Fashion Neurosis Greatest Hits vol. 1

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1:16And if you're feeling low, do you find you wear more or less clothes? I have a friend who, when she's down she wears kind of almost nothing and I do the opposite I like would just walk around in a shroud if I could and I wondered if you noticed there's a particular way you dress if you're feeling a certain way yeah definitely I surprisingly don't really use fashion to cope as much as I think other people do I love fashion so much but I think it's something that I do again kind of feel in the moment so I'm not strategic enough to like plan out how things make me feel until I have them on but I think inherently when I'm feeling down I do end up wearing something as the girls say cunt you know just just a hyper hyperimposed that energy on myself you know and so that's how you term it cunt cunt babes yes if I'm wearing something short it's cunt That's really cool.

2:19I love it. You get the impression of being supremely confident. And I wondered if you'd ever had any hang-ups or any insecurities about your body. It was last week. I woke up before my wife, Rashida, that you know. And I used to hear birds in the garden. And I didn't hear the birds in the garden. And I say to myself, I become deaf. So I waited her to wake up and I said to her,

2:54it's strange we don't hear birds today. And she said to me, yes, it's because it's so cold. It was so cold.

3:06So I was happy that she didn't hear birds. So I wasn't deaf. But yeah, so sometimes I feel insecure with my body. I was very fleshy and I had little girl nipples, like jelly bean nipples. And I wanted, you know, BB gun nipples. But anyway, I had soft jelly bean, not jelly bean, jelly. Jelly tot, maybe. Jelly tot, you know, jelly tots, they're like little domes. Yeah, it was a little dome. It was definitely a little dome. And I remember actually that when I was in early high school, I remember that I wanted to wear T-shirts, but I was embarrassed of them. So I would tape Band-Aids over my nipples because they were so, they puffed out so much.

4:03So there was that. And then my shoulders were very narrow and my hips were kind of wide. then in my 30s um or late 20s I get I think Michelle and I got together when I was 27 or 28 um she kind of she was going to the gym and she so I started going with her and so she kind of encouraged me to go to the gym because I was drinking so much too she thought that I needed to sweat out the booze so which I did which was a good idea but anyway then I got into that with a trainer. And then I started taking steroids and totally changed my body. I mean, the steroids made me big and puffy, but they made the shoulders wider and they did things, the steroids.

4:54And then when I stopped taking the steroids, all of the puffiness evaporated. And all of a sudden underneath, I had this new scaffolding. I had the BB gun nipples that I always wanted. I had pecs. I had shoulders. It was magic. I didn't love the 90s clothes. As a matter of fact, I could have kept anything on the show that I wanted to. And I didn't. And if I did, any of the clothes that I did have, like I said before, I just, I like to turn over. I don't want to keep the same things. I get bored. And I don't like a lot of things. I don't have a big closet. I just want things that I go in, I know I can wear.

5:34And if I don't wear it in a while, it's gone. But Jennifer used to, like, she still has the same platforms, but I don't mean the kind you're talking about. I'm talking about the wedges, the ones with the rope around them. She would have taken those. She took a lot of Monica's dresses and she'll say, oh yeah, I used to wear this on Friends. And I go, I mean, it looks great on her. She's a great figure and she's adorable. But I'm like, why would you take this floral little prairie dress from Friends? But she holds onto everything. So it's really funny that she did take some of Monica's clothes. I would have taken that cat suit that I wore on like some dress up holiday more than I would take my other clothes.

6:17Who do you find glamorous? I find my business partner and manager and best friend Sarah Byrne glamorous like she's glamorous because she will go on holiday with a carry-on and a pair of sweatpants and the clothes she's wearing on the airplane and two pairs of shoes and one of them is the Birkenstocks she's wearing on the airplane and the other is a pair of bedazzled mew mew mew mew mew mews which is how we call them mew mew mews and she will make, I kid you not, 17 different outfits out of those things. I never see her not looking glamorous, even if she has just woken up in her pajamas. She always adds something to her outfit, whether it's a shoelace or a ribbon or whatever it is.

