Avery Trufelman: “Everything Has Fashion. Fashion is Just Taste Over Time. ”

0:04Hi, this is Imran Amed, founder and CEO of the Business of Fashion. Welcome to the BOF podcast. It's Friday, July 24th. Today, we're going back into our rich archive and revisiting my very interesting conversation with Avery Trufelman, creator and host of the award-winning podcast, articles of interest. At a time when fashion is being reduced to a relentless stream of images, products, and fleeting trends, Avery's work reminds us that the clothes we wear contain much bigger stories about history, labor, identity, politics, and culture. You know, in the beginning, fashion was sort of a dirty word for me.

0:45I was like, well, it's not about fashion, it's about clothes. Like, I don't care about fashion, I care about clothes. And the sort of galaxy brain moment is now I'm like, oh no, it's all about fashion because everything has fashion. You know, obviously buildings have fashion, cars have fashion, colors have fashion. Fashion is just taste over time. Since Avery and I first spoke back in March 2024, she's traced the U.S. military's influence on the outdoor gear filling our closets, asked why the highest heels have quietly fallen out of fashion, and dug into why clothing sizes vary so wildly from one brand to the next.

1:20In this conversation, Avery and I discuss her path into podcasting, her lifelong passion for clothes, and how understanding the story behind a garment can transform our relationship with it. Here's Avery Truffleman on the BOF podcast. Avery Truffleman, it's very rare that I get to have a conversation with a podcast pro like you. I'm so excited for this conversation. ever since I discovered and listened to articles of interest. I've been hoping that we would have a chance to do a little collision conversation because obviously you have your podcast and we have this podcast and there's intersections and there's so much to discuss.

2:08So welcome to the BOF podcast. Thank you. Thank you so much. I mean, if I can just right out the gate, be a little bit earnest for a second. I just I can't thank you enough for the support that Business of Fashion has given the show. I've always considered myself like scrappy and not acknowledged so much by the fashion industry. And your recognition has meant the world and like opened up all these gates. So I'm so excited to talk to you now on your podcast as well. So thank you for having me. Well, that's awesome. So like a mutual happy love fest moment. it. Speaking of sitting outside a little bit, the fashion system or not being kind of recognized or seen by the fashion industry, I thought we could start a little bit, but with your early relationship with fashion, like when you were younger, like, did you care about clothes?

3:03Oh, yeah, they were everything to me. I mean, they were so important to me. And I never actually understood why. So my aunt lives in San Francisco and then my grandma moved to San Francisco so that my aunt could take care of her. So I went out there a lot to visit family and I would always go to Haight Street and go thrift shopping. And so I wore just the weirdest stuff. In high school, in this like preppy private school that I went to, I was wearing these like gold lame dresses. and then in college I was wearing fur stoles and the funny thing was I sort of knew in the back of my mind that it was too much that I was sort of alienating people like no one made fun of me people were sort of entertained by my outfits but I definitely didn't get invited to parties it just made me realize how powerful clothing was that dressing in this wild way sort of set me apart And I was like, I think I'm sabotaging myself.

4:02I don't really know why I'm doing this, but I feel so compelled to do this. And I love this feeling of taking risks, even though it feels odd and it feels uncomfortable. And I love that feeling of like, can I pull this off? It always felt like a challenge and a dare. And it made me feel so alive. And then I think later in my career, I wanted to figure that out. I mean, the thing I always say about the show is none of my questions that I pose on it are rhetorical. They're genuine questions. I have so many. I knew it meant a lot to me. I didn't understand why. I think I was embarrassed about it.

4:34And I was ashamed of it, I think. So how has your relationship with fashion and clothes, the clothes you wear, changed since you were younger? Well, the funny thing is I do think I get directly influenced by everything I'm researching. so my parents read me about this all the time if I'm like I've done a story about corduroy and I was like oh you know corduroy is the most important thing and I'm like buying vintage corduroy and you know I just kind of orient myself around the project that I'm working because once you find the story behind a garment or behind a designer you can't help but love it I find I find even if the story is not the rosy story that the PR team wants you to tell I think understanding a brand a history a fabric in its full, rich complexity, I mean, you can't help but feel close to it.

5:27I mean, the thing I realized is when I was young, all I had were clothes. I wasn't writing things that anybody read. I didn't, you know, I wasn't able to, like, bring myself to the events I wanted to go to or see the movies I wanted to see. You know, all I had was my body. And I think now as an adult, having found other ways to communicate, I rely less on fashion. So, I mean, you know, I'm wearing all black today. I dress like really boring now in a way that I think would probably horrify my younger self. But I've been so fascinated by the sort of psychology of that and how that comes from a place of immense.

