0
SPEAKER_01
Fine.
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SPEAKER_01
I ll admit it.
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SPEAKER_01
I just love fashion.
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SPEAKER_01
Ah, sorry.
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SPEAKER_01
Okay, fine.
0
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I ll admit it.
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I love fashion.
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I love fashion, but I wouldn t consider myself a fashion nerd in the sense that I m not super educated on the history of fashion.
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I love the technical side of fashion, for example, like how to balance the colors of an outfit or
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even the intricacies of how things are constructed or the intricacies of how different fabrics work and how they lay on the body.
0
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Like, I love fashion in a very current way.
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You know, I love going to fashion shows and watching new collections come down the runway in real time.
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I love fashion right now.
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I love fashion
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in the current moment, but I just don t know a lot about fashion history.
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And I think that this is important for me as a fashion lover, because history plays a huge role in fashion.
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Like, when you re interested in fashion, you re naturally, whether you want to be or not, kind of interested in history, because the two are heavily tied together.
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We ve been wearing clothes for a very long time.
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And that s why I m excited to
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sort of develop my knowledge about fashion history, which is why I m so excited to be speaking to our guest today, Richard Thompson Ford.
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He is a Stanford law professor, Bay Area.
0
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Palo Alto represent.
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I m not from Palo Alto, but I am from the Bay Area, so, you know, I feel close to him in that way.
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I ve never met him, but I think we re gonna love each other.
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He is a fashion history expert.
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He also has expertise in many other, many other categories.
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But today I m gonna be talking to him specifically about fashion.
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Specifically, Richard has dug deep into fashion as a system of power, how the written and unwritten rules of fashion have evolved and still influence what we wear today.
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He s written several books, the most recent one being Dress Codes, How the Laws of Fashion Made History.
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And I m so excited to learn more about fashion today.
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Beyond just, like, when did they create the corsets and why are they so snatched?
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Like, it s more than... We re gonna dig a little deeper than that today and really
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really become fashion nerds together.
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And maybe you don t want that.
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Maybe you don t.
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But I do.
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So come along for the journey.
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And I will welcome in now, Richard Thompson Ford.
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We re gonna have a fashion day, you know, because you have so many things that you do so many amazing things that you do.
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But I m
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so curious about the fashion piece of it.
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Because I think a lot of people look at fashion as something that is, you know, sort of materialistic.
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Like, when you hear the word fashion, what comes to mind?
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SPEAKER_01
It s like, it s materialistic, it s, you know, it s capitalism, it s this, it s that.
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But, you know, there s so much more to it.
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What initially drew you to fashion and what particular piece of fashion was the most interesting to you?
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SPEAKER_00
Well, what drew me to fashion initially was being a kid growing up.
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SPEAKER_00
I grew up in a town called Fresno and yeah.
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SPEAKER_01
No way.
0
SPEAKER_01
Oh my God.
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My family.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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I have family in Fresno.
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SPEAKER_00
Oh, is that right?
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SPEAKER_00
Yes.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
Yes.
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I grew up in Fresno and I went to a high school, which was great in many ways.
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I was one of a very few African-American kids there.
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And right away,
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fashion and clothing was a way to kind of navigate the social scene.
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It was a way to set myself off, a way to, you know, exert some personality that wasn t just my race.
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And I found that really useful and powerful.
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And so it got me interested in fashion trends.
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SPEAKER_00
I had a preppy phase.
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SPEAKER_00
I had a punk rock phase, you know, I mean, all the stuff that kids go through.
0
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
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So so it initially
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The interest sort of started with how you could use it to sort of create, like manipulate identity in a way.
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SPEAKER_01
Like, you know, it s like you can go in and your clothes can speak for you in some ways.
0
SPEAKER_01
Okay, so it started there.
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And then how did it sort of evolve to today?
0
SPEAKER_01
Sort of fill in the blanks from that initial moment of like,
0
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I love this.
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This is, you know, maybe in a way, sort of an art form or a way to speak.
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SPEAKER_01
What then made it such a focus, I guess, in your career?
0
SPEAKER_00
Well, a couple of things.
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One s personal and one s professional.
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SPEAKER_00
My father was also a stylish person.
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He had great clothes and a great sense of style.
0
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
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SPEAKER_00
You know, I wish I could have worn some of his clothes, but we were not the same size because he had some great stuff.
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He studied as a tailor.
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He was a professional.
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He was a university professor and administrator.
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SPEAKER_00
But he actually studied as a tailor at a historically black college at a time when they insisted that the students learn a trade as well as a profession in case they needed something to fall back on.
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SPEAKER_00
So he always talked about clothing.
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SPEAKER_00
But the thing I saw as a kid was
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He used clothing as a way to navigate his surroundings.
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He was one of the only black people at the Cal State University Fresno where he worked.
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So I noticed that.
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And the way clothing mattered for him.
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It was fun and he liked it just as style, but it also had this very serious side.
0
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And that was powerful.
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Professional side is I teach a variety of classes in law, including employment discrimination.
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And there are a lot of lawsuits around.
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People suing their employers for a dress code that, for instance, requires them to wear something they don t want to wear.
