Fashion Neurosis with Gwendoline Christie

0:01Support for this show comes from Pure Leaf Iced Tea. When you find yourself in the afternoon slump, you need the right thing to make you bounce back. You need Pure Leaf Iced Tea. It's real brewed tea made in a variety of bold flavors with just the right amount of naturally occurring caffeine. You're left feeling refreshed and revitalized so you can be ready to take on what's next. The next time you need to hit the reset button, grab a Pure Leaf Iced Tea. Time for a tea break. Time for a Pure Leaf.

0:32Rinse takes your laundry and hand delivers it to your door. Expertly cleaned and folded. So you could take the time once spent folding and sorting and waiting to finally pursue a whole new version of you. Like tea time you. Or this tea time you. Or even this tea time you. So did you hear about Dave? Or even tea time, tea time, tea time you. So update on Dave. It's up to you. We'll take the laundry. Rinse. It's time to be great.

1:10Hi, come in.

1:17Welcome to Fashion Neurosis, Gwendolyn Christie. Hello, Bella. And can you tell me what you're wearing today and why you chose these particular clothes? Today I am wearing Maison Margiela jacket, shirt, trousers and a pair of Prada shoes. They were a gift to me from Prada, which is an extraordinary thing. And it's red. It's Valentine's Day. I like to have my friends with me where I go through life. I find increasingly, actually, I only really want to wear clothes by my friends, by people I love. When friends wear my clothes, I feel like I have your back. This is my way of taking care of you. and I love that you said you don't think about brands but you think of people because I think when you find the fit of someone's clothes that kind of correspond to your sense of yourself it's about a sort of protection thing and you put that very well.

2:37I think there's definitely a feeling of protection because when we go about our lives, so much now of even stepping out of your front door can involve vulnerability. And so when you have your friends with you, you feel emboldened. But for me, it's even more than that. Just by putting on clothes, you truly can be transformed. I agree. I think the power of clothes is being transformed from being self-conscious to liberated. And then your intelligence can come into play and your instinctive good response to things is freed up because you don't have to worry about what something's doing that you're wearing.

3:39You're more agile and more deft and it's more fun, really. It's speaking as well. They're speaking for you. It's an unconscious tool of shaping not just our persona but exactly how we relate to each other. You're an actor and a model of international renown. And most famously, you entered into people's psyches as Brienne of Taft. And you talk very fondly of that role and how you got to express so many contradictions and aspects of womanhood that are normal to women, because we feel all these contradictions. But when they're elucidated, they seem quite radical. and I wondered how you felt about them.

4:38Brienne of Tarth was one of the greatest gifts of my life. When I was at drama school, I remember being told, if you are very, very lucky, one day you might come across a part that speaks to you so loudly. You don't need to do any work. because it's speaking to you and it comes to you, it comes from within, it's total free flow and I was at a stage in my life where I'd left drama school five years prior, I was doing theatre, I was trained in theatre, I did theatre at school from the age of 11, that's what I was going to do but I always wanted to do screen work that's where I wanted to be I was in love with movies I loved watching television but you know I was growing up I was quite firm in my thoughts and feelings about stories and portrayals of women and what I wanted to see but also a growing concern that this intense desire I had to be an actor was maybe not possible because of the depictions of women I saw on screen but there is truly something within me that I'm very grateful for which is a kind of bloody mindedness where I believe there is more there is always something else and there is more to our reality than what is obvious and palatable and immediate and convenient and there's a lot of really different shaped truth out there yeah that can be very difficult for people to digest but actually there's an inordinate amount of beauty in that difficulty.

6:53I read the synopsis first of all of the character online just to see who this person was, this character was. It was a lightning bolt moment because it was all All the parts of me that I knew so well and was so painful and so frightening. And I tried so hard to conceal for my entire life at that point. but also I knew that for my development as an actor and a hopeful artist and just as a person, I had to recognise those things and go further and connect to them. and it felt like no greater moment to do that than inhabiting this character I felt so protective of the character because so many experiences were so familiar and it was so niche so incredibly niche that I felt I had to honour her and I had to do everything possible no matter how extreme or difficult or disturbing to bring that forth and it was the greatest acting challenge that I had and I assumed truly that no one would really like the character that although they were discussing all this further story going on for further seasons that that probably wouldn't happen because nobody would want to see that on television nobody would want to see all those sides of me nobody would want to watch that but the story was so great the character was so great and the writing was so phenomenal that it allowed me to immerse fully in that character and radiate all of those similarities to Brienne and for that to come out.