6:08It's, I mean, privilege is an overused word, but I mean, really like the freedom that I have as an autonomous adult to express myself in other ways. And I think that's really, it really shows you how fashion is directly related to that, directly related to freedom. Yeah, which is the power of fashion. 100%. Which is the importance of fashion, which is the democracy of fashion, because everyone everywhere, whether they're conscious about it or not, is expressing themselves, their identity, their role in society, whatever it might be, through the decisions they make every day about what they put on their bodies.

6:46And it kind of leads me to my next question, because fashion is such a visual medium. And I think that's why this whole space around podcasting and fashion is still quite nascent. Like there's not a lot out there, really. So I wanted to understand, like, how did you arrive in this audio space? and then what happened that you took this passion for what's a visual medium and explored it through an audio format where you can't really see any of the things that you're talking about? Oh, my God. Well, of course, like, I'll answer. But then I may throw your question back at you, because I'm also curious about why you wanted to do a podcast.

7:32Sure, of course. You go first. Okay, okay. Well, so I like to joke that I'm a public radio nepo baby, which is, you know, different in public media than it is in like Hollywood. But both of my parents met working at New York Public Radio. And they left by the time I was born, because there's not a lot of money in it. And there certainly was not then, but they both worked there for like a decade. And they they loved it. So even before you go into that, like New York Public Radio for people listening in Kuala Lumpur or like Johannesburg, like what is New York Public Radio? So New York Public Radio, it's the big radio station in New York City.

8:14And it had and still has like live call in shows, live events. I mean, it's it's this sort of I think of it as a real lifeblood of the city. and I have a radio in my place still and I turn it on and that's how I found out about so many events that's how I found out about so many artists WNYC 93.9 it's it's just this amazing legacy radio station and it has local news and it's phenomenal and it's always been such a part of my life I mean we always listened to it growing up they'll they'll do things they'll be like hey hey, New Yorkers, you know, call in and tell us, you know, what you see outside your window right now.

8:58I mean, it almost teeters on the edge of like public art. It just feels so, especially during the pandemic, it was such an incredible resource. So I love the radio and I've always loved the radio. My parents always loved the radio and they cut tape with a knife, you know, like Allen Ginsberg was coming into the studio and it just seemed like an amazing time. And I sort of grew up with these stories. And, and I think the biggest thing was my parents were like, oh, that's a job, you know, like you can work in radio, I think. And that's a huge, I'm very fortunate. I think I know a lot of friends who work in podcasting, whose parents are like, what, how are you going to live?

9:36Are you going to eat? And my parents like, you can live like you can totally, I don't know how long you can live, but you can, you can try. And so this was like before podcasting, I wanted to work in radio. And then I couldn't get a job in radio. But I was fortunate enough to land at a podcast, one of my favorite podcasts about architecture. And that sort of introduced me to the crux of your question. It was a show about a visual thing that was non-visual. And I reported on architecture for seven years. And the thing that I really liked about it is because aesthetics are so powerful. And I found like when I would cover brutalism, it was nice that people couldn't see what the building was because they'd look at it and say, oh, that's ugly.

10:18I don't like that. Or I don't want to learn about it. Or that's gross. And there's something really potent about hearing the story first and hearing from the architect and hearing about what went into it. You know, like you have Google, you can figure it out yourself. Like the images are sort of secondary. Well, not secondary. I don't want to say secondary. In my medium, they're secondary. Yeah, they're complementary. That's a better way to put it. Yes. Yeah, Yeah, I can relate to that. I think, you know, to kind of address your question, I think my route into podcasting was a bit different, which was I became very busy running this company and I was spending less and less time doing the thing I love the most, doing the thing that brought me to create the business of fashion was to sit down with the people that were making this industry tick.

11:10And it just turned out that podcasting enabled me to still continue doing the interviewing without having to do all the work afterwards about like writing everything down and putting it into words. And actually, you know, as someone who didn't grow up or who wasn't trained as a journalist, I was almost quite frustrated with the way kind of traditional mainstream journalism takes just one or two quotes of a really long conversation and you lose all the texture you lose the way someone said something or the the extended pause that was there before they responded to your question and of course I could write after a significant pause such and such person said this but it's so much more powerful if someone can hear it for themselves and if I so I think it started as a way of like continuing to like be connected to the people in the industry but then as you know I think we're on our like more than 400 episodes now.

