Can you talk to me about how the heck the two of you ended up in your current roles with your current careers?
Nicole Ferreira: While I was in school for design, I interned for two different stylists. At the time, there weren’t a lot of celebrity stylists in Los Angeles. There was only a handful. I had the opportunity to work with Phillip Bloch and Linda Medvene.
From that experience, I was like, “I think I’m really into the design part of this job. So I’m going to concentrate on design.”
I had this great idea—I was getting ready to graduate—I had like six months left and I had this great idea that I was going to propose to my dad to continue my studies and get a master’s in costume design.
When I presented the idea to him, he literally laughed in my face and he said, “No, you’re not. You’re gonna get a job.”
I was like, “Oh, okay.” Cut to a couple nights later, we were at dinner in New York in Soho and three booths over was Linda Medvene.
I was so excited to see her and also so nervous because, will she remember me? How do I say hi? What do I do?
My eight year old niece, Kayla, looked at me and said, “What’s the big deal? I mean, what’s the worst that can happen?”
Just hearing that from her, I got up from the table and I walked over. She was lovely. We exchanged numbers and it felt really good to have the courage to walk up to somebody who I really looked up to.
Then it was six months later and I decided to make a list of all the people I had met since moving to LA and not necessarily to look for a job, but just to connect and see what they were excited about in the business, what was happening in the business.
Linda happened to be the first person on my list and she answered the phone. She said, “Oh my gosh, Nicole, I cannot believe you’re calling me. I needed you to start yesterday.”
I did and Wendi and I both went on to assist Linda [Medvene] for about two-and-a-half years.
Wendi Ferreira: I got brought in because I had moved to LA from Orange County in January of I think 2001.
I came here, I wanted a job, I had been working in fashion at Guess. Nicole called me and was like, “We need you now. We need you to meet us at the tailors. We need you to meet Denise Richards. Linda and I are busy and we can’t get there in time for her.”
So I show up and this is the same thing: It’s the courage it takes to decide you can do this and jumping into something brand new.
I show up and I introduced myself to Denise Richards as Linda Medvine’s assistant and took it from there. Carried on with the Golden Globes that year.
That was the start of Nicole and I working together as assistants. Opportunity took us different directions from one another. In 2003, I think, after about two and a half years of assisting.
Nicole went on to do a tour with Sheryl Crow and I worked on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Then after about a year-and-a-half or two years of that we’re like, “What are we doing? Why aren’t we doing this together?” So we teamed up and here we are.