Fashion Neurosis with Bella Freud

Episode: Fashion Neurosis with Hilton Als

Date: January 14, 2026
Guest: Hilton Als (Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, curator, and cultural critic)
Host: Bella Freud

Overview

In this episode, Bella Freud welcomes Hilton Als to the Fashion Neurosis couch for a deeply personal and wide-ranging conversation about fashion, identity, creativity, queerness, family, and the emotional landscape of style. Through their dialogue, the podcast explores how clothing is intertwined with our lives, histories, and how we move through the world—revealing more than just surface impressions.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Hilton’s Relationship with Clothing and Style

• Outfit Choices & Practicality
  • Hilton describes his attire (white shirt, dark sweater, seldom-worn jeans) as both intentional and circumstantial:
    • “I realized that it would be good to have a white shirt for contrast with my skin and then also a dark sweater in contrast with the white shirt.” (01:30)
    • His jeans were chosen simply because his favorites were missing: “They were in the closet and I have a favorite pair but I couldn’t find them. So this is what you get.” (02:03)
• Fashion as Event and Company
  • Hilton reminisces about working in fashion and the excitement around the creation process:
    • “What I’ve always been interested in is the event of fashion. I loved the finished pictures, but I actually love the company more and I love the reality of making a little movie.” (02:38-04:38)
• Impact of Family & Gender on Expression
  • Hilton speaks about wearing his mother and sister’s clothes as a child, the comfort and complexity:
    • “I wore my mother and sister’s clothes when they were not at home. … They were always things that you could hide. So I only got brave enough to wear skirts and dresses in my late 20s.” (12:22-13:38)
  • He resists strict gender divides in clothing, expressing both artistic and personal liberation:
    • “I never felt gender specific about clothing. … By example, they were giving me permission to be an artist or to be queer or to be a humanist.” (13:38-14:10)
  • Family’s silent acceptance gave him freedom for self-invention.

The Connection Between Words, Images & Storytelling

• Short Form Storytelling and Instagram
  • Hilton explains his attraction to short-form:
    • “Stories had a certain intensity and then they disappeared… Instagram really is such a convenient way of carrying on that tradition… you also have to kind of understand the emotional temperature of what you’re doing. It’s like having your own little magazine.” (02:38-05:42)
  • Intent is not to prescribe feelings, but to evoke pause and self-reflection:
    • “I like making people pause... and try to understand how they feel about the images and the text, as opposed to me telling them how to feel.” (05:43-06:10)
• Storytelling as Problem-Solving
  • On the storytelling structure:
    • “Every story begins with a problem… With Instagram, what I like very much is the stop and start of the story… I present the problem and then I go on to the next problem.” (06:47-07:15)
• Arbus Inspiration & Artistic Flexibility
  • He draws a parallel with Diane Arbus’ philosophy:
    • “She didn't arrange the subject, she arranged her body to suit the subject. And I feel that way as a writer at The New Yorker or whether it's Instagram or curating, that I'm reshaping my body to suit the subject.” (07:23-08:46)

Family, Childhood, and Evolving Identity

• Change and Unpredictability in Childhood
  • Hilton reflects on how his family’s unpredictability—especially his sister’s searching—shaped him:
    • “Children really want predictability and they really want things to be the same. And yet at the same time… they know, I think children know even before adults that things will be changing. They're changing all the time.” (09:58-09:58)
• On Shame, Disguise, and Liberation in Dress
  • Hilton recalls shame over imperfect shoes as a child:
    • “I remember feeling very put together, except for my shoes, that my shoes were not as beautiful as the rest… I remember feeling enormous shame and anger about not having a complete look.” (16:29-18:09)
  • No significant attempts to disguise himself with clothes, but did remember hiding a magazine instead.

