Dan Levy

Hi, come in. Welcome to Fashion Neurosis. Dan Levy.

0:08

I'm so happy to be here.

0:18

Can you tell me what you're wearing today and why you chose these particular clothes?

0:21

Well, I'm kind of in a. In a state of flux in my life right now. I'm just. I've just moved into a place here, so I had to rummage through what I had in my suitcase and I. This is a sweater from the Row. These are some leather pants from Versace and shoes from the same collection. Daria Vitale's sort of collection of Versace, which I loved. And then I suppose I'm wearing a watch from my dear friend Trevor, who gave it to me when I was very young and it was the most valuable thing I'd ever owned. Yeah.

0:26

And where are your glasses from?

1:10

These are Celine, actually.

1:12

Hedy's Celine?

1:14

I think so. Not Michaels? Ah, I can't be sure. I've had them for a little bit. I don't know. Actually, they're nice. I like the shape. I was going for kind of a monochrome thing.

1:16

Do you ever change glasses?

1:32

I change glasses every day.

1:34

Really?

1:36

Yeah, I probably have hundreds.

1:37

But are they all vaguely similar with a heavy frame, a dark frame?

1:43

No, I've started to get into wireframes.

1:48

Oh, my God, you're so daring.

1:50

Yeah, I've been a very. I've been an acetate lover for a very long time.

1:54

What does that mean?

2:01

Acetate's the. Like the plastic.

2:02

Oh, right. Okay.

2:05

I used to make glasses.

2:09

Yes, of course.

2:11

So I just. I don't know what it is. I think because I'm tied to them, I don't like wearing contact lenses. So when you have to wear an accessory every day of your life and you care about clothes, you can't. It's impossible for a single pair to. To suit every thing you wear every day. So I like to have options. I like to kind of accessorize the day's look, I guess, with the appropriate eyewear.

2:12

I think that shows incredible strength of character. Cause I could never do. I settle on something and my shifts are so microscopic, no one notices except me or.

2:51

Well, sometimes that's the best part is when you're the only one that notices.

3:04

Well, I think it shows strength of character. So I'm impressed.

3:08

I have trunks full of them. I got these custom trunks with drawers that pull out.

3:13

Oh, my God.

3:20

To store them all. Yeah.

3:21

Support for the show comes from Amazon. There are the things you can plan for a first birthday party, a movie marathon, a renter friendly Bathroom reno. And then there are the things you can never plan for. A surprise rainstorm, A Blu Ray player calling it quits. Stick on tiles that looked way better. On the package for all things planned and unplanned, Amazon has you covered. You'll find low prices on everyday essentials and last minute lifesavers. Shop Amazon and save on essentials. Save the everyday.

3:23

Love don't cost a thing, but weddings sure do. I would say every single person I go to and I'm like, so how much over budget are you right now? And I've never heard someone say they were under budget. Matrimony's rising price tag. That's this week on Explain it to Me. Find new episodes Sundays. Wherever you get your podcasts.

4:02

You're the multi award winning and instantly recognizable star of Schitt's Creek, the series that kept many of us sane during lockdown. You wrote it with your father, Eugene Levy, who also stars in the show. And you talked about creating a distance from him when you were younger and because of all the attention he attracted. And as the child of a kind of more bohemian person myself, I wondered, did you ever want him to be a more conventionally funny man?

4:31

I don't know actually. That's a great question. I don't think I've ever really thought about it. I've just kind of accepted him, I suppose for, I mean a lot of comedians are not very funny behind closed doors. I think when it's your job, you don't feel that this, that same desire to kind of perform. Some do. Someone like Marty Short is unbelievably, brilliantly, otherworldly, hysterically funny and is at all times. My dad is somebody who I think is quite serious a lot of the time, but would weaponize the humor. Growing up whenever he needed us to laugh in times when we were quite angry with him.

5:10

God, it's so interesting that because you write brilliant comedy and you, you know, you were just saying about how comedians also suffer from quite often from low mood and I wondered if that was your experience as well.

6:03

Yeah, I mean I, it depends. I mean I think if you ask my friends, they might tell a different story. But I feel like when you are, when you have to be kind of outward facing for your job. I see my personal life kind of as a, as a space to be more low key and less performative, I suppose, which I think is probably kind of boring really. I think there's something relaxing about being a boring person.

6:20

I, I love boring moments. Balm. And they're kind Of a neural reset.

7:01

Exactly.

7:09

There's this series on the Radio 4 here called the Archers, which is the most boring thing on earth. And I. I kind of medicate myself with that. And sometimes it's really exciting because, you know, it's so tiny, the things that happen. But I also, I think being a comedian and being someone who can write and be funny, you have to understand, maybe you understand the tragedy of life more deeply and that's why you can be funny.

7:09

I do. I think for me, I'm a very curious person when it comes to the tissue that exists in human dynamics. I'm so fascinated by the way that we interact with each other and how we talk to one another and what we don't say to one another.

7:41

Yeah.

8:01

And I think there's something very funny about, or at least for me, I love excavating comedy from that sort of connective tissue.

8:01

Yeah.

8:12

And often I have a preoccupation with exploring the lives of people that are at home when the door is shut. And I think particularly family dynamics. Like if we think about our families, obviously this is generalization. But I think how we operate with each other behind closed doors versus the faces we put on when we leave the house, we're generally speaking much better behaved as a family dynamic in public.

8:13

Yes.

8:49

Than I think most people are behind closed doors. We'll talk to our family members differently. The fights will be different, the disagreements will be different, the language, the tone. That's where I find the comedy, in the rawness of how we interact with people. But I think in order to understand it and be able to articulate it, I almost need to just observe it and not be involved in it. In a way going back to being the boring person when I'm not sort of working. My parents used to always. I used to be a VJ on MTV and my parents used to. I would come home after doing my work. We had a live hour of television that I would do every day and I would come to my parents house for dinner and they would always wonder what. Why they couldn't get the guy that was on TV showing up to dinner. That I was far more low key and way more interesting on camera.

8:50

So also low key is totally intriguing. So it's never boring. Boring is something very different.

