In America, are you what you wear?

0:00On all of it with me, Alison Stewart will talk about art, music, theater, literature, history, food, well, all of it. Here in-depth, insightful interviews with authors like Zadie Smith, musicians like Steve Earl, actors like Kate Winslet and Beyond. That's all of it, available wherever you get your podcasts. What's a common misconception about clothes that you wish that everyone understood? Ooh, there are so many, but I think underlying all of them is the need to trivialize it, to make it silly, to make it something that doesn't really matter, which is just a really effective way of discounting this enormous market, this huge section of laborers all around the world. And also, this what, you know, it's just talking this morning with someone who is like, I don't know how to dress anymore, because I just hit 40 and like my size is changing.

1:00You know, fashion is all about reckoning with our changing tastes, our changing bodies, the changing weather all around us, changing tastes all around us. It's how we negotiate our place in the world. And so the easiest reaction is just like, it's dumb and I don't care about it, you know, to be like, it doesn't matter. But I think at the core is if we really took it seriously, I think we value the labor behind it more, I think we value the materiality behind it more, we value the stories behind it more. So I don't think it's like the most important thing in the world, but I certainly think it's as important as food or literature or movies or anything else. Are we what we wear? That's one of the many questions at the center of Avery Truffleman's new podcast, Philosophy Club. You may know Avery from her other podcast, Articles of Interest, where she dives into the stories behind the clothes we wear. But Philosophy Club is about the philosophy behind our Sartorial choices. Every month she and her co-host Derrick Guy read the works of philosophers, theorists and writers who have laid the groundwork for us to make connections between class, clothes, and consumption.

2:04Today on the show Avery breaks down what fashion philosophy is, how it's baked into modern day discourse, and what's at the root of our need to dress to impress. Hello, hello, I'm Brittany Loose and you're listening to it's been a minute from NPR, a show about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident. Okay, so I'll say this you've always covered fashion with rigor and thoughtfulness, but you have a new podcast, Philosophy Club, and that takes that rigor and thoughtfulness like a whole new level. I mean, in it you and your co-host Derrick Guy, a man that many people know on social media as die workwear, aka the men'swear guy. I mean, somebody who has honestly in some ways chastened and schooled all of us. And I thought that was really how men's dressing.

3:06You guys read a work of classic like fashion philosophy, and then you talk about how it applies to what we work today. What was the inspiration behind this new show? Basically, I was like, yeah, I want to do a chat cast, but I want to do something in riching, I want to learn, and I really wanted to do it with Derrick. So the co-host came first, Derrick and I have known each other for a long time, and he's so knowledgeable and he's so funny and smart. And also both of us like to pretend we're like hoidy, toyty people who like to invoke a lot of philosophers. We haven't really read these guys. Cover to cover. We talk about their highlights, but we should actually read the books. Like Torsten Webblin, who coined conspicuous consumption. Like we talk about these all the time, but we're like, what are you actually actually actually say? And it's funny because you can see how a lot of these thinkers shaped our modern approaches to fashion.

4:06I mean, episode one starts in 1705. We've been thinking about our approach to buying and wearing long before the capitalist machinery around us put it in the hyper drive. Yeah, I want to actually like bear down a little bit. What you mean by fashion philosophy book? What kind of books are we talking about here? Like who wrote them and who read them? And how old are some of these books? Yeah, some of these books are really, really old. You're following an academic reader. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Derek and I did not create the syllabus and we have not read most of these. So I don't have any high. I'm not like, ha, ha, ha, you've never heard of fashion philosophy like me neither. This is all new to all of us. So it's this great book called The Rise of Fashion, A Reader. Oh, I, yeah, I've heard of that book for sure. There are like chapters about certain themes and then it goes forward chronologically. So the first chapter is about the display of rank and stature. The second is about the semiotics of dress. There's another chapter on gender and you can kind of watch the ideas about these topics over time.

