Vogue Editors Answer Your Summer Dressing Questions with Liana Satenstein

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0:37This is The Run Through. I'm Nicole Phelps. I am very excited to be joined in the studio today by our very own Chominati, here in person from London, and Vogue contributor Liana Satenstein. Hi. Well, hi again. Hi again. Yeah. I saw both of you this week. I know, which is so nice. It's nice to see you, Liana. I'll take it. A new season is almost upon us. I mean, summer. We thought that we would tackle some of the evergreen warm weather dressing quandaries. Liana writes our addressed column for Vogue. Laya Garcia Furtado, ex-Vogue runway editor, launched our style column a year and a half or maybe two years ago.

1:22She has since moved on. And Liana, who writes about personal style and knows a lot about keeping other people's closets clean, was our natural choice. Oh, thank you, Nicole. But tell us, what do you like to write about at Addressed? I like to write about, like, the more saucy sides of what to wear and what not to wear. Like, the first one that we did was bras, I believe, in the office. and whether or not it was kosher not to wear a bra in the office. Wow. Well, I was a— I mean, I'm sorry. I'm such a boomer. I'm sounding really boomerish. But what? No bra? I guess you can. Choma, you've, like, seen, like— you probably know what cup size I am at this point.

2:07I never wore a bra at the office. Like, for better, for worse. I mean, actually, probably for worse. Irene Kim goes, that's why you never got a promotion, is because you didn't wear a bra at the office. But I just thought, because I was like— For the record, you did get a promotion. while you were here. Okay. Depends. Well, you can shape the narrative the way you want. I know. I did get a promotion. I did. From fashion writer to senior fashion writer. Yeah, I did. Let the record show. Yes. Okay. Even though I didn't wear a bra. They saw past it. But anyone can see past my chest. It's very small.

2:39But I didn't think it was a big deal not to wear a bra in the office because I was like, you know what, actually? Sorry, not to digress, but I feel like it actually makes sense for this. Digress. Be our guest. I when I first came here, I was wearing like these insane bulbous push up bras from like TJ Maxx because I was like a hangover. Me too. That's something that we have in common. I gave up my padded bras while I was at Vogue. Yeah, but that's the thing. I wrote about it. Wait. I think many years before you wrote about it. I was like, did I copy my own? Well, I mean, no, it's always relevant, right?

3:09I think it's such a it's such a political item of clothing. Yeah. I think bras are so political. They're just like anything that's the closest to the body is really political. Your chicken cutlet bra, that's what Sarah Moer calls a padded bra because those pads are so big and clunky. And you can slip them in and out. But I had one. And then I remember Jordan Bickham gave me that makeover when I first came here. Have you ever told the story about how you were dressed up for your interview? Oh, yeah. That was rough. But it was great, actually, because I had nothing to wear, surprisingly, but also unsurprisingly.

3:42At the time, I just had nothing. I had zilch to wear and I was wearing, remember Sally called me the night before. Sally Singer? Yeah, Sally Singer. She called me and she's like, what are you wearing? And I was like, I'm wearing a black blazer. She's like, absolutely not. And then I felt like an idiot because then I learned after that Anna, everyone knew that Anna. Black isn't a great color to wear for a Vogue interview. I think that's kind of universally known. Yeah, I didn't know that. Or a pantsuit. I love a pantsuit. Unless it's like got some zest. But not like you're going for like a corporate law interview.

4:17Just make it fashion. I know. Well, I didn't. So then Sally was like, we need to give you a makeover. So I came here and she had Chelsea Zalapani, one of the market editors at the time, dress me from the closet and it was a white shirt dress. I remember it. Yeah. Yeah. And these green suede mules. And then I had like my beat up. Do you remember the brand? No. I don't remember any of the brands. I can't remember. Sounds about right for that time. Yeah. Yeah. Like 2014. Yes. Well, as our listeners can tell, there are nobody better than the two of you to talk fashion details. So we are... Nice, Nicole.

4:56Nice segue. You got the worst of the two of us. We're like, we'll go off on a tangent. We are going to jump into some of the questions that our readers have for our style columnist. What's your shoe of the summer? we must talk about Mathieu Blasie's very unusual sandals at his Chanel show in Biarritz. The topic of conversation in every group chat on every comment section in the last 24 hours. Oh, phalangeal fodder for the ages, might I say. I, those were, I have to choose my words carefully, but I would like to say, those are deliciously demented demi-sandals. Like those were insane. Demi-sandals, that's a word.