Gender, Community, and Loneliness

• Women as Emotional Center
  • Writes in The Women: “My propensity for identifying with women has been the dramatic center of my life.” (18:09-18:20)
  • This identification gives him a sense of community but also loneliness:
    • “The identification makes me feel comfort at times… Also made me feel great loneliness because I’m not… I haven’t had a life that many women have had, which includes children and those responsibilities.” (18:23-19:47)
• Language of Intimacy vs. Culture
  • Explains his mother’s use of “auntie man” as cultural, not personal:
    • “When she’s using words like that, she’s speaking out of her culture, right?… When she’s speaking to Hilton, she’s speaking to Hilton.” (20:05-21:10)

The Role of Exemplars and Inspiration

• Fashioning Identity After Historical Figures
  • As a child, Hilton styled himself after figures like Horace Greeley and Nellie Bly—his way of connecting and expressing admiration:
    • “I used to wear cravats. I would make style myself to look like Horace Greeley. I don't know what I was thinking. But my imagination was so rich in terms of wanting to connect to other people that I started to dress like them.” (22:48-24:21)
    • Mother’s support in these endeavors was nurturing and non-judgmental.

Art and Language as Keys to Self

• The Closet of Thinking—Experiencing Art as Liberation
  • On seeing a Robert Rauschenberg exhibition as a child:
    • “When you're given language, it sets you free… The docent gave me a way of deciphering what I was looking at so… I would be able to see the thing and come out into the light of my thinking.” (26:33-27:52)

Power, Criticism, and Love

• Matriarchal Influence and Power
  • Skepticism toward power stems from witnessing how power ‘misshapes’ people in a matriarchy:
    • “Growing up in a matriarchal society makes you suspicious of power because you see how power works on actual bodies and people, that it’s not an abstraction…” (30:16-31:10)
• Criticism as Loving Engagement
  • Hilton’s brand of criticism is “critical love,” aiming to bolster rather than simply judge:
    • “I think criticism and love should go together because how do we know if we're getting any better, if there's not a loving person to tell us… I was trying to enter into the world of the production and tell the artist what I felt and saw… in a way to bolster the production. So that was critical love.” (31:19-33:56)

Emotional Responses to Art and Fashion

• Physical Sensations and Artistic Response
  • Describes the somatic nature of criticism:
    • “When it’s something that is going to lift you up and free you, you feel it immediately in your heart and your head… It’s a blushing relationship to the truth.” (34:04-34:55)
  • Bella relates with color and emotional resonance:
    • “It almost goes into a color scheme in my system…” (34:55-35:34)

Maternal Kindness, Otherness, and Culture

• Mother as Model for Kindness
  • Believes familial kindness was a subtle form of rebellion:
    • “Our kindness… it was a very aberrant thing in that world… my mother didn't do that to people. She didn't other people. …I think that my kindness and sensitivity was something that my mother had and … that was the weirdness of us in that culture.” (35:45-37:17)

Fashion Fetishes and Observations

• Garments Hilton Loves on Women

  • “I’m always a sucker for fringe… Also very susceptible to really good men’s shoes in women… a pleated skirt and Peter Pan collars, a tie, a jacket that gives you a kind of misshapen look.” (37:39-38:47)
  • Fondness for uniforms and ‘misshapen’ tailoring, stemming from West Indian and British influences.

• Obsession with Reinvention

  • Enjoys how fashion continually renews itself:
    • “I like that it keeps going on and that even if you’re not directly involved, there are always wonderful legions of young people who are out there reinventing things, making new stories, new scenarios…” (40:06-41:03)

• On Attraction and Awkward Taste

  • Preference for authenticity over perfection:
    • “If you fancy someone and don’t like what they’re wearing… I just want to style that… The erotic part of it is undressing them to dress them.” (41:51-42:46)

Celebrity, Gender, and Performance

• Meeting Prince
  • Hilton describes his brief relationship with Prince as surreal and deeply affecting:
    • “Friends is too strong a word… What a beauty, you know? Just an extraordinary kind of head. Something marvelous washed up from another planet onto our shores.” (44:17-45:08)
  • Prince’s sense of self and gender fluidity fascinated Hilton:
    • “He was such an admixture of straight, gay, queer, hetero... you would have to tap into your own feminine... to really be a feminist, which is what Prince was, I feel, which is to say humanist.” (46:50-47:40)

Language, Literature, and Lightning-Bolt Moments

• Favorite Lyricists and Writers

  • Hilton admires Elvis Costello, Hal David, Burt Bacharach, and lyrics that read like philosophy:
    • “Hal David… wrote the most incredible lyrics. They were like philosophy to me. A chair is still a chair.” (50:15-50:37)