9:50

My parents may beg to differ, but I think I took it always as a sign of ease when you can be disarmed and quiet. It's a sign of comfort, I think.

9:59

Well, I spend quite a lot of time on my own and I. And my mood Is very dippy. And when it's dipping down, I think if someone was here, I'd have to make a kind of thing about it. And because I'm on my own, it will just. It will just go. And I'm so glad about that because sometimes it's hard to know how to control that dip. When someone is a witness, you feel or I find I have to qualify it or indulge it.

10:13

I think that's fascinating. I've been alone a lot of my life and really enjoy it. And you do get to work through your moods because you don't have anyone to answer. So answer to. In terms of those low moments. No one's holding up a mirror to you saying, get your shit together or

10:45

even are you okay?

11:06

Are you okay? I love that my mind went straight to get your shit together and yours went to are you okay? And so you do learn in a way to like self medicate or problem solve or adjust or simply let it ride. And then I find at work, when I'm responsible for, you know, 175 to 200 people, I have to almost change or be hyper aware of the fact that I love solitude. It's a different relationship outside of just being alone.

11:07

Yeah. Yeah.

11:45

And it's tough. It's hard. I find it actually quite exhausting.

11:47

Yeah. Because there's some question in some book somewhere about how do you do you reset alone or with other people? And it defines you as some terrible personality disorder. I can't remember which one.

11:51

But mine would be, I guess with friends.

12:09

I think mine would be without friends.

12:13

But I spend a lot of time alone.

12:16

Yeah.

12:18

But I'll come home at the end of a workday and get on the phone with a friend.

12:19

Yeah.

12:23

And just talk about nothing. And I find it to be the kind of greatest palate cleanser.

12:23

Yeah. I love doing that. And what was the first piece of clothing you became obsessed with as a child to sort of compound your identity?

12:28

Well, there's the stories that have been told to me and then the memories that I have. My parents speak a about my relationship to clothes in ways that I can't remember. Apparently I would change clothes two to three times a day as a young person.

12:40

Wow.

13:04

So when I was in elementary school, so, you know, kindergarten to grades, I guess three or four, I would go to school in a. I don't know how else to describe it. It wasn't a look, but I would go to school in clothes, an ensemble of something. Come home at lunch, change, go back to school in different clothes, come home and change again. And this was a pretty consistent thing throughout my younger, like, life that I don't remember. But my parents remember quite specifically and I was quite critical of their clothes.

13:04

Interesting.

14:00

I remember my. My dad tells a story one time of he was leaving to go and work away for a few months and I. He was wearing jeans, a belt, a shirt, a tie and a blazer. And I kind of looked him up and down and I said, from the belt up, great. From the belt down, gross. And I think in my head I was looking at kind of the formality of the upper half of his body and then looking at the jeans and feeling so disrupted by the casual nature of the denim that I suppose my young brain couldn't compute the mix and matching of that time. I mean, it was the 90s, so, you know, a shirt and tie and some jeans was sort of, now I live for it. But apparently I was quite critical of my.

14:01

Did he change?

15:05

I know he has. And I also ran into him rush back into. I don't think he did change, no. I think he kind of looked at his child and said, what did I raise? But I've run into my parents, friends who I hadn't seen in a long time, and said, the last time I. I heard your voice, you were on the other end of the phone asking your parents what they were wearing at a dinner party that I was at.

15:09

God, that's so.

15:33

What a touchy, precocious little brat.

15:34

Stefano Pilati. He said that he changed a lot and he wanted his mother to change and was horrified when she came to school, not in the clothes that they'd gone shopping to buy together when he was 10 or whatever. And I think there's something wonderful about being held to your aesthetic account by your child.

15:38

I. I've always loved and appreciated what clothes do to a person. I think I've always wanted to shop. I've always. My teenage years. Part of why I started working at such a young age was to buy the clothes because my, you know, my parents don't have a real interest in fashion and I wasn't, you know, I wasn't taken shopping that often or as often as I'd like as a kid because from my parents standpoint, it was a kind of a practical exercise. And now I have a problem now I shop too much. And I think it's all kind of in reaction to the formative years of my life being not having access to something I was so fascinated by. And now that I do, and now that I have the means to kind of go out and buy these leather pants. I can't stop.

16:05

Yeah, it is such a compelling and wonderful thing. I mean, I seem to have like the opposite. I grew up with very little and had. I think I sort of got entrenched in poverty thinking, thinking I couldn't have anything. And I remember seeing this guy with a turtleneck, a black turtleneck, when I was in my teens and he said he got it from Simpsons and I thought, my God, I wonder how much it cost. Like, was it £2,000? How do you get one of the. It just seemed out of my league. I never imagined I could own anything unless it was from a jumble sale or something.

17:12

But anyway, it must have. I mean, and then to find your way into fashion, I can't imagine how much that would have inspired the creative.

18:00

Yeah.

18:13

Processes of saying, okay, well, I'm fascinated by fashion, but I don't have access to it. So you kind of need to go at it from a real fundamental place, I would imagine.

18:14

Yeah, no, I can. It sort of forced me to be more extrovert than I felt able to be. And I could do it for someone else to wear. I could have this image of someone and this is how they should look and be behind the scenes.

18:25

Support for the show comes from Amazon. There are the things you can plan for a first birthday party, a movie marathon, a renter friendly bathroom reno. And then there are the things you can never plan for. A surprise rainstorm, a Blu Ray player calling it quits. Stick on tiles that looked way better. On the package for all things planned and unplanned, Amazon has you covered. You'll find low prices on everyday essentials and last minute lifesavers. Shop Amazon and save on essentials. Save the every day.

18:52

I'm Mitch Purse, two time NWSL champion, Championship MVP and forward for the US Women's National Team. Before I went pro, I graduated from Harvard with a degree in psychology, which comes in handy more than you think. Any athlete pursuing greatness knows there's a certain mentality you have to have. What people don't know is what that costs. In my podcast, Confessions of an Elite Athlete, I sit down with the best athletes in the world and explore the psychology, mindset and unseen battles on the path to great. So take a seat and learn from the Confessions of an elite athlete on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

19:29

I'm Maria Sharapova and I'm hosting a new podcast called Pretty Tough.