5:12So this first chapter that we're on right now, the display of rank and status. The first book was, do I have it here? Yeah, Bernard Mandaville's Fable of the Bees, which I've never heard of. I've never heard of the first episode that you will call that. I've never heard of it either and I, but I enjoyed hearing you guys talk about it. Oh, thank you. Yeah, and it's so funny because once I was researching it, people are like, oh, yes, the time honored, parable, the fable of the bees. What? But it was really interesting. I mean, it was one of the first books to propose that vice is not necessarily bad and people flipped out like this was, and the logic is like, okay, virtue according to the church is you don't spend a lot of money, you dress very modestly. It's thrifty. You thrifty don't eat too much, don't enjoy yourself too much, not wasteful. And Bernard Mandaville, this Dutch guy who moved to England and made money translating fables,

6:17was like, I'm going to write a fable. And this fable is what happens if everybody actually behaves that way. And he's like, the economy would collapse. He's like, it's very bad. And the thing that actually keeps everybody employed and keeps everybody busy and everybody doing their part in society is that everybody has vices. And it's like an interesting argument with a lot of flaws, but I kind of see where he's going with it. Well, I mean, I want to talk about this a little bit more. I mean, listening to your show, one of the things that released it out to me is just how timeless some of the observations are in old fashioned philosophy books or essays. Like in the first episode, obviously, you are discussing the fable of the bees. And I mean, he's kind of making the argument that like society's kind of held together actually by greed at envy and competition. Yeah. I mean, what he's saying in this book is not that far off from how I think many people see the world right now.

7:18Like what has it been like to see the parallels between these centuries old texts in the way that we talk about fashion or even talk about the world today? Yeah. Yeah. You can really feel the struggle that everyone is wrestling with, especially today, is like, well, what do I want? And is it good? Is it because other people want me to want it? Yeah. And you know, how much can we actually reach for a better society? Or are we trapped in this one? I mean, Mandaville would argue that we are trapped in this one. And there's like no room for improvement. And the bad society is actually the good society. I mean, he even has a line that's like, we even need the criminals, because how would the police be employed? It's like, oh my god. Like he really, he's like, we all have a role in this like flawed society. And there are parts of it that I love. It's like, okay, embracing the world as it is, that's kind of beautiful. But it doesn't really allow for like larger, larger degree of change.

8:20And I mean, you can even see this playing out in like liberal versus conservative city arguments today. Like, do we need police? Like, should we have like drug rehabilitation centers? Like, how can we facilitate or curtail vice? And you know, like, this is good for business. Yeah. Or it's bad. You know, these these moral arguments versus these commercial arguments. But I mean, right now I'm reading Voltaire and Russo. And Voltaire was really into like, I love society. I love luxury. Luxury is great, which you very much see as the sort of Instagram influencer. Like, treat yourself. You deserve it. Little treat culture sometimes. Little treats everywhere. It's everywhere. It's like very much Voltaire. And then you have his nemesis, Russo, who's like, you have to disconnect from desire. Like, that's the set of people like bricking their phones and you know, going on by nothing challenges.

9:20Like, we see these same philosophies of what is the right way to live over and over again. It's these really, really fundamental questions. And it all ties back into what do we buy? What do we wear? How do we communicate our status to other people? We're going to take a quick break. But first, if you're a long time listener or brand new to its been a minute, be sure to come back every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday for brand new episodes. And did you know you can make it even easier to get new episodes by hitting the follow or subscribe button on your favorite podcast app, whether you're a new friend or a loyal bestie, join the team by subscribing today. Coming up after the break. Unfortunately, I think clothing should be expensive. I know that's controversial, but I think clothes should be worth a lot of money. I think they should be precious. Stick around.

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11:23Women become ourselves after 50. We drop a lot of baggage and really become much more of true selves. Find it on the NPR app or wherever you listen to Fresh Air. I wonder in a lot of the texts that you're reading, some of these people are of, right, the upper classes, or they are primarily focused on the upper classes. I will be the first to say that the upper classes, especially the United States, are not necessarily the most stylish people, nor do true fashionable trends originate with them. I think in a way that a lot of people think they're usually adopting a trend that somebody else from lower classes already worked over to death, right? But still, there is so much that's valuable in thinking about and looking at how they're addressing and what they're trying to communicate, what they want to say about themselves, what they want us to think about them. I mean, I've been thinking a lot about the idea that, like, you've heard this phrase, I'm sure, before, wealth whispers.

