Fashion Neurosis with Rick Owens

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1:10Hi, come in.

1:16Welcome to Fashion Neurosis, Rick Owens. Thank you so much for being on the couch. It's my pleasure. Could I ask you why you chose what you're wearing today? Oh, I like a uniform. I just turned 62, and so I kind of, somewhere inside me, I'm still the flamboyant 19-year-old, but I feel like I need to have a little bit more dignity. And the other thing is, I think when your face changes as you get older, like the lines and the creases I think they can get a little messy if your clothes are too messy and you need to kind of set it off with something a little bit more tailored. I totally agree with that I think I used to wear a lot of vintage but as I've become more vintage I don't want to look like the old clothes so i'm right with you and then i always wear the heels when i go out because it's my protest it's kind of my protest against um judgment and judgment in general um it's kind of to mock the judgment that we're all subject to it's so pervasive right now it's always been there of course but um now with online criticism that kind of judgment is just such a an overwhelming uh wave that i kind of feel that i have to promote my values which have always been about that i want to be the guy that provides options to our standard aesthetics which can be kind of narrow and um and and sometimes cruel and i i mean i i keep i keep repeating this but um i feel like that's kind of become the role that i want to have um i want to be somebody that champions alternative alternative aesthetics to the people who don't see themselves reflected in our standard aesthetics, aesthetics that are stridently proposed in airport beauty and perfume aisles.

3:42I've come to kind of realize that when you travel around, that has become the global standard of beauty and aspiration. And that kind of irks me. So I want to be the opposite of that. I want to balance that out when I'm at the airport. I want to be the alternative to that. And it's not like I want to eliminate that aesthetic because it has value and it's beautiful. I don't disapprove completely. I just want to make sure that there is another option and that hopefully I can balance it out. Do you actually have a presence at the airport? No. So maybe it's just sour grapes. No, I agree that it seems particularly the level of disapproval sort of en masse at the moment, not just in the fashion world, but in all the world seems very, very intense and hectoring.

4:47And I've noticed that you seem like a radical, but it's very generous and gentle the way you invite people into representing them, you know, how you've just described. And I think there's a real, it's very lovely. And that's why I've always felt sort of drawn towards you. I remember first really meeting you properly when we went to the animal ball at Clarence House with then Prince Charles and Camilla. And I saw you and Michelle arrive and I thought, I'm sticking with them. And you graciously allowed me to just hang on. And I had such a fun time. I remember us going around and looking at the paintings and it was great.

5:33But you're quite an amazing figure and you're very generous with that. I always think Michelle's the amazing figure and I'm kind of just, you know, carrying her purse. Well, you do it very well. But she's in New York right now. She is the dynamic one who travels all over the world doing these furniture installations and installing furniture in people's houses and organizing an exhibition in Dubai or Marrakesh or New York. you know while I'm just at home taking a nap so that's how we do the furniture that sounds great and oh she's turning 80 well she already turned 80 February 5th yeah I went to her birth one of probably many birthday dinners where at Labbrook Hall down the road oh right and she played the piano I missed her playing the piano well I maybe that was another party there but I saw online because that's how I keep track of her a lot online.

6:43And I saw her. There's a song that she used to sing in the cabaret of the restaurant in Hollywood when we were living in Hollywood. And it was called the King Kong Blues. It was about drinking a drink called King Kong and getting high on King Kong. We lived across from the cafe. and at night, like while I was going to sleep, she would be ending the night there. And I could hear from across the street, I could hear her singing the King Kong blues while I was going to sleep right off Hollywood Boulevard. Anyway, she sang this at Ladbroke Hall, but they kind of rigged something up. So the, I don't know where they got the music and they had backing music and it looked like she was singing the piano.