20:18

Every week I'm sitting down with Trailblazing women at the top of their game to discuss ambition, work ethic and the

20:23

ups and downs that come on the

20:29

path to achieving greatness. We'll dive into their stories and get valuable insights from top executives, actors, entrepreneurs and other individuals who have inspired me so much in my own journey. Follow Pretty tough wherever you get your podcasts.

20:30

But who did you first see that you thought, I'd like to. That I want some of that. I want to look like that. I.

20:48

Menswear, I think, has always. I mean, I think I've always been more fascinated by the way that women dress.

21:00

Yeah.

21:11

I think the earliest memories I have are probably of, you know, watching the Oscars. Red carpets.

21:12

Oh, yeah.

21:19

And seeing a level of glamour that I would never see on the day to day in Toronto, Canada. This is not to disparage the style of Toronto, but you just don't have. At the time, at least we didn't have. I wasn't exposed to anywhere near that kind of glamour and style and fashion, the boldness of it. So I think my earliest memories of looking at people and thinking, gosh, that's fabulous, is actresses.

21:19

Yeah. For some reason I thought you. It never occurred to me that it wouldn't be how a woman was dressing just for the. The level of glamour and accessorization that you're so.

21:53

Because to have access to sort of. I love to look back when it comes to menswear at actors from the, you know, 50s and 60s. I think there was such a amazing kind of timeless quality to the way that men dressed back then. But I didn't have that access as a kid.

22:09

Yeah.

22:32

All I had was what I was looking at. And menswear was quite boring if you didn't know where to look. So I just, I looked at the women. I used to draw gowns.

22:33

Oh, really?

22:47

Yeah. And I like the jig is up when it came to my parents. I think they knew from a very early age that I may have been a homosexual.

22:49

You wore all these outlandish outfits in Schitt's Creek. Your character. And how did you know that dressing high fashion would make the repressed nature of your character be so clear? It's like contraintuitive.

23:02

But I love costume. I love what costume can do as a writer. I love the power of costume design because it allows for characters to say things that you don't have to write.

23:17

Yeah.

23:33

And there is nothing worse than. Than expositional dialogue.

23:34

What does that mean, expositional?

23:39

A character telling you that they're in distress or telling you that they're anxious or telling you that they're worried. On Schitt's costume was everything because it allowed us to constantly remind an audience that this family came from money. Without having to write too much of the snobbiness or elitism it was. We were just able to show it.

23:41

Yeah.

24:11

And any time in storytelling, you know, film and television that you can show something and not tell it, you are winning.

24:12

Yeah.

24:22

And so it became very clear from. From an early. The early days of putting the show together that the clothes were going to be, you know, almost just as valuable as the words coming out of these people's mouths. And I really value authenticity of world building. So I wanted the clothes to be real. I didn't want to string some pearls around Moira's neck and say, well, this woman is wealthy. I wanted her to dress like she had the money. And in order to do that, you need to make sure that the clothes are real.

24:23

Yeah.

25:02

I wanted the. I wanted pieces that somebody at home who paid attention to fashion could see and think, ah, wow, okay. That's the kind of woman this person is. And we had no money. So the big challenge with. With shit was how do we find the clothes? And it forced me to shop all year round on sale, on consignment, on, you know, vintage, anything I could find, vestier, realreal. Because we couldn't afford to buy them off the rack, nor did I want to, because this family had lost their money. So the clothes had to actually come from prior to their scandal.

25:02

Yeah.

25:53

So that was also something that you had to keep in mind, which was, okay, well, if we're going to go down the path of Balenciaga, I think at the time, Alex Wang was at Balenciaga. So it was like, well, we had to go to Nicola. We had to pull from the designers that Moira would have shopped at before she lost it all.

25:54

Yeah.

26:17

And as a fashion lover, this was the greatest thrill working with my costume designer, Deborah Hanson, on that show, because I got to touch these garments that I've been obsessed with my whole life and never had access to. So selfishly, the high fashion elements of the show really kind of were a direct result of my desire to play with clothes that I never had a reason to before. And also, Catherine came in with such a clear idea of how she wanted to dress that it was about facilitating her vision.

26:18

Yeah.

27:01

And she had referenced Daphne Guinness.

27:02

I was so fascinated by that.

27:05

And the minute that she gave me that reference, I mean, how fabulous.

27:08

Yeah.

27:12

I knew exactly where to go. The. And so it just became, you know, not impersonating Daphne Guinness, but personalizing Moira's interpretation.

27:13

Yeah.

27:26

Of Daphne Guinness.

27:27

I mean, complete genius.

27:28

And it was heaven.

27:31

Yeah.

27:33

And Catherine was the ultimate kind of. She could wear clothes so easily and we were finding complicated, heavy clothes and she would put them on. She would put on sort of a sculptural piece of sort of Comme des Garcons and wear it so easily and effortlessly. It was a real. Working with her in our fittings was one of my fondest memories of the show and some very fond memories of. Of Catherine. But she just had. She got such a kick out of. How far could we push it?

27:33

I mean, I've never seen anything pushed so far.

28:16

Listen, it's the. What did they say to the. You should always take off the last thing you put on or take off one thing that you. Before you leave the house to kind of just reduce the impact of whatever it is you're wearing. With Moira Rose, it was the total opposite. It was, can we put a hat on it?

28:22

Yeah.

28:37

Can we put a necklace on it? Can we put a brooch on it?

28:38

And there's something so touching about the other characters in the little town who never even mention what she's wearing or what you're wearing. They're just so accepting of the family. It's kind of really moving.

28:41

Yeah, I know it was. It's interesting. I mean, the acceptance of it all and then costuming them was a whole other world. But I didn't really know it at the time when we made the decision to have the town be as accepting as it was. Kind of how revolutionary that would be when reflected out into the world.

28:59

I suppose it's that thing you were saying that nothing needs to be said, it's just done. There it is. And you get it so much more than some sort of.

29:25

Well, I. Yeah. I don't learn when I'm being told how to think or how to feel. But if I'm exposed to something, that's the education.

