm really happy that we had this discussion. I know I was given instructions to keep it as short as possible. So could we take any questions from the audience?
06:21Is that possible? Yes, ma'am.
06:23So, I'm so impressed, and inspired, and all of those things you've done an amazing job, and you really are the story of the immigrant who comes to Native America. Thank you so much for that. Thank you, David, for bringing that to us.
06:38I think that you have to be honest to what you do. You have to create a product that people want, and want to wear. And it's not about you, it's about what other people want to wear. That's the secret to success. People are going to want your product. It's going to be a quality product, and a fair price that they want to buy from you.
07:04So, if you do honest to goodness product, and you love what you do, it doesn't matter what the fashion. My son knows better than me right now what the fashion needs. He's got a good eye for it. And it's going to continue. And I believe that if you do what you believe, and you're happy with what you're doing, and you give your best, you're going to be successful, especially in this country.
07:32I don't know in any other country that you have opportunities that you have in this country.
07:39I want to, if you allow me, I would just like to add something that I really learned from the way he does fashion.
07:48is that he learned how to make fashion with his ears. Like you see, when he was in the boutique, this was for me, I think, where he really learned his craft.
07:57Because he learned how to listen to women. And, oh, that dress makes me sweat, or it's too tight here, or I like the dress, but it's too much, too much a night dress.
08:09You know, not enough of a day dress for the office. And when he started in fashion, in the 70s, in the 80s, there was a time when women were starting to work a lot in Wall Street,
08:19started to write in law firms. So, maybe they were before, maybe they were wrong, but he was bigger at that time.
08:25So, he created an empowering look. And that, he never really had, you know, like these big marketeers who would come with graphics
08:35and tell them why we should use that blue, or that design, or no. He was just listening to people.
08:42And if there's one thing all of you have to take away from him, it's not just his talent and his strong sense of fashion, which he developed with experience.
08:54It's his courage, you know. So, that's why I said we had a wonderful time, and I thank you again, Oscar Lopez, to whom we wore our presents.
09:02Thank you. And don't ever think that you're not talented to make fashion, because no one is born with a talent, you know.
09:15But the courage of Eddie, the way he did his fashion, was really by listening to women.
09:21And that's why he has such a long head. This is 50 years. And actually, when I did the movie, Ralph Lauren and Giorgio Armani
09:29were still the owner of the company, which is not the case anymore. So, to tell you the truth, now it's only Eddie in the whole history of fashion.
09:36So, this is a historical figure. Thank you.