7:31And I got FOMO. I mean, I wanted, like, it looks so glamorous and so great. I can't believe I missed it. Anyway, she turned 80 February 5th, but she tells me she wants to have a party on April 17th. That's my birthday. Really? Yeah. Because, well, then come celebrate with us, because I'm having, I'm throwing her a rave at the Lido airport in Italy because it's the beginning of the Biennale. and that's when all her friends were going to be there and so she thought it would be fun to have a birthday rave in Lolito. That sounds so much fun. April 17th, pencil it in. Pencil it in. Do you have any obsessions at the moment?

8:18Do I have any obsessions? I mean, it sounds like you have millions, but anyone in particular right now. Do I have obsessions, you mean of people? Or is there anything that's sort of a recurring thought at the moment? It could be a person or a shoe or just like a feeling almost. I just wondered. Okay, well, I'll tell you about my day. I love that. Okay, so today I got in last night. Where from? From Paris. So I got in last night in the Claridge's, and this morning I got up, and it was such a beautiful day. I wanted to go for a walk, and I thought, oh, I'll walk to the Victoria Albert. so and i'll walk through the park and i'll stop at the row where i've never been i've never been to that store and i admire what they do and i knew that it was right around the corner from claridge's so i go to the row and have you been there yeah to their store yeah it's pretty amazing it used to be an art gallery it was really lovely and i was just chatting and and i mean i'm sure everybody thought I worked there everybody that walked in um I was just maybe they hoped you did wandering around making them show me everything and um I had the loveliest time and and the quality and and um everything looked great it was really beautiful have you ever tried on any of their clothes I haven't I don't know that it would really because I thought there was a shirt there was a beautiful cashmere shirt and I thought how come we don't have a beautiful cashmere shirt like that yeah same I think oh I love what they do in it the way it sort of cascades over your body but I tried on a knitted jumper a knitwear piece once and I just vanished the jumper took over I became a random middle-aged woman I thought oh good there's space for all of us you know even though it's so desirable and alluring what they do.

10:20It's good to know that it doesn't work for everybody. Well, I actually think I'm going back for a purse. This purse, the leather is just so juicy and tender and delicate and the strap was so thin and pretty. I just thought, oh, this will, you know, I can keep vitamins or something in it in my dressing room because it's such a beautiful little pouch and it was so exquisite anyway so I did that and I was listening to Shirley Horn and I've been listening to Shirley Horn for the past this one a couple of albums this song called Estate I've heard a couple of different versions of it and I used I was listening to it a lot in the summer.

11:12I wish I remembered all of the words, but it's very much about acceptance. She's talking about is like loving summer and missing it, but it'll, it's underneath the cover of winter. And it's about remembering love. And yeah, anyway, it's, it's a very tender, very moody thing but it's about time passing and um and acceptance and that's something i'm kind of very conscious of these days of the things that i wanted to pursue five years ago that maybe not the things i want to or not the things i should pursue um to do with the natural progression of having a fashion empire the what sort of steps go after each other or more personal things that you thought you were pursuing oh i think this was more personal this wasn't really about work um the the work i don't know i don't i don't think i really change about my perception about work.

12:24I feel the same urgency, the same, and it's almost rage that I had when I started. I feel like there are things that I want to see that are not out there that I want to see. And so I have to make them myself. And there's things that I want to promote aesthetically. And it probably has a lot to do with ego, I'm afraid, that I want to modify or customize everything around myself. I assume it's some kind of search for control and some search for... Immortality. Immortality. Immortality. Because I wanted to ask you, because one of the signatures, your signatures as a designer is how you emphasize proportion and how you show, like in your last show for men and women, and you had this, like the lower leg, like this pillowy or like you're wearing today, this sort of boot cut leather of the knee down proportion.

13:37and it's so graceful and unusual and you seem to have this kind of this sort of amazing ability to exaggerate or change proportion and you embody your clothes with these sort of almost mythological elements I'm always really interested in mythology and how to sort of have a prism where people open their minds and hearts by looking at what you're wearing and I think fashion can do that when it's when it's really well expressed which you did and I I wondered how you how you came to this thing to do with proportion and how it reflects back about maybe how you feel about your own have you ever had an obsession about your own proportion because I certainly did But I'm always captivated by how you show that in your work.

