How Steven Meisel Changed Fashion

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1:53Hello and welcome to Fashion People. I'm Lauren Sherman, writer of Puck's Fashion and Beauty Memo Line Cheat. And today with me on the show are Plum Sykes and Bella Freud. We're talking about Steven Meisel, fashion in the 1990s, the future of the industry, and I promise you so much more.

2:15Before we get going, I wanted to remind you that if you like this podcast, you'll definitely love Puck, where I send an email called Line Sheet. If you're a fashion person, you get that reference. It's an original look at what's really going on inside the fashion and beauty industries. Line Sheet is scoopy, analytical, and above all, fun. Along with me, a subscription to Puck gains you access to an unmatched roster of experts reporting on powerful people and companies in entertainment, media, sports, politics, finance, the art world, and much more. If you're interested, listeners of Fashion People get a discount.

2:51Just go to puck.news slash fashion people to join Puck or start a free trial. Happy Friday, everyone. Hope you had a great week. It was a wild one for me. I'm so, I'm tired. I don't know. I love, I mean, I love working. I love everything. I'm just, and I am a person who likes to overschedule myself, but I'm just, it's been a lot. I hope that you're relaxing on Friday. It's actually a holiday here in Paris. And so all my meetings basically have been canceled. I'm still having a lunch, but I'll be at the WeWork Inn in the Marais if you want to come say hi. No, I'm just kidding. Please don't. This week in Line Sheet, Rachel Strugat shares how Bobby Brown, former Fashion People guest, emerged triumphant after leaving Estee Lauder.

3:47Jones Road rules and she's just killing it. And Rachel has the inside scoop. I also have the inside scoop on Authentic Brands Group, aka ABG, aka the big licensing firm that's taking over fashion. It's a new power center of the industry. And I kind of outline A, how much money they make, what their end game is, and then also, or what I think their end game is. And also, you know, are they good or bad? You decide. Also, you'll find my take on Dior Cruise in Los Angeles. Thanks to everyone who gave me amazing feedback about it on the ground. And then also in my DMs of people just sort of watching on the sidelines.

4:33It was really insightful. I wish I had been there. It was a turning point, I think. But very, very interesting stuff going on over at LBMH. I think there's going to be some big stories in the coming months. I also have a little report on Papier Royale, which is this new stationery shop by the founder of, well not founder but the person who made Bully into what it is and sold it to LVMH this guy Ramdan who um also has this like Gorpcore shop in the Marais and also he's just done a lot is a really impressive person and so I wrote a bit about um and also a little controversial he's he's had some interesting articles he's also trying to like remake this hotel in the Swiss Alps or something.

5:22I know he's fascinating, but he has incredible taste and I tried to sort of break it down. I've also got on Friday, we've got the Shop My list from April. So the interesting stuff that people have been like the most clicked on or the most engaged with items via the Shop My, the affiliate marketing platform. And it's like a mix of high end and low end really fascinating and chloe's on there with a pair of sneakers which is interesting because they're a few years old but they're doing really well and i just wanted to say how about that new chloe campaign i love it it's so good with the seashell apple martin popping out of the seashell i will say she looks dead-eyed and is not a good model and i was like who is that model why did they choose her and then I realized it's Apple Martin it's not the way I would go for her if I were her I think I would do acting and then you move into modeling when people care about you but anyway enjoy this conversation with Plum and Bella I'm gonna set it up a little bit because it was at Photo London there's this big Steven Meisel exhibit of a lot of his work from the 1990s including this shoot that he did with Isabella Blow and Joe McKenna.

6:44Interestingly, there were two stylists on it essentially for British Vogue called Anglo-Saxon Attitude. And it was kind of like the start of that whole cool Britannia thing. But they shot all these sort of, I don't think Bella would like to be called posh, but like these sort of society girls. I think Plum would, you know, she knows what she is. she wouldn't mind being called posh but these society girls or or like the British society in the collections of the season and then also in interesting places so like plum was shot in a pub where like mostly old men hung out in the 90s it's it's fascinating and we get really deep into that but um I hope you enjoy it I had a great time talking to them and I was plum asked me to do it And thank you again, Plum, if you listened to this at all, for having me.

