0:00

So what we're going to do first is

0:02

we're going to look at a tweet that you are

0:04

familiar with because you wrote about it. So I'm going

0:06

to put the tweet in our little chat here. This

0:11

is a retweet of a

0:14

picture from Film

0:16

Updates. It's

0:19

a picture of Billy Crystal

0:21

in like a big, luxurious, white sweater

0:24

and jeans and like white

0:27

dad sneakers. His

0:29

like iconic outfit from When Harry

0:32

Met Sally. And then next

0:34

to him is Ben Schwartz doing

0:36

a similar look. And

0:39

the comment is from a user named

0:41

Ellery Smith. And it says, the quality

0:43

of sweaters has declined so greatly in

0:45

the last 20 years that I think

0:47

it genuinely necessitates a national conversation. What

0:50

do you spot immediately when you're looking

0:52

at the differences between the two? The

0:55

biggest difference. I mean, there's a lot of

0:57

like aesthetic differences here. I think Ben did

0:59

sort of a half-assed job of this,

1:01

if we're being totally honest. But

1:03

the biggest difference is what

1:06

Ellery refers to in her

1:08

tweet is that the sweater that

1:10

Billy Crystal is wearing from

1:12

Harry Met Sally is just this sort

1:15

of like voluminous, fluffy, comfortable

1:17

looking, thick, like richly cabled

1:20

sweater. And then Ben next

1:22

to him is wearing a

1:24

sweater that, first of all, has a different cut.

1:26

It's cut much closer to the body. It doesn't

1:28

have like the volume or the heft of

1:31

Billy's sweater. It has a bunch

1:33

of cabling on it, but everything about

1:35

it just looks sort of like thin

1:37

and flat and sort

1:39

of less rich compared to the sweater

1:42

that Billy was wearing. It's just

1:44

a worse sweater, honestly. This

1:48

is the Culture Study Podcast and I am

1:50

Anne Helen Peterson. I'm Amanda Malt. I'm a

1:52

staff writer at The Atlantic. We are

1:55

talking about clothes and all of their

1:57

very crappiness and moment

4:00

until they actually read that right so like I was

4:02

reading your article and I was like oh

4:05

my gosh my sweater is filled with

4:07

like weird stretchy material

4:10

that is like similar to stretchy

4:12

jeans like I didn't even think

4:14

deeply about it I'm looking

4:16

actually at my closet right now and right

4:18

next to one another there are two mint

4:21

green J. Crew sweaters one

4:24

of which was purchased for me as

4:26

like my big Christmas present from my

4:28

granddad in 2000

4:31

still going strong and

4:34

then the other one is a sweater from J. Crew purchased

4:36

two years ago that like

4:39

I kind of like because it's very resilient and

4:42

it's not really pilling too much but

4:44

it is it feels like it's from

4:46

a different company altogether different price points but

4:49

I think they probably in adjusted

4:52

dollars are probably kind of similar

4:54

but like you can see that

4:56

contrast even across the the trajectory

4:58

of one company right

5:01

like if you look at clothing

5:03

made in the early 2000s

5:05

or before versus clothing

5:07

made now you you genuinely get a lot

5:09

of differences even from like sort of a

5:11

surface level appraisal of that

5:14

clothing I when I go

5:16

home to visit my family my mom still

5:18

is in the house that like I grew

5:20

up in so there's still you know artifacts

5:23

of my high school wardrobe and my college

5:25

wardrobe in there and you know

5:27

you go through that stuff you look at

5:29

it you try to figure out like is there anything that

5:31

I would like to keep from this like is there anything I should bring

5:33

back to New York with me and I

5:35

always look at fiber tags because this is

5:37

just something I'm interested in and it's amazing

5:39

to me how often I will look at

5:42

a tag of a sweater from Old Navy

5:44

or from the Gap or something like that

5:46

from that era and it is like a

5:48

hundred percent wool or it's wool

5:50

and cotton or something

5:52

like that and it's all natural fiber and you

5:55

go to those same retailers today and it's just

5:57

very very difficult to find something that's not at

5:59

least part nylon, part

6:01

acrylic, part polyester, part viscose, something

6:03

like that. And

6:06

20 years ago when I was in high

6:08

school, it was just so, so much easier

6:10

to find those garments at like a really

6:12

reasonable price tag. J.Crew is a great example

6:14

of that. And I think that J.Crew is

6:16

among the retailers that is trying to get

6:18

back to like a more natural fiber based

6:21

inventory as we currently speak. And they've made some

6:23

progress on that in the last like year or

6:25

two, I think. But once

6:28

so much of the garment trade

6:30

moved to manufacturing overseas in poorer

6:32

countries, a couple of things

6:35

happened. The first thing is that

6:37

you're hiring from a workforce that you don't

6:39

want to pay very much and that you

6:41

don't want to train very much.

