In the fall of 1979, Barbara Kolsun retired her character shoes. The Sarah Lawrence graduate had spent the last eight years acting, singing, and touring the United States. From the trumpet-playing stripper Mazeppa in Gypsy, to pious Sergeant Sarah Brown in Guys and Dolls, she was ready for a new role: lawyer.
"Absolutely no thought went into law," she explains in an interview at the midtown Manhattan headquarters of Stuart Weitzman LLC. "I knew I wasn't talented enough to go to medical school," says Kolsun, who once graced the stage of Radio City Music Hall. After 12 years in private practice, Kolsun decided to switch roles again, and she took her first in-house job at Calvin Klein Jeans. This fashion-savvy lawyer has now worked at many of the top fashion brands in the states and pioneered three legal departments, including Stuart Weitzman's, where she now wears ballet slippers once again.