7:41It was an honor. And we just had a really, really great night. And I am very inspired by both of them and their careers and their humanity. We talk about humanity. So I hope you enjoy it. And I hope you have a great weekend. And I'll catch you on Tuesday. Hi, everyone. My name is Lauren Sherman. I am the fashion correspondent at Puck. You may have never heard of it, but it's a business publication based in the U.S. and a fashion journalist. And I am here tonight to talk about the work of Stephen Mizell with Plum Sykes, the author, fashion editor, all-around amazing person, and Bella Freud, the fashion designer and famous podcaster.

8:28and we're here to talk about this exhibition about Maisel's work in the 90s and in particular this one shoot in 1993 that both of these women were involved in. So Plum, do you want to start and explain this British Vogue shoot and how it sort of came about and why it is worthy of being on the main stage here? well that's such an interesting thing is why is it worthy so we have to park that till the till a little later but what happened was I was on work experience at British Vogue and I was about 22 23 years old and I sort of spotted Isabella Blow wandering up and down the corridors looking remarkably interesting in hats and feathers every day and I went up to her and I said can I come and work for you and she said why would someone as conservative as you want to work for someone as eccentric as me and I just went exactly, exactly so I went to work for her and then somehow she persuaded Stephen Mizell to come and do a shoot in London which he didn't do very often, I think the only other one he did was the Madonna sex book, that was it and the sort of, the brief was we had to find kind of blue blooded, beautiful, cool slightly aristocratic London girls to shoot.

9:58And we just sent squillions and squillions of pictures to him in New York, one of whom was Bella Freud, who was immediately given a tick. And the only reason that I ended up being in the shoot was because I was being the assistant. And they didn't have quite enough people. And Stephen just said, well, what about her? And that was that. And so I would, I was sort of having my picture taken by him and Garen was doing my hair and Denise was doing my makeup. and then an hour later I was in the trailer, you know, sorting out fishnet tights for Bella Freud. Bella, can you kind of put us in London in that period and what the shoot captured about that time in fashion but in culture as well?

10:43Because I feel like growing up in the 90s, UK culture, British culture was everything to me in America and that shoot is sort of the center of it my perspective is so different from because I was just I just was working away in my flat as a fashion designer you know like scrabbling around and and then Izzy Blow she'd been really supportive of me but it was so different then it was just like it was like you know farmers we were we it just wasn't sort of all joined together there wasn't a scene that we were aware of so did you all kind of know each other because london is small or well i don't know sorry if i like a dumb American.

11:40Izzy, Izzy was, she came over and said, I'm doing a shoot with Steve Mizell and the subject is christening dresses and you've got to make something. And I, so I made this dress vaguely. Is this, no, nothing. It's one a bit later. It's the, where is it? um i'm sitting in a pub there's there's izzy um and where is this picture there's plum and stella see plum seemed to fit the bill much more than me i definitely am not blue-blooded but um yeah so it we were just doing things and making things and we felt different because we didn't have enough money to be slick and it suddenly seemed like you could make things and you would people would buy it mostly Japanese so they would come along and you would have made things and had your shoes made down in East London instead of in Italy and they loved that and they were you know they were really supportive of young British fashion designers and And so Izzy was, from my perspective, the generator of this whole shoot.

13:13And she'd, I think she'd managed to persuade Alex Shulman, who was the editor, to spend, you know, the entire budget. Do you remember, Plum, like what the budgets were like? Well, you know, it's such an interesting question because one, at that time in magazines, if you were editorial, you were kept miles away from the budget. You didn't have to know. So we didn't have to know because there was no budget issues, right? And like at American Vogue, no one ever said there's no budget for this, ever. Everything was just fine on the money front. But I do remember, I was telling you earlier that Stephen Mizell insisted on staying in the Dorchester, which was considered quite grand at the time.

13:57and the reason that he was absolutely terrified that there was going to be no ice in England, as in to put into his water to make it cold, because I think he'd come before and he had a bit too much warm beer or something. So it was definitely going to be very expensive. And I think we spent something like three months planning it. But, you know, because at the time we sort of, you know, there was the time and there was the money. But I also wanted to add to what you said, Bella, because I think that, like you're saying, it's interesting you say London's really small because to us of course I think London's really disparate I think New York's really small you can find everyone in one minute Paris is really small but London no one knows each other it's kind of a strange thing but Izzy was this connector and I really clearly remember Izzy taking me to your house or your flat in Charles Square which was like the back end of Notting Hill probably now like the front end of Notting Hill and she introduced me to Bella and this is what she'd always say to people she'd say this is my assistant plum she's incredibly clever she went to Oxford and she knows how to send a fax and that was you know I did her filing and her faxes and but she Izzy introduced me to everyone in fashion Alexander McQueen Hussain Shalayan Bella Tim Walker all the photographers and it was interesting because she was the only person at British Vogue who would bring people into the office.