6:43

You just want to pump as much product out

6:45

of these people's time as they can

6:47

possibly make. So you

6:49

get workmanship that's not as good. You get

6:52

corners that are cut. You get people who

6:54

just do not have like the long term

6:56

skill acquisition that a more highly trained

6:58

long tenured garment worker would have.

7:02

And then you also end up manufacturing

7:04

in countries that just do

7:06

not hold you to the same environmental

7:08

standards as richer countries tend to hold

7:10

manufacturing to. So you get

7:12

countries where you can manufacture and use

7:14

a lot of synthetic materials. You

7:16

can make viscose or rayon, which

7:19

I think my understanding is that it's basically

7:22

impossible to manufacture that in the

7:24

U.S. because of environmental regulation here.

7:27

But you can manufacture it by the

7:29

ton in countries where their

7:31

government is willing to

7:34

let garment manufacturers sort of write

7:37

the regulations themselves. Is

7:40

viscose and rayon, like are they like basically plastics?

7:44

They're not plastics. Those are viscose

7:46

and rayon are interesting materials. My

7:49

coworker, Sarah Zhang wrote a really

7:51

interesting article about what all

7:53

these sort of bamboo based fabrics are and that's

7:55

how they're marketed, especially in baby clothing. Oh,

7:58

right. Right. basically

8:00

cellulose that gets extracted from often

8:02

bamboo, but other types of plants

8:04

sometimes as well. And then

8:07

highly, highly chemically treated in order to make

8:09

it soft and pliable and make

8:12

it into thread that can be used

8:14

in clothing. And the chemicals that are

8:16

required to make bamboo into something soft

8:18

and something that you want against your

8:20

body are like really incredibly caustic

8:23

and poisonous. And that creates

8:25

a lot of, you know, groundwater pollution. It's

8:27

bad for the textile workers. It's bad for

8:29

the garment workers, but it's very, very

8:32

inexpensive to manufacture. And because bamboo is

8:34

very easy to cultivate, you can make

8:36

it in really large, large quantities. So

8:39

it sort of might as well be plastic in that

8:41

way. The other thing that I really noted from your

8:43

article was the point that like, even

8:46

places that are selling like the Instagram

8:48

high end sweater, you know, like the

8:50

$300 Cézanne sweater,

8:53

I was like, certainly those

8:55

will be fully natural fibers.

8:57

And I went to the website and looked at the

9:00

most beautiful sweaters. It's like, nope, not

9:03

at all. Nope. Anybody who's manufacturing at

9:05

a really, really high scale, no matter how

9:07

expensive their products are, you're

9:09

going to find these corners cut

9:12

in their manufacturing. I used

9:14

as an example in the story, this Gucci

9:16

sweater that I found on their website that

9:18

is $3,200, I believe. And it

9:22

was fully half polyester. And

9:26

like there, there are good,

9:28

there are a few good arguments from

9:30

like sort of a textile technology standpoint

9:32

and putting like a little bit of

9:34

polyester in a knit blend. Like if

9:37

it's done well, it can make a product

9:39

a little bit stronger in certain ways. It

9:41

can, it can change some of the physical

9:43

properties of the yarn in ways that like

9:45

in certain situations you might want. But

9:48

if you're looking at that large of a volume

9:50

of polyester, it's not

9:52

doing anything that you want it to do. It

9:55

is just cutting the materials cost of that sweater.

9:57

And there's no like financial reason that Gucci has

9:59

to. product.

12:00

It is not a product that its

12:02

makers want to have any discernible history

12:04

or any discernible context except for the

12:06

marketing context. All right. So

12:08

one of the questions we got is from Megan

12:11

and she says that she recently went to Zara

12:13

because she needed something last minute. And like we've

12:15

been talking about, she was shocked at how much the

12:17

quality had declined since she last shopped there. And she

12:20

wants to know, is there anything consumers

12:22

can do to actually drive change in

12:24

this area? That's a

12:27

tough question because the thing that's going to

12:29

fix the fashion industry is regulation.

12:31

It's not consumer behavior, but

12:33

I think that like consumer

12:35

behavior is also the thing

12:37

that sort of makes people

12:39

realize that regulation is possible

12:42

and that there's a interest in the electorate for

12:44

this type of regulation. So I think that like

12:47

consumer behavior is not something that like

12:49

directly affects change, but I think that

12:51

it has to change if we want

12:53

a better world, if

12:55

we want things that serve our needs better. And I think

12:58

that like that is possible. So

13:00

what I would say is that like the best

13:02

thing you can do and the

13:04

simplest thing you can do is stop buying that

13:06

stuff if you can avoid it or

13:08

just like try to

13:11

reframe your approach to clothing away

13:14

from the one that you've been

13:16

sort of socialized into by these

13:18

brands. Because like everything about

13:20

the fashion industry is sort of made up.