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So dress codes that require women to wear makeup or tease their hair or wear high-heeled shoes can be challenged as sex discrimination.
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Dress codes that forbid head coverings might be challenged as discrimination on the basis of religion, if your religion requires a head covering.
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Lots of lawsuits.
0
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the way the courts dealt with those lawsuits never struck me as satisfying.
0
SPEAKER_00
So I teach these cases to my students and any student who was remotely interested in fashion kind of thought, well, that s not what was really at stake in this case.
0
SPEAKER_00
So what the court s talking about isn t
0
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really what I think was going on.
0
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And the students were right.
0
SPEAKER_00
And so over time, I thought it would be great to dig into this and get a better sense for why people are suing, why employers want to have these risk codes that goes beyond what the typical legal analysis was, you know, talking about.
0
SPEAKER_01
Do you have an example of like one of those sort of lawsuits?
0
SPEAKER_01
Like what about it was not satisfying?
0
SPEAKER_01
Like maybe give an example or like dig into that a little bit more.
0
SPEAKER_00
In a lot of the cases, there s a moment where the court says, of course, fashion is trivial.
0
SPEAKER_00
There are a couple of cases where they actually say just overtly, of course, this is trivial and not worth the attention of the courts, except for the fact that it coincides with discrimination on the basis of race or religion or a freedom of expression claim.
0
SPEAKER_00
But the presumption that fashion was trivial in and of itself always rubbed me the wrong way.
0
SPEAKER_00
And I thought, you know, you re not going to get a good analysis if you begin with the proposition that what everyone cares about is trivial.
0
SPEAKER_00
So that struck me as wrong.
0
SPEAKER_00
Here s one case in particular.
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SPEAKER_00
Uh, there was a case involving an African American woman who had, uh,
0
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locks and the employer had a dress code against unprofessional hairstyles.
0
SPEAKER_00
And so it said that hairstyle is unprofessional.
0
SPEAKER_00
You have to change your hairstyle.
0
SPEAKER_00
Now, the way the courts typically would analyze that would be to say, well, is the hairstyle part of her race?
0
SPEAKER_00
If it s part of her race, then maybe she has a legal claim.
0
SPEAKER_00
But if it s not part of a race, then it s just a workplace rule and you ve got to change your haircut.
0
SPEAKER_00
But what they left out was all the ways that that hairstyle might be important to her that weren t directly about race, might have been indirectly about it, but also the way it would be, they didn t care about the fact that it would be impossible for her to change her hairstyle and put it back because of the nature of that hairstyle.
0
SPEAKER_00
They didn t think about the fact that what they were really talking about wasn t
0
SPEAKER_00
Just you have to show up for work with a different hairstyle But you ve got to change your hairstyle permanently because that hairstyle can t be switched back and forth.
0
SPEAKER_00
Yep Just kind of went right over the head of the court And so there are a lot of cases involving things like that where they just seem to not get it.
0
SPEAKER_01
I guess That is sort of part of the problem is this
1
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sort of misunderstanding of what fashion and I guess identity as a whole really is.
1
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Like I think, I guess, and this can even just be a personal opinion,
1
SPEAKER_00
How important is it that we protect our, you know, our fashion choices, our choices with our hair, our choices with our makeup?
1
SPEAKER_00
How important is that?
1
SPEAKER_00
And is there any moment when we should be like, okay, I guess, I guess I have to change it.
1
SPEAKER_00
Like, you know, what sort of, there is no manual for life, but what is sort of your ideal
1
SPEAKER_00
What s the mantra?
1
SPEAKER_00
What s the, you know what I mean?
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
1
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I m not against all dress codes.
1
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So I think there are times when the dress code is perfectly reasonable.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s necessary.
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People should just comply with the dress code.
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But I think that what people don t get, it s what you re getting at with why is it important to the individual and why is it not trivial?
1
SPEAKER_01
And when you need to navigate the world and maybe it s assert authority, maybe it s assert competence.
1
SPEAKER_01
Um, the way you come across matters, how you feel in your own skin matters.
1
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And I think people who don t understand that are usually people who
1
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almost always feel comfortable because the norms and the rules are set up for them.
1
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So they ve never confronted a situation where someone says, you know, something that is kind of central to your identity is banned.
1
SPEAKER_01
So a lot of the, in the book, I try to talk about examples, a lot of them involve women, where the dress code is really working against their ability to do their job or to be successful at something.
1
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You have to wear this outfit,
1
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And that outfit s going to make it psychologically or symbolically really hard to accomplish what you want to accomplish.
1
SPEAKER_01
So your clothing s working against you.
1
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And that s a problem that only certain people face in certain circumstances.
1
SPEAKER_00
the history of women s fashion, because I think it s so fascinating.
1
SPEAKER_00
And there s so much, I think we all just think of the corset.
1
SPEAKER_00
And we just, and you know what?
1
SPEAKER_00
Sometimes my stylist still puts me in a corset and it s fashion and we hate it.
1
SPEAKER_00
And every time I put one on, I m like, how in the world did women wear this every day?