29:36

Yeah.

29:47

And it really worked. I suppose it did.

29:49

Because when you were growing up and entering puberty, did you use clothes as a way of disguising how you felt about yourself? And did you have any hang ups about your body?

29:53

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. But I also didn't have access to the clothes, so I would go shopping with my mom and get a pair of jeans and a sweater and a T shirt when I really wanted the coat, the shoes, the belts, another pair of pants, another sweater, another sweater, another sweater. So I didn't have the ability, really, to even express myself, like, sartorially speaking. So I had to make do that one sweater had to be the sweater, and the T shirt had to be the T shirt, because I didn't have a wardrobe to kind of play with.

30:05

What was your question about disguise?

30:52

I got hung up on the trauma for a second. Disguise?

30:55

Yes. Like, did you use clothes to kind of.

30:59

Well, yeah. The men in my family tend to be a bit top heavy, so we have, like, our legs stays quite slim, but if we don't watch ourselves, it can easily turn into a bit of a humpty dumpty shape, like an eggy top, Like a heavy top part with little twig legs that stick out. So we get bellies and we get breasts. And I think I'm to this day, constantly battling a B or C cup breast. I have to keep them in very good shape. Otherwise I should wear a bra.

31:04

Well, I think it's better than the other way around.

31:49

I think really all I want is that, like, I just.

31:51

But then with. With donkey legs and. And Right.

31:54

With the thin legs. I don't know.

31:59

Thin legs are great.

32:00

Well, I. I could never. Hetty Slimmen's Dior, for example. I don't want that thin, but I couldn't. Clothes don't hang off my chest in the way that they do. His aesthetic.

32:01

Yeah.

32:18

And I've always loved that aesthetic, but I can never wear it. I'm broad shoulders, and I have titties. Well, so you have to dress sort of. I've come to accept that. You have to. You can't fight your body.

32:18

Yeah.

32:38

You have to dress for your shape. So a big, comfy sweatshirt in a dark color will kind of pop up.

32:38

And a good shoulder is an amazing asset. You know, you can do. You can go anywhere. You can cut suedes through the wall.

32:47

Exactly. And Anthony Vaccarello at St. Laurent right now is doing a shoulder that really works for me.

32:56

I love his shoulder.

33:05

It's a nice, strong, sharp shoulder, which also allows for the front of the blazer to sit flat. So it's created my dream sort of silhouette, despite these things,

33:06

because you've described your suitcase packing as compulsive, impulsive, and meticulous.

33:29

So three words that shouldn't go together.

33:37

And yet I wondered, can you define what the fear around packing is?

33:39

I don't know what it is. It will take me ages, I think. Because you know why? Because I don't. I don't put clothes together in advance.

33:45

No, I'm the same.

33:58

I like to get dressed sort of day of and throw things on. But in order to do that when you're traveling, you have to give yourself the options to be able to shop your own closet. I have friends that will put full head to toe looks together for every day and every night and every day and every night they will wear those clothes and they'll look fantastic. And it's quite economical. I have to overstuff in order to decide in the morning.

33:59

So that's where the impulsive element fits into the restrained element.

34:32

That's right. But the meticulousness is simply the care I take in selecting the clothes. And then you get to the place and none of it works. Or it's raining.

34:38

At least you have choice because I'm the same.

34:50

I have choice of things that often don't work. Because in overthinking the whole process, I'm left with a suitcase of just stuff and I don't know what to do with it. I'm getting better though. I'm working through it.

34:53

Yeah, I find packing pretty traumatizing. I.

35:08

But they are folded.

35:12

Yes, folding is.

35:14

I can't do. I have friends that just will throw things into a suitcase and zip it up.

35:16

I that I thought that is only something for movies.

35:20

From a movie.

35:23

Always think no one would do that. But you've seen someone do that.

35:24

Yeah, I've witnessed it firsthand on a trip.

35:29

Wow.

35:32

And it's actually burned into my memory. The clothes being thrown into the bag, piling.

35:33

Wow.

35:41

And then the top going down, sitting on it and zipping it up.

35:42

That's quite impressive really, isn't it?

35:48

I suppose. Depends on what your idea of impressive is. But yeah, I guess in defying everything that I perceive to be right in this world, it's impressive

35:50

because you describe yourself as an introvert, yet you draw attention to yourself through your love of fashion. And what's the security that fashion, high fashion brings you?

36:04

I think as a gay person, when you spend a lot of your life trying to assimilate or trying to

36:19

be

36:32

a version of yourself that accommodates culture so as to avoid bullying or feeling, I suppose like ostracized or othered, particularly in school, what it does is delay your understanding of who you are. And so the minute that I was able to A come out of the closet and B make an income that allowed me to responsibly shop for myself. I think part of my curiosity around fashion and why I have really kind of pushed the limits, good and bad with what I wear is I think based on a quest to understand myself deeper.

36:32

Yeah.

37:31

Because I only came out of the closet at 19, and I think to not be yourself for the first 20 years of your life leaves you wondering who you really are in a way. And I don't know if I'll ever fully get there, but clothes have been such an outlet for me to explore who I am. Testing things.

37:32

Yeah.

38:01

I mean, my glasses have gotten really, really big, and then they've gotten really, really small, and then they've gotten really, really big again. And I think a lot of it is just a wanting to be interesting, and I think it helps you to get there in a way.

38:01

Yeah.

38:20

You know, and that's why I have. I don't love the culture of judging the way that people dress. And I think there's this whole wave of kind of Instagram and TikTok, you know, voices who spend their days kind of criticizing people's clothes, because I think whether it works or it doesn't, you've tried something.

38:21

Yeah.

38:50

And that can't be criticized. It's a vulnerable thing. I mean, it can. It has. It will. I think, personally speaking, I had to explore in order to find myself. And I don't regret anything I've worn because it's all been fun. It's all been in fun, and what's the point in regretting or criticizing play.

