Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Created by Roselis Cortez • Co-host: James Stanley
Seam Notes explores luxury as behavior
How you think, how you move, and the standards you hold when no one is watching.
This isn’t about status or appearance. It’s about composure, discernment, boundaries, and self-respect. The things that quietly shape how you live.
Through lived experience, we talk about growth, outgrowing environments, and learning to move differently without losing yourself in the process.
No performance. No exaggeration. Just real conversations about what it takes to hold your own.
New episodes every Wednesday.
Roselis (00:00)
This is SeamNotes. Taste, standards, and the decisions nobody sees.
James (00:06)
You know, you didn't choose taste. Your taste. Taste that was assembled by everything, every influence, all the exposure from child to today. Everything you accepted. Everything you never questioned. Some of it was never yours to begin with. I would say, probably most of it.
wasn't ours taste from childhood to, I don't know, mid-twenties. for me, I'm relating that to me. That's when I started really experimenting because I was such controlled. You know, I always say I was an object. I was pulled out, presented, and then put back into the china cabinet. And I'm dating myself with the word china cabinet, you know?
So, so taste, right? And we're not talking just physical things. For me, it's more emotional. Right? How do we develop taste as part of who we are? It's a big part of who we are, who we choose as a partner, where, what foods we like, what fashion we wear, all the things that we're attracted to art, music, our tastes. Everything is a reflection of that. Right? But I think when we're
Roselis (01:17)
Even the neighborhood we live in.
James (01:24)
From the ages of birth to a very young age, we're influenced by our parents, society. ⁓ Now today in the social media world, this influences for young people. I don't know how they do it because this little box influences their entire lives. Is in control. Of who they are.
Roselis (01:41)
of
what we're exposed to no matter what at all times.
James (01:45)
Correct.
Yeah. So how did you, I mean, taste for you when you were a child growing up in Venezuela? It must have been very different from your childhood, very early childhood with your mom and your dad, then boarding school and then now. It must have
Roselis (02:02)
Well I think that yes, absolutely, But when I think about how my personal style and taste in dressing has evolved, I my mother loves to say that I was an absolutely rebellious child that she could not control. And those were her exact words. She could not control me.
James (02:28)
That's a heavy word, control for me, triggering.
Roselis (02:31)
And so of course she couldn't control me, you know, but she did because I was so fearful of her. She just wanted me to be a clone and she wanted me to be exactly
at her image, Reflect who she was, behave the way she wanted me to behave. And so as a good child, and what I mean by a good child is testing boundaries and pushing boundaries as a kid, she didn't like it and she couldn't control me. So that was a big part of her story of how I ended up in boarding school.
James (03:12)
Would it, is it fair to say that?
A lot of mothers expect their daughters to be versions of them.
Roselis (03:19)
think that a lot of parents expect their offspring to be versions of them. But I think that correct. But I think that in the case of you and I with mothers who are narcissistic and have that trait, it is even more of a challenge because they become so controlling and everything is about them. And wanting us
James (03:25)
regardless of male or female.
Roselis (03:48)
to be a reflection of them in one way or another. So what happened was that for the first three years of my childhood when I was the doll in the house, you know, I was
James (03:51)
I would totally agree with that.
So you had your version of the China cabinet being taken out and then put back.
Roselis (04:09)
Kidding me, I have albums. Next time you come over, I'll show you. There's a plethora of pictures and albums of every day. It's the picture taken of me modeling the outfit and the this and the that, up until I was about three or four. And then that dropped like a hot potato. Something happened in the household where she took another direction.
She did a lot of things. you know, she was a classical mm trained piano player and my father was in music and so this was an art that was in my home on a regular basis.
James (04:50)
musicians.
Roselis (04:51)
true musicians, artists would come over and play and my mother would play the piano every day and all of these things, but she was also a great sewer. And so for all of the openings of different events, my mother would make her own gowns and things like that. And so she sewed a lot for me until I was able to say, I don't like that. I don't wanna wear this. I don't wanna do this. I don't wanna you know and I didn't
It ensued fights and it ensued, the rebelliousness of her side, which was okay and never do it again, right?
James (05:31)
So that's when you're, without knowing it subconsciously, you were starting to create your own sense of taste. I don't like this indicates that you were developing a sense of your own taste.
Roselis (05:38)
Absolutely. Right.
I knew there was something instinctively that showed what I gravitated towards and didn't. and then my father traveled a lot and so he would leave with, suitcase inside another suitcase to bring back, loads of clothes wherever he went, mostly Europe and New York So
James (05:53)
Yeah, yeah.