9:21So amazing. And to go further, to do things I never thought I could do, but I'd always been quite good at stage combat at drama school. So I felt really good about doing that, about learning a skill and changing my body, working out with a trainer and bodybuilder and doing kickboxing and trying to find sword fighting and really throwing myself into the training and changing my diet and changing my body shape. The most difficult thing was to cut my hair. was that a requirement or was it something that you thought was required I was it was a requirement I felt that there was something more interesting in the haircut that the haircut could tell a story and I'd seen these uh photographs of I think it's Anne-Marie Schwarzenbach and this photographer from the 40s that had this very gender neutral haircut where it was longer on top and shorter at the back.

10:34And it felt to me like it embodied two sides of the same coin. And it said more about the character than just a haircut that was one inch all over would do. I discussed it with a hairdresser who was incredibly supportive wonderful hairdresser Kevin Alexander I trained him a couple of other references but they they were too fashion but that one I felt it really you know embodied where I felt this was going and I wanted the fringe originally to be longer I wanted it to come down to my chin so that I had more coverage to cover my face. But I was told it had to go to the cheekbone. And if I wouldn't accept the cheekbone, it would be one inch all over.

11:30So I accepted the cheekbone. That's so good. Because there's something very endearing about the hair, actually, that there's a tenderness. there's all these things but the hair is kind of you know heroic and it has a tiny whiff of the school boy photo yes from school you know those one those kind of bizarre portraits that you love later in life Sid Hayes cut my hair first because it was down to here and I wanted someone I trusted to cut it so he cut it to here and we were hoping to get away with like sean bean's hairdo in the series i was hoping to get away with that but i knew in my heart i knew it wasn't right i knew i was having to take that step but the hair was my power it was my shield i could hide a lot of shoulder widths and height I could change proportion with that long hair I could hide my face I could hide the inconsistencies in my face and body I could draw attention away from other things but taking away the hair I was completely exposed and I knew that I would have to also change the way in which I looked as a person the way I dressed we all have to change from this highly feminized, very traditionally feminized, sometimes sexualized image I chose to portray into something else.

13:11But more than that, I knew I was exposed fully. gosh and it was a great thing for me and what was the first piece of clothing that you longed for as a child did you have a uniform of any kind clothes I had a pair of white patent leather tap shoes. Gosh. With white satin bows. They were magical. And I outgrew them. The grief of losing those shoes. I felt invincible in those beautiful shoes I've realized I keep trying to buy those shoes I do I realize now and I realize that my one of my favorite pairs of shoes is this pair of Chanel shoes they're probably about uh six or no more maybe eight years old now but it was a pair of Chanel shoes probably a shoob is what is what a shoe boot oh god I've never heard that I doubt Carl would ever have described them as a shoob but um they they were based on a pair of couture shoes that Carl was obsessed with from about 1915 and they are white patent leather and they are my they're my favorite shoes now I know why well you're wearing red patent leather today so yeah there is a connection and I mean I think patent is so there's something so pure and so fetishistic about it which is why it's so totally gorgeous and I wondered where you start with an outfit and what do you have a favorite heel I'm such an emotional old thing you know I I'm so emotional about clothes it's so nice it it really where do i start with an outfit it's a feeling practicality can be fun in measure it can in that in that you know as we move through life there's other things we need There's other things we need in order to be our best selves.

16:07So I might need to feel I can move more easily or I might need to feel more powerful or I might need to feel more elongated or I might need to feel much bigger or I might need to feel very warm. And there can be a great excitement in the elaborate slow striptease of removing layers and adding on a layer, taking off another layer, adding on a different layer. I've got quite into that now as someone that was never, it was quite simple in the way that I dressed. But I quite like this different layering idea, multiple different bits and pieces. But I love shoes. Yeah. I find that there's something about what you were just describing, and I was thinking about poise.