38:51

Yeah. It's so interesting because as a shy person and describing yourself as introverted, it's like. It's almost like you throw out a. I always think of that thing. Sir Francis Drake putting his cloak down for Elizabeth I so she could walk over the water. And it's those moments where something. There's a lily pad and you can sort of spring onto it and explore. How can you bear to be out here, seen like this? And. And it's good for the courageous part of oneself. And clothes are so great for that. You know, they can. They are your allies. Yeah.

39:22

And I also feel like. I think now that I'm sort of lying down and having this conversation, I wonder whether part of it dressing slightly outside of my comfort zone or. Or the experimentation with getting dressed had something to do with. If you're fearful of social situations and you appear to be somebody who maybe would invite conversation, then maybe subconsciously, that's a way of trying to build a bridge, knowing that I. When. I mean, it was much worse when I was younger. But if you are not the person to go up to somebody and say hi at a party, if you look a certain way, perhaps subconsciously I was hoping it would invite someone to come up to me.

40:14

Yeah.

41:05

Or at least not pass judgment. If you look cool, then even if nobody talks to you, there's an idea that perhaps you're not being judged. I think a lot of this, now that I'm again lying down here, has to do with judgment. Being ridiculed and bullied for being gay growing up.

41:07

Yeah. And I suppose making a. Having a good look is more likely to invite a good conversation or someone to say something.

41:37

Yeah.

41:50

And find. And you find a kindred spirit.

41:50

Yeah. And that's inviting a kind of person who would appreciate the vibe, I guess, because I didn't have the ability to. To be sort of actively social.

41:54

Yeah. Yeah.

42:06

So it's finding the tribes of people by way of how we look, I guess.

42:08

Yeah.

42:14

I don't know whether that's a good or a bad thing.

42:16

Well, I think it's a device that works because you recognize it. I recognize. You know, we do recognize that. And sometimes, like you've described, the clothes do the talking and they're the preamble, and then suddenly you recognize that you have a friend there or they make it clear and something's happening, and that's an exciting moment.

42:18

Yeah. It's also such a. The way that people dress is such a fun way of sort of quietly psychoanalyzing a person as well. I mean, not judgment, but just trying to understand how a person works. It's a very fun game of creating a character in your head.

42:49

It's true. I was thinking this morning about. I seem to be dressing more and more like my own psychoanalyst, who is quite low key. And he. But he wears Margiela V. Necks. And so I thought, okay, that's. You know, it's distinct.

43:15

Finding yourself mirroring. Interesting.

43:35

And you're such a good dresser. But how do you feel about being naked?

43:40

I'd love to sit here and say I walk around naked all the time, but I don't. I've gotten much more comfortable with it. But it's not a comfort. It's not my comfort place, I think, because I have insecurities about my body. You know, I don't know whether that's a genetically kind of predisposed thing in terms of how we relate to our bodies without clothes on or whether this is a learned thing. But I. Yeah, I don't know. But I'm not. It's not my favorite. I much prefer a T shirt and sweatpants around the house.

43:48

Yeah. I'm the same. I mean, even naked I have to have something on or it doesn't feel naked enough. It feels just, like, exposed.

44:41

Something incomplete.

44:53

Yes.

44:55

Yeah. So we are 250 years into this American experiment, and I'd say it's going, okay, I give us, like, a C. There is no perfect past, but there

44:55

is also no exclusively negative past, because humans are gonna human.

45:07

That's what we do.

45:14

I think the story of America is the struggle of people who have not been included in the promise of America to expand those princip to include more people.

45:15

What's gonna determine the next 250 years of America? And how do we write a new social contract that can give us the democracy we deserve?

45:25

Okay, so I'm just gonna be a

45:34

jerk here because I'm a historian.

45:35

So we have to have a prologue explaining, you know, we the people.

45:36

Okay. You know, I do still remember from Schoolhouse Rock, we the people, in order to perform a more perfect union, established justice. What is it? Ensure domestic tranquility.

45:42

So you're talking about a foundational document. So I'm building a document that will protect American democracy.

45:52

That's this Week on America, actually, because

45:59

how do you feel about stylists? Because. And being a vehicle for high fashion, extreme fashion looks. And I. I think a high fashion statement needs a perfect blend of insecurity and confidence to carry it off. Like the looks that Alexander Skarsgrd has been wearing. And you can't tell whether he's ridiculing himself or congratulating himself, but it's very good. And I wonder.

46:03

I like how kind of provocative and playful he is.

46:35

Yeah.

46:39

Feels like he's kind of taking the piss out of every occasion while at the same time celebrating fashion.

46:39

Yeah.

46:48

So I think that's why people have responded so well to his red carpet looks, because he has this playful, really kind of effortless way that he carries himself in the world. And I wish I had that kind of stature to. To experiment in that kind of way. But stylists, I think it's. I feel like we're in a tricky place right now because a lot of what's happening is a designer will send a look, and that look is, you know, look 17 from the Runway. And so the stylist is now procuring a look and putting it on the client. But in the process of brand identity preservation, it's almost in a way, removing the ability to style. So I think you have to find a stylist who is willing to play with vintage and potentially ruffle up a look that a designer Wants in completion and sort of beg for forgiveness afterwards, because otherwise you just end up wearing exactly what has already been shown, which at times can be great. There are looks on a Runway that I'll see and say, like, absolutely, give me the whole thing, top to tail. But I think I was having this conversation with my friend Michael Ryder, who's now.

46:49

Oh, yeah, he's at Celine.

48:46

Yeah. Designing at Celine. And I think part of what I've known him for 20 plus years, and he's the greatest human being. Greatest. And he loves. Loves clothes, loves a shop, loves to experiment. And I think what we were talking about was his desire to make clothes that can be styled as opposed to looks that need to be honored in order for his vision to be complete. And we. It was. It was really interesting to hear him talk about that because I would love to return to kind of the way that celebrities dressed in the 90s when stylists were brought on for red carpet looks, but the people themselves kind of had to fend for themselves most of the time.

48:49

Yeah.

49:51

I think that's why we're looking back at all of these amazing looks from celebrities in the 90s that were kind of paparazzi in all of their own clothes. And they look incredible.

49:51

Yeah.

50:02

You can tell now when someone has been styled in a paparazzi shot.

