David Sedaris

Fashion Neurosis with Bella Freud

In this episode of Fashion Neurosis, David Sedaris, acclaimed author and humorist, joins host Bella Freud in a candid conversation about clothing, identity, and personal rituals. From

Key takeaways

• Clothing is a form of identity and recognition, not just fashion—Sedaris uses it to stay true to himself across time and settings.
• Dressing up for audiences is an act of respect and creates a shared emotional connection during performances.

Main topics

• The role of clothing in personal identity
• Dressing for performance and audience respect

Notable quotes

"If I were going to a show that I bought a ticket to, I would think days in advance what I was going to wear. And I just don't get it."

"It's not about being ostentatious. It's just... I want to recognize myself as I've always known myself."

Conclusion

David Sedaris reveals that fashion is far more than aesthetics—it's a deeply personal

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:01) I'm Ina Garten. On my new podcast, Happy Hour with Ina, I'm inviting really interesting guests to join me for a drink and a fun conversation at my kitchen table in New York City. I'll be getting personal with chefs, actors, comedians, musicians, and writers I admire. So grab a snack, pull up a chair, and join us. Subscribe to Happy Hour with Ina on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes will be available every Wednesday starting September 16th. Speaker 1 (0:38) Megan Rapinoe here. This week on Why Are You Like This, I am talking with Roxane Gay. That's right, Roxane Gay. Roxane is a fearless writer and cultural critic whose impact goes way beyond her New York Times bestselling books. We dig into all the big moments of her life. And of course, she shares if she's more mommy, daddy, or baby. Check out the latest episode of Why Are You Like This wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube. Speaker 1 (1:21) Welcome to Fashion Neurosis, David Sedaris. Thank you so much for having me. Can you tell me what you're wearing today and why you chose these particular clothes? Sure, I'm geeked out in Comme des Garcons, and it's a black shirt that's difficult to iron, that has sort of these kind of fishy, I don't know how else to call it. The thing about Comme des Garcons clothing is it's so hard to describe. Speaker 1 (1:50) If you were a fish, it's a shirt you'd wear. And then the shorts are, I suppose they're, it's a pattern printed on white polyester, but it looked like they folded it and then they printed the pattern and then they unfolded it and they were like, fuck, it was folded. Speaker 1 (2:19) And I liked them so much I got two pairs. They were different colors. I'm not crazy about purple, but it was my only option. So I got them. And I have bunions. And so I wear these Marcell shoes, these Italian shoes that are soft. And so I've got a pair of Marcell shoes on with it. Speaker 1 (2:49) I didn't stress too hard about what to wear when I came here today. But then if I'd seen what you were going to wear first, I probably would have... Speaker 1 (3:06) showed up looking like I was trying too hard. Do you know what I mean? Like, I don't mean you look like you're trying too hard, but I mean, I would have tried that you're, I don't know, your clothes look so great on you. Oh, thank you so much. And they go so well with your hair and everything and your build. Well, many years of... Tweaking and I appreciate that you kept your shoes on for the couch for the total look because in your new book there's an essay about how much you hate feet on seats, sofas, on the train and I had a sort of pang of how much I enjoy putting my feet up wherever I can so. It would be like if he had said to me, oh, take all your clothes off. I'm like, what? Like having my feet on the sofa feels so wrong, but it's your sofa and you really... Speaker 1 (4:06) Not insisted, but you said, you know, I thought it was pretty clear that you'd rather I keep them on. So I'm doing it, but it's not easy for me. It just feels wrong to me. Well, I appreciate it very much. When people do it at my house, I never know what to say. You know, like sometimes people will fold a foot under them when they sit on my white sofa. It's the same thing when they don't use a coaster. If you say, would you mind using a coaster? It just gets weird. So sometimes I'll just go and get a coaster and then put it on the table and then say, oh, can I get you? Oh, no, I guess you have enough. And then I set it back down on the coaster. Yes, that's fairly diplomatic, strategic. Or maybe you could say, perhaps you'd be more comfortable. if you took your shoes off. Speaker 1 (5:08) Then they'd probably take him off and park him right there on the sofa. I know, exactly. You're an award-winning, best-selling writer of essay collections, short stories and diaries. And