7:12She's just so, I love the way she thinks and it's inspired me so much in the way that I dress. They're not mutually exclusive, like being intelligent or having intelligence that you know how to use partly in how you dress is so much fun. So intelligence doesn't only reside in intellect, does it? I just, I found it really interesting. I realized that that's what these men think. They think that beauty is a kind of a tool used against them and a very effective one. They understand effective but once a woman has it why would she bother with any other any other tools of life so that was kind of instructive um but yeah I guess living in Italy watching you know literary critics and mathematicians and physicists all on telly done up in these interesting ways I I found it kind of engaging just surprising because I'd never seen anything like that in England As a model, you can't be very self-conscious because your body's kind of not your own when you're a vessel for somebody else's imagination.

8:27God, that's so interesting. Something like that. Yeah, God. And was that the Corin Day pictures you do? Yeah, and I was like 15 and I was topless in a magazine and I was still at school. And luckily the face wasn't really sold in Croydon, so I don't think anyone really saw it. But I was still... No, I mean, they did, they heard, and it was kind of like, you know, they took the piss out of my brother and all that. Your sister's got her tits out. And, you know, I think he probably suffered more than I did about it. I was actually redoing, re-performing the piece of Vito Kochi, Seedbed, in the Guggenheim.

9:14And actually, the piece required masturbation of eight hours under the stage, and public can just hear my voice on the top. You know, I take this stuff seriously. So good. It was complicated because it was like, you know, I had to do this seven hours. I think I have more than five orgasms. It was really difficult because next day I have to do a performance. It's completely something else. I was exhausted. But this piece with Vito Kochi, which is not the same action, also all day long, it was interesting because he was producing something. He was producing a seat, and it's called Seat Band. And what the woman produced, also produced something, produced humidity.

10:01So I wanted to do the bail piece with the feeble energy. My friend Kim, when I told her I'd be talking to you today, she said she'd love to know what underwear you wear. Oh, God, no, my underwear is a skirt. My mother would call it educated grey. It's been in the washing machine so often. You know, one has one's favourites, but I do, There's a very good supplier in Paris, which is very sort of basic, called Princesse Tam Tam. And they're brilliant. And I get a lot of things from there. And RS, when I'm feeling swanky. But do you go towards the French lace type or the English boarding school? I like sensible pants.

10:54but then if I'm putting on a really pretty dress like the dress I wore the other night that's Gaparelli that bright pink one that was lovely I won't put my sensible pants on underneath that my set I will have the prettiest pair I have I won't disrespect my beautiful dress by wearing a pair of well-educated sort of you know slightly baggy elasticated jobs from what was it somebody my security pants my security knickers I'm glad that some people have a fetish for those types of things though do they I haven't met anyone like that oh and I don't think I ever will know So your husband, he likes a nice bit of lingerie.

11:44Well, I think you have to ask him that. I don't speak in his name. I work with some of those beautiful people in the world, ultimately. And you're surrounded by this idea of trying to find perfection, ultimately. That you become more, weirdly, I would become more insecure with my own appearance because I feel I'm a realist in what I look like or something um maybe I'm wrong I don't know like I kind of look at myself and I kind of see my flaws and I I understand where my not my level I don't know what like how how I am in comparison to other people which then does make you kind of a bit sort of insecure sometimes because you are being confronted always with something which is new you know the idea you know when you're doing fittings with or you're shooting campaigns you're ultimately trying to find the beauty even in the strange ultimately i never really want to over process something because I feel the minute I kind of feel like I know where I'm at, it's like nearly kind of like vertigo.

13:05You're like looking down and you're kind of like, oh, this is what's happening. And I think it would prevent me from like going forward because I think you'd be like, oh, I'm really happy of who I, you know. I think my, which is not a good thing either probably, but my whole thing is it's never done. I always feel like no matter what I'm doing, no matter if it's like building a house, being at the WFA, being at JWA, the project is never finished. I think the minute it will be finished, then I think I will be done. You could say that trauma or what happened to me has created an opportunity for me to do something new.