17:08Like when you start the day with what to wear, it's sort of like a, where is that internal rod? How's it going to position you? And do I need a heel? Can I pull this off with a flat or a trainer? and it's true, it is very much about a feeling and an atmosphere. It's a feeling and an atmosphere and also I have realised that when I started to, when I was a teenager, older teenager and I was able to really start exploring clothes and the way I presented myself, the idea of fantasy, escape through fashion that some of those looks I put together I just want to go back well in fact you you have an aura of someone who's time traveled and I wondered if you ever felt like that because I mean partly you have these exquisite manners which seem almost from another era and I learned a lot of my manners in life from reading Colette and I wondered if you'd adopted any particular style of manners from reading novels.

18:31My parents were quite strict and I spent a lot of time with my parents and my father was older when he had me So my father was born in the 30s. So that was a very different time. And he had a very different way of life that changed radically, as a lot of people did from the 30s through to the late 70s and 80s and 90s. 2000 I mean their lives exploded I traveled a lot with my parents when I was little and I was included in everything so we'd go out for dinner with them and with their friends and work events and so you know you you you had to behave in a certain way it was expected of you but I also found a great delight in um my father's chivalry and I love that he would hold doors open for women when you know when I was little that's what I would see but I wanted to do that so I would do that too you know and I saw no reason why I shouldn't and I and I also saw you can create great delight in other people by treating them with grace and and when I I'm really in love with people from our older generations because there is such a delicacy and a lightness often yeah beautiful manners and and there's real laughter and joy that can emanate from that so that's the sort of main thing but I read voraciously as a child I was obsessed with films really obsessed with films really obsessed with I loved fashion when I discovered fashion magazines that was a that felt like an immediate portal into another world and and I wanted to be something other than my circumstances might dictate you know yeah I had a very difficult time at school many people do I was very very bullied and I found it difficult to survive but by investing in the future fantasy version of myself I found a way to live and that was through escaping into films watching plays escaping into theatre more doing theatre than watching theatre although I loved watching theatre but being in plays the opportunity to be someone else and there are time periods I'm fascinated by you know I can be a bit of an old Luddite I can be uh you know a bit retrograde I might not want to fit in with the times I might not want to use language which is very up to date I might want to stay stuck in my ways whilst also looking at everything that's going on and deciding I might want to participate I might not want to participate I might want to exist in a time that doesn't cannot and in some ways shouldn't exist anymore Mm-hmm.

22:27It's so interesting how to feel at home in the world and not be categorized and reduced. And literature is such a good way to find a way, you know, a sort of an escape, but into something that's more real than reality almost. and picking up on the things you were saying about Brianna Tarth. People talk about admiring a strong woman and I actually think it's a terrible phrase because you don't hear people going on about strong men. I find it so reductive. It's hugely reductive. It's a phrase that I think has been useful to lift us out of women only being seen as a function, only being seen as a mother or not a mother.

23:31as a reproductive sex object or as an unreproductive, unuseful thing. You know, unfortunately, the world has been seen in patriarchal terms. And so I don't gravitate towards a phrase like seeing strong women, but it has its uses and as ruth bader ginsburg says you have to take people with you yeah so it has its uses but i think what in in a in a in a sort of story context what people are meaning is to allow women a space to allow women to be people. I remember, I say it all the time, but George R.R. Martin, who wrote the Game of Thrones books, he was asked, how do you come up with these amazing female characters?