14:37Well, distortion and exaggeration is always what I'm going for. And distorting the human figure is so much more profound than doing an embroidery that takes 7 ,000 hours. And I think it's braver. And I think the message is you can think outside the box, literally. When you exaggerate like that, you are promoting open-mindedness and acceptance and tolerance and all these great things. I've told this story a lot, how physically I wasn't very satisfied with myself. 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.

15:35Not 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. So there was that. And then my shoulders were very narrow and my hips were kind of wide. Then in my thirties or late twenties, I think Michelle and I got together when I was 27 or 28. She kind of, she was going to the gym and she, so I started going with her.

16:28And 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. And 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 like it it was magic but changing my body like that it changed my attitude about clothes like clothes didn't matter that much anymore because I felt like I had profoundly exaggerated and distorted myself in such a total way that that was kind of that satisfied my need for um adornment or for how i presented myself now of course i'm distorting to a ridiculous level i mean the shoulder pads obviously these aren't my shoulders but um and then and then recently i i was wearing in the summer i was wearing very deep v-necks because my cleavage, my tits were so good, or they were at their peak.

18:11And I thought, you know, this is as good as it's going to get. So I'm going to like, the v-neck's going to get lower, the heels are going to get higher, the shoulders are going to get wider. I think this is one of the joys of getting older, is that you just appreciate it so much more when it's there you think i have to show this because i'm just disappearing into the horizon so i'm gonna like that film the producers where he screams out of the window flaunt it baby flaunt it and i believe in that more and more as time i have to assault people with my tits while i can definitely and now the hair is going and but actually you know when I look at it this is kind of the hair that I was wanted because my hair was always like a little too thick and bushy and it was curly so I had to have it um chemically uh straightened all the time and then it started it started thinning out now I have like a little a bit of a bald spot and on the crown of my head but I always liked riffraff from the Rocky Horror Picture Show and that's kind of the look that I'm going for kind of like sleazy long hair and I'm getting there I'm getting that riffraff hair that I was that I you know I was onto it like when I was 16 I was thinking riffraff that's what I want to look like so it's very angelic looking your hair I remember watching that video that you did with Tim Blanks where you're dyeing your hair and in the sink and the cat comes along and it's just so romantic and it was a great great image and your hair looked great that was one of those things where I thought this is an opportunity to promote my values I'm going to be this silly old queen dying his eyebrows that's gonna like that is gonna tell some 16 year old that this is what you can be and it's gonna be okay yeah um no really that message came through I found it very I got a lot from that it it you can be how you are your own qualities are the things to, you know, kind of live by or work up or validate, you know, just instead of trying to do the airport on them and sort of homogenize.

20:51So I love that film. I was just listening to that music. The music to that is Sansen, the aria from Sapsen and Delilah. And for some reason on YouTube today, Klaus Nomi came up, singing that which is the first time I ever heard it with me singing it and um I've I was really enjoying that song today um and then I was thinking because I started taking French um I started taking French like a couple of weeks before Christmas I was kind of thinking about what is my life about now or what is it turning into and I thought Paris is kind of where it seems like I'm gonna, I never thought about it because I'm always moving around so much, but I felt like this neighborhood and this house is, this is my place.

21:48This is my, this is where I feel, this is home now. And I hadn't really thought about it, but I, cause you know, maybe I was thinking before, is Italy home? Is there, is Miami home? And, and, but I kind of decided looking around I go well yeah this is where I'm gonna be 80 and and shuffle around going to like cafes that that you know they roll their eyes and they know that I'm gonna order the same thing that I've been ordering for the past 20 years and um and I thought well I might as well learn French and I also thought it was such an elegant thing to do during the day I thought you know I I take a nap for an hour.