in 2019, you were elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. And you spend a huge amount of your time on book tours. And I wondered, how is your packing? Are you a light or a heavy packer? Well, I go on these lecture tours twice a year, right? So every fall I'll go to like 43 cities in like 45 days. And then I do it again every spring. But when you're in big theaters like that, they have washers and dryers. They have laundry rooms. So I can do my laundry so that... Speaker 1 (6:03) cuts down on the amounts of like just, you know, shirts and underpants and socks that I have to pack. But then, I don't know, I remember when I very first started out reading out loud, I was in my late 20s and I would not do it alone. There would be other people on the bill and I would show up and people would just be wearing. You know, just like gym shorts and T-shirts. And Steve Martin wrote in his book that you should always be better dressed than your audience. But I knew that already, you know. So I started off, I would always wear a tie. And I just noticed how people, how it affected the show. Because people would think, well, see that I made an effort. You know, that I... took the time, and it was just a show of respect for the audience, and then they would give it back to me. But then my ideas of dressing up changed over the years, so now I travel with these... Speaker 1 (7:18) elaborate kind of, not calling them costumes, but, you know, sport coats that kind of look like ball gowns, you know, things like that. So I have a big suitcase and then I have another suitcase that sits atop it. And then because also I travel with... When I sign somebody's book, I don't just write my name. I draw pictures. And I go through little phases. Like the other night, I started drawing people guzzling, drinking wine from the bottle. And I'm not, I went to art school, but I'm not, you know, I don't have any talent that way. But so they're kind of like, not caricatures, but they're kind of like cartoony versions of people. Yeah, yeah, great. Or sometimes they're praying and then I decide what they're praying for. You know, like you're praying that your mother would transition. You know, that's what you're praying for. Because I only... Speaker 1 (8:20) Known for a few minutes, and so the trick is like trying to figure out what it is that they're praying for or why they're drinking wine from the bottle. So I have a lot of pens. And then if a teenager comes, I always have a gift for a teenager. Because sometimes it's someone's birthday or anniversary, so I like to have little gifts. So then that goes into it. So it winds up being a lot. Yeah. God, that's so thoughtful. I suppose it makes the signing experience much more fun for you as well. I mean, it sounds like a lot of work, but it's... Speaker 1 (8:59) I mean, listening to you describe that, it's, you know, I could feel my heart expanding. It's such a great thing to do. Well, somebody gave me a little coffin, right? And you open, unlock the coffin, and there's a body in there, and his dick goes boing. So I gave that to, like, a 15-year-old boy who'd come with his parents last week, and it was just such. the perfect thing to have for this kid. So I'm always on the lookout for little things like that. And sometimes, to be honest, people give me things. Like last night, somebody gave me a taxidermy check. And I think he said his sister taxidermied it, and it was her first project. And she was going to throw it away. And this person said, no, I'll bring it tonight, and I'll give it to David. Speaker 1 (9:56) So they gave it to me. And then I met a teenager later, and he had a 10-year-old sister at home. And I said, are you good at holding on to things? And he said, yeah. And I said, this is what you're going to give your sister for Christmas. And so I gave him. And so he seemed pretty happy with that. That's fantastic. I said, you can play with it. Until then, he was like 17. Just the idea that he was going to play. How do you even play with a... taxidermy check, you know, like, oh, I'm going to go to the store now. Get a bottle of wine. And you're one of six children and you've written a lot about how your father singled you out and tried to crush you. And you said, as long as my father had power, he used it to hurt me. And I wondered, how much did clothes feature in your self-protection as a child? Speaker 1 (10:55) Well, what's interesting is the first time I got scolded for clothing, it was my father's clothing, you know. Really? He had some shirts like from the 1940s. When I was in high school, I discovered charity shops. Yeah. And so my dad had some old shirts, and then he would, like I'd never seen him wear them, right? And I would sneak them out of his closet to wear to school, and he would get so mad. But I'm like, you know, he wasn't wearing them. Yeah. And, I mean, my father