50:04

Yeah.

50:09

You know, and it's finding. I find that in working with a stylist, you need that sensibility overlap. You need to trust that the taste is there between the two of you, but that they are also going to push you in a direction that excites you and allows you to kind of experiment in ways that you normally wouldn't.

50:10

Yeah.

50:36

It's an interesting time right now for a world that.

50:36

It is so true because I went to see Kim Gordon. She was here playing, doing a concert, and she looked amazing. And she was wearing this white, semi transparent skirt that had a kind of sheen on it and like a black satin cheongsam that was open, so it made an asymmetrical V and this blonde hair and these boots. And I couldn't take. You know, we were just spellbound and went with these young kids as well. And afterwards I. Where did you get the skirt? And she got it in real to. What's it called?

50:39

The real Real.

51:22

Yeah. And it was an old something. But she looked my favorite combination somehow like punk rock haute couture. Just so, so elegant and so sort of like, you know, she could just conquer the world.

51:23

She's also someone who can wear clothes so well.

51:46

She has the most beautiful body and you could see her legs through the skirt. You just couldn't stop watching her legs and what they were doing. And then there was these music and she's. Yeah, she's really something. So fantastic. And it goes straight to the heart when you see. You get like. I love the Alexander Skarsgard because it's like he's very at ease on the tightrope. And that's quite a tight. It's a narrow place. I think he can do it.

51:50

And a lot of that too is I think Harry Lambert's the clash of the two of them. His. Harry's sort of love of play and camp and Alex's like height and I suppose, kind of sex appeal.

52:26

Yeah. And his authority. Like someone from Tolstoy or something. One of those sexy soldiers.

52:53

It's fun to see soldiers when it works.

52:59

Yeah. Yeah.

53:01

That kind of stylist and client dynamic. It's, it's, it's really. It can be a really fantastic thing.

53:02

And if you fancy someone and don't like what they're wearing, does it kill your attraction?

53:11

No. Cuz I tend to go face first if we're talking like physical attraction. So if the face is good, I don't really care what they're wearing. It helps. I mean, I think it definitely helps that if a person has amazing style, it certainly enhances. But I kind of go like eyes down.

53:20

Yeah.

53:52

And I almost. I don't need someone I'm dating to be fashionable. It would be nice, but I. I almost find some of the people I found most attractive to have horrible style but incredible beauty.

53:54

Yeah.

54:17

And that beauty doesn't have to be conventional in any way. I mean, some of the most beautiful people I've. I've ever met are not conventionally attractive. But there's something about them. There's an aura to. To the way that they carry themselves

54:17

that is

54:32

like intoxicating.

54:34

Yeah.

54:35

And they've had horrible style and I've kind of loved. I've kind of. It's. It's been a turn on almost.

54:36

Yeah. It's so interesting that because you're. You're very close friends with Jonathan Anderson and who's now the creative director All Over Dior and his own brand, jw. And you. I watched this brilliant promo film that you made when he was at Loewe, all about how to pronounce Louisville. And how do you know what the appeal of a brand is, including the appeal of not knowing how to pronounce their name?

54:42

I think what Jonathan is so Brilliant at is, is knowing what people. I don't want to say knowing what people want, but it's knowing what people will want. Because he's never in the moment. He's always a footstep or a couple footsteps ahead of the moment. And there's a sense of play and a sense of humor. I think what I love about Jonathan as a person and as a kind of creative, is that he has a sense of humor about it all. Yeah, he's an incredibly serious person when it comes to the work, but the work has play. And I think in with Loewe, we were having dinner and he. We were kind of discussing collaborating in some kind of way and he was telling me what. What in an ideal world, what they would want to do. It would be a kind of short film that would help audiences or help culture understand the pronunciation better. And I pitched him the spelling bee idea over the dinner and it was like two weeks later I got a call saying, we're going to do it so good, let's write it, let's put it together. And we didn't end up making it for quite some time after. But again, for a designer like that, to trust the vision and to see the value in it is so great because fashion can be incredibly serious.

55:13

Yeah.

56:53

And I think what worked about that short film, I call it a short film.

56:53

Yeah, it was a short film.

56:58

Elongated advertisement was that it was funny and yet at the same time it was stylish. It had a vibe. Aubrey and I were really fun together.

56:59

I love it.

57:18

And the overall effect of it I found so successful.

57:18

It was, I mean, a masterpiece because it had everything. It had the authority, you. The test of fashion, then how people are prepared to go to the lengths to get it wrong in order to be part of fashion. And why all those kind of sort of judgy sounding things are so inclusive because you're all part of this club and you all get it. And you. I mean, I used. I never said the word loewe. I had no idea how you say it. It's like so useful and yet when

57:22

you find out how to say it, it's such an easy adjustment.

58:02

Yeah.

58:07

So to be aware of the cultural conversation around the name, the fact that nobody really, outside of fashion, nobody really knew how to pronounce it.

58:09

Even inside fashion.

58:21

Even inside fashion. And it was just. I thought it was such a. I just thought it was such a great idea on his part to lean into that and turn to, you know, us clowns to tell that story.

58:22

Wow. It was A brilliant idea.

58:38

And again, like, how great to collaborate with people that you admire.

58:41

Yeah.

58:46

And love.

58:46

So, Jonathan, it's so true about him, seeing. He sees the idea ahead and he. When he gets behind something, it's a real. There's a real. One of those moments that, you know,

58:47

something is give people what they want. And I do think that creatively, that's where he and I have really found a common bond. You know, I don't like making television for an audience, despite the fact that we are now in a culture that is algorithmically inclined. Because if I learned anything from the success of Schitt's Creek, nobody saw that coming.

59:02

Yeah.

59:30

Nobody wanted it. We had to make it on our own. And it wasn't until we showed people something that they didn't know they wanted, that's when hysteria starts. That's when the massive ratings happen. That's when viewer loyalty happens. That's when the real fun starts. When you give an audience something they don't know that they want and they have to catch up and they have to discover because you're going to get a much deeper sense of loyalty out of somebody who feels like they found something special than consuming something they wanted and moving on.