15:26So in American Vogue, we brought people in the whole time. British Vogue, no one came in apart from Izzy brought them in and all the other editors hated that she brought people into the office. Why didn't people bring people into the office? I think it was just the sort of polite English thing of like, why on earth would they come here? And also, in London, the sort of division between the magazines and newspapers and the people you were writing about. Everyone was kept at arm's length. But in America, it's much more of a collaboration between the magazines and the designers. And I really did notice that when I moved because Anna Wintour took me to meet every single designer in Paris for lunch.

16:08And I'd never met them. I'd worked at British Vogue for four years or whatever, apart from Bella. The imagery here, I was thinking about going from the 80s into the 90s and how much this defined the 90s. And I said to Plum earlier, was this the peak of fashion? Was the 90s the golden age of fashion? And I'm curious what you both think about that. But in terms of this feels very romantic to me versus the sort of brashness of the 80s. Had that already dissipated by the time you worked on this shoot? that was what were the 90s like fully settled in or were you still moving into that from you know there was a big recession during that period what did it feel like making this yeah I think I'd forgotten about the recession I don't know why because it ruined my life but it suddenly you know there was this kind of huge momentum and then suddenly there was a recession and I remember that because I'd made my collection was all pale blue and the color of my whippet and suddenly because of the recession no one wanted colors they wanted black and um yeah that was really tricky but um somehow there was this um there was this kind of feeling of camaraderie like all the work with Mark Le Bon and Crunch and all the it felt more like going to someone's house and like having a party and taking pictures and it was much more hand to mouth and then the way it looked was just so beautiful and disarming and it looked more like we felt and I think that's where the tide turned that this professionalism didn't really reflect what we were like you know it wasn't about young young people didn't want to be professional in that way and also lots of people were being really successful wearing a t-shirt and not being in a power suit and so it was kind of it was like a wake-up call i think i mean when you're in it you don't really notice what's happening until later so um but there was definitely a sense of of uh people sort of like i remember i was making these these short films and because i thought i didn't know what anyway i just thought maybe it's cheaper to make a film i've always liked films and someone said oh there's this cool girl there's this young model called kate moss and and i all my samples had come up enormous and i said how big is she is she he said oh she's really small and I went, oh, no, no, that's no use to me.

19:08I need a big girl, you know. Anyway, I missed this incredible opportunity then. Working with Stephen Mizell, and there's very little written about him, but there's a profile from Vogue that says, essentially, he has this quote where he says, essentially, I see something in people that other people don't see. did you get that sense from him he saw something in you what was he like from a casting perspective that I mean it's obvious in the shoot but what do you think he changed about the way fashion photography and imagery looks well I I definitely think that he when he took a fashion photograph it was a portrait not just a fashion photograph like the picture of Bella with you know one eyebrow raised with the disdain that she always shows to everyone it's so you know he just could capture people and i think really good fashion photographers are not just about the clothes and maybe that's what we're missing now talking about you know fashion now feeling so uninspiring because it's not really about the people as much as it was but um he when you when he took a photograph of you he directed the person he was shooting like minutely like just move that way slightly or that way but there was never a suggestion like oh you must smile or you must do this it was just like sit in a pub and be you and the funny thing is I look at those photographs of myself particularly the one in the pub even though I would never have gone into a pub at the time and I'm like that was absolutely me at that moment in my life um when I was sort of 23 24 quite unsure of myself in a funny way but looked quite cool but I wasn't really very cool I was just like a young you know girl in fashion but I had sort of some kind of spirit about me that he could capture.

