Susie Lau: Joyful Dressing, Not Being Chic and Two Decades of Street Style

An Excellent Fit

Alice Casely-Hayford and Kay Barron sit down with fashion icon Susie Lau to reflect on her twenty-year career in street style and blogging. The conversation explores how Lau's

Key takeaways

• Susie Lau launched Style Bubble in 2006, pioneering fashion blogging before transitioning to editor roles at Dazed and System Magazine.
• Lau grew up above her parents' Chinese takeaway in Camden, drawing early style inspiration from transgressive street culture and Britpop era characters.

Main topics

• Fashion blogging and street style evolution
• Joyful dressing vs. chic aesthetics

Notable quotes

"I find the word like just a little bit militant."

Conclusion

The episode offers listeners a reflective yet lighthearted look at two decades in

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Welcome to An Excellent Fit, a podcast on style, culture, and the stories we tell through what we wear. Because getting dressed is never just about the clothes. An Excellent Fit, Season 2, brought to you by ShopMy. I'm Alice Casely Speaker 3 (0:14) -Hayford. And I'm Kay Barron. Speaker 1 (0:16) So today we are joined by the one and only Susie Lau. She is just one of the best dressed people in London. And nicest. And nicest. She's so colourful and vibrant in both her personality and the way she dresses and very excited to have her. What have you decided to wear for Susie? Speaker 3 (0:35) Well, because Susie dresses in such a joyful way and I own nothing, apparently, that is joyful. But, and then I thought... I will look for a print in my closet. And I stood in front of it yesterday for ages thinking, unless it's stripes, I have no print. Apart from this, which I mean kind of counts, graphic, which is a very old Hader Ackerman silk shirt. Very kind of loose fit. And I've had it for probably about... 12 years. But it is like a go-to if I just want to feel a little bit, I don't know, there's something elevating about it. And also the fact it's open to my navel. So that kind of helps me feel slightly sexier in it. And then even though I don't think I've ever seen Susie in a pair of jeans. No. No. Do you know, I don't have a Susie wardrobe. So I've gone for a pair of a goldy pale blue jeans with a big rip in the knee. Speaker 3 (1:32) Some Ro boots. We're back in boot season. We Speaker 1 (1:34) are. Speaker 3 (1:35) So, yeah, and these boots, again, I've had before the Ro started charging about £2,000 for a pair of boots. They were still expensive. They're Speaker 1 (1:43) gorgeous. I Speaker 3 (1:44) love those. You are more Susie aligned today. Speaker 1 (1:46) Yeah, I'm more Susie aligned today. This is one of my more playful, fun dresses. I love this dress. It's from Comme des Garcons Girl. I think it's very girly, obviously, and it's got a little Peter Pan collar. And yeah, this is as bright and bold as I go. But then just to toughen it up a little bit, I've paired it with some loafers. And I think in season one, I wore my Celine loafers a lot. So I thought we're going to keep it high street. And I treated myself recently to these from Mango. And they're really versatile and kind of a slight hint of red, which picks up the dress. Do Speaker 3 (2:19) they have a bit of red in them? Very, Speaker 1 (2:21) very subtle. A Speaker 3 (2:23) bit of red? What are you talking about? Speaker 3 (2:28) Is that maybe just like a... A reddy brown. Speaker 1 (2:30) They're Speaker 3 (2:30) like a dark brown. Yeah, a dark brown with a hint of red. But I was also thinking, I love that dress, but I would look... Yeah, Speaker 1 (2:37) I think you'd look a bit like an Amish trad wife. Hopefully that's not what I'm doing. Or some Speaker 3 (2:42) one of those like terrifying ghosts at the end of the bed. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I'd look a bit haunted in that. You would. Shall we meet Susie? Let's. Speaker 1 (2:50) Hi, Speaker 2 (2:50) I'm Speaker 1 (2:51) Susie Lau. Welcome to a next little bit. Today we are joined by Susie Lau. Many of you know Susie fondly as Susie Bubble of Style Bubble, the blog she launched in 2006. One of the first major fashion bloggers, Style Bubble was founded in personal experiences and astute observations on fashion with a focus on spotlighting emerging talent. Susie swiftly became a global street star sensation, featured in the most influential publications and adored for her vibrant and playful style. Lau has been an editor at Dazed and System Magazine. and is a contributor to Business of Fashion, Pop Magazine and Perfect. Speaker 3 (3:30) Hi, Susie. Welcome to an excellent fit. Speaker 2 (3:32) Hi, Alice. Hi, Kate. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much for joining us. We're so Speaker 3 (3:38) happy you're here. And I love the fact that you cringed at Global Street Self-Insertion. You are a Global Street Self-Insertion. I don't Speaker 2 (3:45) know about global. How global are we talking? Pretty global. Universal. Speaker 3 (3:50) And speaking of which, we asked you to dress in your favourite way today. So can you tell us what you're wearing and how you feel? Speaker 2 (3:57) Okay. As a global street Speaker 3 (4:00) style sensation. Speaker 2 (4:01) I would say I'm wearing a pretty me kind of outfit. It's a funny skirt with a funny shoe and a sock and then a sparkly jacket just to top it all off. Basically too much slash Christmas tree. dressing as my friend Brian Boy likes to call it. He sometimes comes up to me and he goes, oh, you're a Christmas tree today. And I'm like, I am indeed. That's because Speaker 3 (4:34) you're bringing the joy. Speaker 2 (4:35) Exactly. You took the words from my mouth. What's wrong with dressing like a Christmas tree? But yeah, I, it's okay. So it's an old Christopher Kane skirt. So we're bringing. Back out the old Christopher. We're celebrating his return to London Fashion Week. But it's funny, this skirt, because it's got collages of all his previous collections. So I think it was maybe eight or nine years into him doing his brand, then he did this collection. I think it was a pre-collection or something. It's got pictures of all of his past collections. And then I am wearing these very old Marques Almeida... shoes. We bought them from a sample sale. They're kind of like mules. They're quite funny. The heel. Oh, the heels are an M Speaker 3 (5:26) .A. M.A. Amazing. Very Speaker 2 (5:28) good. And they're kind of cowl. I don't know how you describe them. They're kind of Speaker 3 (5:36) cowboy. Speaker 2 (5:37) Cowboy-esque. Jazz shoes. Mules. And then with a pair of knee-high socks for good measure. Of course. Excellent grey ribbed socks. Speaker 3 (5:49) From Calcedonia. Speaker 2 (5:51) I'm wearing a denim jacket, which is maybe slightly unusual, but I feel like since he started doing like the barber collaboration, he's kind of like doing much more like easier outerwear, but it's still got a touch of the glamour. Maybe more than a touch. Just a touch. Just a little touch. Speaker 2 (6:15) And then I'm wearing a Chipova Lawena t-shirt, which is from their new Clubhouse store merch. But Speaker 3 (6:24) you're really representing London fashion designers today. Speaker 2 (6:27) Yeah. In general, I have a lot of it in my wardrobe, like just like through working in fashion for 20 years. And London was obviously like the first place. that I began going to shows and a lot of the designers are friends and you do personal orders and you just want to support and wear the stuff and I get so much joy out Speaker 1 (6:51) of Speaker 2 (6:51) it. Speaker 1 (6:52) Would you say that you have a go-to uniform? Speaker 2 (6:57) Not really. I'm not a uniform kind of person. There's not something that I like just gravitate towards me. But I guess I maybe I'm a skirts person rather than a trouser person. I like a bit of colour every single day just to peck me up. I'm not a... head to toe black. Although I did try it actually a few times. I know. I can't imagine this. I'm turning. I'm turning. Last season in Paris and I did, I did find it vaguely refreshing, but. I Speaker 3 (7:33) think I saw you head to toe black Loewe in your kitchen. Speaker 2 (7:37) Oh yes. Yeah. But they were, they were quite, it was quite a crazy kind of Speaker 3 (7:41) black. Speaker 2 (7:41) It was bonkers, but it was black. The leggings were like, had, they looked like. vases like flower vases they were very like structural kind of black leggings so even if it is black there's always got to be like something weird about it something kind of Off-kilter as like most, it's like fashion, fashion speak for weird. Speaker 1 (8:06) But I love it. And you bring so much joy to everyone who sees your amazing outfits and joy to yourself more importantly. But you once wrote that as a teenager, magic was learning about fashion from old books in the local library and joy was waiting for new issues of the face and ID to land on the shelves. Did you grow up in a creative household and where and how? did you fall in love with fashion in this way and being so experimental and off kilter, I guess? Speaker 2 (8:36) I mean, absolutely not. I really did not grow up in any kind of like. artistic creative family my parents uh very sort of typical um immigrant story they ran a Chinese takeaway in Camden uh I lived above it for for a while when I was a kid so you know really kind of it was just that kind of typical BBC British born Chinese kind of story um And if anything, my parents like really kind of dissuaded us from going into the arts, except actually all of my three younger sisters, I've got three of them. They all went to Central Saint Martins. I love that. They all kind of bucked Speaker 3 (9:27) that. Speaker 2 (9:27) And your parents Speaker 3 (9:28) have no one to blame but themselves. Yeah, I Speaker 2 (9:30) don't know. I really don't know what happened. I didn't. I didn't go to, I was the only one who didn't go to art school. I had a pretty kind of. academic sorry big up Speaker 1 (9:39) the UCL massive studying English literature Speaker 2 (9:42) UCL alum did Speaker 1 (9:45) you guys study together no no but we I'm much older not much not much but Speaker 2 (9:51) um yeah I guess maybe it was like kind of almost rebelling against that academic pressure so then I think when I was at school a girl's school I just you know really gravitated towards like clothes and personal expression and like oh I'm not going to be the smartest or you know the most vocal but I can say something else with what I'm wearing and I really like kind of latched on to that very early on and then obviously like growing up in London was just like hugely inspiring. Speaker 3 (10:28) Especially Speaker 2 (10:28) in Camden. Yeah Camden was fun yeah and at a young age. I just saw the most like incredible people walking