22:32I work out for an hour, taking French for an hour. That's, that seems really, that seems like a, an elegant, positive thing to do. Like what are the best things in life? Learning. Learning is one of them. And I thought, you know, after this maybe I'll learn the piano, but learning is going to be one of the most satisfying things. I can think of or cultivating a garden now I don't know if I can do that cultivating a garden takes takes reserves of patience that I don't think I have anymore um maybe I could train myself to do that but um I think it's good to to to learn the things that are slightly coming naturally like you're in Paris so learning French and it and also I find that the doing different the sort of going in a different direction brings ideas to another place and that's what I'm always looking for how can I sort of Trojan horse activities like I'll end up somewhere but the repercussion I mean I'm always hoping it repercusses into my till in my shop so but uh it always it isn't always a sort of straightforward direction but can I ask you about how you start with an outfit because my father Lucian always started a painting with the point between the eyes and I wondered where you start or do you have a place you start with oh shoes shoes yes same yeah shoes is shoes and hair say it all like you can do anything else but like shoe and hair um because those are those are the biggest commitments um everything else can kind of fall into place i think and if you fancy someone and don't like what they're wearing does it kill your attraction to them absolutely not it almost it almost perks it up um that's so good uh for one thing the fact that they kind of have disregard for what i might consider um attractive or well no let me rephrase that if i see somebody with um a very branded logoed bag that would kill my attraction i would think if if if the that kind of expresses their values to me in in that world and um so and i hesitate saying that because there is like a there's a sense of disapproval there that i disapprove of but i can't help it i mean if if there are certain bags that But I think if you feel the need to align yourself with that kind of aspiration, we're probably not going to have a lot to talk about.

25:46But if somebody has butt ugly clothes that have nothing to do with status consciousness, I'm intrigued. I love that they don't care about fashion and that they have other priorities. That's hot. yeah there's something to be said for bad clothes yeah they're very charming really aren't they and even a logo bag i suppose on a kid who's so delighted by it that's well that's where they belong yeah children and if you're feeling low there are certain clothes that make you feel better You know, I was telling him at the Rose, going, if I was a girl, I'd buy all this shit. This is great. It's beautiful and it's elegant and it's quality, quality, quality.

26:43And thoughtful and thought through. A friend of mine told me he masked his shyness with misbehavior. Have you tried that? Probably. Do you dress up or down if you're feeling shy? Well, I always dress the same. I really only wear a certain look for a few years. I mean, I've been wearing this one for probably five years. It's always the platform boots and platform boots because they're so ridiculous. They are such an affront to good taste. That's why I wear them. They're kitschy and they're camp. And then I just started wearing the wide-shouldered coats. And I have, even in the summer, I wear the wide-shouldered coats, but they're in chiffon.

27:42But I like making a decision and sticking to it. I can't imagine having to make a choice every morning. I like being in one zone. and you know there was a time uh when i first moved to paris and i wore very ripped up clothes and boots like these these biker boots that were kind of falling apart and um army surplus clothes that were kind of patched together and over dyed black but like a faded black so everything was all the same kind of muddy tone. And, um, I wore like cut off army, army, uh, cargo pants, um, over sweat, over sweat pants, um, with either the biker boots or UGG boots that I had thrown in the washing machine with black dye.

28:40I realize now that I was, it was a very adolescent rebellion against conservative values. Um, and I was challenging the world with my, um, unkemptness and I was, I was displaying my contempt of standard ascetic values. And I see that. I see that cycle. I see that cycle of dressing happening. And I have great affection for it. I know exactly where it's coming from, and I remember going through that. But there's a certain amount of contempt in it that bothers me now or that I wouldn't really engage in it, but I understand where that expression comes from. Now I feel like I want to present something a little bit more formal and respectful.

29:55I think there was a snotty contempt then, and I think now there is an accepting formal politeness that I'm kind of reaching for. That's how I changed, I guess, in the past 20 years. Because I've heard you talk about your father being very authoritarian, and I wondered how that showed up. How did he question your taste or confront you in how you dressed and what kind of an effect that had on you? Oh, yeah, very much. I am such a reflection of him and such a reaction, such a first degree reaction. We are such an obvious dynamic. make. And, uh, Michelle always gets irritated when my father comes up because she goes like, why do you always have to talk about your father?