21:17What did you think when he said you're going to be in a pub? Well, I'd never really been into a pub because at the time, pubs were places for men to smoke and drink and play darts. And you wouldn't go into one as a young girl, definitely. So I remember thinking, God, he's got this really funny idea about London that people like me go and sit in a pub. He's a bit of a tourist like how i just said london is small exactly so so but then when i look at that picture i can see now the atmosphere of a pub of course is very appealing to an american because you don't have anything like that there but also he had this thing when because i remember that picture that's up there i thought i'm never gonna wear that dress that you know i hate my legs anyway he said wear that dress and I just I just put did he he was so mesmerizing he hardly he didn't say much at all he was very quiet and I remember I I had like a bob or so maybe hair and Garen cut it into this cool haircut and then he came out and I remember him holding me by the top of the head like that and he went it's too lady and the garen just turned me around took me back in and out i came with that sean thing and i he would have he just could see in you what he wanted for the picture and he was completely like he he was just so captivating and you wanted to do anything he wanted and uh in a funny way it was a bit like sitting for my father you knew I knew that I needed to do what he wanted and that would be the best outcome and I forgot about well I just thought it doesn't matter if I hate my body I want to do what he wants and it worked you know it was why do you think he is so in the conversation right now there's been he's done two seasons of Versace campaigns he did the Alaya campaign he obviously is still very prolific shoots a lot for a lot of magazines and publications and brands and all that stuff but there's something and he's referencing his own work or the first Versace campaign he referenced Avedon this campaign he's referencing his own stuff and then other people are referencing him what is it that the fashion world is trying to recapture that he has that is making him so much a part of the present time as well well i think there is this massive obsession with the 90s which i when it started going i kept thinking oh gosh why does everyone want to revisit all of that i do understand and now i can see it's really captivated people but i remember being in my 20s and being obsessed with the 70s and my parents saying oh god why do you want to reference all of that so just we hate it we hate it but i think because the 90s is a big obsession and he was the rock star photographer of the 90s and i was saying to you earlier that then the models were not the superstars the magazines weren't the editors weren't the photographers were the superstars like people knew who steven mysle was they knew who mario was they knew who patrick damasherly was hubris these people were mega successful and i think because they had so much resource behind them they could create these incredible photographs so of course people are going to look back at good things and want to you know be inspired by them like like probably mysle was what by pen um and the people who'd come before him yeah he i think your point about them being portraits is still stands because you look at them and you feel interested in every element of the picture and there's a kind of gentleness even though they're you know they're tough and you've and that was part of him he was exacting and demanding but he brought out this kind of romance as well of of fashion and the people in fashion so like kristen mcmenemy was talking about how she felt so loved by him and that he made her feel like the most important person in the world and he really did you know and you knew you weren't but somehow you were in that moment and and it wasn't sort of discard afterwards it was just you were with him in that moment and it didn't and it counted for something i mean i mean also sorry to interrupt you the the way that he used light a bit like helmet newton it was just so iconic and it's very difficult to copy someone's you know use of natural light i also think that you look at those pictures you don't really know what collection or what season the clothes are from they're so timeless and the pictures of lucy ferry she looks like a 1930s mitford sister and she was wearing you know chanel whatever it was but i think it's we all want that timelessness but i loved what you said earlier you said plumb i think that shoot was the end of fashion well i want to know what you meant by that well it to me the 90s were the golden era of fashion it was before the consolidation of the industry and the globalization of the industry as a designer i'm sure you felt that all happening but and as an editor you witnessed it but i think i don't know there's nothing new like they always say after the bumster there was no new fashion so it's it's sort of the same era it feels like everything is extracted from this time or earlier and there is something about the shoot that the clothes look like they were the clothes worn by it looks like it was stuff that everybody wore to set and maybe that has to do with the combo of joe mckenna and isabella blow because there were apparently two fashion editors on this shoot so yes they they were stunned so isabella had sort of got this shoot together with alex shulman british vogue and then stephen said he was bringing a stylist and she thought she was the stylist so there was a kind of war you know on set but actually the the clothes for each person were in the style of each person and i think whether that was joe or isabella or steven it was a kind of combination but when you look at his photographs the people always look as though they belong to the clothes and the clothes belong to them rather than their wearing fashion which i think is you know you're saying it seems so authentic all of that stuff it wasn't actually like none of those clothes were ours but somehow it seemed as though they were but then I think I come back to the lighting yeah well I also wonder and I've talked about this with Paul Cavaco who is also of this era the reference the way that creative people built these shoots and put together these images the references were not so easy to access and I'm curious as a fashion designer when you're doing your research like how that's changed now that you can just Google anything.