1
SPEAKER_00
Like I m grumpy when I m in a corset for like a photo shoot or something.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s a nightmare.
1
SPEAKER_00
Anyway.
1
SPEAKER_00
Little women s fashion history, what are the key points?
1
SPEAKER_01
So I guess the key point I d begin with is that there s a moment in history where men s and women s fashions, or a couple moments actually, where they diverge in really important ways.
1
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So one of them is in the late Middle Ages or early Renaissance.
1
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And there s a moment when fashion starts to really take off.
1
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Tailoring becomes a big deal throughout Europe and it s happening for men.
1
SPEAKER_01
So for a long period in history, all of the innovative fashions, the newest fashions, the sexiest fashions, they re for men, not women.
1
SPEAKER_01
So the men get all this tailored clothing, they get leggings, they can show their legs in public.
1
SPEAKER_01
You know, and the women are still in draped clothing, which used to be what everyone wore.
1
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That s an important moment.
1
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And up until about the 1700s, women s fashion is following trailing men s fashion and they re getting little pieces of what the boys got, but not everything.
1
SPEAKER_01
And the one big one is the women always have to be draped below the waist.
1
SPEAKER_01
Uh, pants are forbidden and a woman wearing pants could be subject to arrest in the middle ages.
1
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In the Renaissance, they had a crime in England called misrule.
1
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So a woman wearing pants would be liable for sexual misrule.
1
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And it was assumed that wearing pants meant that she was also engaged in other.
1
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morally objectionable behavior just for wearing pants.
1
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So this was a big deal.
1
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And so it s a big part of masculine privilege to be able to wear this fashion and an insertion of masculine power.
1
SPEAKER_01
Women
1
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are always expected to tread this tightrope between being decorative and therefore attractive to heterosexual men, but also not too attractive or not too sexy or not too wanton and alluring.
1
SPEAKER_01
And so this is just a consistent theme.
1
SPEAKER_01
So being draped below the waist is important because it signals your sexual propriety or chastity
1
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but at the same time, you re supposed to be alluring, and so all these things are going on above the waist to make the women sexier.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s real weird push-pull there.
1
SPEAKER_01
So that s the one important moment.
1
SPEAKER_01
A second one happens in the late 1700s.
1
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And it s a moment that some historians describe as the great masculine renunciation.
1
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And so the great masculine renunciation is when men start to become unfashionable.
1
SPEAKER_01
They start to reject fashion.
1
SPEAKER_01
So men used to wear, you know, brocade, jewels, makeup, you know, high ranking, very macho men are wearing makeup, eyelash curler, blush.
1
SPEAKER_01
powdered wigs, the whole works.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yet it s normal masculine fashion for elite men.
1
SPEAKER_01
Sometime in the mid to late 1700s, men throughout Europe, it starts in England and it kind of spreads, start to renounce all of that.
1
SPEAKER_01
And you get the kind of precursor to the modern suit.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s streamlined, it s sober, it s dark colors.
1
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it s a really important symbolic thing because political ideals are changing.
1
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And so rather than societies based on aristocratic privilege, you re getting the enlightenment and the norm of industriousness, sobriety, rationality, that s important.
1
SPEAKER_01
And so the clothing s starting to match that.
1
SPEAKER_01
Like I m practical, I m sober, I don t care about fashion.
1
SPEAKER_01
So this is probably familiar, right?
1
SPEAKER_01
That s the typical masculine ideal.
1
SPEAKER_01
Now, I don t care about fashion.
1
SPEAKER_01
then suddenly women are the fashionable ones.
1
SPEAKER_01
And the women have the ruffles and the brocade and the jewels and all the rest of it.
1
SPEAKER_01
So they re still in one sense kind of trailing behind in the sense that the modernized fashion is now this masculine fashion that s redescribed as not fashion at all, but just being well-dressed.
1
SPEAKER_01
And the women are frivolous and fashionable and silly.
1
SPEAKER_00
You mentioned that, you know, at one point, if a woman was wearing pants, she could go to jail.
1
SPEAKER_00
When did, like, I feel like now, we can wear, I mean, in America, we can kind of wear whatever.
1
SPEAKER_00
Like, there s really no laws.
1
SPEAKER_00
I mean, yeah, you might have dress codes at school, but I feel like now, it s, it is so vastly different, it s like,
1
SPEAKER_00
We have so much freedom now, we can wear anything.
1
SPEAKER_00
So I m curious about how we got from such extreme to such extreme.
1
SPEAKER_00
Which is amazing, happy to be here now, but there must be a lot that happened in between there.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yes, so several things happened.
1
SPEAKER_01
If we go back to the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, there were all kinds of laws about what people could wear.
1
SPEAKER_01
some historians call them sumptuary laws and they had to do with who could wear fine, elaborate clothing.
1
SPEAKER_01
It was regulated according to social rank.
1
SPEAKER_01
So you had to be of a particular aristocratic status in order to wear certain things so that people would know on site what part of society you belonged in.
1
SPEAKER_01
And you know, then those kinds of sumptuary laws start to go by the wayside.
1
SPEAKER_01
So, you know, by the 1700s, there s not much of that left, but you still have laws about public indecency.