13:23

And like I love clothing, I love

13:25

dressing up, I love the aesthetic possibilities

13:27

of it all. But it's

13:30

important to draw a distinction between that and

13:32

the constant

13:34

treadmill of consumption that

13:37

clothing companies have convinced us we need

13:39

to be on in order to achieve

13:41

this sort of like personal expression and

13:43

enjoyment of our day to day wardrobes

13:46

and of getting dressed and of being out in

13:48

the world and presenting ourselves to other

13:50

humans. I think that those things

13:52

often get conflated, but they're not the same. One

13:55

of the best things that you can do for yourself

13:57

is to develop taste. Yep. And

14:00

to believe in your personal taste, to understand what

14:03

it is that you feel good in and what

14:05

you like wearing, and understand that

14:07

especially as you get into your 30s and

14:09

40s and beyond, the

14:12

need to adhere to trends, to

14:14

adhere to changes in expectation,

14:17

is just something that you can

14:19

opt out of in large part.

14:22

There is a certain amount of it that you can't opt

14:24

out of because clothing is a

14:26

social language and it's how we communicate that

14:29

we understand the expectations of us in

14:31

the workplace, in social situations, in romantic

14:34

situations. But I think that

14:36

there's a way that you can sort of

14:38

roll with that and still keep your personal

14:40

taste and your personal point of view intact.

14:43

And the goal of trend marketing is to

14:45

draw you further and further away from your

14:48

personal understanding of how it is that you

14:50

like to look and how it is that

14:52

you feel comfortable looking in

14:54

public. And the more that

14:56

you can do to get back

14:58

to that, to sort of understand how

15:00

your own personal relationship with clothing, is

15:03

something that you can do to resist

15:05

this sort of constant bid for your

15:08

attention from these companies and for your

15:10

dollars, too. Beyond that, I

15:12

think that when you do need or want

15:14

something new, changing your consumption patterns is possible

15:16

for a lot of people. One

15:19

of the things when I was writing my story

15:21

about sweaters that basically everyone told me that I

15:23

interviewed for that story is that when they want

15:26

a new sweater, when there's like a gap

15:29

that they would like to fill in their

15:31

wardrobe, they shop secondhand. They look on eBay.