Roselis (06:09)
he would always bring the latest trend and the latest things for me to wear. Mother didn't have to do that. Sometimes I didn't really like the colors. Sometimes I didn't really like some of it. Well, but I would find a way to change it to fit my liking. Mm-hmm. I distinctly remember one time he had gotten me, this was in the seventies, he'd gotten me a brown t-shirt. It was a fitted t-shirt.
With bell bottom pants that were a printed velvet bell bottoms and a huge belt, and I had these great platforms that went with them. I always had short hair because my hair is curly, and so in order to work with it easier, we had short hair, right? And so we went to an art gallery where a very dear friend of his owned it.
And there was a gentleman there and I think it was the artist that was doing the exhibit or something. And I remember walking in and mm he said to my father, What a beautiful boy you have. Ooh.
You know, I immediately got hurt because I was so thrilled over my superb outfit. That was super cool, that I absolutely loved. And all of a sudden I'm being confused with a boy, So that triggered a period of skirts and dresses.
James (07:48)
really okay. So unfortunately or fortunately you were influenced by you know life another human being and you reacted to it so you adjusted your taste journey according to that like we are forced. Thank goodness just for a period of time.
Roselis (08:06)
period of time. Yeah, yeah. But
then because I always loved pants. There was something about pants. And how often did you see me in a skirt?
James (08:18)
I don't know, I don't remember the last time I've seen you in a skirt.
Roselis (08:20)
It's very, very rare that you see me in a skirt. You know, I mean I I was wearing suits as evening wear, when people were not even thinking about that kind of style. So I what I'm trying to get to is other than some disruptions that I've had in my journey of
James (08:33)
Very chic
Roselis (08:48)
Taste as far as appearance, right? I've been very consistent. I went off to boarding school and in that period of time there was a lot of neon colors and there was some lace and there was some of that stuff happening.
And I remember I would go to adult stores. I'm fifteen, I'm working the entire summer to pay for my wardrobe
I remember going and buying these long silk skirts that were straight and very business like blouses that matched
Or round neck, short sleeved, also silk, lots of silk. And I had them in all kinds of different colors and different things, all of it muted, and then I would accessorize with jewelry. Same I'm doing today. You know? That's true. And my schoolmates would be wearing tennis shoes and jeans and t-shirts and stuff.
James (09:54)
That's true.
Roselis (10:03)
I was never a T shirt person. it had to be a very special T shirt.
James (10:06)
Or tennis shoes. You're not a tennis shoes person either.
Roselis (10:10)
No. Okay. You know, just not that person. So there has been a style that has been very me, that's very linear, simple in many ways, that has been
For me.
James (10:27)
But what about outside of fashion then? ⁓ you had backing up, you've had a sense of your taste in you, you're couturing it as it grew, right?
Roselis (10:38)
Right. And so
James (10:39)
What about tastes like in, let's say, boys, men, food, like these, know, because they're all emotional. To this day.
Roselis (10:51)
Continue to refine.
So food was always a huge bit of taste for me. My father and I, I go back to, that. Yeah, yeah. We would go and have lunches together His business was basically behind the school
So you just had to go over a block in order to go to his office, and we would go to lunch with all the other adults. I was the child that was always with them. Yeah. And a lot of times it was he and I So the dining experience, the
food experience, the honing in on flavors and being a risk taker because that's a huge thing on taste, right? It's being a risk taker. exactly. Because I'm telling you that all the other kids were wearing jeans and t shirts and meanwhile I'm in this buttoned up blouse
with a skirt that's straight down and goes down to my ankles and I'm in heels, 'cause my feet always felt like they were so long compared to how skinny and tall I was, I felt that I needed to wear heels. I was always in heels. Or men's style shoes. Love a men's style, you know. Oxford
So in the food thing, I remember vividly going to fish places where they would bring the fish and we would pick the fish and then they would go in the back and they would boil the fish and then they would bring the consommate out. And then they would bring the fish out and it was a whole experience. Right. And this was lunch we were having, right?
James (12:44)
You had a real dining experience.
Roselis (12:49)
And so for me food has always been an emotional connection affiliated with love and inclusion for me food is very, very important.
James (13:04)
I know that I know that about you for sure. And so it's just that it was influenced by your dad
Roselis (13:08)
And it just continued. Yeah, yeah. remember my story about being in Mexico and doing the you can go give the money to this guy and give the go have that glass of wine. It was always about having an experience that had something like that to it. So there's always been that connection for me with food.
James (13:28)
So has that evolved or not evolved, wrong word, has that taste changed from, doesn't sound like it has much, from when you were then in your school days, right, grade school to today? No.