1
SPEAKER_01
And so those kind of pick up as the strong legal prohibitions where the women wearing pants, you know, all the way up through the early 20th century would be considered indecently dressed and therefore subject to arrest for that.
1
SPEAKER_01
even though there are no comprehensive dress codes.
1
SPEAKER_01
Those kind of laws continue until either the 60s and 70s.
1
SPEAKER_01
And in the 1970s, you start to get a lot of pushback against that based on changing norms about personal expression.
1
SPEAKER_01
changing gender norms, just a lot of interesting cases involving people who were, what they called back then, cross-dressing.
1
SPEAKER_01
So wearing clothing not pertaining to their gender.
1
SPEAKER_01
And they would challenge those laws as a violation of the right to freedom of expression and as vague, what counts as male and female gender in terms of clothing.
1
SPEAKER_01
I don t understand what you re talking about.
1
SPEAKER_01
So those cases started to break down enforcement of public indecency laws.
1
SPEAKER_01
So at this point,
2
SPEAKER_01
They re pretty rarely enforced.
2
SPEAKER_01
They re still on the books.
2
SPEAKER_01
And there are still cases where these laws are enforced, you know, sagging pants, kind of that hip hop style.
2
SPEAKER_01
I mean, there s some cities that are still enforcing bans against those as either public indecency because, you know, you re showing your undergarments.
2
SPEAKER_01
They passed new ordinances banning that kind of fashion.
2
SPEAKER_01
So they re still out there.
2
SPEAKER_01
But, you know, you re right.
2
SPEAKER_01
For the most part, we re kind of past that.
2
SPEAKER_00
What do you think about, for example, you know, that rule against sagging pants?
2
SPEAKER_00
Like, that one specifically.
2
SPEAKER_00
Let s just dig into that for one second.
2
SPEAKER_00
Do you think that showing, say, undergarments is wrong?
2
SPEAKER_01
No, I don t.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I mean, a few things about that.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think that when that started, it was new and shocking and new uses of fashion are often met with moral disapproval.
2
SPEAKER_01
Always, you know, so, oh my God, she s wearing her underwear.
2
SPEAKER_01
But, you know, there was a time in which a T-shirt would be considered underwear and scandalous to wear.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
So there s that.
2
SPEAKER_01
Certainly this was racially targeted.
2
SPEAKER_01
I mean, there s really no doubt that the targeting of the sagging pants in particular was about young African-American men who were also considered to be a social threat in other ways.
2
SPEAKER_01
And that s why that was targeted.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
So there are a lot of problems with that.
2
SPEAKER_01
1000% with those kinds of laws.
2
SPEAKER_00
It must be a very challenging.
2
SPEAKER_00
battle to fight when there are, say, these sort of dress codes that are targeted, but maybe they re, they re not blatantly targeted.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s a sneaky way of targeting because it s not, it s not blatant.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like there are certain things that I think are blatant.
2
SPEAKER_00
For example, like, you know, there are certain hairstyles that say, you know, are, are traditional to, you know, whereas
2
SPEAKER_00
say sagging pants, it s like, that might be a trend within a community, but it s like, it s something that maybe everyone, it s challenging to navigate when it s not something that s obvious on paper.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like, do you see what I m saying?
2
SPEAKER_00
That s what s so challenging.
2
SPEAKER_00
When it s like, yeah, but anyone can sag their pants.
2
SPEAKER_00
I guess it s like, how has that been fought?
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, absolutely.
2
SPEAKER_01
When some of these sagging pants bands and the criticism and, you know, during the 1990s, 1980s and 1990s, the criticism was ferocious.
2
SPEAKER_01
And, you know, everyone for a while was talking about sagging pants, politicians, you know, running for president, all kinds of people talking about sagging pants, like there weren t more important issues to deal with.
2
SPEAKER_01
But, um, it was.
2
SPEAKER_01
And people of all races, by the way, which gets to your point about it being challenging to confront this because you d have a lot of black people saying, yeah, those sagging pants, they re terrible.
2
SPEAKER_01
We ve got to do something about that.
2
SPEAKER_01
So then how can you say it s racist?
2
SPEAKER_01
And I think over time, often what happens is a new style becomes mainstream because it s seen often enough in enough different contexts that people begin to get comfortable with it.
2
SPEAKER_01
So when you first have the sagging pants, the immediate association of most people is these are black
2
SPEAKER_01
gangsters who are also up to no good in a lot of other ways.
2
SPEAKER_01
And this just is the symbol of all those bad things.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then over time, people get more comfortable with, for instance, hip hop.
2
SPEAKER_01
Hip hop goes mainstream.
2
SPEAKER_01
The style starts to spread.
2
SPEAKER_01
You get athletes wearing it.
2
SPEAKER_01
You get people of different races wearing it.
2
SPEAKER_01
And after a while, everyone starts to understand that this is just another style.
2
SPEAKER_01
And it s not a symbol of a social menace.
2
SPEAKER_01
But I think people have to get used to seeing it in a lot of different places.