24:38How do you come up with these incredible feminist characters? And he said, well, I've always thought of women as people. and I think this that's sort of the beginning to just allow women a space to allow people a space outside of a patriarchal function and there is so much richness and we have so much technology now and so many different ways of creating story and exploring story and finding out more about our own humanity through being more expansive you know this beautiful and hideous experience of what it is to be human there's so much further we can go if we just look outside of our immediate we make ourselves a little bit uncomfortable and go into the area that we don't expect or go into the place where we feel might not be relevant might not be interesting it's never one thing yeah you have to look and you have to look again and again and again and do you find something in particular attractive about men's clothes is there a random piece that always gets your attention

26:11I love suits. I really do. It's their extraordinary pieces of architecture, aren't they? Yeah. When you asked, I didn't quite answer you earlier when you asked me when I woke up in the morning, what I thought. One thing I do think sometimes, and I don't think of it as literally as this, but sometimes I like to think literally I think do I want to be the man today or do I want to be the woman yes I really know that feeling and sometimes I think I want to be the man today and sometimes I think I want to be the woman and sometimes I don't think anything at all it's just a cacophony of feeling or it's one emotion or you are incredibly feminine and you also talk about androgyny and I wondered what part of you comes to life when you're in the androgynous guise like when you're wearing that grey suit that I saw you in the other day and you just had this kind of vibe about you but with so always with so much charm like everything you do and uh but I I'm kind of hyper aware of that.

27:30What's the vibe? What was the vibe? The vibe was a kind of schoolboy, kind of, sort of, skittish, spivvy, charmingness. Well, it's because I was wearing Kim. I was wearing Kim Jones for Dior and that's and I've known Kim since I was 19 and I really love Kim an awful lot yeah and he's very naughty and we're very naughty and silly together and he's very fun and so when I put his clothes on I feel all those things I feel in our relationship in our friendship and you know he's I've I've worn those I've been so lucky I've worn those Dior suits those men's Dior suits that he's designed I've worn those for for the whole time he's been at Dior I've been unbelievably lucky it's allowed me strength it's given me great strength I have my friend with me, my friend with me who believes in me, that sees all these other things in me that other people can't necessarily see.

28:57You know, he asked me to perform The Wasteland with Robert Patterson, who's an actor I really admire and really love. He's a great person. He's a fascinating person. And he could see in me that I could do that. and he wanted to project us seven metres high, that screen, and something like 37 metres long on either side of the building in Paris, where the show was held, with Max Richter playing with an orchestra. And he said, I could just see you doing that. And that's an opportunity that many other people couldn't see. Maybe I couldn't see it in myself, but I grabbed it with both hands and it's the relationship coming through.

29:46It's my history with suits. It's all of my father's suits. My father was immaculately dressed and the power, there's a lot of power in a suit. Yeah. How it changes the shape of your body, how it makes you walk. Sometimes I like to play with society's expectations of my physicality. so you know sometimes um people do think i'm male really yeah you know in airports out and about not so much now because i've been very lucky to be in a part of things that people recognize projects that people recognize and love so that's what they see or gerogatively first but yeah that's happened throughout my my whole life but it's that I don't have a reaction to that I I don't mind it I I can enjoy it because men have a lot of power historically in that moment maybe I get a tiny sense of what that power might that's so such a It's a good attitude.

31:04It's great. It's true that men have this power that they're, you know, born into this kind of thing that's bestowed on them. But it is quite fun. I remember as a teenager trying to look as much as possible like a boy and once going into Oasis swimming baths. And she said, that'll be sixpence, sir, or whatever. And I thought, great, you know. Yeah. I've done it. Yeah. It was a long time ago, of course. But the opportunity to be something other than what's been designated for you by society. Possibility. Yeah. Possibility. I love possibility. That's what clothes give me, though. I can move into different forms and it makes me truly very happy.

32:08It's why I love being an actor. I love being given the opportunity to shift my shape, to enter into the glorious realm of becoming someone else. It's truly thrilling. you wore a red dress for an event that your partner the brilliant designer giles deacon made for you and you said you wanted to look sexual i really loved that because in fashion people never talk about sex but everyone's thinking about it all the time and i wondered what looking sexual means for you it was so fabulous which dress was it was it the one i It was a backless... Sag Awards, yeah. It was fantastic. Yeah, it was fantastic, that dress.

33:00Yeah. I'm trying to remember exactly when that was, but it was the sort of thing I'd always dreamt of, and it involved a dress with Panniers from one of his collections with a combination of, I mean, obviously, you know, I said to him how I wanted to feel, how I sort of wanted it to look, and he in a second in the way that he does he's such a brilliant illustrator and uh he's so good at communicating a story in an image with such ease and immediacy and it was and there was a halter neck red top and I and I I sort of I think it was fairly early in our relationship so I you know when you don't want to say to any great designer can we do this why would you but I said what about this and he said yes sure let's do whatever you like and and it was created with such love and attention, such incredible communication between him and the team and work on my body and the fittings to make it just right for me.