Roselis (13:41)
No, no. I vividly remember working at Armani when I first moved to New York. This was in the nineties and I loved the fabrics and the styles and everything that we had, but all I did outside of work was go hang out with the new chefs, the upcoming chefs that were a part of the chef's circle the
food network and I hung out with them. That was my circle of friends. Because I just always have gravitated to the people that can have that because taste, taste is a whole
James (14:15)
senses
⁓
Roselis (14:30)
Five senses experience, right? In clothing. It's color, visual, right? Fabric, tactile, you know, it's how it feels, it's linear, it's got all of those things, right? Food is the same thing.
James (14:49)
All the senses are going.
there's love, but there's a love relationship with food in you. think that comes from your dad. That connection you had as a child from the father, you equate, I have an ex-partner who equated love with food. I kind of get that, but I don't entirely get it, right? Because my instinct is not to equate food with love, even though I love feeding people and entertaining people. I love doing that because I want to show them
this experience and share that with them. But now I see after you explaining this, how you're so emotionally connected to food, because she's very connected to food. It's a thing, her husband's a chef.
Roselis (15:27)
Exactly. And and the people that I dated before my husband were all food industry people. And when I was in fashion I only dealt with food industry people as partners. All of them.
James (15:40)
Okay. So tell me, well, so I'll back up. Okay. So for me, as a child, my tastes were handed to me, just like we started this, right? Right. I didn't have any. Right. My mother taught me how to dress, took me to the tailor at a young age. Like was very exposed to luxurious upbringing as a child. You were as well.
But I was told, it wasn't like we went into a store and somebody said, it, know, picks it. No, it was this, this and this, this is what you do, we're done. And I didn't even think, and I think a lot of people today, regardless of age, still do this. They just kind of go robotically through, this is who I am, this is my taste, this is how I emotionally connect to this thing, whatever this thing is, instead of saying, is that really me? So as a young child, I didn't know any better, so I didn't know to second guess it.
But I could tell you in my early teens, I grew up in Southern California, It was surfer city, I grew up in Newport and you know, white, blonde, blue-eyed. I was- Yeah, with all those boys. I was not that, I was not blonde or blue-eyed. Vans tennis shoes was a big fashion. was surfer country, you know? And this was 70s, late 70s, almost early 80s. And I got into it. I got into it because all the kids in school were doing it,
And when I told my mother I wanted a pair of Vans tennis shoes and jeans, but the cord OP jeans, the wide leg cord, remember those? OPs with the big deep pockets.
Roselis (17:11)
Absolutely. I know exactly what you're talking about. And they came in pastel colors.
James (17:14)
Absolutely not.
Yes, they did
during that period, right? Anyway, I had to have them when I found out that you could design your own Vans tennis shoes because the factory was in Southern California. This is one of the birthplaces of who James Stanley is today, because I went into this shop and the guy says, what do you see? What do you want to do? And I'm like, oh, I want to change that and this and this and add this and change that. And he's like.
Roselis (17:20)
Absolutely.
James (17:42)
And it's funny how that was birthed kind of then. And my mother was a good sport about the shoes. She wouldn't allow me to still wear the jeans, but I could wear the custom made Vans shoes, right? However I wanted. ⁓ Then I really started rebelling in my late teens. guys, I grew up in a sport coat. I think there's.
Roselis (17:45)
Okay.
James (18:04)
very few people on this planet who's wore as many sport coats as I have in my life. And I still like them. Now I think it's really cool.
Roselis (18:11)
And it's great that you do because they look great.
James (18:13)
I still wear a lot of sports coats, but as a child, four, five, six, I don't have a photo without wearing a sport coat, a collared pressed shirt, right? And slacks with pleats and a cuff in them, which I hated. So fast forward, I start, figuring out who James is. And I think that's the kind of the bottom line here of this is discovering taste.
Roselis (18:36)
The whole idea behind this
James (18:41)
on all levels, not just fashion, really is kind of defining who we are and how else do we do that? We must experiment, we must be curious, we have to dig. And if you're blessed enough, we well, your father was very lenient, I think, from what you tell me, as far as letting you kind of do your thing, but your mother wasn't. My mother definitely would not let me do as soon as I started butting heads with her and coming home and dressed in whatever, it was just not happening. This was not happening.
Roselis (19:10)
Right. So you have to remember that the biggest blessing that I had as a child was the opportunity to go away to boarding school. Because from the age of four when I had the mother abandonment to the to the the age of twelve when basically I left to go to boarding school because I was twelve. I turned thirteen at the beginning of that year, right? But so those eight years I hung out with my dad.
it was me and my dad, my mother was studying or punishing me, and that was the relationship. So I did have the opportunity to have that great influence of the man who was very open-minded, very intent on having me be exposed to things, be curious about things.