2
SPEAKER_01
And it s really hard to fight that idea when it first appears that, you know, oh my God, this is actually something that s quite threatening.
2
SPEAKER_00
There s so many different sort of dress codes for different things.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like there s dress codes for work, and then there s dress codes for school, and then for going out to a party, and then for hanging out with friends, and then even pajamas.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like there are so many different sort of mini little dress codes that are peppered into our day-to-day life.
2
SPEAKER_00
Do you foresee sort of different informal dress codes changing in the future?
2
SPEAKER_00
Like, and in what ways do you, would you predict?
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh, that s tough.
2
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
2
SPEAKER_00
I know.
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, it s impossible.
2
SPEAKER_00
I know.
2
SPEAKER_01
So the easy part is I definitely, there will be informal dress codes in the future.
2
SPEAKER_01
I have no doubt about that.
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SPEAKER_01
I do not think we will live to see the day when it really doesn t matter what you re wearing.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_01
I think people will care about it and there will be lots of informal expectations.
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SPEAKER_01
and they will be informally but powerfully enforced.
2
SPEAKER_01
Now what exactly that s going to look like is trickier.
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SPEAKER_01
You know, I mean, one thing you could kind of begin to parse the symbolism of certain types of clothing by looking at norms in the past and how things have evolved.
2
SPEAKER_01
So for instance, the, you know,
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SPEAKER_01
this kind of a jacket is called the sport jacket because it used to be worn for sports.
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SPEAKER_01
And so there s a pretty consistent historical trend over hundreds of years of clothing that was once sporting clothing, later becoming business attire.
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SPEAKER_01
And I think we still see that today.
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SPEAKER_01
So that like investment bankers who used to have a suit and tie dress code until very, very recently,
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SPEAKER_01
Now there s no dress code in most of these banks, but they ve all gravitated towards something called the Midtown uniform.
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SPEAKER_01
I don t know if there s an Instagram page.
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SPEAKER_01
I don t know if you ve seen it, but you know, it s a Patagonia fleece and a button down collars.
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SPEAKER_01
They all wear exactly the same thing.
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SPEAKER_00
They re everywhere in Palo Alto.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
That uniform is everywhere.
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SPEAKER_00
Yes.
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SPEAKER_01
Right.
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SPEAKER_01
There s no dress code, but they re all wearing exactly the same thing.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s true.
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SPEAKER_00
It is interesting how humans just,
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SPEAKER_00
We like to feel like a part of a community.
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SPEAKER_00
And I think that the, you know, the whole Patagonia vest and that whole uniform is, it s no more like effective than a North Face vest, but it is, that is,
2
SPEAKER_00
The uniform, it s interesting that you say that you never can imagine, like you don t think there ll ever be a time where it doesn t matter what we re wearing.
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SPEAKER_00
And that tells me that it s because it holds more value than I think we think it does.
2
SPEAKER_00
Historically, what is like the through line?
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SPEAKER_00
Why is it so powerful?
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SPEAKER_00
Like why?
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SPEAKER_00
It just shouldn t be that big of a deal when you really break it down.
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SPEAKER_00
It s like, you re just staying warm, covering up your, like, why does it matter so much?
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SPEAKER_01
I think it matters because clothing, at least since this moment that I described as the birth of fashion, when tailoring really takes off, it becomes a way in one sense to transform the human body.
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SPEAKER_01
And this was really clear in the, let s say in Tudor era England, when Queen Elizabeth I would wear these magnificent gowns and they were architectural.
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SPEAKER_01
They had shoulders that were sculpted and skirts that were
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SPEAKER_01
you know, built out.
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SPEAKER_01
And a lot of the fashion in that period of time for both men and women had these characteristics if you were in the elite.
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SPEAKER_01
And people commented that she looked otherworldly.
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SPEAKER_01
She looked superhuman.
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SPEAKER_01
And that power of fashion, I think, has never gone away.
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SPEAKER_01
So there s that.
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SPEAKER_01
And then fashion allows us to immediately
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SPEAKER_01
make associations with other periods of history, other people, other groups.
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SPEAKER_01
So you can communicate an enormous amount in a split second by what you re wearing, including communicating things that you wouldn t want to say out loud.
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SPEAKER_01
So fashion lets you do all of that.
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SPEAKER_01
And I think that s why it s extremely powerful.
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SPEAKER_01
And as long as we are embodied flesh and blood human beings, you know, until we can upload our consciousness into the cloud or something, that s gonna matter.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s so true.
2
SPEAKER_00
Do you think it s important for people to pay attention to fashion?
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SPEAKER_00
Or do you think it s sort of, like, do you think it s optional?
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SPEAKER_01
I think it s not optional when we speak of fashion in the broadest sense.
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SPEAKER_01
So when we re talking about, do you care what you re wearing?
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SPEAKER_01
I don t think that s optional.
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SPEAKER_01
And I think people who say that they don t care are, um, not self-aware or not being honest.
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SPEAKER_01
I m sorry.
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SPEAKER_01
Some people will.
3
SPEAKER_02
be upset at me for saying that, but I don t I don t buy it.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_02
I think that they may dress to look as if they don t care about fashion.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
And that is that is also a choice.