34:28Always important to him that I'm comfortable. Do you need pockets with that? Or would you rather not have pockets? How are you feeling? Move around in it. How do you feel? It was a great expression of love, that dress. And you seemed totally imbued with it when you said that it was... Yeah. Sexual can be so many different things, can't it? It can be so many different things. But I think in that moment it was about a red-hot sexuality, burning passion and desire and a very deep contentment. Wow. This is a paid advertisement for BetterHelp. We are always hearing about red flags and the traits we should be on the lookout to avoid.

35:30What about green flags, the qualities we want to enjoy in a relationship or friendship, like kindness, listening, not jumping to conclusions? Therapy has helped me break some of my old patterns and embody some of the qualities that I long for in another person. I can get trapped in negative fantasy and talking to a therapist has helped me become less wary and guarded and communicate my feelings better. With over 5 ,000 therapists in the UK already, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise in mental health. Discover your relationship green flags with BetterHelp.

36:13Our listeners get 10 % off their first month at betterhelp.com slash neurosis. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P, dot com slash neurosis. And if you fancy someone and you don't like something they're wearing, does it kill your attraction to them? Yes.

36:41well you know obviously no obviously no because we are deeper than that but it's it depends what it is if it's something that's that's placed very deliberately to draw attention if it's a talking point if it's something that's presented as a talking point as a feature and is ill considered not thought through like what though without substance then how are we supposed to feel about that message one thing i i will say because i am only human is that i can't tolerate those white trainer socks the low-cut ones yeah it there's something there's something very sleazy about those sleazy with no redeeming features but i might not have seen them on the right person yet what i've seen may have not been their full potential those trainer socks and anything can transform into anything i'm sure i'll because i've said this i've developed some sort of perverse obsession with the feeling funnily enough stefano pilati said they were his pet hates as well accompanied with a skinny jean there's something quite medieval about that look as well the skin tight jeans with a you know maybe a sort of very kind of pointed shoe it's quite medieval but I don't mind medieval you should be in love with it it's been a sort of background in some of your life anyway and you've modelled in a lot of top designers shows including Mew Mew and Vivian Westwood and Tom Brown and most mind-blowingly recently in John Galliano's last Margiela show and everything about this was just so exhilarating and so emotional and I wondered what you were thinking about when you were walking.

39:22Can I ask you why you are asking me that? Why you're asking what I was thinking while I was walking? Because I was watching, there was so much intensity in your performance as an embodiment of this extraordinary look. And I had a real feeling of you somehow speaking from within. And it was more than just beauty in multiple forms, but it was like there was something going on as well that only you were privy to. Well, Bella, there was.

40:22John.

40:26John Galliano's work has been incredibly important to me through my life. I mean talk about possibility I remember when I first saw it I think it was the that show where everything was black and there were the mini monos and

40:54it was a moment his work changed the way I felt I could see the world it was how I wanted to live it was an inhale of history literature, fantasy, cinema deep emotion obsessive dedication to craft desire for exclusively masterful execution and a deep moment of connectivity to the soul and I would stare at those images as a teenager and stare and stare at them and study them And it evokes such stories in me and possibilities, stories in my mind for these women with such strength, powerful sexuality, radiating desire, power, no need, no needs. just deep confidence and a vibration of intelligence and ideas moves the movement of the women in the shows and the clothes speaking so loudly of worlds I really only wanted to live in you know work like that when you're a teenager when i was a teenager can get you through some extremely dark times in your life and can show you that there is another way and that there can be a reality it might only be clothes but it is not only clothes because they transform you and transform you into something else and so I studied John's work from when I first came across it and I was excited for every collection would come out I buy those collection magazines with the tiny images and you know it was so hard to find and there'd be these tiny tiny images and I'd study each of those and think about what it meant and what the references were you know there was it was magazines before the internet what could it mean what were these stories read every interview I could every bit of kind of review or criticism I didn't know where to find these things but whatever I could glean to find out what it was about and and and it was the work of John Galliano that made me fascinated with St.