5:38That is the shoe, is a demi-sandal. I like that. Thank you. Okay. Describe them in detail. Okay. So it's like you have a sandal, but it's circumcised. So you only have half of it. It's covering the heel. It's not covering the sole. And it wraps around. It's like a heel cup. Yes. Oh, my God. Wait, I wrote that in my sub stack this morning. I said heel cup. Great minds. Yes. Like a bra for your heel. I said the heel is the crotch of the foot. And it's just, it's like a panty crotch. And it's like holding the heel in a very chic, obviously elevated way. It's in leather. It's in gold. And I thought actually it reminded me, and I can't say his name, not in the French way.

6:17Like Hermes. It's the god Hermes shoes. Oh, right. The Tilarias. Yes, yes it is. That he used to fly. It is very that when you think about Greek mythology, it is that, isn't it? Yeah. And I was like, this makes sense. Like Greek island vacation, whatever. Like, you know. It's a perfect Greek shoe. I mean, you can only wear it on sand. Yes. Do you think they'll make those? No. They have to now. Why? Because it's like, it's more like buzzy foot talk. And I think that's what we're into. If they didn't sell it, it's like edging. It's like edging the customer. Like you got to give him the damn shoe.

6:53It's hard for a New Yorker to wear. I mean, you can't even wear flip flops. I spent my first summer wearing flip flops and my feet were actually hideous. I just had to carry wet wipes everywhere. I mean, I don't even want people to know this. This is disgusting. Never again. I mean, I'm so glad I didn't catch a disease. Is that why you're missing your pinky toe on your right foot? No, I'm just kidding. Chioma has all her toes. Just about. I don't even know how I got them. Strong immune system at the time. Youth will get you through a lot. But yeah, I mean, what is it appropriate shoe to wear in New York?

7:28I think Birkenstocks. We see Birkenstocks everywhere. It's a sternier sole. Yeah, it's very. I mean, I was interested to hear Leslie Freeman talk about how many Birkenstocks she has. She's like, you know, famed Vogue assistant turned megastar celebrity stylist who is a real Emily. So she was talking about how much she loved Birkenstocks and she kept them under her desk. And actually, we first did a story on how everybody, it was around the time that Phoebe Philo did a very elevated version of Birkenstocks. I can't remember the year. And it was pretty early. It was pretty early. And we just relaunched Vogue.com and everybody in the office were all wearing Birkenstocks.

8:03So we just, I did a story about how Vogue Eddard has loved it and it went viral. And Page Six covered it because they were like, oh God, this ugly shoe that Vogue Eddard wears. And I was just like, we've moved so far beyond that now. But it was crazy to me that that kind of story would like make people feel like, oh, this is so controversial. Like, how could you? But I've definitely had like ex-boyfriends who looked down at my Birkenstocks and were like, this is not. I think they're comfortable. They are very comfortable. Let's talk about office shoes. I wear Birkenstocks all summer to work. Do you think they're appropriate?

8:37How much toe is too much toe in the summer at the office? You know, I'm always, I'm a toe. I'm pro-toe. Like, I love to show them. I think, you know. Yeah, you're a mule girl, right? You look like a kind of a very kitten heel mule. Yeah, I do. But I mean, I also understand that, like, I work in a creative industry where, like, you're allowed to have some, let me use the word again, phalangeal flux. and I know like if you work in say like something more corporate where the dress codes are more strict then like okay you might just have to you might have to cover all the toes but like for me I like the idea of a flip-flop obviously it can be kind of gross and it's especially if you're in the city so I like a little heel on it like a little nipple heel like does that stop the dirt clinging to your no but no but it looks like it does it looks like it does you just can't wear it for long.

9:29Yeah, you can't. I'm very strategic about what I show of my foot. So I'm very, I'm very like self-conscious about my feet. No. You just, you should be embrace it. Embrace your foot. That should be like a dove commercial. Embrace your foot. I mean, I have busted feet. Like, I really do. You've done. I've seen your feet. You've got quite elegant feet. Thank you. We should have them pan to my feet for this. Free feet video.

10:00The Roundthrough will be back in just a moment.

10:31Transcription by CastingWords thoughtful, exquisite, just, you know, real.

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11:42Liana, for Mother's Day, you wrote about what to do with your mother's not-so-chic hand-me-downs. Personally, I grew up sort of berating my mother for getting rid of her 1960s and 70s clothes, But I understand that your mom is giving you her old clothes from more recent decades that you're not crazy about. Oh, I mean, I wouldn't say I'm not crazy about it. It's just like I have massive like mommy guilt complex. And I always felt pressure to take the clothes that she gave me. I think it's kind of also like if your grandmother's like, I got you the sweater. And you're like, I'm never going to wear this sweater.