13:52I wouldn't have done this if I hadn't smashed my head on Isabella's floor in Rome. Yeah. But it creates an opportunity for you to do something new. I mean, I regret what happened. I wish it hadn't happened. But it's given me a new list of life with the writing and the opportunity to write with Carla or to write with Isabella and to write stuff that I wouldn't have said previously. So it's a late stage flowering, you might say, that's come out of this terrible occurrence. But also, I mean, the terrible occurrence is where we're all going. And the kindness of strangers, of the carers and the nurses and the doctors, we're all going there.

14:41So I feel I'm writing about a common experience, one that most people have had in their families, i.e., you know, Most of us have had accidents in our families and people have died. Or where you are going yourself as well. Yeah. And how you'll cope with your own deterioration and your own eventual death. I had to write about this, you know. He was dead two days before. She asked us constantly, do you want to drink? And we said no. We thought that was the worst. But then we realized she wanted a drink and I would drink with her. We all get drunk. That was completely crazy, but also incredibly good in a way.

15:26It was like a relief or something was released there. And then writing about that is the first kind of real transgression I've done because the situation was so charged with everything and you shouldn't do this, but it was so good to do it. like a real reality rather than this kind of awful rigidity you know just this fear really that you describe all the way through the fear of your father and yeah i think that i learned everything i mean from my mom she was really well organized yeah yeah she she worked in cinema and And she was the PA of the boss of this company. And she was the person in the family that was really well organized.

16:29But I learned from my dad the freedom, you know. And I'm pretty good because I grew up like working. and I learned maybe at the beginning from mom, but after also from all the people that work with me. And it's a beautiful job, but you need to deliver something at the end. So it came very natural for me. Yes, I understand what you mean when you say that grew up with her dad that didn't care about the time, didn't care about, you know, the material thing. He didn't care about money. He didn't care. Yeah, he knew about the time or he managed the time by the son. Gosh, wonderful. So I was always waiting for him.

17:32Maybe there is a part of me that refused to be so disconnected in a way from everybody, you know, because we were all slaves of him. Because an appointment with him would be a hard thing, you know. He was always late. And I remember him saying, oh, it's not me. It's this city, so many buildings. They covered the sun, the shadows. I mean, he was always, like, refusing, in a way, the urban life. Talking of which, do you work out? You're looking very spelled. Never once, never been to a gym in my life. Really? You're looking very spelled. Well, cancer helped. Oh, Nicky. Well, only you would be able to make an asset out of that.

18:38You look so well and marvellous. I didn't have very bad cancer, but the doctor, the oncologist had made a mistake. And when I was finally operated on by the famous Dr. Ali, who said of the NHS, he had to make an incisional there, all the way down. huge so when it was being sewed up I just said to him listen Norrie can't you take a few more inches and he did and he said he won't have a belly button I said who the fuck cares and he pulled it it's never gone away never come back that's amazing I don't go to the gym I don't do any of that stuff the only activity I do which is relatively recently, I think I've been doing for about two years or so, is walk to a lake and swim in the lake.

19:39I mean, that's... And that's not like... That's a sort of gentle... That's much more to do with the water being cold than actually doing sort of exercise as such. It's an exhilarating feeling, isn't it? It's catastrophic, you know, to jump into. I mean, if you're a sort of person who can find mornings difficult or have a slightly gloomy temperament that they don't like, swim in cold water. It's literally impossible to feel depressed. if you jump into freezing water because the attack on the nervous system is so extreme. It just blows all that sort of stuff away. All of the kind of interior, the awful interior conversations that you're having about yourself and about the world or whatever are obliterated.

20:53I do a cold shower every morning for that reason. Yeah, me too. After the hot, I think, am I really going to do it? And I do it because I know it gets rid of this sad feeling that I... That's right. How long do you do? Well, I do two minutes. Yeah. I'd like to do three, but I'm doing two. You don't have the time.