15:33

They look on Poshmark. They look in local

15:35

thrift stores because you're going to find

15:38

older brands that are better made, that

15:40

are made out of nicer materials,

15:42

that are more likely to be 100 percent natural

15:44

fiber. And like sweater styles

15:47

don't change that much over the years. Like if

15:49

you find a good a little bit of a poofy

15:51

shoulder and then the poofy shoulder goes away, that's

15:54

like the extent. Right. And like and

15:56

there can be also I think

15:58

some aesthetic pleasure in being a. a little bit out of fashion

16:00

in that way. People respect

16:03

that, I think, more than we

16:05

expect them to. I also

16:07

think the other thing that people can do is

16:09

participate in resale a little bit

16:12

more. And whether that's on a

16:14

site like Poshmark or Consignment, which

16:17

for a lot of people it's frustrating, it's certainly frustrating for

16:19

me every time. I've ever gone

16:21

to a, what's

16:24

the name of the store? That's for cool kids,

16:26

you bring your clothes and they don't take

16:28

anything. Buffalo Exchange? Yeah,

16:30

Buffalo Exchange. But where I've found

16:32

success, and I think that people

16:35

would find success even if they

16:37

don't have a larger Instagram following,

16:40

is just by putting stuff online

16:42

and also only putting it in an Instagram

16:44

story and being like, and pricing it pretty

16:46

low, and only selling stuff

16:48

that I would be proud to

16:51

give to a friend. And that allows

16:53

me to be like, this isn't going to the

16:55

garbage, it's not going to Goodwill, where it

16:57

might also go into the garbage. There's

17:00

going to be a new home for

17:02

it. And I didn't necessarily, quote unquote,

17:04

recoup my investment, but it

17:07

has a home. It's getting a second life, it's

17:09

getting a longer life. And also having

17:12

that in mind too, when I buy stuff, is

17:15

this something that I would feel comfortable selling

17:18

to a friend or selling to someone who follows

17:20

me on social media? Then okay, that's okay. Also,

17:23

Facebook Buy Nothing groups can be great. There's

17:26

a real opportunity to take some pictures, list some

17:28

stuff in there, and people don't necessarily, they don't

17:30

pay you for it, but it goes to somebody

17:32

who looked at it and decided they actually wanted

17:34

it instead of into

17:37

a landfill or something like that. And the

17:39

friend I have who I consider the best

17:41

dressed is someone who, as long as

17:43

I have known her, she has bought and sold all of

17:46

her clothes on eBay. I

17:48

don't know if I've ever known her to

17:50

have something brand new even. She

17:52

is someone who just has incredible

17:54

personal taste, decided long

17:57

ago what she likes, and does

17:59

not really like it. really waver

18:01

when it comes to trends or

18:04

what she's supposed to be doing. And like

18:06

she's a woman in her thirties who lives in Brooklyn,

18:09

just like I am. She lives in sort of like the

18:11

trend capital of the world. But

18:13

she saves a lot of money and she always

18:15

looks incredible and she always looks like herself. And

18:18

she was doing the resale thing before the Zoomer thought

18:20

it was cool. When she

18:23

gets sick of something or decides that she doesn't have any

18:25

use for it anymore, she e-bays it. A

18:27

lot of being well-dressed and being perceived

18:29

as well-dressed is just having the courage of your

18:31

convictions when it comes to getting dressed. And

18:34

that's hard. People feel

18:36

all kinds of different ways about their bodies.

18:38

They feel all kinds of different ways about the cost

18:42

of getting dressed and how to use their money

18:44

and how they'll be perceived at work. But the

18:46

people who ultimately are thought of

18:49

by everyone as being incredibly stylish

18:52

are the people who are not as concerned with trends. And

18:54

I am here to tell you today that you do not have

18:56

to really care about trends. That

18:59

is a young woman's game, first

19:01

of all. None of us are in

19:03

high school anymore. And when you're young,

19:06

you're sort of figuring out what it is

19:08

that you feel good in. That's one reason that it

19:10

makes a lot of sense to sort of jump around to

19:12

trends because you're trying to figure out who you are. But

19:15

at this point in life, I feel like try

19:17

to be comfortable in who you've learned yourself to

19:20

be so far and try to dress that person

19:22

and not the person that Zara

19:24

wants her to be. Okay,

19:26

our next question is from Chris who did not know

19:28

that you were going to be the guest on this

19:30

episode, but he linked to your sweater piece and

19:33

he asked this. So now that we

19:35

know sweaters are mostly garbage, how

19:37

do we go about buying okay sweaters? I

19:40

wear men's tall sizes, which makes finding

19:43

sweaters even harder. Do you have

19:45

any advice for me? Okay, I think I

19:47

know what you're going to answer here, but

19:49

I want to hear your tip. What

19:51

we already discussed about looking at eBay, looking

19:53

at consignment stores, stuff like that is all

19:55

like great advice. But if you need something

19:58

new and if you are a size. that

20:00

was not commonly made in the 80s or the

20:02

90s or before, like that might be the case.

20:04

It's the case for me on plus size. What

20:07

you probably want to do is find

20:10

like smaller labels, smaller

20:13

stores, and sort of rely

20:15

on them. Yeah. The

20:17

United States is still full of

20:19

sort of like interesting, knowledgeable,

20:23

small retailers. They're

20:25

harder to find than they used to be. In

20:27

my sweater story, I mentioned O'Connell's in Buffalo,

20:29

which is a long

20:31

standing, long time menswear store in Buffalo

20:35

that has a sort of

20:38

rickety web presence in a

20:40

charming way. People

20:42

that run and work at stores like

20:44

that are excited to help out people

20:46

who have questions and who need guidance. I

20:50

have no problem believing that you could call O'Connell's and be

20:52

like, I'm a men's tall. What

20:55

do you carry in a men's tall? If you don't carry

20:57

it, where do you think I could find it? I have

20:59

no doubt believing that they'd be excited to help you out

21:01

or tell you where they think that you

21:03

can get more options. Wolf's

21:06

letters don't have to be

21:08

fantastically expensive. A lot of

21:10

the ones that O'Connell's carries cost less than $200. $200 is a lot

21:13

of money,

21:15

but a lot of retailers, J.Crew,

21:18

Gap, et cetera, that are sort

21:20

of like mid-price small retailers are going to get you up

21:22

around $100 for a sweater anyway. A lot of times, it's

21:25

going to have plastic in it.

21:28

This is the point at which

21:30

becoming a little bit more discerning

21:32

in how often you're shopping and

21:35

what it is you're buying can be useful because buying

21:38

one really gorgeous merino wool

21:40

sweater instead of three or

21:42

four random things from J.Crew or from

21:44

wherever it is that you might be

21:48

inclined to shop is going to be in

21:50

your long-term best interest. My partner,

21:52

Charlie, who's also your coworker, his

21:54

solution has been to find a

21:56

maker of Irish sweaters.

21:59

You know, like the Irish fishermen sweaters, they

22:02

look like that, like that belly crystal sweater.

22:05

And they're bulky, like they're not svelte.