had a good... sense of style, you know? Like, he could wear a hat well. I don't mean like a fedora, but I mean like a knitted cap if it was cold. You know, the way he would put it on his head, it kind of looked like it had dropped from the sky onto his head. And so I do that same thing. Yeah. Speaker 1 (11:56) And as he got older, then he looked like a homeless person, but not in a good way. There's a guy who's on my street quite often who does a lot with duct tape, and he's handsome. And, you know, that never hurts. But he's, just the way that he'll work with, like, plastic and duct tape and... clothes, like if, I don't know, he just looks like a million bucks. And often you see that in New York. But my father didn't look like a homeless person that you wanted to, you know, buy their clothes. I went to Pakistan recently. Speaker 1 (12:50) And I thought the men in Pakistan were maybe the best-dressed men I'd ever seen. Yeah. The poor men in Pakistan, because they wore these floor-length, they wore like pajama pants with long shirts over them, and then like a tattered sport coat, and then a shawl over the sport coat. And it was just such a good look. And this man came up to me on the street, and he was begging for money, and I said, I'll buy your shawl. And then he insisted on giving it to me. And I said, no, you need money. I want to buy that from you. Anyway, someone came up and translated. And so I bought the guy's shawl. And then I saw him 10 minutes later. He had a new shawl on. He was so proud of it. And then I said, I want to buy that one too. Everything just looked better on him than it did on me. And then my father later. Speaker 1 (13:50) You know, if I were on television, right, when a book would come out, I'd go on a chat show. And I don't know how he did this. He would find out where I was staying. I'd go back to my hotel afterwards. The phone would ring. You look terrible. I can't believe you'd wear that on TV. You should be ashamed of yourself. You looked awful. And I would think, he was like just a negative cheerleader. God. All my life. But I thought, I don't know, he would, it was like he, it was like he had a spy following me. You know, I would get back to my hotel room or back to the apartment and the phone would ring and it would be him. Just, and I wouldn't even have said like, oh, I'm going to be on David Letterman tonight. Don't forget to watch. Like, I wouldn't even tell him I was going to be on. Speaker 1 (14:46) God, he seems to have been completely obsessed with you. He tried, you know, from everything I've read, he tried so hard to undermine you and never succeeded. And why do you think there was an element of envy about you living your life as freely as you have done? Well, where was it, or was he just a sadist? No, he was just very competitive. And I don't mean to sound like a baby about it. I mean, I heard a hundred thousand times growing up, you know, you know what you are? A big fat zero. Everything you touch turns to shit. I mean, over and over and over. But I didn't think like, oh, I'm zero. Everything I touch turns to shit. I thought, really? Is that what you think? Well, you know, we'll see about that. But you never really show them. You know what I mean? Speaker 1 (15:54) I never understood what he did. He was an engineer. Yeah. And until I was in high school, I thought he drove a train. I mean, I didn't understand what he did. Yeah. And he clearly didn't understand what I did. Yeah. You know. But, you know, I remember doing shows in my hometown, and there's a place called Memorial Auditorium that has been there forever. And I would do shows there, and my father, I remember one time him saying, you told me this was sold out. It's not sold out. I counted 17 empty seats, and it seats like 1,800 people. Do you know what I mean? And he's counting 17 empty seats, and I said, Speaker 1 (16:37) Sometimes people forget. They buy tickets and forget or they just get sick and can't make it. No, that's not what happened. Those seats were empty. And I just felt sorry for him in a way. That's what he would spend his time doing, like counting out 1,700 empty seats. I mean, 17 empty seats. And it wasn't like I said to him, my show sold out. You couldn't sell out a show. I did. My show sold out. Can't get a ticket for anything. So, I mean, it was, it really bothered him that the more he told me what to do, the more I kind of leaned into being myself in every way, you know. Because his insistence was, myself was not going to work, you know, the way that I was. would get me nowhere. And so I just... Speaker 1 (17:39) I don't know, became more and more myself. You know, when you're gay, I mean, you kind of, I mean, for someone my age, right, you're not yourself for a long time. You know, you pretend you're straight and you have a girlfriend and, you know, you pretend that you actually like music