It might look like Stacy London‘s life is nothing but peaches and sunshine, but the stylist and co-host of TLC’s What Not to Wear has had her share of failures.

“I was actually fired when I was the senior fashion editor when I was at Mademoiselle,” she explained in our Media Beat interview. “In retrospect, I can say it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. At the time, I was furious. I thought that I had done a really great job, a really strong job while I was there. And one of the things that was really hard was that I sort of had to reconfigure how to identify myself. I’d associated myself really with my name on that masthead for so long that it took a second for me to figure out what’s next. It actually took about a year.”

The most important thing she learned? That a forced “vacation” can ultimately lead to a personal (and career) breakthrough.

You can also view this video on YouTube.

Part 1: Stacy London: ‘It’s not just about the clothes. It’s about the psychology behind them’
Part 2: What Not to Wear’s Stacy London Takes Your Fashion Questions