28:57And it makes you, I think Paul said this, he said it somewhere, that you would see a movie and then 10 years later you'd do a shoot based on it, but it's not like you could go pull up the movie somewhere. And now you can pull it up on YouTube or whatever. And so I think that that has sort of transformed image making and made it feel, in some cases, less real. Well, it's too literal, isn't it? Because you can just go, oh, I'll just copy that. But if it's something in your memory, which I agree with you, a lot of those fashion editors were inspired by movies. And it could be 10 years later. I remember Grace Coddington did an amazing shoot inspired by the piano with all these John Galliano dresses.

29:42I can't remember who photographed it, actually. And it was not the piano. But now maybe it would be too close to it because as you're saying, it's too easy to find everything. And that's partly why nothing feels original because there's just so much stuff. So actually, if an original thing does appear, it's just so refreshing. And it's interesting that Maizal worked with Dario Vitale at Versace, which is super referential, but felt very original when it came out on the runway. It felt like nothing else. And it still feels like nothing else. but you know everything references everything but it's there is a lack of that in fashion right now for sure i don't know how you feel as a person who's making new clothes on a regular basis i feel pretty out of fashion myself so i feel like it doesn't matter well it doesn't to me because the divide between the big houses and anyone who is not part of that is so enormous now that it's almost like theatre and then people in the audience.

30:58And so smaller brands, maybe they're just looking to do what we do best and experiment and play around with that and be more free. And we don't have any money to do these massive campaigns. And it's quite good when you don't have any money because you become, you use everything you can. And sometimes you come up with something really great. And I think in the 90s there was a lot more of that, both for people who had money and didn't. there was more experimentation more adventurous more camaraderie and crossover whereas now it feels very distance you know you're watching those big brands from the wrong end of a telescope and i don't know how it doesn't necessarily i don't think it's easy to look at them and imagine how to wear things even if you don't want to be normal or ordinary necessarily but how to wear it and it feels like you described in the mysail that they are your clothes and you know like vivian westward used to do you know people would look outlandish and different but they were they look like their true identities and it was really fun and exciting to watch even when people would ridicule you or them or whatever.

32:32It was part of it.

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33:56How do you feel about the transformation of media during that time? Well, I mean, that's the thing. I was sort of, when Bella was talking about this, I was thinking, we've all forgotten that the internet got invented right in the middle of this. And for me, that was the most enormous change that's hit fashion and the world, obviously. So there were a few things. So in the sort of slightly later part of the 90s, when I went to live in American work for American Vogue, It was suddenly the moment when an actor was on the cover of a magazine, like Jennifer Aniston suddenly was on all these covers, and the Spice Girls were on the cover, and they were suddenly as important as the models in fashion.

34:40And this was partly to do with television. And then I remember the first time that Helmut Lang put his show online, and he was considered mad for doing it, because apparently he would be copied by all these Chinese people, but he was the first one who staged an online show. And that just transformed it. And I think it's made it both democratic and too available. So we're all swamped with this fashion imagery. And I think Bella's so right about these big brands that just feel so hollow, so overproduced, so expensive. Is that me? Am I going to wear that Dior thing or that Chanel thing? It doesn't feel like a person.

35:21No. no it's it's a lot of this is about personal personal style like the one-to-one connections all of that and I feel like everyone's seeking that and that's why this kind of imagery is still so powerful yeah what was it like to go up there and and see yourself blown up like that quite funny i mean i mean i i've seen i've seen images of those big pictures before because they did a show in spain somewhere but um i just think the pictures are so beautiful i wasn't really thinking oh that's me i just think they're just the most amazing pictures and everyone kept saying oh have you got a print and i'm like no i haven't i wish i did you really should have one i know I know.

36:10You should make like Diane von Furstenberg and have in the middle of your house. Exactly. I mean, you really should. They're a truly incredible. And it is funny to see yourself, you know, 30 years ago and think, oh, my God, all the time that's passed. It's a little bit sort of nostalgic and a bit sad because getting older can feel a bit sort of tragic at times. But it's nice. Did you go up there yet? I haven't been up yet, but I'll go after. But I feel like it detached from them in a way which I really enjoy because I'm not thinking, why am I doing this or wearing or whatever? I just think, God, I was part of that.

36:56How amazing. I mean, there were so many people around at the time when we got picked and I have got a print. Not that. Yeah. I'm so jealous. Which one have you got? It's not one of those ones, but it's one in the christening dress. And I because I went up to him at a show and I said, could I have a print? And he looked at me like, OK, that I'd had that. I didn't realize you you'd never ask Stephen Meiss. I can never be in a photo because the copyright around him is so huge. But I've got a picture of me. He painted out my mole. So, yeah, it feels very... Gosh, that's a nice thing to have. I know.