30:56And I'm going, well, because that's kind of all there was. That's, um, she was in boarding school and she had a whole, a big family. So her experience was very different. And, and I said, but you know, you didn't invent yourself, but you were, are a response to your boarding school. You're a response to the nuns that you were rebelling against. Um, so it's, it's very similar, but I, I have tremendous affection for my father. He was, uh, he was very dominating. He was, he could be very cruel. He was a bully with me. Intellectually, he was a bully. He would corner me intellectually and I would feel trapped and frustrated and demeaned and um but he was very damaged and mom and i we were both very dominated by him and he was he he could be kind of cruel but somehow i think mom and i were both caretakers and we both we both subliminally recognized how damaged he was and that he needed to dominate so badly so we kind of went along with it I think he clearly didn't crush you because you're so the opposite I mean you're so creative and so um you're so perceptive and understanding of things I've thought about it like if it was another person um they could have ended up very differently but somewhere I had like this streak of aggression and rage in me that I, I have tried to be kind of the opposite force of him in, in this world.

32:40I felt like he was very much about judgment, about, about condemnation and dismissal and canceling. He was very, he was, he was all about that. and so that's why I became so like I've become more ultra sensitive to it when I see it happening in the world and I wanted to do something as a reaction do you think that's when you started to see that clothes could be a tool in your life when you were really young because of how much your father tried to to sort of control your thoughts and attitudes I guess you know I wanted I went to art school to be a painter. Really? That's what I was going to be.

33:30I was going to be an artist. But, you know, we had these really stupid art theory classes that were so complex and so intimidating that I thought, oh, I'm not smart enough to be an artist. So I'm going to do fashion instead because it looks like fun and I can handle it. You did good.

33:51Let's be honest. Are you happy with your job? Like, really happy? The unfortunate fact is that a huge number of people can't say yes to that. Far too many of us are stuck in a job we've outgrown, or one we never wanted in the first place. But still, we stick it out. And we give reasons like, what if the next move is even worse? I've already put years into this place. And maybe the most common one, isn't everyone kind of miserable at work? But there's a difference between reasons for staying and excuses for not leaving. It's time to get unstuck. It's time for Strawberry.me. They match you with a certified career coach who helps you go from where you are to where you actually want to be.

34:38Your coach helps you get clear on your goals, create a plan, build your confidence, and keeps you accountable along the way. So don't leave your career to chance. Take action and own your future with a professional coach in your corner. Go to strawberry.me slash unstuck to claim a special offer. That's strawberry.me slash unstuck. And as a child or when you were a younger person, do you remember something that someone else was wearing that seemed to bestow like a magical power on them? because I remember those moments like from when I was about eight and even younger than that, how certain garments seemed to be like a sort of a magic carpet almost.

35:30It all comes down to dad because for all of his faults, the part that I didn't get to was that dad didn't allow a TV in the house and he had a vast library and he felt that the library was good enough and it was. So in retrospect, of course, I benefited from that. Of course, it was an advantage that I didn't have a TV. And, you know, if I were a parent, I don't know if I could be that harsh, but boy, it really worked for me. and there were a lot of Japanese art books because he had spent time in Japan during the war he'd been a mail carrier in Tokyo I think anyway he had all of these Japanese art books with like mystical abstract watercolors and all of this imagery of these kimonos and these the exaggerated well not exaggerated but the the hairstyles and the the pageantry of those looks so i think being exposed to that early on it made me think well anything's possible You can do anything you want.

36:56And the bigger, the better. And, and obese, the, the absolute perversity, because my mom was always obsessed with her waist. She was always, she was always wearing those tight dresses that had like either a belt or like a very tight waist. And so, and she was very, she was very voluptuous. So she was very Sophia Loren. And then when I looked at these Japanese clothes, there were these Obis that created this volume right at the small of the back that obliterated a waistline. And that delighted me. and then the huge useless sleeves dragging on the ground and everything dragging on the ground so that's why I always have stuff dragging on the ground because it is so useless um and that's so interesting I remember investing this kind of obsessive interest into a girl's pink gingham shirt.