12:22And then you see her and she's like, did you wear the sweater? And you're like. Especially if she knit the sweater. I know. Oh, my God. You're just like, you're screwed. Oh, God. I spent many years in knits. My very lovely, great aunt used to knit. You like crochet, though, and like knit things. I do. I do. Yeah, maybe something of it stayed with me. There you go. See, there's a great takeaway here. Like, even if you don't like the thing at the moment, the influence will stay with you. It's hard when a loved one gives you clothes that you don't want because they take up space. And for me, like, it's like an albatross around my neck keeping clothes I don't wear.

12:54I don't love it and I'm constantly cycling through things and figuring out like which pile clothes need to go in, like whether I'm passing it to someone else I love or consigning it or whatever it might be. And it's hard when you give in something where you're like, this is hideous, but it's from someone I love. I may have to like wear it at some point at an event that they, you know, family gathering or something just to show that like, hey, but I think I don't know about you, but my family have learned not to give me clothes. Nobody gives me clothes. I think they stopped at age 10. Like, my mom was like, I am not buying your clothes anymore.

13:26You are going to go shop and get your own clothing. And I was very happy with that. Give me books. That's what I say. Oh, yeah. That's a nice gift. You know, I think you can tell when someone gives you something, the intent behind it. Like, I think there are pieces that she really cares about. And she's like, I want you to have this because I really love it. And then some of it is something that she's like, I kind of like it, but I don't want to, like, fully part with it. So I'm just going to give it to you because you're like the next best thing. It's horrible. And then I get like more stressed out because I have more of her stuff.

13:59And then I have this like guilt that just builds like a domino effect because I can't part with it because it was my mother. So I basically have been like, OK, I'm sorry to use this term, but it's like I have to do like a Sophie's choice of like clothing these days and be like this is like the stuff with real intent, like passionate intent because I love you. And this is like, actually, my friend, fellow writer, Nikoliah Ripps coined this because I spoke with her about this a while back. A soft trash can piece. What is a soft trash can? It's like I am the soft trash can. Yeah, OK. Like, I'm not quite a trash can, but I'm like, you know, the next best thing.

14:35You know what I mean? I'm in the middle. So can you just throw those things away? Doesn't your mom understand that maybe? I think so. I don't think she'd ever even. She doesn't want to see them anymore. She just doesn't want to. If you're someone who likes to hold on to things like my dad's a hoarder. We just. Oh, my God. He's not listening, but we just secretly throw things away. I do that with my husband, too. He's not a hoarder, but he doesn't clean up his messes. And so sometimes a mess has been lingering so long in the apartment. I just remove it and he doesn't notice. As much as I can't imagine Liana coming to my house to deal with my closet.

15:08I do need you to come. Oh, my God. Guys, we have this on record. Nicole Phelps has said that she needed me. I never thought this day would come. Every weekend I have to spend, you know, an hour or two hours hanging the stuff that I just sort of put on top of the rack because the racks are so squeezed. Do you don't have a storage? I don't either. No. I hate a storage because then it's like out of sight. I'm mine that it may as well not exist. Why am I keeping it? I really am struggling with space. But this is sort of a universal problem in New York because most of us in New York have not enough storage.

15:46So what are some good general rules for trying to keep a closet orderly? I mean, I think you should go through it, you know, regularly, maybe every two to three months. What I do for myself is I give myself a time limit. So I don't block off seven to eight hours a day to clean out my closet, even though that's probably maybe what it would take. But I do something where I'm like, okay, I'm going to give myself, you know, let's just say 10 minutes. And then I just go as quickly as possible because I think faster and I do it more quickly. And I'm more decisive. And it's like a real honest gut reaction from me.

16:24Whereas if you give yourself the whole entire day to clean it out, you take all these breaks. You don't really go through it. And then by the end of the day, you have like two pairs of panties and like an old pair of jeans that you're parting with. And you've wasted the whole entire day. So I always say give yourself a really concise time limit. You know, something else is like 60 seconds. 60 seconds, find one thing that you do not wear. And I'm sure you can do it. Do that once a day for seven days. And at the end of the week, you have seven pieces that you can part with. That's a nice rule. And for some math, if you do it twice in one day, at the end of the week, you have 14 pieces.

16:58And you're doing this to make room for new stuff or just to sort of make your closet feel like a more pleasant place to visit. Yeah, not a trash pet. Every time I go into like, you know, palatial kind of suburban homes and they have like a walk-in closet, I'm just like, oh my God, my nervous system is calmed and regulated. I can actually just like pick things out. And there's like shoes that you can see. Like, oh, God, it's just that's the one downside of like city living, I think, if you're a fashion person. Yeah, but then you're just in the suburbs. I know. I don't I wouldn't trade it for the world, girl.