37:41But it's very difficult to get prints from fashion photographers. So I remember when I left British Vogue, they would always give you a leaving present. And they said, you know, would you like a pair of Manolos? And I said, absolutely not. I want a Craig McDean print. And there was this particular print I wanted of Kate Moss dressed as a red Indian. And it was Craig McDean. And they were like, oh. And it took about a year to get it. but I do have that beautiful print and I have some other really amazing Glenn Lutford things and some Sean Ellis stuff and I'd love to collect fashion photography.

38:14It's really difficult to collect because those photographers do not print that book and sell it. Why do they not print so much just because they want to keep it, the value up or? I don't know if they even see themselves as something to hang in a house. I don't know. So often they don't even own the copy, you know, they're not allowed to because all the pictures, like the pictures in Vogue that are printed are owned by them. And now they're trying to address that because I remember Anita Pallenberg wanted to do a book of photos and a memoir and stuff and she just gave up because to get the copyright, the rights to reproduce them was so much work and so expensive that I think it's true, isn't it, Tom?

39:02You're a photographer. Tom, is this true? sadly it is true yeah when you first get the opportunity just before the shoot happens you get sent back in the case of the 90s and it says sign this if you want to do the shoot and you sign it and you don't really think about the consequences you often give away the rights as Bella says that you would never normally give away but you're blindsided by the fact that you want to take up the opportunity and it's the same with um like rock stars and so I mean because my ex-husband wrote a wrote Keith Richards autobiography and his manager every time he had his picture taken would make the photographer give them the rights so they could produce all these pictures still the photographer gets a bum deal most of the time unless you're Stephen Mizell unless you're Stephen Mizell and a few other yeah kind of brilliant you know people with agency in the business.

40:0330 years have gone by and you're both still in this world. Yeah, and we're still friends. And you're still friends. Which is nice. What, Plum, you're doing a million things, you're still writing novels, but you also have an amazing Substack newsletter that everyone should subscribe to and it's like the modern version of being a columnist, I feel like. That's the way you get to people. Yeah. What has that experience been like for you? Do you know, it's funny because when you were talking about the whole personal style thing and this thing that we're all desperate to see things that are personal like this.

40:40How I see my sub stack is I'm just writing the same kind of pieces that I wrote for American Vogue about personal style and taste. Which now, because of these huge brands, those pieces are no longer sustainable in magazines. and that's where I can write about, you know, the tiniest brand who's doing one pair of shoes or two bags and I can't do that in Vogue anymore. Tallulah Harlick's brand. Tallulah Harlick's brand. She had three items in her collection and they are all black. And what was so interesting about that was I wrote about her, you know, clothing and this huge investor got in touch from San Francisco and said, well, she'd be amazing because it's such a good business model because it's all black and there's no sizes and it's somehow good for your skin because she developed it because she has such bad psoriasis some sort of science i was like that's fine it looks really good yeah yeah yeah it does look really good but no so i i feel like the publishing on print business is falling off a cliff a bit like you know lots of other businesses with the internet.

41:50And I feel like putting my work online so people can read it on their phones is much better for me. And it's probably better for them. I personally don't read masses of things on a phone. I love reading a real book or, you know, something on paper. But yeah, I read the New York Times online. You know, I read the Washington Post online, Wall Street Journal, all those kind of things. And I kind of thought, if you can't beat them, join them, you know. Well, it's also about relevancy and living in the moment and being a person who wants to be a part of culture and you are naturally yeah in yeah engaged in that way yeah and it did it towards the end of writing books it did get quite lonely it's very isolating writing books because you have to sit by yourself for four years in your study to do it and with this I've met so many amazing people and it's it's just been so much more fun.

42:43Bella, you started a podcast during the same period. How and that has become huge. Why did you do that? Well, I started it because I thought there are so many stories in fashion you never hear about. And I first thought, oh, maybe I could write a mini series because it's so entertaining. And it's not like the devil wears Prada. It's much more hilarious and and more it's got more depth than that and i thought i i felt like there is i was convinced that people would be interested in knowing how clothing is a sort of um how important it is not the be the end it's the beginning of something it's a kind of it's a prism and i i I thought in the end it's people who are interesting and the people in the fashion business are really interesting.