44:01Martins and the other designers there and caused me to assist a student there so I could see more and find out more and you know I would dream of I dream of many things but a favorite fantasy would be to walk in one of John Galliano's shows and it was a comfort it would be a great comfort to think about that sometimes through less enjoyable circumstances about how that could be, what that could be like. And I really wanted films. I wanted there to be films that were like a John Galliano fashion show, that level of detail and event, occasion, power, power coming through of story. I was obsessed by it and I would copy the makeup copy Pat McGrath's makeup I'd try to copy the hair try to approximate some of the looks clothing you know whatever I could find in second hand shops vintage stores anywhere you know copies on the high street whatever I could find things I might try and make and put together to enter that world.

45:29And also it was a sort of fun thing that people would say to me, so Gwendolyn, what do you most want to do? And I'd say, I want to walk in a John Galliano fashion show. So great. And of course there are a million other answers I could give that are more connected to my work as an actor and the study of storytelling and my craft. But that is a fun and very, very true fact of something I wanted and a fantasy that I believed would never come true. But you've done rather well with your fantasies because you wanted to be in Star Wars. You were. you wanted to be in a John Galliano show and you have been.

46:21I mean, you have a high bar that you seem to raise and raise with enormous results and success. Well, there's a lot of luck in that, but there's also something just to really rest on that moment with John because it is so significant in my life. But I don't ever want to speak for John Galliano because he is a great artist and it's not my place. But when I met John, there was such an incredible moment of connection that maybe I had been receiving quite the depth of what I had received because we can connect. I felt that in some unspoken way we understood each other. Because in that show you talk about John intensifying and exaggerating your shape and you've talked about subverting proportion and that proportion is a huge thing in fashion and you've mentioned also your love of Lee Bowery and he did that very much too and I wondered if he was a friend of yours, had been a friend.

47:54Oh, what, Lee Bowery? No, I never knew Lee. But when I first came to London, Lee Bowery had passed away two years before. Right. And so the group of people that I knew were all friends with Lee and that's how I learnt about Lee and Lee Bowery and learnt about his work and learnt that amazing, amazing thing of what makes you different can be your power. Society can often say it's what will move you outside. Being moved outside for being considered to be very tall, androgynous, and unconventional looking, you know, eccentric range of interests, that I found there were a lot of other really fabulous people outside too.

48:48Really fabulous people outside too. And those people gave me great confidence to be who I am or to start feeling comfortable with who I am and to celebrate that and to build on it. And they may be interested in underground culture and subversion And, you know, that was a form of me starting to come into myself. And it was so vital and so significant in that early part of my life to give me confidence, to become the strange freak that people considered and to celebrate that. And that moment walking in John's Margiela show felt like rebirth because all the extraordinary experiences I've had, the huge luck and goodwill I've been shown in being allowed to have a career as an actor.

50:05and being so fortunate to work and work with these brilliant creative minds and being allowed to have a voice and being listened to and being allowed to create is a life more beautiful than I could ever have imagined. And beauty is something that many of us struggle with. and when I saw the look that John was creating on me, that he was sculpting, that he was truly generating another being, another way of being and really subverting my form in a way in which no one else ever had and recognising in me the broken doll. And I felt that he told the world that he thought that was beautiful. He did.

51:25and you know it's so hard to be a young person for us all but for your dreams to come true like that and for it to have such experience and work, intelligence, craftsmanship such undreamt of talent And I was shown such incredible love and put out on a world stage live, which was hard for me to do, but so ecstatic. Has changed me. And I am so grateful for that. god that is just the most wonderful wonderful thing and thank you so much for for saying those things because um it is so peculiar that of all the things to empower people in a way that just doesn't make sense on paper fashion has that has that power to give you courage to be be the person you kind of have an inkling you're capable of being it's immediate transformation Gwendolyn you had the most wonderful laugh when did that start but Bella, I can't believe you're asking me about the laugh.