38:14I was on a summer camp, you know, just a crummy one in England. And this girl had a pink gingham shirt, which she let me borrow. And it just seemed the perfect thing. It represented order. And my life was so chaotic. And my mother, she was so beautiful. And she sort of wore hippie things and stuff but she didn't ever have much and my father either dressed to paint in the studio and if he went on the street he just looked like a tramp and a taxi never used to stop for him but when he went out to dress he'd wear this these gray flannel suits that he had made in Savile Row and I wanted to be like that I didn't want to be the beautiful hippie with nothing but this pink shirt was somehow everything and I still really respond to that if I see it it's so neat and kind of I'm checking it to see what you're wearing now yeah not that I don't really have I've tried it in my own collections but it's not really enough anymore but it represented so much everything i wanted really and then after that um i just remember kiss and belly and mark bolan and those guys where anything anything was possible um i do remember it wanting jeans at one point i think mom got me some jeans that were polyester from jc penny um and they were i knew they were the wrong jeans but that's all she would that's all I could get so did you have fights with your parents at all about wanting things that they well I suppose your father was saying no a lot but did your mother indulge you in oh yeah mom indulged me and I don't really remember that many fights with dad I do just remember wearing um uh these hash jeans they're called hash jeans and for some reason the only place we could get them was in this little shop in springville up in the mountains um bizarre but they were kind of they were kind of maybe they would be called elephant bell but they were big enough at the bottom so that they could cover your shoe they were tight crotched and they kind of were high waisted um i think we called those oxford bags were they the same did you ever i don't know know about oxford they were called yeah i've heard about them but they were i feel in my head oxford bags were more tailored and these were very fitted around the hips and then they went straight from the hips to the floor so they were kind of but i do remember one time my dad walking past or something and saying like aren't those pants emphasizing your crotch a little bit too much and i was like well yeah i mean i didn't say that but i mean of course that was the whole point god i remember someone's mother saying that to them i think we were about 14 or something in this house in scotland and she said to her son don't those trousers rather emphasize the gentleman's equipment and then we all fell around laughing but repeated that phrase like a hundred times a day afterwards it was a brilliant description my therapist once said to me it's good to be able to get over yourself and you seem to the way you talk about things I mean you mentioned ego but it's good it's good to have an ego but it's you see your ego seems to be amazingly agile so that it's like an energetic force and yet you seem free from obsessive insecurity that people associate with ego and I wondered whether you'd studied that or made a conscious decision to be like that or noticed it and how you wanted to be oh I thought I could have even gotten further along by now there are moments where my ego gets in the way and I'm just horrified I'm thinking I thought I had reached or I was hoping I would have reached a different level of serenity by now but then this ego thing just kind of it it it shocks me um and you know then I have to forgive myself and go well you know everybody's just human I mean these are just dumb human impulses that you just you never really completely control or you never learn how to completely control them they're they're just going to come up it's just you know if you can recognize them and just kind of deal with them but um yeah I was kind of shocked when he said that to me and I could feel you know the like the germination of like god how are you telling me to get over myself and I'm sitting here and then I realized it was a really good thing to remember because when I do feel like confronted and I feel my sort of my pride offended or whatever it is I think you know I get over yourself and see what's left and then I can deal with that and I'm much better equipped to deal with that if I want to even if I want to get the sword out and chop yeah but then i'm thinking why am i even having this conversation in my head shouldn't like my default setting just be serenity by now after everything that i've looked at and tried to learn haven't i gotten further along by now i think it's much more fun when you are kind of i find like when these things come up and is it well at least you know you talked about learning, learning French and, you know, it's part of that really.