James (20:04)
What a blessing.
Roselis (20:06)
question things, pay attention to things. And so he never judged any of the whatevers I was into at the time, I went through a period that I wanted every single book of a particular writer and he was like, Okay, every week we buy you one, and you read the whole thing and
It was well what did you read? What did you learn? What did it entice? What did it and so i it was always ingrained in me to be curious.
James (20:40)
What a blessing.
Roselis (20:43)
Food. Food. I'm in Chicago. It is two thousand five, I think, somewhere around there. The Japanese influence was really coming in. there was a new restaurant that everybody wanted to go to. So I'm in Chicago for a weekend and I was able to
procure us reservations through all my, chef friends, So we get there, it's probably eight of us. And I don't remember the name of the restaurant, some somewhat, you know, adventurous in food. I'm the most adventurous of the whole team, right?
And of course something odd in a menu, I'm gonna get it. Right. They had cod Shirako on the menu
James (21:42)
Now I'm adventurous, but I'm not doing that.
Roselis (21:44)
Did I like it? No. It tasted like creamy perfume.
⁓ It was really horrific, but I had to take the risk.
James (21:51)
Okay. But you.
I
had to take the leap
Roselis (21:58)
⁓
If you don't do that things you don't know.
James (22:01)
You don't know.
In all of life that applies. Right, exactly. And how can you have an opinion on something, anything, if you have not tried, experimented, spoke of, thought of, etc.
Roselis (22:04)
Exactly.
That's exactly what this is. Experience that we're sharing is about, Going out with a person that you would never think of going out with and being so pleasantly surprised
James (22:29)
how many times have we said, that this person is not my type, that's not my type. But how many times have you been out with somebody and discovered that there's so many different avenues and you have things in common and if we don't, how do we refine and figure out our taste, which taste equates to our emotional connection to things? Correct. Unless we're doing it. Right.
Roselis (22:51)
Correct.
w with food I do it over and over again. I did it with
liver for many years. I would try it and it just never liked it. And I then realized that it had to do with texture. Yeah, yeah. And it's the same thing happened to me with monkfish, you know, but I would try anything before I developed autoimmune diseases where it didn't allow me to really continue to expand on that. ⁓ very adventurous, very adventurous. And we do it in travel, How do you know
Why do you judge people from other places where you have no idea how they live or what it is, When you go to a country, don't go stay in an all inclusive. rent a space, go into the areas, ask people, where do you eat? Ask your taxi driver, where do you eat? Yeah, yeah. Will you take me there? May I buy you lunch?
James (23:50)
Yeah, yeah, I agree.
Roselis (23:52)
Expose yourself to these things because this is some of the greatest education that we can have. And that is where you are able to resonate with your soul and your spirit. And that is where the personal luxury lives.
James (24:10)
1,000 %
Roselis (24:12)
Expanding, exposing, implementing all of these things that become your own. It doesn't mean that you don't take some of the stuff from your parents. ⁓
James (24:25)
Yeah, ⁓
Roselis (24:27)
I was always exposed to classical music and I absolutely can I tell you which symphony I'm listening to and who it is and and which orchestra it is? Absolutely not. But I also can't do it with just any musician. I can tell you that I love the song but I don't have any idea who it is
James (24:30)
Sure yeah, of
you know, it takes experience to build taste, Right. So we can't have taste without the experience, right? Because if we have taste without the experience, we're only taking on what other people are projecting.
Roselis (25:00)
Exactly 'cause we're what we're doing is we're taking on whatever people are giving us. It's exactly it's looking at a magazine and being like, ⁓ like the person that comes to you and says, I want my apartment to look like
James (25:12)
this. Yeah. And now they do it on Instagram. They're like, I want it to look like this. And I'm like, well, so right now I have a client.
Roselis (25:20)
Okay. Tell us.
James (25:23)
And she has a very dear friend who is ⁓ hanging out with her and they're choosing some things. And I pride myself on creating designs, building structures that are very unique to the client and resident who lives there. Right? Because I believe if you walk into your home and I don't see Rosellis in her home, meaning in the decor, in the way it feels, then
And I think the person who did the work, the designer, the architect, the builder, did a very disservice to Roselis because she lives there. We must see her in the room instead of me walking to the room and saying, oh my God, it's beautiful, but who lives here? I don't see Roselis anywhere. I want to walk in and say, oh yeah, this is her home. It totally reflects who she is. So this particular client is a little overwhelmed in a project. She's never done this before. She's in her third and a half act.