17:33I don't want to. I mean, no shade to the suburbs. I just I prefer Miss Eagle. Let's talk about shorts. We've talked about sandals, but I want to talk about summer shorts. Can you imagine wearing shorts to the office? No. Should anybody wear shorts to the office? Maybe I have once. Yeah, but I know which ones they are. Okay, go on. They're like cut off denim, frayed at the ends, and you always wear it with something like elevated and dressy. I'm not making this up. Right, the patchwork, right? The patchwork ones? I believe so. And with a heel. It's just a lot of commitment. And they're like grazing the knee.

18:06They're grazing the knee. Like I remember there was a moment in the sort of like early 2010s when the short suit was like a thing. And I was like, what are we doing? Who's wearing this? Are you wearing a short suit? Like what? Hell to the no. Yeah. I'm anti short just because I hate my legs I don't know why no but it's also just like I think even if you love your legs and listen we all should be we all love our bodies that work so hard I don't want to hate my body and it's not about not wanting to show it I just don't want to feel that vulnerable I think it's hard to pull those proportions off in a professional setting also how can you sit down on the subway in shorts I know.

18:48How can you sit in the movie theater on a plane? What about midriffs? Because there are a lot of midriffs at Vogue. You're a pro-midriff girl. I just don't think I knew any better. Like I said, no bra, no shirt. But I think it's a generational thing, this midriff thing, because I think that it is so normalized. Like I see young women wearing, showing their midriff very, like it's not a thing. Whereas maybe in the early aughts when it was first kind of emerging, it was very much like a come on. Yes, exactly. You know, it's weird because I started here when I was pretty young. I want to say like 24.

19:27But I was showing my midriff a lot, like all the time. And I think now I would never do that again. I think sometimes it might peekaboo by accident, depending on the shirt. But, like, I would never actually wear it like that ever again. I mean, what I do like about the current generation is there's no body shaming and there's no sense that you have to have washboard abs. And I think what I like is that we see all kinds of body types wearing crop tops. And that feels like, personally, when I see it out in the world, I think I'm really encouraged by how this younger generation, oh, God, I'm going to sound like a boomerang.

20:07No. But like just how kind of embracing people, like especially young women are of their bodies and showing their bodies. And I think that's fab. I still think in a professional setting, it doesn't feel appropriate, you know? Same. Yeah. I mean, even though I did it. But like I'm saying, like now that I like understand like the actual workings of an office and like if I could rewind, I wouldn't bear my midriff in a professional setting again. How do you balance comfort and looking chic in the summer when, you know, you're sort of wrestling with the very hot, humid conditions outside? Not in the UK!

20:46It's like rain all day. Make us jealous. I mean, you could be jealous or you could be sorry, feel sorry for us. Choma, what do you wear in the summer in London? My first summer back in London, it wasn't even sandal weather. I just kind of wore what I'm wearing now. Like you wear a light jacket and a T-shirt maybe or a shirt. But yeah, it was very, it was quite liberating at first not to have to think about the high summer office wardrobe because I definitely had lots of solves for that. Like they had specific dresses I only wore during the hot summers. Like there's this vintage Fendi kind of column dress I have that's like very, doesn't touch my body at all.

21:29um super light um and it feels like nothing but it's full coverage right down to my ankles and i can wear like a chic flat um pair it with it i'm very into like a summer cardigan like it's a good layer something there i feel like i can when when the ac gets aggressive i can layer it on but yeah it's different on the hottest days in new york when you have an important meeting because it's hideous when it's really hot it's horrible i mean i you know i used to like suffer in jeans during the summer. It was horrible because, like I said, I don't like to show my legs. Like, I really just wore, like, these thick, girthy Wrangler jeans from Kmart for, like, summer after summer after summer.

22:12How did you manage that? I didn't. It was disgusting. It was, like, ass marination. Sorry. But I have since kind of learned how to, like, elevate my look for the summer and I have this one tried and true JPG skirt that hits like below the knee which I really like from Chloe Sevigny. JPG being jumped on go to. Sorry sorry double flex over here but it was like this the skirt that it just works well with like you know a nice white top a nice black top like I can throw in a pair of heels and like I can look meeting ready and on my off days I had to have like these pair of like airy maharishis oh yeah i love i have a pair of white maharishis i love that they're so good yeah on the hot days yeah well how do you navigate it i like that too i like uh like a sort of a loose fitting cargo-y tight pant and a t-shirt and then maybe i'll keep a jean jacket at the office or like an adidas um you know shell jacket track jacket and we all have blankets at our desks.

23:21I know we do.