44:44It's, I find it interesting. Yeah. There's these weird things that still come up. Like for instance, public speaking, like having to give a speech or present an award or something. I still can't do it. I still don't like doing it. And, you know, I think to myself, it's just vanity that makes you so self-conscious. Like, what does it matter? Who cares? Like what you're saying? Everybody's like busy in their own thoughts. They don't, they're not really obsessing over, over you, but then there's something about getting up in a room full of people and that energy. And, um, and it's just so uncomfortable and I'm embarrassed that I'm uncomfortable because, you know, in my head, it just doesn't make any sense.

45:41But don't you find that, I know exactly what you're talking about, of course, but that sort of extreme uncomfortableness is also what produces ideas. It produces like how you decided to change, change your body, design your clothes, you know, it is the agitator that produces ideas as well even though it's almost sort of annihilating how much discomfort it produces as well and I heard you talking about personal discomfort as well and I suppose is this what it means to you um or whether you were talking about your shoes hurting i don't think you were answering some really interesting questions on id which i watched which are really i was talking about anthra more of constantine and constantine i discovered on on instagram because she was unhappy as a boy.

46:52And I could see there was a desperation in her expression, in what she was doing, because she was creating these masks, these flesh-colored masks that she was putting on herself. And there were no eyes on the masks. And they were in the shapes of these microorganisms. They were just flesh-shaped lumps. And I was so thrilled and inspired. I was thinking, this is somebody who is taking control of their destiny. They are unhappy with who they are. They are going somewhere to an outer planet. They are, uh, and it was romantic and poignant. There were no eyes. It was, it was just this shape. So I reached out, uh, and I, I did some images with her and then at some point she was ready for her transition and she fulfilled her transition and she sent me the first mask that had attracted me to her that had made me approach her or reach out to her.

48:14She sent me the first mask because she doesn't need it anymore. gosh and i love having the mask but i miss her and i'm thinking i was only reaching out because this was somebody under stress and now that now that they've found their their peace um i miss the person that was so frustrated unhappy and struggling and raging against the position that she found herself in i i miss i miss that person and i'm thinking oh my god i'm a predator um anyway it was just kind of an odd thing yeah being part of someone i suppose being you know walking I often think of you know the walking by the side of like my closest friend we talk about the beauty alongside and when we're going through stuff we talk we talk about other stuff that keeps us going really and you talk about other stuff to each other yeah like do you both acknowledge that you're you you know that you're talking about other stuff to avoid talking about something else sometimes we know we do that but we also do talk about the stuff that's so unbearable yeah lots of what's happening now but it's too intense so that we talk about what she's writing or what we've read those things that are are just like every you know they're they're not whimsical they are as intensely fierce as any kind of Alexander the Great chopping through the through the knot which is something that I often think about and kind of kept me going as a child.

50:23Well, there is such power in looking around you and tending to your own garden. That's what I see my work as, tending my garden. And that's the most valuable thing I can do. And it's the most soothing for me, and it's the most, of course, I mean, if it hadn't worked out, we would be talking we would be telling a different story but um cultivating a garden i mean that's the best thing you can do cultivating a garden applies to raising children having a family that's cultivating a garden yeah i know i suppose it's part of getting over yourself isn't it it's something else just i could never be a parent that is that is just i'm i don't know i that just seems overwhelming to me i'm i'm and i'm just too selfish um it sounds like what you did for constantine as a type of thing i do and you seem to do that for people i do get these paternal urges and i do act on them and even making the clothes you do you provide a service which is what I know as a mother I have one son, and that's my kind of main focus is to make sure he has what he needs to be able to fly off.

51:54I do that too, but I feel like it's more vain. I feel like I'm seeking vengeance for the little sissy, the little scared sissy. But I mean, I am doing stuff to show little scared sissies what can happen. Yeah. That things can all work out. So I mean, I do feel a responsibility there. Also, whatever gets you to where you need to get to, whether it's some elements of vanity, you learn along the path or you're kind of undermined by vanity. but that doesn't seem to happen to you. I wonder though, because, you know, changing my body was such a triumph. Now, having it change beyond my control, I'm not sure I'm going to be good with that.