12:07I think - That's incredible. Yeah. Now I feel like the way I bring myself to these conversations is I get to connect with someone like you and learn about you, which is amazing for me because it's inspiring. And I'm always learning from these conversations. And then I can share the full conversation with people all around the world. And I love that. I love that. Isn't that beautiful? And that's what I each becomes sacred. You know, like when you have this recording, you're like, Oh, we have this thing. And it's like gold, you know, it's like, I worked so hard for this thing. And it's the thing, the goal is a, is a conversation and a connection.

12:46And like, that's the power of audio. It's so cool. And it's fun to hear you nerd out about it and be like, ah, the, the pauses, the silence, the, the cadence. I love it. It's so nice. And actually I think as a medium podcasts have really emerged as this thing that you can do while you're doing something else. So the number of people that stop me and say, oh, you know, I listen to your voice and like, I listen to your voice while I'm cooking or I listen to your voice while I'm trying to go to sleep or I listen to your voice while I'm in the bathtub and I'm like, wow, that's pretty intimate, you know?

13:22And so I really do feel closer to our community because I know that this is one way of just sharing these like really intimate moments and conversations and where that person is listening and how they're listening to it is an intimate connection with that person too. And I love that. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. That's the fun thing about making podcasts about fashion also is that it's engaging with the world. You know, people are listening to your voice while they're walking down the street and they're like noticing what people are wearing or they're noticing what people are doing. You know, it's not undivided attention.

13:56It is divided attention, but that's beautiful it's great okay so back to audio so like you spent a lot of time at 99 invisible which is like where i think articles of interest was first born is that right yeah so talk to us about the conception of this now monumental like extremely highly regarded really beautifully created it's I mean it's and for anyone listening who hasn't so nice no I mean I don't give out false compliments I really you know when you're listening to those episodes there's so much texture and there's so much insight and there's so much thought that's clearly gone into the creation of every episode so talk to us first about like the idea of creating this podcast like why did it need to exist what were you trying to do so I worked for this podcast about architecture and I didn't know anything about architecture before.

14:49So it was really interesting. It was my first ever job and it was based in the Bay Area. And so I lived with my aunt who lived in San Francisco and I did this little internship and then it slowly turned into a job. And it was just extraordinary. It was the most luckiest thing. It was incredible because it really taught me how to translate visuals in a non-visual medium. But the interesting thing was, you know, I was the intern and I was was really young I was like 22 and it was a host a producer and me and I was the girl I was a 22 year old girl and so I had this question in my heart and in my head which is like fashion what's up with fashion but I didn't want to ask it because I wanted to be like a cool girl I was like oh let's talk about concrete production and parking theory and and you know kerning and like guy stuff like I can hang I can I can nerd out I can be cool and this question you know because it's a show about architecture and it's a show about design and obviously architecture and fashion are so interrelated I mean I was just looking at pictures that the dresses that Frank Lloyd Wright designed for his wife I mean Virgil Abloh like we don't have to look far to see the inextricable relationship between these inner and outer layers of the domicile, the home and the brick.

16:15So I did find myself wondering about this question. And I did a few episodes here and there about fashion. But I always felt like I had to really space it out, go easy on it. And then I think it took five years of working there. I was like, you know what, I want to really think about this. Like, there's so much to ask. And there's so much to say. And I thought it'd be really powerful to present a fashion podcast to an architecture crowd, you know, for a crowd who wouldn't choose a fashion podcast for themselves necessarily. And that's sort of where the origin came in. And I was like, I kind of want it to be its own separate thing so that listeners aren't like, hey, you've been talking a lot about fashion lately.

16:54I think to really put a bow on it and be like, yes, we are. We're doing this little exploration about fashion. And, you know, in the beginning, fashion was sort of a dirty word for me. I was like, well, it's not about fashion. It's about clothes. Like, I don't care about fashion. I care about clothes. and the sort of galaxy brain moment is now I'm like oh no it's all about fashion because everything has fashion you know obviously buildings have fashion cars have fashion colors have fashion fashion is is just taste over time and the most easy way to measure that when you look at a picture of any era it's like the cars maybe but mostly the clothes is how you can situate yourself in a place and in a time.

