You might remember Stacy London from TLC’s "What Not To Wear." Now she has shifted her focus to advocacy for women’s health. 

You might remember Stacy London from TLC’s “What Not To Wear." Now she has shifted her focus to advocacy for women’s health. The CEO of State of Menopause joined Cheddar News' Hena Doba for a walk and talk about her company’s mission.

The Walk and Talk: Stacy London

might recognize our next guest from the iconic show, TLC, what not to wear show used to cry every time I watch it, whose focus was shifted from fashion to becoming now an advocate for women's health adobo caught up with Stacy London Ceo of State of menopause. I'll discuss her career pivot and what a what not to wear episode would look like today. So here's a look at their walk and talk. How did you find yourself in this position of ceo, is this something you even expected in your career? No, it really isn't. Let me just start off by saying no. Um, but I sort of had, I would say what is kind of the cliche A midlife crisis around 47. I wasn't getting as many phone calls. I went out and I pitched a show to every channel and every streamer about midlife like evolution and transformation because I was experiencing that myself, I didn't know that I was experiencing menopause. I had like incredible anxiety, I felt really depressed and here I was getting this sort of cultural 12 punch of not being called and you don't have to be on television, it can be any kind of job that you have and all of a sudden you feel like you're not, you're being pushed aside or you're not relevant and I really struggled with that. Sorry, my dog is is adorable, but making a mess. Um, so I really struggled with that and I it wasn't until Covid right after I pitched this idea of like, hey, why don't we try doing a show where we take a midlife crisis and turn it into a mid life renaissance, whether that's educating you on financial health, uh, sexual wellness after divorce, um, how to deal with mood swings due to menopause, How to deal with uh, empty nest syndrome or elder care and crickets, crickets, people said to me, nobody cares about what middle aged women are going through. Nobody wants to watch middle aged women on television. And I was like, apoplectic, but it also, you know, then Covid hit and it really made me very introspective. It really made me think about what is my kernel of truth, you believe middle aged women are an untapped market. What's the solution here? I think that again, we prize youth in this culture. We certainly prize youth commercially. Um, and so we forget that there is an entire their demographic of people that still have an incredible expendable income and want to live great lives and are in a position to do so why do you think there's so much stigma surrounding menopause? Why do you think people are so afraid to talk about us? Well, I do think it's exactly that one. I think it's the thing that we shall not name, um, specifically because women are concerned and, and, and people are concerned. I think with the idea of aging out of being relevant, but it also is a natural transition, right? We're no longer biologically able to have Children. I think there is some grief attached to that for some people. And I also think that that's how we, you know, the idea that we're reducing anybody to their reproductive organs in terms of their societal value is ridiculous. So what are we doing with this time? How are we able to shift our focus from thinking of this as an ending and into more of an idea of a transition? How do we think about this as a new chapter where you can refocus on yourself perhaps in a way that you weren't able to if you were raising Children, if you've been dealing with elder care, there's a lot in midlife that can be stressful. But there's also so much opportunity maybe more now than ever before you spent so many years on tv so many people look up to you for fashion advice. What made you step back and focus on this because I didn't get the same high off of fashion anymore. I want everybody to look good. But actually more than that, I want everybody to feel good. And I stopped feeling good when I went through menopause, I stopped feeling like myself. I didn't look like myself and I felt like I had no agency over what was happening to me. I did not get very helpful medical advice. I did not know how to advocate for myself. And I thought if I don't know how to do this and I feel isolated. I can't be the only one. What would what not to wear episode look like today? What would you keep? What would you get rid of? I would pretty much trash everything. I I gotta be honest. I that show was iconic for its time. I still hold my head high because I think our intentions were really um true and we really did want people to be able to see themselves in a new way and empower them to feel differently about themselves. But I don't love the whole gotcha where we, you know, had people secretly nominated and I don't love that. We gave people with like really beautiful kind of creative free spirit style, so many rules, right? I look at it now and I think the way that I would give advice if I was still sort of working you know, specifically to style people is to more bring out what people want for themselves to really listen to what they want to look like, not what we think they should look like and help them be the guardrails so that they achieve their goals. I love that you look back at such an iconic show or like, you know what I would have changed that now. Well, because look, evolution is not only essential is inevitable. And so anything that is, you know, done in a certain period of time, you're going to be able to look back at and say, I wish I'd done something differently or I wish I could remake this in a new way because our consciousness evolves, right? That's why we're able to talk about middle age in this way. This is why we're able to start talking about menopause. Scream it from the rooftops, demand better health care. These are the types of things that actually are. It could never have happened before now because this is the moment, right? So what not to wear was its moment. And now I think if I was to do another show like that, it would have a very different Tenerelli would be led by the person who would actively come to me asking for help, seeking assistance instead of trying to do a gotcha. And I was Orhan Adobo with Stacy London, the Ceo of State of Menopause on their walk and talk.