22:09

That is not the word to say. But they

22:11

are amazing sweaters. And so like every two years,

22:14

he gets one. And they're what makes him

22:16

feel like him in the winter. So

22:18

it's like the perfect solution. When

22:20

you're looking at any kind of garment, I

22:22

think a good rule of thumb is to

22:24

look for garments made in places that people

22:26

need those types of garments. Scotland

22:29

and Ireland and New Zealand produce a lot of

22:31

incredible wool. They have a lot of sheep. And

22:34

they have the climates where people

22:36

need garments like the ones they're

22:38

creating. So there are still

22:40

like, you know, sort of like old

22:42

style heritage makers in those countries that

22:45

are making sort of like the old

22:48

style garments that you're not going to find

22:50

in your average online retailer. But

22:53

they're out there. And they're available. And this

22:56

is, again, one of those situations where like these

22:58

sort of like small companies

23:00

that care about the product and care

23:03

about ensuring that the product can continue

23:05

to be made for a long time

23:07

and that people understand why

23:09

it's different are oftentimes quite

23:12

willing to help you out if you need something,

23:15

if you need advice, if you're looking for something

23:17

in particular. So our next question, gosh, I just

23:19

love we have so many dude questions about

23:21

fashion. This is from someone just thinking

23:24

about care of clothing. And

23:26

his name is Ted. So

23:29

let's go for it. Why do so few of

23:31

us seem to iron our clothes or

23:34

have them professionally cleaned or laundered?

23:37

Is it a time issue, a money issue,

23:40

or some sort of deliberate statement? Gosh,

23:44

I was ironing on a

23:46

Ghostbusters logo onto my Ghostbusters

23:50

costume earlier this last month.

23:53

And I realized that that was the first time that

23:55

I had used iron in like nine months. Think

23:58

about this all the time, right? Like I love it. I

24:00

love my clothes when they're

24:02

ironed. I hate ironing. The

24:04

apparatus for ironing are so

24:07

cumbersome, but also

24:09

I live on an island. There's no such

24:11

thing as dry cleaning. And even when I lived in New

24:13

York and dry cleaning was all over the place, I would

24:15

pay to have my clothes laundered, but I wouldn't pay

24:17

for them to get dry cleaned. What are your thoughts

24:20

on why? Is it just like

24:22

the spread of stuff that's more ready to wear that

24:24

doesn't need it, but all that linen shit needs it?

24:26

I don't know. Yeah, where do we go here? I

24:29

think that part of it, this is

24:31

a question that spans several generations of

24:33

history, I think. Because I

24:35

think a lot of it goes back to

24:37

women getting jobs. This

24:41

sort of laundering and ironing and

24:44

mending and tailoring, these little care

24:46

tasks, domestic care tasks, that

24:48

go along with maintaining your clothing are

24:51

things that women did for a really

24:53

long time. And if

24:55

you go back further, making clothing, spinning yarn,

24:58

making textiles, and then making clothing out

25:00

of them was all like that was

25:02

women's work long before

25:04

industrialization. And it is

25:06

just like real work. It takes

25:09

elbow grease, you're standing up, you're

25:11

doing physically skilled labor. Ironing

25:13

things is not easy. It

25:16

takes skill, it takes experience, and

25:18

it takes the tools and

25:21

space necessary to do it.

25:23

And I think that as women went into the workplace,

25:25

a lot of those skills were not passed

25:27

down to daughters. I think

25:30

for reasons that are both sort of practical

25:33

and that are emotional, because a lot of

25:35

our mothers did not want us saddled with

25:37

that work. My mom didn't

25:39

teach me how to cook because she hated cooking and

25:41

she didn't want me stuck in a situation where I

25:43

had to cook for everybody, just because I had

25:46

been taught. That's so interesting because when I think about

25:48

it, I learned to iron, I think

25:50

I was mostly bored. And

25:53

my mom had been like sending out my

25:55

dad's shirts to get pressed. And

25:58

she said, I'll pay

26:00

you a quarter for each,

26:02

if you press each of these shirts. So

26:05

little money, but when you're a kid, you're like, yeah,

26:08

I'm super bored anyway, and I'll

26:11

learn how to do this thing. But

26:13

I think that that speaks to one, she never did

26:15

it herself or refused to do it herself. And

26:18

two, that there's like, I think a lot of

26:21

families have to do this sort of analysis of

26:23

like, well, if the shirt

26:25

has to be pressed, like if men are going to be

26:27

wearing these shirts that need to be pressed, who is going

26:29

to do it? Are we going to send it out? Is

26:31

someone in the family going to make time in their lives

26:33

to make it happen? And I also think

26:35

there's a shift in menswear that

26:37

like, there are fewer things that

26:39

need to be pressed just generally,

26:41

that that also opens up all this space.

26:44

So if you don't have a whole bunch of things to

26:46

take to get pressed to get dry cleaned, then

26:48

it disincentivizes taking that one thing. Right.