3
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
3
SPEAKER_00
Well, that s a great point.
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SPEAKER_02
For example, like Mark Zuckerberg wears a great T-shirt, you know, really famous example.
3
SPEAKER_02
And
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_02
People would say, you know, come on, fashion doesn t matter.
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SPEAKER_02
Look, you know, the CEO of a billion dollar multi-billion dollar corporation just wears a great t-shirt.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_02
But when you hear what he says about why he said something like this, it s not a direct quote, but I wear this great t-shirt because if I wasted my time thinking about trivial things like fashion, I wouldn t have time to do my job to be the best CEO of Facebook.
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SPEAKER_02
And I would devote all my time to that.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yep.
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SPEAKER_02
So what s the great t-shirt now?
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SPEAKER_02
Is it a matter of indifference?
3
SPEAKER_02
No, it s a symbol of the work ethic.
3
SPEAKER_02
Right.
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SPEAKER_02
And so if you re not wearing a great t-shirt, if you look like you care about fashion, that suggests you re wasting your time on trivial things when you should be working.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_02
And people actually said that.
3
SPEAKER_02
So when she was then the CEO of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer,
3
SPEAKER_02
Got a Vogue fashion spread.
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SPEAKER_02
You know, she s a fashionable young woman.
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SPEAKER_02
Of course she s going to do it.
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SPEAKER_02
It s lots of fun.
3
SPEAKER_02
People in Silicon Valley said, look at her.
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SPEAKER_02
She looks like she s going to a party or on vacation while everyone else is working.
3
SPEAKER_02
So people do care, you know, and there s just another, it s like an inverted dress code at this point.
3
SPEAKER_02
If you look like you care, now that s a problem.
3
SPEAKER_00
what would you say to people who get really, like, I m remembering even like Miley Cyrus, for example, when she came out and all of a sudden she s like, you know, wearing really revealing clothes and like, you know, whatever.
3
SPEAKER_00
And everybody was up in arms, like as though she killed their family.
3
SPEAKER_00
What are your thoughts on that?
3
SPEAKER_00
Like what,
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SPEAKER_00
People get really just angry about what other people wear.
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SPEAKER_00
Number one, why do you think that is?
3
SPEAKER_00
And number two, is that healthy or no?
3
SPEAKER_00
I think it s no, but I wanna hear you elaborate.
3
SPEAKER_02
I think it s often unhealthy and I would say I think it s, sometimes it s inevitable and sometimes people dress in order to provoke a response and then it s not surprising that they
3
SPEAKER_02
are successful in doing that, but I think that often it s unhealthy, particularly when it s directed at women.
3
SPEAKER_02
So I m gonna come back to this point about the way women are forced into catch-22s around their attire constantly and criticized no matter what they do.
3
SPEAKER_02
And so I think a lot of women
3
SPEAKER_02
when they dress in a way that might be considered provocative, are trying in an odd way to take control of the gender norms around clothing.
3
SPEAKER_02
You know, that they ve lived their lives being
3
SPEAKER_02
pushed and pulled in these directions.
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SPEAKER_02
Either you re too frumpy or you re too sexy.
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SPEAKER_02
Your outfit s boring or it s slutty.
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SPEAKER_02
It s back and forth.
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SPEAKER_02
And they re just like, I m just gonna wear something where there s just no argument about it.
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SPEAKER_02
And call me what you want.
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SPEAKER_00
Do you think that it works?
3
SPEAKER_02
That s a hard one, yeah.
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SPEAKER_02
I think it can work for some women if they are ready for the reactions, but I do think that often it doesn t work because you don t opt out of the judgment.
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, that s- It s also not for you at the end of the day.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s still not for you.
3
SPEAKER_02
Right.
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SPEAKER_00
You know, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
It s like, I think that that s what s so unfortunate about is that it s like,
3
SPEAKER_00
It s almost like, you know, you can t win, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
Because it s like, if you, you re like, you know what, this is like an, I wanna empower myself, so I m gonna go ahead and do this.
3
SPEAKER_00
But then, that doesn t do it either.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s almost like, I think, ultimately, to set yourself free, and maybe it s not this simple, but I m curious to hear your thoughts.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s like, maybe to set yourself free,
3
SPEAKER_00
you have to do something that s just completely a reflection of your personality, whatever that is.
3
SPEAKER_00
So it can t, not any extreme necessarily, but it must just be the truest representation of you.
3
SPEAKER_00
So it s like if somebody s dressing as an act of rebellion, but then they re like, oh, this doesn t even feel like me, then it doesn t work.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s almost like the biggest act of rebellion is to dress however what is the most truly
3
SPEAKER_00
You maybe?
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SPEAKER_00
I don t know.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, it s so, I hear what you re saying about how- It s like there s nowhere to win.
3
SPEAKER_02
Right, that you re reacting, so if you re reacting to something that you re not in control, you re now in a responsive posture to some other thing, patriarchy, whatever, the male gaze, all of that.
3
SPEAKER_02
And I do think people are often buffeted back and forth by that kind of thing.