59:32

Yeah.

1:00:11

And I do feel like Jonathan is constantly pushing the boundaries of what people want to the point where, you know, I think he said this publicly, too. Like, at some point he would put something out that he knew would be controversial simply to shake up the audience's expectation of what it is he was saying.

1:00:13

Yeah.

1:00:40

And what it is they want from him, from the brand, from themselves. And I thought that was such a clever way of at times sacrificing the continuity of expectation to just disrupt and see what happened.

1:00:41

Yeah.

1:00:57

And I think that has to be done in. In entertainment as well, film and television.

1:00:58

In your new series, Big Mistakes, you asked the legendary fellow Canadian and queer icon Peaches to write the musical score. And how did you know who to bring into the film?

1:01:02

There was only one option.

1:01:16

Cause she's a disruptor and a radical. And watching the. You know, watching the episode, suddenly you're reminded. You have this kind of emotional. As though you're just flying across the road and along this journey of the characters. And it's so ingenious.

1:01:18

And it was always Peaches long before we even started writing.

1:01:38

Really.

1:01:47

Yeah. Cause I always put a playlist together before I work on something because I find that music allows me to conjure scenes and ideas and vibes. And so I'll put these extensive playlists together that I'll listen to over and over and over again. Certain songs I'll listen to like 10, 15, 20 times a day because something about the song elicits a visual for me. I'm able to picture a scene come to life by way of a song.

1:01:48

Yeah.

1:02:22

And so music is so formative in the way that I build television.

1:02:24

Wow.

1:02:30

And Peaches was. A ton of her music was in the Big Mistakes kind of playlist before I even started writing. And then when we finished the show and had some things to show her, I wrote her a nice little note and just asked and sent her the first two episodes of the show. And she was on board immediately. And we paired her with Nora Kroll Rosenbaum, who was a composer. And the two of them took on her very first scoring job together. And she crushed. It's so exciting. It's so fresh. Yeah, it's really. And it's so her, you know?

1:02:31

Yeah, it is. It's like you get flashes. It's like she breaks through every now and then and you remember she's there too. And. Yeah, I'm a massive fan.

1:03:26

She's fantastic.

1:03:38

I made a short film with her, actually, and 2003 with John Malkovich. I made these little fashion films and I can.

1:03:39

I find. Are they online somewhere?

1:03:49

Yeah, they're on my website. It's called Hideous Man. And she's absolutely brilliant.

1:03:51

Wow.

1:03:57

Yeah. I remember getting up. She was playing in this club called Trash, but she came on at 2 in the morning. So I went to bed and got up and went there and there she was singing Fuck the Pain Away. And I just thought, wow, this is it, you know, it's fantastic. And she's wonderful.

1:03:58

She's wonderful. And such a. Such a excellent collaborator. I mean, for me, it was just about giving her some guidance in terms of the types of sounds I was interested in. The only thing I really said to her was, I want the score to feel like a heartbeat.

1:04:18

Oh, yeah, that's so good.

1:04:38

So track the heartbeat throughout the show of our characters and try to match that and try to make the show feel like your music is emulating a kind of heartbeat, a kind of anxiety.

1:04:40

Yeah.

1:04:56

So that it can be trapped. Yeah, it's absolutely chaotic and brilliant and funny as well. And really funny. Yeah. Peaches, again, I'm drawn to people who have self awareness and have a sense of humor about themselves.

1:04:57

Yeah. She's. She.

1:05:13

And yet take themselves seriously. She's not an unserious person, but she can have a laugh. The best kind of people.

1:05:15

Yeah, she's Fantastic. And because your co creator on. On the writing is Rachel Sennett. Right. The actor and writer. And she seems sort of like a literary version of Peaches. And she also kind of uses. Seems to use her way of dressing and her body as a literary device. And I wondered how that came. How did your partnership come about?

1:05:23

I worked with Rachel on a television show called the Idol a couple years ago and I had one scene with her and we really bonded and I thought she was hysterically funny and really sharp and her comedy is so specific. And I was coming up with the idea for the show and I wanted it to be a brother and sister duo. And I always think it's important if you're going to be writing for a character that is outside of your lived experience, to authenticate it by way of a different voice. And so I invited Rachel in to help me flesh out the character of Morgan and to authenticate the male female dynamic at play in the show. And so we sort of created the show together. She said yes, thank God. And it was interesting because we. We find the same things funny, but our comedy style is different. And there's a generational divide too, which was also in the show. So I thought it was really fascinating to see her eyes on this idea. And I think it brought this kind of vitality. And I don't know, I love her so much and she's a hard worker and we just got along and the writing came so easily. The collaboration was so effortless. Yeah, she's fantastic and she has earned her success in this industry. She's worked really hard for it and made it look effortless.

1:05:47

Because your different styles of irreverence are so complementary.

1:07:42

Even in just references, even in the way that we react to crisis. There is a. I find the. I mean, I sound like a grandfather at this point. The generational divide, as small as it is between mine and the. And Gen. What? I don't even know what I am. What is this Gen Z Gen?

1:07:46

I don't know.

1:08:12

Everyone's so much 10 years younger, they're calmer. They tend to be more sort of realized as people. Their priorities are different, their value system is different. They run on different fuel. And that is fascinating when you pair it up. Yeah, no, it is with sort of two characters who. Who are related but generationally divided.

1:08:13

Such a good. It's just such a good combination. I. I was thrilled to see her name. Fantastic credits, that film. Shiva Baby. I think some of the best things I've ever seen.

1:08:39

I'll put it on Once a year, just to. Just to revisit.

1:08:52

Yeah.

1:08:55

And that, again, was just a group of really talented people, like students, I

1:08:57

think, at the time, because Emma is it.

1:09:04

Emma Seligman, I think, was either just

1:09:06

out of school or a brilliant, brilliant, fantastic director. Yeah, I love her.

1:09:09

Molly Gordon.

1:09:15

Yeah.

1:09:16

Fantastic. Yeah.