26:51

The history of clothing in modern times

26:54

is a history of casualization, where we

26:56

are less and

26:59

less put together, quote unquote, in

27:01

ways that require the sort of

27:03

precision that ironing and dry cleaning

27:05

give us. And then

27:07

also with that, and with the sort

27:09

of shift in women's labor from unpaid

27:11

to paid, you get

27:13

materials technology that sort of fills in

27:16

those gaps. And you can see

27:18

this happening in other areas of domestic work as

27:20

well with like dishwashers and washing

27:22

machines themselves and things like that, where

27:25

the sort of changing lives of

27:27

women are sort of met by

27:29

technology. There's also this like,

27:33

the materials technology has changed. Brands

27:35

are always looking for an opening to market a

27:38

new product and to develop something that might like

27:40

be marketable to a particular need

27:42

that they've sensed. So materials technology has

27:44

advanced in a way that like wrinkle

27:47

free stuff is more common. A

27:49

lot of this is because plastic is added to clothing

27:52

in some way. So a lot of things that

27:54

would have been not washable at home in the

27:56

past or that would have needed hand washing can

27:58

now be thrown in the water. washing machine, a

28:00

lot of things that would have required ironing

28:04

before now, as long as you dry them

28:06

with heat, they are much less

28:08

wrinkled. So you get just like a lot

28:10

less need to do these like particular skills

28:12

that you like might not have been developing

28:15

anyway. I have this,

28:18

this romper that absolutely needs to

28:20

be like deeply steamed and pressed.

28:23

It is sat at the bottom of

28:25

my hamper. Just like, you

28:27

know, I dump it out and then I put it back into the

28:29

bottom and then I do my laundry and I put it on it.

28:31

Like it just, I'm not kidding you

28:33

18 months. Oh, I

28:35

have. Very cute. You

28:38

know, I have felt like that too. And I live

28:40

down the street from a, from a dry cleaner. I

28:42

live in Brooklyn. Like there's places to get your dry

28:44

cleaning done all over the place, but it's just not

28:46

like a part of my routine. And

28:49

it feels like a special task. And like I have lots

28:51

of other tasks I need to do. So it's

28:54

one of those things where it's like, it's far

28:56

enough outside the realm of normalcy because the composition

28:59

of people's wardrobes have changed. The

29:01

value of any particular piece of clothing has

29:04

gone down so much. So there's, there's not

29:06

as much people own more pieces of clothing

29:08

than they ever have before. What

29:10

is the real motivator in

29:12

taking this thing to get dry cleaned and paying $10 for

29:15

it to be dry cleaned? It would only cost $30 to

29:17

begin with. And like you've got all this other

29:19

stuff in your closet. The last thing I'll say is that I

29:21

live in a house that was built in 1904 and it has tiny

29:24

closets. And like a lot of people who live

29:26

in older houses, they bitch about the closets constantly.

29:28

When really what it is, is a reflection of

29:31

the fact that like that closet was a big

29:33

closet when the people lived here before, right? Like

29:35

they were like, this is ample space for

29:38

two people's clothing. And

29:40

now I have to like lug the fall

29:42

clothes up from downstairs. And that to

29:44

me is just a testament more

29:46

than any other of how, like, as you

29:48

said, like the, the real wage comparison with

29:51

how much clothes costs, like how that's changed,

29:53

how our understanding of like how many types

29:55

of clothing that we need has changed, all

29:58

that sort of thing. Okay. So here is a great segue

30:01

to our next question, which I don't necessarily

30:03

agree with, but it's going to be a

30:05

good, like, way for us to have a

30:08

conversation. So one of the prompts that I

30:10

gave to readers when we were coming up with questions

30:13

was just this very open-ended,

30:15

why are clothes the way that

30:17

they are? And we've

30:19

gotten into the substance and the fabrication of

30:22

clothes, so I think we should talk a

30:24

little bit about style. And this question is

30:26

from Sarah. I love the recent push

30:28

to make more clothes comfortable and

30:30

younger generations embrace slash insistence on

30:33

it. But why have we gone so far

30:35

from clothing that's flattering? Why

30:37

wear leggings that show every roll and

30:39

cellulite dimple? Why wear colors that make

30:41

your skin look bad? Why are

30:44

glasses so big? So

30:47

I think this concept of flattering is

30:50

something that people have begun

30:52

the work of unpacking, but

30:55

it's almost like diet culture in

30:57

that it takes a long time to

31:00

move away from even that idea of,

31:02

like, flattering is a static

31:04

thing, right? Like, that there is such thing

31:06

as, like, this is a flattering

31:09

silhouette and this isn't like when

31:11

I talked to Heather Radke a couple weeks ago

31:13

about her book about butts, like, she did this

31:15

whole section about bustles and how you just, like,

31:17

put, like, a huge second butt on your butt.

31:20

And that was considered incredibly flattering.