21:20Got too much else to do. Yeah, there's always something to strive for, so I'm striving for three minutes. Todd Haynes, what a genius. Genius. I mean, there's a strange ask. You have to say yes to that, don't you? Well, I mean, it was just brilliant. And you play a boy very well and it suits you. And I wondered what adjustments you make within yourself to incorporate being a man, because it wasn't just you playing a man. It was so much more subtle. Well, it was so liberating for starters because I was playing him in one of his most sort of iconic, visually iconic periods, you know, when he went electric.

22:12I'd lost a lot of weight and so the clothes were feeling because he was raked thin himself. and quite in a conventional sense, quite feminine, you know, big hair, small body. And, you know, he was wearing a lot of heels and quite embellished shirts. And so I lost a lot of weight. And so the clothes felt differently on me. So I think I was moving differently anyway. And then there was a scene on a bed in a hotel room. and a friend of mine who was working on the film says, put a sock down your trousers. I went, it'll change the way you move. And it really did. Something I had another thing to contend with.

23:03I must try that. Just for fun. Just because. Just put a sock down your trousers, see how it changes the way you move. And it did. And so I did that for the rest of the shoot. And I was really, yeah, I was really grateful for that really simple piece of advice. It really helped, actually. I can imagine. It's totally, you know, couldn't be more alien, could it? No. Yeah. And it was a bit strange at first, and then I got used to it. I don't still have a sock down my trousers. This is a paid advertisement from BetterHelp. Feeling overwhelmed can make it hard to remember what actually makes me feel better.

23:48There are so many helpful tips out there and sometimes that's confusing too. What to choose? Should I make the bed or go for a walk? But then I have lots of work and feel stuck about what actions to take. When I asked my therapist what to do when I feel overwhelmed, he said you could think of it as having a lot to do rather than being overwhelmed. he knows what I'm capable of and I found this very helpful as the largest online therapy provider in the world BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise talk it out with BetterHelp our listeners get 10 % off their first month at betterhelp.com slash neurosis that's better help.com slash neurosis I was conscious that I wanted something very Lynch way the coloration the patina of Lynch incredible visions in photography in light in colors so I thought out of politeness I have to ask him that he will say no and then I will try to find someone but I don't think it would be a good thing.

25:05So I went, we had a drink with David. He was in Paris. And then I said, well, I have a little bit of a project I wanted to speak to you about. And I totally understand that you will say no, you can say no, but I still need to speak to you about it because I've been thinking about you. And he said, what is it about Christian? And I said, well, it's, I have shoes that I wanted to be photographed, of shoes not to be worn, but really shoes around fetishism, the ideas, the multiple ideas on fetishism. And he said, okay, let's do it. I said, what do you mean? He said, let's do it. Where are the shoes?

25:48I said, was that in my head? Why? I said, because I wanted to ask you first, if the project was making sense, then I would do the shoes. He said, let's do it. God, how wonderful. It was a symbol of that. And then he says, you have to develop, you have to show me the sketches. I'm sad because I lost them. He lost them. I'm even more sad. But at least I'm not responsible. He lost them. And so I did every shoe. And then I explained the kind of category of fetishism. It was big. It was belonging to. So I show him and say, okay, do the shoes. It needs to be worn on girls. You choose the girls. But one thing, no bones.

26:39No what? No bones. What did you mean by that? I said, what do you mean by bones? He says, the shoes are beautiful, but they're extreme. Me photographing these shoes, if it's on skinny girls model style, it's going to look that they come out of a tortured chum or something horrible. So it should not be with skinny girls. I don't want to see a bone in those girls. That's the only thing. No bones. I say, okay. There are two ways you're going to come up. If you're dealing with heroin, you're either going to look like a victim or a cunt.

27:23I don't fancy either route. so therefore I kind of avoid talking about it and I've got to say I never think about it anymore I literally never think about it anymore but you know until I'm called upon to do so I really am not a wise guy about it but I have seen it I have seen NA and the 12-step program work for so many people you know people who I thought were a lost cause and so I can't recommend it enough really. I was terribly bullied as a kid, you know, a queer black kid on the south side of Chicago and not really having formed my identity and trying on different expressions to find out who I am.