1:09:16

And in your wedding scene in Schitt's Creek, you wear a kilt. I was like, oh, my God, this is such a beautiful outfit. And then I saw the striped sock, the Thom Brown. So the whole outfit was Thom Browne. And you were wearing my favorite sock in the business. I'm kind of obsessed with socks and

1:09:20

the mismatched sort of one leg strike.

1:09:48

Marvelous how

1:09:51

the panic around the wedding was both thrilling and terrifying because it was the culmination of the show. I mean, it was all. Was leading to this. And as a show that chose to put its costume department forward in the way that we did, you had to deliver. You had to deliver on what David was going to wear and what Moira was going to wear. And then you had the gag of Alexis buying a white dress. That was a wedding dress.

1:09:55

So good.

1:10:32

Them walking down the aisle looking like they were getting married to each other. At that point, the show was kind of cracking the cultural conversation. And I thought, it has to be the kilt. It just has to be. We have to get that look. We have to get his sort of classic black kilted suit. And it. I went to New York for a fitting, I believe, for it.

1:10:33

Wow.

1:10:59

And they sent it to us and it fit, thankfully. But that was the only thing that was loaned.

1:10:59

It's so exquisite. I mean, it just did everything. It kind of was. Yeah. It wasn't conventional yet. It had so much.

1:11:09

And it was kind of the sort of. It was the most conservative David had been to that point and still had swerve.

1:11:19

Totally. Cause the scene, I think the episode before his shirt, he was wearing a T shirt with a gigantic hand on, almost like Edgar Allan Poe.

1:11:32

It was a sweatshirt.

1:11:43

Oh, it was so good.

1:11:44

That was a Dries Van Noten sweatshirt that we found. And there are all these little Easter eggs that we planted through the clothes of the show. He wears color for the first time in the scene where he's serenaded by Patrick.

1:11:45

Yeah.

1:12:03

And playing with color and how it relates to their black and white sort of costuming was really interesting as well. But, yeah, that kilt suit was fantastic. And then I reached out to Tom to dress me for the Emmys, and we did a matching. I wore to the Emmys a Matching gray kilt suit when we won. God. So, yeah, that look was a. Was quite a good luck charm.

1:12:04

Yeah.

1:12:31

And then Moira, you know, Moira Bishop, I mean, what. What with this sort of Pope's hat that we made. We had that made. She was in. It was McQueen, the gown. And then she had gold knee high Tom Ford stiletto boots on underneath it. And it was spectacular.

1:12:31

And golden gloves.

1:13:02

And golden gloves and rings and things. And the makeup. The hair and makeup department did such a fantastic job with Catherine on that day. And I just remember looking at the monitor that shot where the curtains open and she walks forward and the look is revealed. And it was like we were emotional. The impact of it. She looked so beautiful. And it was. Moira, in moments of real stakes, always erred on the side of softness. She had the premiere of her show, of her movie, and she went old Hollywood glamour in that champagne gown. And then for the wedding, it was soft, it wasn't aggressive. I mean, the look was out there. But we wanted to give her that generosity of not upstaging her son on his wedding day.

1:13:04

Yeah.

1:14:08

So she did somehow blend into the background.

1:14:09

I love the idea of wearing a pope's hat.

1:14:12

Not that was hers. That was a Catherine o' Hara special. She said, I think I should dress like a Pope. And the minute she said that, we knew exactly what to do.

1:14:14

Yeah, she really brought joy to dressing. She really did.

1:14:26

And I think it changed the way that she dressed too. I think over the six seasons of the show, she learned to experiment with style. And she found a fantastic stylist and started to get really playful with her red carpet dressing. And yeah, she's just fantastic.

1:14:31

So it's so interesting. When I heard that she had been influenced by Daphne Guinness and Bass semi. You look to her for a character. And Daphne Guinness is also someone incredibly unselfconscious about her body. She wears these extraordinary things. And Izzy Blow was like that too. And I remember Izzy Blow showing up in the south of France where we were all staying on holiday. And she was wearing McQueen lace ripped dress and stilettos. And it was, you know, the middle of the afternoon in the blazing sun and you could see fabulous. Her body was like as it was made of rubber. And there was no. It was as if she didn't have a body. She paid no attention to it. And there it was, this marvelous vehicle, this thing. And it was the same. Daphne's like that. And then Catherine o'. Hara. Just my favorite costume, I think of her outfit was when they go and See the couple where they've. They've killed the dog on the road by mistake and it hit, they've hit the dog and they go and see those.

1:14:55

What was she wearing? You're gonna have to remind me.

1:16:09

It was just so outlandish.

1:16:11

Right.

1:16:13

But nobody comments. It's completely normal and yet it's just a sort of. It's like a geological pattern of heat. And it.

1:16:14

That was the. I mean, there was some of the fondest memories of shooting that show was simply putting her into the clothes. Yeah, there's a raff for Jill Sander dress she wears. It's a black PVC strapless dress that we put a shirt underneath and we had these custom shirts made. These kind of Karl Lagerfeld collars. Yeah, these high collared shirts that were all custom made for her. And it was this black dress that had a black PVC tie around the waist in order to kind of snatch the waist in. And she wears it when she's being photographed in the field. And it's a moment of like extreme vulnerability for her because she's kind of being used. And there was something so uncomfortable about the look that it made for her own discomfort. Like it brought about this discomfort in I think the character of Moira. But also it required. At one point I looked over and two people, because it was pvc to tie the belt, it was rubbing against like kind of plastic on plastic or rubber on rubber. So someone I looked over and they had their foot on her back and they were pulling. Two different people were pulling the belt around because it had like a double wrap around her waist and then it had like a tie in it. And in order to get the tie, you had to hyper stretch the PVC so that by the time that you tied it and released would stay and. Oh God, those are the memories that I cherish with the show and with Catherine is like some of having to almost look at an instruction manual on how to wear some of the clothes that we put her in.

1:16:30

Yeah. Well, it's a master stroke and

1:18:18

it

1:18:24

was just magnificent in so many ways. And you're such a brilliant artist, Dan, and it's just wonderful to talk to you and thank you so much for being on fashion your residence.

1:18:24

Thank you so much for having me.

1:18:38

It.

1:18:39