It's staff meeting time for the biggest retail brand you've never heard of, which at Kathy Ireland Worldwide means marching up the hills outside Santa Barbara to the eponymous founder's mission-style home for a corporate version of "I'm OK, You're OK." As the coastal air tempers the bright California sun, 15 staffers dressed in casual black sprawl on the plush sofas or sit cross-legged on the floor. An Academy Award rests nonchalantly on an end table, lending a surreal touch. "Don't ask about the Oscar," one of Ireland's confidants says to me furtively. (It was from another fashion diva with a flair for retail, Elizabeth Taylor.)