“What are you doing here? This is a boy’s job!” yelled the man at the end of his driveway. It was 1971, and eight-year-old Kathy Ireland–Santa Barbara’s first papergirl–had just handed her new customer a newspaper on her first day of work. As she told Today in an interview in 2017, “It really instilled that fighting spirit in me because there was no logical reason I couldn’t have that job because of my gender. It taught me to persevere.”
Ireland is better known today as the 1980s and 1990s supermodel who appeared in 13 consecutive Sports Illustrated swimsuit issues, including three covers. In fact, to this day Ireland’s 1989 cover remains the best-selling issue of all time. However, she said later of her success as a model: “I entered the modeling industry as a business person already. I always knew I belonged on the other side of the camera.”
In 1993 Ireland founded brand licensing company Kathy Ireland Worldwide, which would go on to make her one of the wealthiest former models in history. The company’s first product was a line of socks bearing Ireland’s name and sold by Kmart. The socks quickly sold 100 million pairs, and became the foundation of a clothing line Ireland developed with Kmart.
“Our mission began with finding solutions for families, especially busy moms,” said Ireland. Other lifestyle icons wanted to show their products as part of a world where everything is tidy and picture-perfect, but Ireland went in the other direction. She acknowledged that raising a family can be chaotic and messy, and offered products that can help.
The biggest breakthrough for Ireland came when her friend and mentor Warren Buffet–who also had a paper route in his youth–pointed out that fashion and apparel are cyclical, but home furnishings are a lot steadier and she shifted focus in that direction. Kathy Ireland Worldwide now sells over 20,000 products, and is valued at over $2 billion.
Ireland has excellent advice for new adults formulating their life missions: “So many young people say, ‘I’m just going to see what happens.’ It’s so much more powerful to make things happen and have a plan.”