A little older than us and she's, you know, a little overwhelmed. Her friend is helping her, but her friend is peddling her friend's version of the apartment. I've stopped the process twice already in meetings and I looked at my client. I'm like, is this what you want? This does not reflect you. And you know what she said to me? Well, I'll tear it out eventually. And I'm like, no, why would you do that? If you're not emotionally connecting to it and you're taking taste
Roselis (26:37)
Mm-hmm.
James (26:47)
from others and being an influence by others and not really sitting with self and saying, and who gives a shit guys if the walls are purple and green and orange? It does not, right? You wanna live there, you wanna walk in and go, it's a sanctuary. And that is your taste that you have experienced and refined through your lifetime, The consciousness inside that inner mechanism that is the true us.
Roselis (26:58)
Matters not.
Right.
James (27:16)
has had all these experiences for many lifetimes and it shines through. Instead of looking at a photo and saying, I want this. Right? Now, if you need that as a direction and saying, oh, I love these shoes, but I'd rather they were this high and this thing, then it's a direction. Great. You can go with it. But I'm just saying, it really breaks my heart when I see her walk out of a design meeting and most of my clients are walking out of design meeting and they're floating.
Roselis (27:40)
Elated. Right. I've been there. I've done it with him before.
James (27:42)
And
she's walking out thinking, I'm going to rip it out in a few years. And I'm like, stop. If your tastes are being influenced by someone else, which we all are kind of guilty that at some time of our life, like right now I see all the kids running around with these big baggy pants on and I'm like, I can wear those a lighter version of for the summer. I think that's kind of cool. I'm influenced by it. Great. I'll own that. I'll make it my own sense of style, but I'll do it. Yeah.
So, again, taste and experience. must have the experience in order to start defining our taste, Because it's emotional.
Roselis (28:18)
So
speaking of that, it's really interesting because you've been in my home. It's very colorful. Very. It's very colorful. It's not
James (28:28)
But it's so artistic and well done and it's very a reflection of you.
Roselis (28:32)
it's not cluttered. It's colorful but it's not cluttered. Even though there's very few inches free on the walls to put anything else. That's how packed they kind of are in certain areas of the house.
interestingly enough I've been approached by two of my friends that say to me, When can I come work in your house? What day of the week can I come over and work here with you so that I can get more work done?
And my apartment is not quiet in the sense of color, but there's a sense of calm that is within my space and that's what they seek. And how is this related to taste? It's because the idea, as busy as it may be, is for it to be that way.
James (29:13)
Yeah, for sure.
Roselis (29:30)
To feel welcoming, to feel comfortable, to feel like you're in a little warm hug when you go in there without it being overdone
James (29:42)
through your experience of self over the years, you've translated that into everything you do.
Roselis (29:49)
And unconsciously, Because it's been through the training of learning other people's cultures, that study of the travel, Learning from fashion, that study of the aesthetics, learning from music, that study of what surrounds you, what calms you, what feels, what resonates with you, the study of
Food, all of those things, whether you think it's a study or not, if you're being exposed to it, if you're challenging it by being curious and paying attention and dissecting it and then using some of that as your standards, yeah, then you are creating all of that in an unconscious manner. Totally. Right? Totally. And so yes, there's some of it that's inherited that we embrace,
I mean my love for art on the walls also comes from childhood. My father was an art collector. so walls were always full.
James (30:50)
So art's a very much emotional connection back to dad and you carry that with
Roselis (30:54)
Exactly. Exactly.
So the taste is trained by what we're exposed to. But it really needs to be something, as you mentioned that you have to identify with. Because if you're just looking at a magazine and going, this is what I want, it may look good, but how does it feel?
James (31:01)
1000 %
Yeah, it doesn't resonate with you, your emotion.
Roselis (31:19)
Yeah.
whenever anybody that comes to me asks about these things, I always say be and stay curious and travel as much as you can.
really, that is one of the greatest ways of discovering who you are and your taste
James (31:42)
Travel oh for sure. Agreed, agreed.
Roselis (31:44)
You know, it's staying curious,
James (31:47)
interesting and interested in things.
Roselis (31:48)
Because you know,
go, try, taste, experience different things, you're afraid of the oyster, try it anyway.
James (31:52)
Experiment. Yeah.
Roselis (32:00)
So
If you're enjoying our content, please subscribe and follow in YouTube, Spotify, or Apple. We're also on Instagram @seamnotes and on TikTok @seamnotespodcast. so the takeaway this week would be
Question a preference you've had and ask yourself Is it mine or was that inherited?
James (32:35)
It's so true.
This is SeamNotes, luxury from the inside out.
Roselis (32:48)
We will see you next week.