The former stockbroker who built an empire out of American domesticity talks to the FT’s fashion editor about surviving prison - and Christmas
It was Stewart (as Stewart will tell you) who understood media and commerce would soon be one and the same thing, decades before Net-a-Porter launched a magazine and magazines launched their own storefronts; it was Stewart who suffered a public fall from grace in 2003 when she was indicted for making false statements and obstruction of justice in relation to a stock trade – she was convicted by a jury and spent five months in prison in West Virginia; and it was Stewart who re-emerged blonder and tougher and, product-wise at least, more ubiquitous than ever, with 8,500 Martha Stewart-branded items sold everywhere from Macy’s to Home Depot to PetSmart and Staples.
