The Best of The BoF Podcast: Avery Trufelman on the Meaning Behind the Clothes We Wear

0:04Hi, this is Imran Ahmed, founder and CEO of The Business of Fashion. Welcome to the BOFest Podcast. It's Friday, August 22nd. Today we're continuing our summer break by sharing some of our favorite episodes from the archive. On her award-winning podcast, Articles of Interest, host and producer Avery Truffleman dives into the stories behind the clothes we wear. From the evolution of preppy style to the origins of wedding dresses, Avery guides her listeners through the multifaceted layers behind the aesthetics of fashion. 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.

0:51It's, you know, you tug on a thread and you get everything. And that's what I'm slowly realizing. This week on the BOF podcast, we revisit my conversation with Avery, examining her path into podcasting, her lifelong passion for clothes and what they mean, and what she's learned about fashion while building one of the world's most popular fashion podcasts. 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.

1:42because obviously you have your podcast and we have this podcast and there's intersections and there's so much to discuss. So 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.

2:21Well, that's awesome. So like a mutual happy love fest moment. Speaking of sitting outside a little 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? Oh 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.

3:05And 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. I don't really know why I'm doing this, but I feel so compelled to do this.

3:48And 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 and 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?

4:25Well, 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, feel close to it.

5:09I mean, the thing I realized is when I 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.

5:50I 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.

6:28And 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 doing? you're talking about? Oh my God. Well, of course, like I'll answer, but then I, may I throw your question back at you? Cause I'm also curious about why you wanted to do a podcast.

7:13Sure. 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.

7:55And 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 do things. They'll be like, hey, New Yorkers, you know, call in and tell us, you know, what you see outside your window right now.

8:40I 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?

9:17Are you going to eat? And my parents are 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 And 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.

10:00I 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 complimentary. That's a better way to put it. Yes. 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 is 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.

10:51And 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 always 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 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.

11:38So I think it started as a way of continuing to 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. I think - That's incredible. 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 think is so fun that like human speech becomes sacred.

12:18You 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 conversation and a connection. And 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 pauses, the silence, 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.

13:00And I'm like, wow, that's pretty intimate, you know? And 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. People are listening to your voice while they're walking down the street and they're noticing what people are wearing or they're noticing what people are doing.

13:36It's not undivided attention. It 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. You're 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.

14:20So 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. So 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 really young.

15:00I 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 it's 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.

15:44I 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. So 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 a architecture crowd, you know, for a crowd who wouldn't choose a fashion podcast for themselves necessarily.

16:28And 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. I think to really put a bow on it and be like, yes, 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.

16:52You know, obviously buildings have fashion, cars have fashion, colors have fashion. And fashion 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. It 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.

17:36I don't really care, you know. Or it's seen as frivolous, right? Or it's frivolous. 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. So 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 was 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.

18:20So 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. I 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.

19:01And 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. I 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?

19:42You 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. And 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.

20:21It'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. But 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.

20:58Exactly. So you have to basically make it uncomfortable by adding sequins and bright colors and 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. And 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.

21:40Interesting. 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, you know, I already loved clothes when I was a kid and then learning more about it. I was like, oh, wow, you know, this produces a lot of waste. I 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.

22:13I 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. And 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.

22:49And 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. But 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.

23:34We'll be right back with more on the BOF podcast. So 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.

24:15I mean, I believe in being really honest about money. And, 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.

24:55I did a bunch of editing for the LA Times, lots of other little gigs all over the place. But 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, OK, 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.

25:36And 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 then 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?

26:20So 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.

26:55So it's not like I'm going in, you know, I have help in that regard from Radiotopia. And they're, you know, a rare bird. They're incredible. I 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.

27:47like 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. And my team has as well.

28:18Exactly. Olivia especially has helped me really prepare for this conversation, Olivia Davies. And I can't, like you, I can't do without my team, but give us a sense of like everything that goes into the creation of an episode. Well, it's fine. 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 % 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. It's a real labor of love.

28:54It 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 was 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 researched this for a year and then make it in a week. And that is 100 % true. I 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.

29:39But yeah, I would say a lot of conversation, a lot of reading, a lot of reading. And 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 just like hours and hours and hours of work 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.

30:16I'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, with a microphone. So I'm really enjoying that process. And then I'm going to do like three episodes this year just cause I can't help myself.

30:54And 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 name it. They love fashion. It's incredible. I love it. I can't wait to listen to it.

31:34Oh, thank you. So 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. And 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. And 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.

32:22I don't understand seam finishes. I should really learn these things. And that's unlocking a whole new level 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, honestly, that's the order of the tarot deck, right? You start as the fool and you end in the world.

33:00And 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.

33:46I really like that. And I've been listening to a lot of audio books lately. But yeah, my favorite is the Paris Review podcast. Um, 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, 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.

34:27Like, 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 having 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 there's a very solid metaphor to be made in the way that we talk about sustainability in 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.

35:10And 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 in making this like long, sustainable living archive. and 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.

36:07But, 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, they'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.

36:46I keep it low costs 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. And 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.

37:29I 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.

38:09But I think the thing I would say is I consider it a craft. I really do consider it 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've 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.

38:43Like when you start running, you know, you like start slowly and you build up the skill for yourself. And, and 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, 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. You know, people often ask me, you know, how did, how did you become a writer? And, you know, I wasn't trained to be a writer. The only way I became a somewhat decent writer was by just writing a lot.

39:19You just have to keep doing it over and over and over again. And with practice and care and attention, you can learn. And 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 precious Pro Tools 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.

39:58It'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.

40:31And I'm like, ew. Exactly. And 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 going to, yeah. Avery, such a pleasure. I want to meet you in person when I'm in New York next. Because I think. Please. Yeah, I'll be there in March. But let's try to grab a coffee or something. It'd be so nice because I'm sure that 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.

41:05Thank you so much. This is really fun. And it's so nice to meet you. You too. And I'm serious. I would love to hang out. Yeah, let's do it. All right. Bye-bye. The BOF podcast is edited and produced by Olivia Davies and Eric Bria. Thank you.