28:15And I think having a look sort of gives you courage to navigate the world and it can also be a form of armor as well. Yeah, totally. I think we're so, through advertising, especially post-World War II advertising, a lot of us are shamed if we're not a certain body type or if we don't have certain features. And especially someone like myself, being a black trans woman of color I've never had, I call it mirrors of affirmation. and sort of you can't see what you can't you can't be what you can't see and so I for so many years tried to be so many different things because I wanted to be seen and at the end of the day I really realized that

29:12through a lot of trial and error who was I dressing for was I dressing for the male gaze? Was I dressing for protection? Was I dressing for self-expression? But I found out a lot of my insecurities were actually my strengths. The things that I were bullied for or laughed at or not accepted for were the things that made me unique. So I just decided to put a fucking gold star on it. And also your insecurity shift, your body shifts, your taste shifts, your eye shifts. what I liked five years ago I wouldn't be caught dead in I've also learned to edit the longer I walk the planet it seems the more clarity I have of my shifts if that makes sense it's funny I know I went blonde a couple years ago and it was like it was like a light bulb was on over my head in the way that like men were so interested in it and it was just like you know it was like they could see me all of a sudden really that's all it took it's like going blunt so it's so silly you know um but that also you know you can get lost in that for sure and I definitely feel like I did it's kind of thrilling though it's a useful thing to know these things how to switch on and off It's great.

30:46We didn't have many black girls doing editorial. So you had when they found Iman, yes. And little by little, Naomi comes on the scene in the 80s, and she's one of those girls. But we didn't have a lot of that. But when Regis Pines came from France and he started American Ale, he just had a real appreciation for blacks, beauty, brown girls. So he started putting them in the magazine and putting them on the covers, and that challenged Condé Nast and Hearst. So they had Bazaar. We had Mademoiselle, which you don't have anymore, Glamour magazine, Vogue. And what wound up happening is that these girls all of a sudden started having, now those magazines wanted to have those black girls because they had to compete with this French magazine that came in, And he was killing it.

31:44I mean, he had no problem putting black girls because there was nothing for them to lose. And it was brilliant. Yeah. So then all of a sudden we have all these black girls working. Now all of a sudden we have, you know, Vogue taking, you know, girls on photo shoots. Before it was just studio shoots, black girls. Oh, I really enjoyed designing. I didn't really realize how much I enjoyed it. I really learned so much from you. But I was amazed because you were so specific. Suddenly you said, no, no, no, we can't have the sleeve finished there. It has to finish at exactly this point. And this is how I like the neckline.

32:24I can't have it any other way. And it was like your demeanor is so gentle, but you know exactly what you want and you're such a powerful force. And that was the first time I'd ever really seen that when we did that collaboration. I think it was in 2010. I didn't really know that I was so decisive. It kind of took me by surprise as well. Because in my personality, I can be very vague, you know, as a person and quite sort of like drifting off and dreamy and that kind of thing. But when it came to design, I was just so clear in my mind what everything should look like. It was quite strange even for me because it's like a whole other side of my personality I didn't know I had.

33:14Yeah, it's true. And I didn't also realize it was a good thing. I just thought I was being really bossy. I was changing four or five times a day when I was coming back from school and my mother was furious. um i was going to dinner you know like a simple dinner family dinner you know but i was like stealing ties from my father's closet and you know go to dinner with the tie and you know they were all like looking at me my sister they were already in pj you know i was like showing up to die and they were like wait what is going on here you know and then if I thought that my mother didn't wear what I thought she would have I made her change and that was also like a disaster because you know I was really insisting I mean like I made her really uncomfortable until she changed and then, you know, she couldn't really, I mean, poor thing.

34:27I mean, she couldn't really process how much right I was about what I told her to change. But, you know, at that age also you do things, yeah. I mean, I guess I was processing very, very fast, but I don't know. I wasn't really realising the power that I had for that kind of, you know, instinct, let's say. Do you and Lila still do fashion police? Yeah, I did it yesterday. I was, not just me and Lila, just me on my own. I was like, I was in the car and there was this woman and this man and they were walking down the street and she had like a, I don't know, it was the weirdest look and I went, where are they from, those people?