31:23

So how do you think about this question

31:25

and just the general idea about flattering? And

31:27

also, I think there's a lot of millennial

31:29

stuff going on in this question, too. Yeah,

31:32

I think there is. Like,

31:34

the first thing I would say is that when

31:36

it comes to looking at other

31:38

people and deciding if what they're wearing

31:41

is flattering or appropriate or whatever,

31:43

like, you've got to kill the cop on your head. Stop

31:45

it. Like, like, just stop

31:47

it. Knock it off. It's like the

31:50

grandma on your head, too, right? Like, for a lot

31:52

of people. Yeah, you've got to you've got to kill

31:54

that voice in your head that goes, it is inappropriate

31:56

if I am presented with information

31:58

about somebody's butt. that I

32:00

don't necessarily find enjoyable. Because

32:03

when you're looking at someone who's wearing

32:06

a tank top, wearing a short skirt, something like that,

32:08

and you can see the bones in

32:10

their shoulders or their collar bones sticking out or something

32:12

like that, that is just as much visceral information

32:15

about their bodies as being

32:17

able to see someone's cellulite or being able to see a

32:19

fat roll or whatever, but

32:22

one of those is good and nice and

32:25

the other one is somehow inappropriate. Those

32:27

are just two bodies, those are just bodies different

32:29

shapes and different parts and different

32:32

compositions and one of

32:34

them is not inherently superior or more valuable

32:36

to view than the other one. And

32:39

I think flattering is like a fake concept

32:41

in so far as it is

32:43

like a negotiated collective

32:45

understanding of what we expect out

32:47

of people's bodies. So

32:50

in order for something to be flattering, you have

32:52

to know what standard you're holding it against. And

32:55

the standard often is that someone should

32:57

have a small waist and medium sized

32:59

hips and a medium sized bust and

33:01

be tall and not be too muscular

33:03

but also not be too fat and

33:06

that flattering things are things that mold

33:09

your body or negate your body

33:11

in some way toward this shared

33:13

ideal. And I

33:16

think that when you look

33:18

at something and go that's flattering, that's

33:20

unflattering, why is this person not more

33:23

ashamed of their cellulite? Why aren't they covering it up?

33:26

I think that you are assuming that everybody

33:28

has the same understanding of what they should

33:30

be trying to accomplish with their clothes that

33:32

you do and I think that that's not

33:34

true. And I think the faster we understand

33:37

that that's not true, the better because

33:40

I think it's just really, really limiting. I

33:42

feel for people who look at clothing and

33:44

look at other people and think this way

33:47

because I think it suggests a lot of

33:49

internalized shame about what they're allowed to wear

33:51

and what they are comfortable showing to other

33:53

people and what they are comfortable doing with their clothing.

33:56

But clothing is

33:58

inimaginative. thing. Clothing

34:01

is something that gives you a lot

34:03

of power to tell the world about

34:05

yourself or not tell the world

34:07

about yourself in like whatever ways you choose. And

34:11

it's a way to demonstrate your feelings about

34:13

or understanding of a particular situation you're in,

34:15

which like, you know, comes up a lot

34:17

when you're getting dressed for a wedding or

34:20

is a guest or as a ride or whatever.

34:22

Like this is this is a really powerful language

34:24

that we have. And I feel for

34:26

people who feel like they

34:29

are not allowed to like speak fully with

34:31

it or through it. Yeah.

34:34

Because that's a really limiting thing. And that's a really hard way

34:36

to look at your own body. And it's a hard way to

34:38

look at other people's bodies and look at

34:40

other people's self expression. Also

34:43

what people are reacting to in this is that

34:45

like looking

34:47

at something that is different than

34:49

what you're used to seeing is challenging.

34:52

And when I see garments that are not on

34:54

a body that are just like laid

34:56

flat in like a stock photo or

34:58

whatever, when it's something that I

35:00

am not expecting to see and something that I have

35:02

not seen in a while or like a new idea,

35:04

like I find myself going, I don't

35:07

know about that. That's a little bit much that I

35:09

don't know if that would look good. I don't know

35:11

like who that looks good on. I

35:14

think that that is a really natural

35:16

process for people when confronted with new

35:18

aesthetic ideas. And but

35:21

it's also like a real opportunity. Like whenever I

35:23

find myself reacting to something that way, I'm always

35:25

like, okay, like what what is bothering me about

35:27

this? What is totally,

35:29

totally different about this? What is rubbing me in the wrong

35:31

way? It's kind of like I used

35:33

to tell my students when I was teaching

35:35

film history, like when you're watching

35:37

something that's avant-garde, you can't think about

35:40

watching it the same way that you

35:42

would watch a blockbuster. Like the most

35:44

interesting part of watching this film is

35:46

watching your own reaction to it. Right.