3
SPEAKER_02
I mean, I would
3
SPEAKER_02
love it if there were a way for people to dress only for themselves.
3
SPEAKER_02
But I have to say, I m skeptical that that s possible.
3
SPEAKER_02
I think- I agree.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I completely agree.
3
SPEAKER_02
I think one is always dressing for other people and to communicate something.
3
SPEAKER_02
And maybe the only- True.
3
SPEAKER_02
To the extent it s a solution, solution is to recognize that and decide what you want to say, decide what you want to communicate with your clothing.
3
SPEAKER_02
Now that doesn t solve, that doesn t help women out of the catch 22.
3
SPEAKER_02
And I think that s a matter, honestly, of political activism.
3
SPEAKER_02
I mean, that s a case where there needs to be sustained
3
SPEAKER_02
pushback against unfair gender expectations around clothing.
3
SPEAKER_00
What do you, what do you think about sort of the way that we re consuming fashion today compared to how we used to consume fashion, you know, a few hundred years ago?
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, it s definitely different because it used to be like what you d buy
3
SPEAKER_00
a new pair of shoes every five years?
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, who knows?
3
SPEAKER_00
Like, how is the way that we consume clothes different back then versus today?
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I think it s obvious, but I m curious the sort of details of that.
3
SPEAKER_02
For a long period of time, any
3
SPEAKER_02
fashionable clothing was custom made and therefore very expensive and only available to the elite or people with lots of money.
3
SPEAKER_02
So you get mass produced clothing in the 1800s.
3
SPEAKER_02
The Brooks Brothers suit is one of the first examples of mass produced clothing.
3
SPEAKER_02
So now you re not going to the tailor and having something made.
3
SPEAKER_02
You can buy it in a catalog.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s cheaper.
3
SPEAKER_02
Europeans commented on the way Americans were also well-dressed because this was the first country where you had this mass-produced cheap clothing everywhere.
3
SPEAKER_02
Everyone s wearing a nice waistcoat.
3
SPEAKER_02
So one person said a mob in the United States is a mob in silk waistcoats.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_02
because the rabble can afford this.
3
SPEAKER_02
Shoes were still really expensive, so you mentioned shoes, and that s where the term well-heeled comes from, because you know you re rich if you ve got nice shoes.
3
SPEAKER_02
Those weren t easily mass-produced.
3
SPEAKER_02
And so our real disposable attitude toward clothing, I think is pretty recent.
3
SPEAKER_02
And that disposable attitude for everybody, as opposed to just the,
3
SPEAKER_02
very, very wealthy, fashionable set who would have a new, you know, follow the new spring fashions and what have you, but it s a tiny sliver of the population.
3
SPEAKER_02
Now, almost everybody can do that if they go to some fast fashion store where they re copying the high fashion clothing at a very low price point.
3
SPEAKER_02
And, you know, as to how I feel about it, there s a lot of waste involved.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s not great for the environment.
3
SPEAKER_02
In fact, the fashion industry is one of the larger contributors to environmental pollution and degradation.
3
SPEAKER_02
And the labor practices used in some of this cheap clothing are appalling.
3
SPEAKER_02
So there s an argument that it would be better
3
SPEAKER_02
Both in terms of social justice and in terms of environmental health if we had a different attitude toward fashion where we kept things longer.
3
SPEAKER_00
I know I m so about that right now where I m like.
3
SPEAKER_00
Buy one really good thing instead of five really shitty things.
3
SPEAKER_00
Go in like, you know, and make it a part of your uniform in a way and like, you know, have fun with accessorizing and like do other things.
3
SPEAKER_00
I, because I was such a consumer, you know, I was like, I love fashion, I need to have
4
SPEAKER_00
everything this is the cheaper option like in high school I was ordering fast fashion stuff all the time I you know then eventually I found thrift shopping and I was like this is actually more fun and then because thrifting was not cool when I was little and then now going to the thrift store is like cool isn t that wild yeah it was not that way when I was a kid I actually do think it s kind of cool though that now
4
SPEAKER_00
It almost feels like fashion is less about, it s about having a cool outfit, period.
4
SPEAKER_00
People are less concerned about what brand is this, what brand is that.
4
SPEAKER_00
It is more about, at least with Gen Z, like I don t know, it s more about like just wearing a cool outfit because thrifting is cool.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s almost like a weapon now to be like, I thrifted this, you know?
4
SPEAKER_00
So it s interesting to see that it s becoming almost in some ways
4
SPEAKER_00
more of something to brag about when you got something for a deal and it s cool and I still look cooler than you.
4
SPEAKER_00
Like that s the flex now.
4
SPEAKER_00
But maybe that s just a smaller, because I still do think that the big designer brands and all these, you know, expensive sorts of things still have societal impact.
4
SPEAKER_00
Um,
4
SPEAKER_00
But maybe we re going in a direction where it s lessening a little bit.
4
SPEAKER_00
I also think it s lessening a little bit because there s a lot of fake designer that looks pretty real.
4
SPEAKER_00
So it s like, how is anyone to know it?
4
SPEAKER_00
Do you think that designer things have less of a sort of importance now?