17:33It does not last as long as a building. So in your head, what was the difference between clothes and fashion back then? Like, why were you focused more on the clothes as the descriptor? That's such a good question. Well, because I thought fashion represented, you know, I worried that fashion would be alienating for a general audience, you know, because no one likes to think they follow fashion. I don't really care, you know. Or it's seen as frivolous, right? Or like Zoolander world, you know, that it's based in this world of artifice and not reality. So back then, clothing was reality and fashion was fiction.

18:08So this show is born and what happens? Well, my mentor and my boss then, the host of 99 % Invisible Roman Mars, was extremely generous. And he basically just like let me go off and make this thing. I mean, he paid my salary, which is incredible. and then gave me an extra chunk of change, which was generous, but it was fair. He didn't want to prioritize me too much over everybody else on staff. So that's all just a long way of saying I functionally went backpacking to make season one. I lived out of a backpack for a month, literally a backpack. I wore the same thing every day. And I did reporting in the UK and Scotland.

18:54I went to Hawaii. I did a lot of traveling. So you conceive of this articles of interest, you conceive of it on a seasonal basis. So like maybe you can talk to us about coming up with the first season because every season has its own thing. So the point of season one, the very first season, is it's so rudimentary, right? Because you have to remember, it's like not for a fashion crowd. And I think in subsequent seasons, I sort of assume that people want to go deeper and learn more. But the season one was really like, consider clothes, you know, like making a case for talking about clothes. And then I wanted to sort of boil the lobster slowly.

19:33I wanted to arrive at something rudimentary and end at a designer at Vivian Westwood and ultimately sort of take the listener on a journey, not starting in the world of runway fashion, but ending there and like seeing how we get there. So it starts with children's clothes, because I thought that was a really basic way to begin. And there's so many people posting on the Internet, like, why does my child have pockets? You know, what are they going to put in their pocket? Like baby clothes are weird. And so I wanted to sort of solve the mystery of why children's clothes are so strange. And there is an answer, which was fascinating to me.

20:10And then kind of iteratively move along in a daisy chain until we get to at the end. It was about Punk and Vivian Westwood. And why are children's clothes so strange? Like why do they have pockets and functional details that a child could never use? So if a child's outfit has pockets, it's not that they expect the child to own things. It's a legal technique to prove that the garment is not for sleeping. It's to prove that the garment is for day wear because this is a huge source of tension. Again, it depends on the country. Like I was looking at the guides for Australia and there are different guides for every country, every company.

20:52but in the United States and in a lot of nations, basically because of past lawsuits, if you make a garment that a child would or could fall asleep in, oftentimes it has to be fireproof. And if it's something a child could fall asleep in, that really just means like anything that's comfortable. Or anything, because kids fall asleep everywhere. Kids fall asleep everywhere, exactly. So you have to basically make it uncomfortable by adding sequins and bright colors, things that say like this is day wear and pockets are a way that you do that. But these legal requirements have functionally shaped children's clothes.

21:33And then of course in the podcast, this goes back to the theories of Rousseau and how much we should guide, you know, once upon a time children wore corsets and we don't live in that era anymore, obviously, but there is a lot of questioning of, you know, how can clothes regulate? how quickly and how well a child turns into an adult. It's very interesting. Interesting. So season one drops. You record it all over the world out of your backpack. What did you learn that helped to shape future seasons? Well, it's funny afterwards, because I already loved clothes when I was a kid and then learning more about it, I was like, ooh, wow, this produces a lot of waste.

22:17I don't I don't really and like these labor practices are really dubious. And then, you know, you dig into the history of anything. It goes back to slavery. The histories are really, really dark and there's no escaping it. And so by the end of season one, I was like, man, I hate this. I never want to do this again. I mean, I was proud of what I did, but I was like, okay, I think that's it. I'm sort of done. And then I'm very lucky they wanted another one, season two. And I was like, I kind of said everything I need to say. I don't, but by being forced to go deeper, you know, you kind of get past the, the, not past the darkness, obviously the darkness remains, but you, you start to see like different hues in the darkness.

22:58And I don't know. I was just like, oh, wow, this is a really rich text. And it was funny at the end of season two, I was also like, OK, I think I said everything I need to say now. And then I had to make a season three. I was like, oh, my God, this is even deeper. And so like my my my love, my frustration, my confusion, my amazement, it just deepens. It's just this bottomless well of emotion. Like to say I love clothes doesn't even begin to. I mean, I'm sure you feel the same. I'm like, clothes, how do I begin to say how I feel? It's like asking how I feel about water. I don't know. I have a lot of feelings about it now.