• First Books as Crucial Key

  • Electrifying early reads: Eleanor Roosevelt’s biography (“She was such a beautiful person”) and Bella’s own experience with Jack Kerouac (“It was like a key to something”). (51:27-52:52)

Personal Histories: Bella’s Journey

• Bella’s Childhood and Adolescence
  • Recounts a peripatetic childhood: Morocco, traveling in gypsy caravans, and the regularity she craved as a child:
    • “I had a regularity to my lunchtime and bedtime and there was like this little cupboard on the back of the horse drawn cart that had food in…” (53:04-54:37)
• Relationship with Her Father
  • Found comfort and power in shared silences:
    • “We would just stay on the phone in silence… years later I thought it didn’t matter that we didn’t say anything. It was just this… to and fro in silence and breathing. … It gave me force, it gave me power.” (56:19-57:26)

Women, Silence, and Encouragement

• Championing Women’s Voices
  • Fiercely committed to amplifying women’s voices and breaking silences:
    • “I never want to replicate that in my lifetime as an adult male. I don’t want to contribute to a woman's silence. I want to contribute to her speaking.” (58:31-59:36)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Stories had a certain intensity and then they disappeared.” — Hilton Als (02:38)
• “I like making people pause on Instagram and try to understand how they feel about the images and the text, as opposed to me telling them how to feel.” — Hilton Als (05:43)
• “By example, they were giving me permission to be an artist or to be queer or to be a humanist.” — Hilton Als (14:10)
• “I present the problem and then I go on to the next problem.” — Hilton Als on storytelling (07:15)
• “Children know even before adults that things will be changing. They're changing all the time. The interior self is changing.” — Hilton Als (10:30)
• “Every story begins with a problem. And if you think about it, it’s true. Something has to be solved.” — Hilton Als (06:47)
• “I never felt gender specific about clothing. … We're saying that we're humanist.” — Hilton Als (13:38)
• “I was like her weirdness, her weirdness realized.” — Hilton Als, on himself and his mother (35:45)
• “I don't want to contribute to a woman's silence. I want to contribute to her speaking.” — Hilton Als (58:31)
• “Criticism and love should go together because how do we know if we're getting any better if there’s not a loving person to tell us…” — Hilton Als (31:19)
• “If you fancy someone and don’t like what they’re wearing, does it kill your attraction?”
  Hilton: “Oh my gosh. I have a... it's perverse, but I just kind of want to style that.” (41:51)
• “He just looked like a beautiful turtle. Just had this huge head and this little body and… what an amazing creature.” — Hilton Als on Prince (44:48)
• “The silence that I was taught as a means of survival no longer fits me now.” — Bella Freud referencing Hilton Als (57:42)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:24] Hilton’s outfit and the meaning behind it
• [02:38] Magazine culture, storytelling, and Instagram
• [07:23] Adapting to subject, Diane Arbus’ influence
• [12:22] Wearing mother’s/sister’s clothing and family acceptance
• [16:29] Shame and hiding, stories from childhood
• [18:09] Emotional identification with women
• [22:48] Styling oneself after historical figures
• [26:33] Rauschenberg exhibit and the liberating power of language
• [30:16] Growing up in a matriarchy and views on power
• [31:19] Criticism as an act of love
• [34:04] Emotional/physical sensations triggered by art
• [35:45] Kindness as familial “weirdness”
• [37:39] Clothes Hilton loves to see women wear
• [40:06] Fashion as a continually renewing force
• [41:51] Attraction, awkward taste, and wanting to “style” lovers
• [44:17] Experience meeting Prince
• [46:50] Gender fluidity and the artistic self
• [50:15] Favorite lyricists and writers
• [51:27] Lightning-bolt first reads
• [53:04] Bella’s unconventional upbringing and stability
• [56:19] Father-daughter silences and connection
• [57:42] Overcoming silences and giving voice to women

Final Thoughts

This episode is a poignant, generous, and artfully meandering conversation between two creative souls. Hilton Als’ reflections on family, gender, and the subtle signals of clothing provide a unique lens through which to see fashion as lived experience, not mere surface. Bella Freud’s gentle probing and openness add warmth and depth, making this a rich exploration of how fashion, art, and selfhood intertwine.

For anyone interested in what happens when the language of clothing meets the language of the heart, this episode is both insightful and inspiring.