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
I think this is something that the big fashion brands are really worried about.
4
SPEAKER_01
And, uh, and they re spending a lot of money on lawyers to stop these fakes from circulating.
4
SPEAKER_00
I don t know how that s going to work out.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
You know, but they re, they are worried about it and it s interesting that
4
SPEAKER_01
Some of the fakes are so, some of them are so good they re indistinguishable from the real thing, even if you take it apart.
4
SPEAKER_01
Some of them are made in the same factories.
4
SPEAKER_01
So it actually is identical.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s just that the factory ran off some extra ones after they made the things for the brands.
4
SPEAKER_01
So it s an issue.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I still think the fashion brands have got a lot of
4
SPEAKER_01
cultural cloud.
4
SPEAKER_01
And it s interesting how they navigate that.
4
SPEAKER_01
So I m thinking of Gucci and their collaboration with Dapper Dan.
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t know.
4
SPEAKER_01
Do you remember?
4
SPEAKER_01
So Dapper Dan during the 80s and 90s was the hip hop tailor up in Harlem.
4
SPEAKER_01
who made clothing for, you know, artists like Eric B. and Rakim and Salt-N-Pepa.
4
SPEAKER_01
And they were, he used fake Gucci and fake Louis Vuitton fabrics to make these jackets and suits and clothing and these really cool stuff.
4
SPEAKER_01
And they sued him.
4
SPEAKER_01
You know, of course they did.
4
SPEAKER_01
They sued him for trademark infringement and they put him out of business.
4
SPEAKER_01
But now he s collaborating with Gucci.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so, you know, it s kind of come back full circle in this.
4
SPEAKER_01
So they re trying to figure out, you know, now they realize this stuff was cooler than most of the stuff that we put out officially.
4
SPEAKER_01
Totally.
4
SPEAKER_01
And we want to be associated with it.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yep.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s always been true that part of the status of fashion has been about the expense.
4
SPEAKER_01
And part of it has been about savoir faire.
4
SPEAKER_01
You know, what do you know?
4
SPEAKER_01
Do you know what to wear when?
4
SPEAKER_01
You know what s appropriate?
4
SPEAKER_01
Back in the day, it was all about the appropriateness of clothing so that you would know that someone was from the wrong social class if she wore diamonds to a garden party because a truly elegant woman would never wear diamonds except to the theater or at night and she d know to wear something else.
4
SPEAKER_01
So there was this kind of thing.
4
SPEAKER_01
But I think your thrifting example, to go back to that, it s still got a little element of that without all the class snobbery
4
SPEAKER_01
where what s cool is to know how to put together a cool outfit, not just to have enough money to go and buy out the Gucci boutique.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yep.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s almost like that s what I do love about sort of that
4
SPEAKER_00
section of like fashion right now is it is more about do you know how to put something together that s cool and feels different because it s so saturated and everyone s wearing the same thing.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s almost more about having something that no one else has.
4
SPEAKER_00
than it is about, at least in some corners of the fashion world, but yeah, it s more about that than it is about having the hottest new, you know, designer bag, because it s like, anyone can get that, whereas not just anyone can find, like, this random Betsy Johnson pair of heels from 1996.
4
SPEAKER_00
Like, you just, like, only you have those, and that s almost a currency of its own.
4
SPEAKER_00
What is sort of your wish for the world when it comes to our human relationship to fashion?
4
SPEAKER_00
Where would you like to see it change and evolve?
4
SPEAKER_00
And what does that look like?
4
SPEAKER_00
And it can also be like, I know that this needs to change.
4
SPEAKER_00
I don t know how, but just anything.
4
SPEAKER_00
The answer can be whatever you want the answer to be.
4
SPEAKER_00
But I m just curious what a bright future looks like.
4
SPEAKER_00
in your eyes?
4
SPEAKER_01
I d love to see a world where people can dress in the way that empowers them.
4
SPEAKER_01
And an understanding that you ve got to navigate and it s a social
4
SPEAKER_01
You know, fashion is a relationship with other people, so it s not all about the individual, but where dress codes and expectations and norms around fashion that are designed to produce hierarchies, that are designed to reinforce class snobbery, that are designed to
4
SPEAKER_01
put women on that Catch-22 treadmill are, those are gone.
4
SPEAKER_01
And what s left is a landscape in which people can use clothing in order to express themselves, their connections with other people in a variety of ways.
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t want to say any way they see fit, because that s not realistic.
4
SPEAKER_01
But that there are a variety of ways where people can find
4
SPEAKER_01
a way to be comfortable.
4
SPEAKER_00
Mm hmm.
4
SPEAKER_01
And and I ll throw in, you know, sustainability.
4
SPEAKER_01
So maybe better clothing, but less of it.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
Ops took the words out of my mouth.
4
SPEAKER_00
This was amazing.
4
SPEAKER_00
It was so fun.
4
SPEAKER_00
So much.
4
SPEAKER_00
Thank you.
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh, my God.
4
SPEAKER_00
I learned so much today.
4
SPEAKER_00
I learned so much.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s great.
4
SPEAKER_00
This was really awesome.