Piera Gelardi

Find out more at kohler.com. [upbeat music] Piera Gelardi is a creative entrepreneur, a writer, a New York Times bestselling author, and the co-founder of Refinery29, the groundbreaking media company that helped redefine how an entire generation of online readers engaged with style, culture, money, identity, and power.

Raised on the coast of Maine, Piera grew up in a family that treated imagination as part of everyday life, a sensibility that would later shape everything from Refinery29 to her newest work exploring creativity, connection, and play.

Her brand-new book, The Playful Way: Creativity, Connection and Joy Through Everyday Moments of Play: The Adult's Guide to Unlocking Innovation, Stronger Relationships, and Better Health, examines how and why playfulness is a source of resilience, curiosity, and experimentation in an increasingly anxious and performance-driven world.

Piera Gelardi, welcome to Design Matters.

Thanks for having me.

Piera, you grew up in a small town on the coast of Maine, as I said in my intro, in a house where ideas were treated almost like living things, and dinner conversations often became brainstorms.

A casual thought like, "What if we started a kids' karaoke club?" would become an hour of naming, strategy, and possibility.

Is it true you named your karaoke initiative Kidoke?

Kidoke.

Kidoke.

[laughs]

Kidoke.

I mean, that's, it's an incred-- Is it true?

Uh, that was a name my dad came up with.

He's an incredible namer, and I think it runs in the family-

[laughs] That's a great name

... um, because we, we practice a lot.

We do a lot of pun games, a lot of naming, and it's actually really fun because now my daughter and I also do these kind of brainstorms.

So this weekend we were on the beach in Maine, and she was brainstorming an idea for a haunted house called Haunt You for Years.

[laughs] Wow.

I guess the-

Yeah

... genetics is strong because these names are really good.

[laughs]

Kidoke, that's a strong kids' brands name.