12:29The idea that the super wealthy, even people who might be considered more like tech new money billionaires, like a Mark Zuckerberg or something like that, they're always super dressed down. Teachers and jeans, or even if those teachers and jeans are really expensive, right, they're still expensive, they could be expensive, but they still look very low-key. They look very casual. I don't know, I feel like recently, it also feels like in some ways, like the mask is sipping a little bit, you know what I mean? Yes, definitely. Like, Mark Zuckerberg himself kind of startled the masses when he began addressing differently, wearing a big gold chain, which for someone of his previous style, the gold chain was attention grabbing, okay, for a lot of us. Like, I said, startled the masses, or even I'm thinking about someone like, obviously Jeff Bezos has kind of switched up the way he dresses, or in Sanchez, his wife. I mean, she has been seen at Fashion Week, and she has been styled by Law Roach, who's like, you know, the tippy-tippy top of the A-list celebrity stylist. It seems like they want us to look at them.

13:29What do you think that's about? And are there any fashion philosophers that you've read from the past, whose work you think could kind of get at that? Oh, that's such a good question. You know, Mark Zuckerberg is a great example because he started getting really into watches, and just going ahead and buying like the rarest most expensive watches, you know, and not really sort of whale out of the ocean. Totally, and not like working his way up. You know, like start with a normal status symbol. Don't just like get the most amazing thing. But I think, you know, especially this new money, they're like competitive people, and they love to prove they're on top. And I do think this is a part of why people buy what they buy is to show status and be like, I am someone. I have this thing that everybody else desires. The next episode is going to be about Lord Chesterfield's letters to his son. Lord Chesterfield was a Lord in England, and in this time, it's so funny to remember how government used to work.

14:33He like inherited his father's position, but all of his letters to his son. Like, did you ever see, did you see death of a salesman? Oh, maybe I watched Brian Danny. He played it like on PBS a long time ago. But like the character in death of a salesman, Willie Lohman, he's like, he's all about how like you got a charm people and people like you. And that's the most important currency in the world. And that's what this guy is saying to his son, but a huge part of it is he's like, you got to dress the part. You got to make people respect you. You got to like put on the right airs. And I do think at the end of the day, that is like Mark Zuckerberg trying to get people to be like, look, look at me. Like appreciate me. I have this like right. Cool, right? Like check me out. I'm worth something. And honestly, I think that's so much of why people wear luxury and status symbols is to feel like they're being taken seriously. You know, getting a getting a seat at the table, I think it was John Adams who read Lord Chesterfield's letters and was like, this is ridiculous.

15:40Like it was very at the time it was very un-American. And now we're living in this new sort of monarchy. Yeah. Where there's such a rigid social hierarchy, you can kind of dress yourself in the right trappings and ascend up. I mean, you can see it done so easily and people like George Santos, you just dress the right way. You wear the right things. And then you are, you like it's like, you just be the guy and then you are the guy. But that's also so uniquely American though, you can kind of you can decide to make yourself over something. You have someone like a Kim Kardashian, for example, you can already be a public figure with one specific type of public profile. Change the way that you style yourself and then ascend to something completely different. The reverse is also possible obviously, but the person that they had to move here, you know, and a sort of had to become an adult. She's somebody who got caught being a scammer, but then people were so charmed by her story and by her attempt at defrauding rich people. And her attempt at doing that through sending sometimes very mixed messages with her styling.

16:44It's now actually given her the resources, the attention that she needs to be able to actually become in a way like the kind of person that she was always pretending to be. A totally, totally. I mean, you know, the funny thing is when, and it's sort of this weird inverse of what the American experiment was supposed to do, you know, America invented ready made clothes. But it's really interesting because when Alexis de Toqueville first visited America, he was like, this is wild. You can't tell what class anyone is. Like the cousin Europe, the poppers wore rags and the rich people wore jewels and there were sanctuary laws. And he was like, here anyone could be anyone. And that's where the idea of the American con man came from, like the confidence man. And you know, you like move, you move to a city away from anyone you knew and someone dressed kind of nice comes up to you and acts all friendly. Why wouldn't you, you trust him? And so the funny thing is that was that was considered the downside to our new sort of middle class society where the president's dress like the small business owners, you know, like we're all, we're all one.

17:54And especially as the semiotics have gotten so mixed up, how has reading these kinds of texts? Like how has it changed how you, not just how you view fashion today, but how you view like your work as a fashion journalist. Oh, these are such good questions. I mean, I think it's really helpful to remember how foundational all of these conversations are that they weren't brought about because of fast fashion or the internet. These are the need to follow fashion is something that you even see in the animal kingdom. You know, do you have you been following like the orcas who wear the hats? No, oh my god. I'm going to look this up. I'm going to look this up because I need to see this orcas. They were salmon hats salmon as hats and then others following me. That's cute. So cute. They're just been cute for no reason. And that's the thing. They're following each other. They're like, that's a fun idea. And then they'll do that too.