35:50

And then also, I've just followed a lot of

35:52

people. on

36:00

Instagram who are doing interesting things with fashion is

36:02

almost like a normalization

36:04

process. Seeing

36:06

all sorts of people who feel really at home

36:09

in their bodies and in

36:11

the fashion that they're choosing is

36:13

like a different way of

36:18

understanding even what that

36:20

word flattering could be. Like what if flattering was wearing

36:22

clothes that make you feel like you? Something

36:24

that has always struck me as interesting in

36:26

that I don't think that people totally understand

36:29

but that I learned while working

36:32

in fashion is that people

36:34

who work in fashion and who care deeply about clothing

36:36

and who are really interested in trying

36:38

new things and who are really stylish and who

36:40

are like the person in the room where you

36:42

go like I wonder where she got that or

36:44

like I wish I could wear that. Like those

36:46

are the people in life who are the least

36:48

judgmental of other people's fashion choices. Well and

36:50

there's there's pleasure and dissonance too you know part

36:52

of this question is like why would you wear

36:54

colors that quote don't look good on you or

36:57

glasses that are so big. If you

36:59

think of fashion as more of an

37:01

experimentation and less of a how do

37:03

I look like other people then

37:06

it becomes clear like oh there's

37:08

something really fun about doing something that

37:10

doesn't work. Right and I think that

37:13

something that Gen Z has

37:15

sort of seems to embrace

37:17

that that older people people of other

37:19

generations could could stand to take

37:22

an interest in is the sort of embrace of

37:24

these like sort of

37:26

disparate slew of like aesthetics

37:29

of like cottage core or dark

37:31

academia or like whatever like these all these

37:34

entire different ways of like allowing yourself to

37:36

be a little bit costumey and be a

37:38

little bit campy and be a little bit

37:40

silly with clothing I think is

37:42

really good and healthy and fun.

37:44

I wear glasses and my favorite

37:47

glasses for a long time have been like

37:49

aviator glasses and I think of

37:51

them as like Jeffrey Dahmer glasses or Ted

37:53

Bundy glasses there was once 70s serial killer

37:55

that wore the the aviator glasses that you

37:57

look like you look

37:59

like some sort of sex criminal in them. But

38:01

it's fun. No, it seems you

38:03

look like a sex criminal, but

38:06

also you look like my fifth

38:08

grade teacher, Mr. Bearlocker, had those

38:10

glasses and they have very positive

38:12

associations for me. Yeah. And

38:15

I like it. Yeah. Things that

38:17

are purposefully a little bit ugly are

38:19

some of the most interesting aesthetic propositions

38:21

in life, I think. Because

38:23

they are what people emotionally respond to. They

38:26

are what sort of challenge you to open your mind. If

38:28

I wear the Jeffrey Dahmer glasses, am I still hot? I think

38:30

I'm still hot. So what

38:33

does everybody else think about this? Just

38:35

challenging the world to understand me as

38:37

a person who is both attractive and

38:39

a young woman and who wears the

38:41

Jeffrey Dahmer glasses. Oh, man.

38:43

That's how I think about Paul Mescal's

38:46

kind of rat tail situation that he's got

38:48

going on right now. He's like, what

38:50

if I did this? Am I still

38:52

incredibly hot? The answer is yes. Right.

38:55

And I think that there's a lot of fun

38:57

to be had there. And I think that

38:59

whether or not you want to participate in that

39:01

fun is totally up to you. You don't have

39:03

to. You can wear whatever it is you feel

39:06

comfortable in. But I would say that try

39:08

to give grace to people who are having

39:10

fun with things and who are

39:13

not taking things serious in the same way that you

39:15

are. Because

39:18

life is more fun that way.

39:20

And give yourself some grace, too. I

39:23

think giving other people grace allows you

39:25

slowly to give yourself grace as well. Yeah,

39:28

I think that that's absolutely true. And

39:31

on a material perspective, if you want

39:33

to know why stretch things are more

39:35

common, why leggings are more common,

39:37

they're easier to manufacture and easier to size. A

39:41

lot of the material reality of our clothing goes

39:43

back to fast fashion and how do you make

39:45

things that are inexpensive that can be sold in

39:48

large quantities. And adding stretch to stuff is

39:50

the fastest way to do that. All

39:52

right. So if you are a paid subscriber, stick

39:55

around because Amanda and I are going to

39:57

do advice time. We're answering a question about

39:59

how to... crop when everything

40:01

sucks. Amanda, this has been such

40:04

a delight. Where can people find more

40:06

of you if they want to find more of

40:08

you on the internet? Well, I am a staff

40:10

writer at The Atlantic. That's everything I publish goes

40:12

there. I still put my story updates on Twitter

40:14

at Amanda Mull. And I'm also

40:16

on Blue Sky under my full name.

40:18

So I have an Instagram account, but it's

40:21

private. I have some for myself. If

40:25

you're actually Amanda's friend, you get to

40:27

see lots of football updates. But

40:29

sorry, guys, it's just for

40:32

me. If you want the same amount of

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information about Georgia football that I put on

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my Instagram, you can just follow Georgia football

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at Georgia football on Instagram. And

40:40

you will get basically the same information that I

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disseminate that way. This

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