'By the time I was married, I already had seven children,' she said. 'Our lives were governed by a web of modesty laws that required us to not only cover our bodies head-to-toe, but to behave comparatively, as well,' she saidĪt 16, she taught herself to sew, and would make her own modest versions of the clothes she saw in those magazines.īut she was busy in her traditional role, too. Because she was the oldest of her parents' eight kids, and female, she often cared for her younger siblings like a mother would, changing diapers and wiping their noses. She read a lot, from classic literature to fashion magazines she had to sneak from a 7-Eleven. 'You grow up thinking you don’t matter at all.'īut Julia's interests always pushed beyond the limits of what was deemed acceptable. Our lives were governed by a web of modesty laws that required us to not only cover our bodies head-to-toe, but to behave comparatively, as well,' she told the New York Post. 'Where I lived, women were to be rarely seen and never heard. I was told, 'Women’s minds are light' - 'nashim da'atan kalos,'' she said. She also described a sexist worldview wherein men studied the Torah but women did not 'because my mind wasn't capable of grasping it, you see. 'We lived in the 1800s,' she told the Los Angeles Times of her Yeshivish background, explaining that modesty for women was paramount and access to outside information via television, radio, or even newspapers was was hard to come by. Though she was not Hasidic, she did have an ultra-orthodox upbringing. When she was 11, they settled in Monsey, a suburb 35 miles north of New York City with the largest population of Hasidic Jews in the US outside of New York City, with nearly half of households speaking Yiddish or Hebrew. Julia was born Julia Leibov in Moscow, Russia, emigrating to the US with her parents at the age of three.

Streaming: Her life is the subject of a new Netflix docu-series, 'My Unorthodox Life' 'It's really hard to imagine that just a few years ago, I was living in an extreme ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, and then I just packed up and left,' she says in the series.

In Netflix's 'My Unorthodox Life,' which premiered on Wednesday, Julia opens up about her childhood in the Haredi Jewish Orthodox community in Monsey, New York, getting married at 19, and ultimately leaving that life behind - and how she's adjusted and excelled in the secular fashion world. But until 2013, when she left behind her ultra-religious upbringing and her husband of 23 years, none of that even seemed within the realm of possibility. Julia Haart, 50, is the CEO of Elite World Group, designs the label e1972, and previously served as creative director for the luxury brand La Perla. Published: 18:30 BST, 15 July 2021 | Updated: 14:08 BST, 29 July 2021Ī fashion designer and entrepreneur who rubs elbows with the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow and Kendall Jenner is opening up about her decision to walk away from her ultra-Orthodox Jewish community where 'women were to be rarely seen and never heard' after 42 years.

She now hobnobs with stars like Gwyneth Paltrow and Kendall Jenner and her life is the subject of a new Netflix docu-series, 'My Unorthodox Life'.

In 2019, she married the company's owner, Silvio Scaglia, and was named CEO of Elite World Group.

She left at age 43, starting her own shoe brand the next year and quickly landing a job at La Perla.

Julia was married at 19 and had four children but grew increasingly depressed and suicidal, trying to starve herself to death.

Discouraged from dressing immodestly or stepping outside traditional gender roles, she was also all but banned from learning about the outside world.

She was raised in the Hasidic Jewish enclave of Monsey, New York, where she says 'women were to be rarely seen and never heard'.

Julia Haart, 50, is the CEO of Elite World Group and previously served as creative director for La Perla.

'It was stay and die, or walk out the door': Jewish mother-of-four who quit 'ultra-Orthodox' life at age 43 to become a high-flying fashion CEO in New York reveals how she fled strict religious past that left her suicidal

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