18:54And I think ultimately like part of so much of these texts are about like, how do we interact in society? What do we owe each other? You know, how do you assert your individual difference while respecting everyone around you? And that's something we navigate a lot with clothes. And so I think there's so much pressure especially now in an atomized society to be like, I'm an individual. I don't dress like anybody else. But like, of course you dress. You dress appropriately to the area in which you live and the neighborhood in which you live. And when you see someone who's cool, who you admire, whether it's someone on the subway or someone who, you know, you're looking back in old fashion books and you think they're cool. Like you think someone is interesting and you copy them. It's it's mimetic. It's very, it's very sweet. But it's so it's interesting to think about it as like a society, a question of how we engage with society. And it's also interesting to realize that people have been putting very, very, very, very, very serious thought into this as they consider, you know, in the lead up to the French revolution.

20:01And kind of this era that we're in now of like how much excess, how much can specuous wealth is too much. When do we when do we need to reassess? So I guess that's a way of saying that the way we dress is a very much a societal dilemma. And it's a personal dilemma. But it doesn't mean that society itself is like this large entity that can't be changed. It's very interesting to see philosophers right about the way they think we should reconsider society or change society. And it's emblematic in the clothes that people wear like what kind of society we want will be seen in the way that people dress. We've been talking about these other philosophers and their ideas about fashion. What is your fashion philosophy? Unfortunately, I think clothing should be expensive. I know that's controversial.

21:01Controversial. But I think clothes should be worth a lot of money. I think they should be precious. I think, you know, as a survivor of a sewing class, you know how much work goes into them. Yes. And I think that is also a societal question of valuing labor and the pride of work over thoughtless, easy consumption. And I think clothing should be purchased one at a time and really valued. And in terms of a larger philosophy, I really don't have any philosophies of the way people should dress. Let me make it clear. I do not enjoy overpaying for clothes. I do not like paying an absurd amount of money for clothes. But I just want to compensate in labor and equipment.

22:25My favorite thing about clothing is how fun it is to look at. That's my favorite thing on the subway or in an airport or in a concert. Just people watching being like, what is everybody wearing and really looking at the common threat, being like, what colors is everybody wearing? Nowadays it is like what tattoos does everybody have, what everybody's nails, what is going on. And I think in the same way that people like mushroom hunting or bird watching as little tricks to understand nature and to like gamify it a little bit, it just makes every day a little bit more exciting and a little bit more of a game to be like, look at these patterns, look at these clothes, what is going on. And I think just by observing it, you learn a lot. I have one last question. What advice do you have for someone who wants to read more rigorously about fashion or clothing and doesn't know where to start?

23:27The two books by Dana Thomas, Gods and Kings and Deluxe really tell everything about the current state of fashion, like LVMH and the rise of LVMH and John Galliano. And Alexander McQueen and they're fantastic. And then the two books by Terry Agons love her, the death of fashion. Oh, you mean the end of fashion by Terry Agons, great book. And I got hijacking the runway. I think those also paint a very complete picture of like if you read those four books, you understand the modern fashion system and they're also so fun and like easy to read and they're like by two icons. So those are my books. Amazing. Amazing. Avery, thank you so much. It's so good to talk to you and I thank you for bringing us along to your public learning journey. I'm so grateful. Thanks for coming along with me. That was the host of articles of interest and philosophy club Avery Troubleman.

24:27This episode of It's Been a Minute was produced by Alexis Williams. This episode was edited by Nina Patuck. Our supervising producer is Sheriff Vincent. Our executive producer is Barton Gurdwood. Our VP of programming is Yolanda Sanguini. Alright, that's all for this episode of It's Been a Minute from NPR. I'm Brittany Luce. Talk soon. I haven't seen my son since 2012. This is Deborah Tice. The disappearance of her son Austin is one of the biggest missing person cases in the world. What do you want from me? Why should I solve the mystery? I know that my son is somewhere alive. Listen to Where is Austin Tice from NPR's Embedded and BBC Radio 4 on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. This week on Weight Weight Tell Tell Me we talk with our panel Joyel Nicole Johnson, Peter Gross and Tick Nattaro about the new trade war with Canada. I can't imagine maple syrup being any more expensive like it costs as much as a car.

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