23:36But I definitely ended season one in sort of still skating on maybe not the surface, but like the second layer of the surface without realizing there were 900 layers.

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26:25so as you go deeper and deeper and examine fashion and clothing and how it impacts the world around us how it reflects history and culture and sometimes really practical things like fire safety where do you take articles of interest next because at some point you spun it out from 99 % Invisible. So are you running it now as like an independent operation? And how has that changed your relationship with it? Because you're now having to be the one who has to like monetize it and figure out how it all is sustainable, right? Yes. Well, such a good question. I mean, I believe in being really honest about money.

27:05And you know, in the beginning, so I worked for New York Magazine during the pandemic when I left 99 % Invisible. And it was a rough time in the world. I enjoyed that job. I was really grateful for it. And then it came to an end. And I had a really nice severance package. And that's honestly what helped me get it off the ground. And I have to be really honest about that because it's not like I raised rounds of funding, you know, it just like it was a kind of a fluke that allowed me to continue on season three, you know, and I also have a bunch of other side jobs that I do. I did a bunch of editing for the LA times, lots of other little gigs all over the place.

27:49But I would say the way that it's changed the show is, you know, saying in that season one was very much like consider clothes, like, well, isn't it amazing that we all have to wear clothes and that they say so much about us. And now with season three, which was my first independent season, I was like, okay, like if you're here, you're on board, you know, you already care. So let's just go, like, let's go all the way. I'm not going to justify why we're talking about this. We're just going to talk about it. And that has felt really nice. And I do feel like so much of fashion media is apologetic or like, Ooh, sorry, you know, fashion it may sound superficial but have you considered and it was nice to like really take it seriously and I also like that I didn't have to do as many conventions I mean I didn't have to say my name until the end I hate I mean I like my name I'm not ashamed of my name I just think I have a silly name and it was nice to not have to say that it was nice to yeah just have freedom to say whatever I wanted and put my own music in and so do you basically finance it initially through that severance package and then through other things that you do, or are you running it as a commercial enterprise?

29:06So I have a distributor called Radiotopia and they're incredible because they're a nonprofit. They're not a commercial company who's looking to make millions of dollars in the podcasting space. Their goal is to keep like creative podcasters alive. And so I was very lucky to be incorporated with them and they gave me a minimum guarantee that also like that with the severance was like okay I can cobble this together like I can mostly live on this and they paid me a minimum guarantee and then they sold ads on my show until they made the money back and then we had a revenue split afterwards so it's not like I'm going in you know I have I have help in that regard from Radiotopia and they're you know a rare bird they're they're incredible.

29:50I mean, it's functionally like charity and I own all my IP, you know, it was just like kind of them to help me to front a lot of the costs for me in this very like baseline way. So that's part of it. But yeah, you know, like I set up a little corporation, like the money I make from outside jobs goes into the corporation. I'm like this little, little machine now. Amazing. Okay. So now that you're several seasons in and you've kind of honed the kind of purpose behind the show, you have a solid business model that enables you to sustain the show, you can focus really on the kind of conversations and narratives and storytelling.

30:34Like, what does it take to create an episode of Articles of Interest? Because as I mentioned earlier, it's, it's so thoughtful. You know, like we, I record a conversation like this, We edit it pretty quickly. We release most of the conversation. I mean, your show is structured in a completely different way. Yeah, but so much of the work that you've already done for this conversation is behind the scenes. You know, like you sent me an email of like the things you want to cover and you've clearly read a lot about me. You've done all the research. You know what I mean? Like you've done all this invisible labor.

31:02And my team has as well. Exactly. Olivia especially has helped me really prepare for this conversation, Olivia Davies. And I can't, like you, I can't do it without my team. But give us a sense of like everything that goes into the creation of an episode. Well, so I don't have a producer like it's just me. So you're doing it all by yourself. Well, for season three, I had an engineer and an editor. But for like season four, I didn't. You know, season four was 100 percent just me. I made it by myself. And you edited it by yourself, too? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. And I engineer it. I mix it and master it by myself.

31:37It's a real labor of love. It takes so much time. But it's interesting. So for this last season, the directive from Radiotopia was to make a show every other week, which I was like, oh, my God, I'm going to die. How am I going to do this? And part of it was just like I needed ideas. I needed inspiration. So I reached out to friends and I worked with friends. And it's the first time I sort of let someone else into my process and it helped me realize what it actually takes. And a friend of mine said, like, damn, you really research this for a year and then make it in a week. And that is 100 % true.

32:10I would say it takes about a year of, but slowly, like reading, thinking, talking, distilling what I want to say. You know, everything's really, really spaced out. But yeah, I would say a lot of conversation, a lot of reading, a lot of reading. and um i just have to make it i just have to record all these conversations go to these people's houses you know i make these really elaborate prep documents whenever i talk to people i mean there's like hours and hours and hours of work uh goes into all these well you can tell thank you you can really tell because it shows and there's i mean i think there's so many podcasts now not just on fashion but just like there's like podcast overload so like i really value the ones that are so thoughtfully crafted and created.

33:02I'm not surprised that it takes a year of research and thinking and listening and distilling to come up with what you come up with. It really, really shows. So where does Articles of Interest go now? Like, what are you planning to do next? It's on a tiny pause right now because I'm writing a book, which is a fun experiment to like, it's an exciting luxury for me to be able to meet someone anywhere and be like, I can talk to you in a cafe. It doesn't have to be a like quiet room with a microphone. So I'm really enjoying that process. And then I'm going to do like three episodes this year just because I can't help myself.

33:40And it's a little triptych. It's going to be about nudity, modesty and clergy. Nudity is being like, why do we wear clothes at all? modesty you know talking to women in the hasidic hijabi and mormon communities of like well then what does it mean to be modest like why wear quote-unquote more clothes and you know all these different everyone has a different definition of what modesty means and then the last one is talking to all strains of catholic priests i've talked to trappist dominicans i mean you you name it. They love fashion. It's incredible. I love it. I can't wait to listen to it. Oh, thank you.

34:21So it's that triptych. And then I have another like big series coming up after the book after the book. Well, I will be a loyal listener and reader in the future. So thank you. As we wrap up, I'm curious, like, how has working on this show changed the way you think about fashion now? oh man I mean like Imran I meant it they're like and surely I don't have to tell you this there's just so many layers of depth and that's the thing it just keeps unfurling and every time I'm like well I think I've kind of covered it like no there's another thing to learn and right now I'm learning how to sew because I realized like oh my god I'm talking about all these things but I don't actually understand garment construction.

35:08I don't understand seam finishes. I should really learn these things. And that's unlocking a whole new level of, of the conversation around labor. And then now that I'm understanding fabric, I'm like, you know, I can just feel it unfurling in a million different ways. And it was so much about me when I was young. It was so much about me and my personal expression and the sort of game of it. And in The Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell talks about how the hero's journey is about from the individual into the world. I mean, that's honestly, that's the order of the tarot deck, right? You start as the fool and you end in the world.

35:46And I feel like I am reaching towards the world. It's like bringing me out of the personal and the me, me, me of fashion and understanding that it's crops, it's the earth, it's handwork, It's culture, it's society, it's, you know, you tug on a thread and you get everything. And that's what I'm slowly realizing. Okay, but as a podcast creator, host, producer, editor, researcher, what podcast do you listen to and why? My favorite podcast is the Paris Review podcast. I really like the Paris Review podcast. They do really good sound design and they have just, you know, good writers. and it's nice to hear beautiful writing in my ears.

36:32I really like that. And I've been listening to a lot of audio books lately, but yeah, my favorite is the Parish Review podcast. And there's so many great fashion podcasts right now, like Business of Fashion, obviously. I love the Cutting Room Floor. I love Nymphed Alumni, Throwing Fits, Style Zeitgeist. I mean, there's so many great fashion podcasts. And the funny thing is I use them all as research for my podcast, you know? So I, oh, like that's a big part of the diet too. It's like reading a lot of fashion books and listening to a lot of these. In conclusion, you know, we were just talking about all the podcasts that are out there.

37:13Like, what do you see happening in this audio space? Like, how do you see it developing? There's this like proliferation of podcasts. There's only so much time people have in the day. to listen. It's become a really crowded space. Like, how do you see the space shaking out? I don't know. I mean, I can't speak for this. Like I've obviously gotten disillusioned with it, but I don't know. I think, I think there's a very solid metaphor to be made in the way that we talk about sustainability and fashion and sustainability of attention. And you hear a lot in our industry about, you know, that you want people to feel an emotional connection to their garments that they want to engage them and keep them for a long time and I have taken on a lot of that into my audio work I mean for example I don't ever kill stories I love to reuse interviews that I collected years ago I'm always like cutting them up and revisiting them because I believe that knowledge isn't like one and done it isn't a single use thing I believe even making this like long, sustainable living archive.

38:24And again, I can't speak for the industry at large, but the thing that I am excited to have proved to myself is that, you know, I think there's so much impetus to be like, oh, you got to put something out every week and you got to be in the listener's ear and you got to fight for that precious, whatever, commute time. And I've just decided to not do that. I mean, I've taken like two years off in between, not off, I've been doing other things, finding other ways to make a living. But, you know, I take time between my seasons and they don't come out all the time. But I think they, you know, they're taught in schools.

39:02They're taught in classes. I think they're valuable, sort of precious resources. And part of it is because I am a team of one. Like, it keeps me nimble. You know, I think part of the reason I do everything myself, it's not because I'm a control freak I mean I love collaborating with people it's just because it keeps my overhead really low I mean I've I don't have kids you know I have a low cost of not a low I mean I live in New York but that's the biggest thing is like paying my paying my rent I keep it low cost so that I don't feel yoked to it so that I don't feel like I have to pump it out all the time so I can really only make things when I feel like there's something that needs to be said You know, my credo is that I want to be worth people's time and I want to keep it precious and I don't want to just make things for the sake of making things.

39:54And so, yeah, industry at large, I don't know. But the listenership and the success of Articles of Interest has proved to me that it's possible for something to come out rarely, occasionally, sporadically. and if it's made with care and thought and love it has a fighting chance I mean and what a hopeful beautiful thing that is so I've found it inspirational for myself I mean you know I have a lot of precarity at the end of every year I'm like what what will happen what will happen next year you know it's not for everyone but it's cool to know it's possible yeah well it's you are a role model like and for for someone out there thinking or pondering or mulling over the idea of creating their own podcast do you have any advice that you'd offer yeah definitely do it I mean it's wonderful it's a beauty you know as you and I were talking about it's like the most incredible medium but I think the thing I would say is I consider it a craft I really do consider a craft and I think it deserves the respect of a craft and if you're doing any you know like when I'm sewing garments you start by making shitty little things that you don't show anyone I definitely always tell people like just start just do it just grab your phone and record a conversation with someone you wanted to talk to and then upload it into an editing system and see if you can cut it in half see if you can take that hour-long conversation and turn it into 30 minutes you know and like treat it like a like a practice like when you start running you know you like start slowly and you build up the skill for yourself.

41:35And that's the thing that I recommend. I think everybody, I'm not trying to be a gatekeeper. I think everybody should do it, but I also think that it should be shown respect and love as a medium, as you would with any art form. Yeah. I couldn't have said it better myself. That's such great advice. People often ask me, how did you become a writer? And I wasn't trained to be a writer. The only way I became a somewhat decent writer was by just writing. Yes, exactly. You have to do it. You just have to keep doing it over and over and over again. And with practice and care and attention, you can learn.

42:15And that's the same for podcasting. Exactly. And even with like, even if you're not doing some highly edited, you know, artisan stuff that I'm, you know, tinkering around with my, my precious pro tool set. I think even the practice of recording conversations and doing the work that I hate of listening to yourself and understanding your speech patterns and understanding, you know, where is the conversation going, understanding the kinds of questions you ask, understanding your verbal tics. It's this like, it's this journey of self knowledge. And I think, you know, this as both a writer and the founder of a company, you really have to be clear with yourself you have to understand your style whether it's your management style or your writing style and I think with podcasting you have to understand your conversation style and you only get that by doing the cringy thing and listening to yourself and really working on it do you hate listening to yourself oh yeah of course we all do right we all do I hate the sound of my voice and then these people stop me on the street and they say I love your voice And I'm like, exactly.

43:20And it like never gets better. I was like, well, surely one day I'll age into it and it'll be fine. And it's just, it never does. But I think that helps me make peace with it. It's like, you're never gonna. Yeah. Avery, such a pleasure. I want to meet you in person when I'm in New York next. Please. Yeah, I'll be there in March. But let's try to grab a coffee or something. Be so nice because I'm sure there's tons that we can learn from each other. So thank you so much for your time. And thank you for what you do. It's really inspiring. Ditto. Thank you so much. This is really fun. And it's so nice to meet you.

43:54You too. And I'm serious. I would love to hang out. Yeah, let's do it. All right. Bye-bye.

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