Fashion Neurosis with Zadie Smith

Summary

Fashion Neurosis with Bella Freud: A Deep Dive into Zadie Smith's Style and Identity

Episode: Fashion Neurosis with Zadie Smith
Release Date: November 6, 2024

In this compelling episode of Fashion Neurosis with Bella Freud, acclaimed author Zadie Smith joins host Bella Freud to explore the intricate relationship between fashion and personal identity. Through an intimate conversation, Smith delves into her sartorial choices, the influence of her upbringing, and the broader societal implications of clothing as a form of self-expression.

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1. Opening Remarks and Initial Style Choices

The episode begins with Bella Freud welcoming Zadie Smith to the show. Freud initiates the conversation by inquiring about Smith's outfit choice for the day.

Zadie Smith (01:06):
"I think I was trying to will spring to arrive. So between November and late February, I seem to wear black every day. And then when March comes, I try and add color and pink is for me, the beginning of spring."

Smith humorously acknowledges the unpredictability of spring weather in her country, contrasting it with her experiences in America where introducing color into her wardrobe coincided seamlessly with the seasonal change.

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2. Influence of Family and Mother’s Style

Smith reflects on her mother's distinctive sense of style and its impact on her own fashion choices.

Zadie Smith (03:23):
"We're not very different in age. She's only 20 years older than me, so there's often been periods where we've looked more like sisters than mother and daughter, and that seems to be happening again, actually."

She admires her mother's ability to dress elegantly without relying on makeup, emphasizing the natural grace her mother exuded. This admiration shaped Smith's focus on clothing as her primary mode of self-expression.

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3. Personal Fashion Trauma and Rebuilding

A pivotal moment in Smith's relationship with fashion emerges when she recounts losing her entire wardrobe in a fire.

Zadie Smith (06:31):
"I lost my entire wardrobe in a fire. So for ages after that I'd be thinking that I had things that I no longer had, you know, dresses that I wanted or missed or."

This traumatic loss compelled her to rebuild her wardrobe from scratch, leading her to embrace boutique shopping in Italy and developing a preference for unique, statement pieces over mass-produced fashion.

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4. Fashion as a Tool for Seriousness and Feminism

Smith discusses the challenges of presenting oneself as a serious writer in the 1990s, a time when women felt pressured to downplay their femininity to be taken seriously.

Zadie Smith (08:44):
"I was always trying to walk that line to look like a serious person. It seems so funny to me now, but I remember dressing like that."

She contrasts this with her later experiences in Italy, where women could be both stylish and authoritative, highlighting the stark differences in cultural perceptions of female fashion and power.

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5. Perceptions of Male Fashion and Its Impact on Attraction

The conversation shifts to Smith's views on male fashion and its influence on her personal attractions.

Zadie Smith (20:19):
"I once saw a very beautiful girl at a literary event in formal shorts and I just could not ever take that person seriously again in any form, in literature or in person."

She articulates a nuanced perspective on how clothing can either enhance or diminish personal and professional credibility, emphasizing her challenges in navigating men's fashion compared to women's.

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6. Fashion as Emotional Expression and Mood Enhancement

Smith explores how certain colors and styles influence her mood and emotional well-being.

Zadie Smith (25:28):
"If I'm wearing block colours, yellow, blue, red and green together, for example, or sorbet colors. Light pink, light yellow, light blue. And the sun's out. I feel very cheery."

She highlights the therapeutic aspect of fashion, using vibrant colors and African prints to uplift her spirits during summer months.

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7. Evolving Relationship with Accessories: Bags and Shoes

Smith candidly discusses her evolving relationship with accessories, particularly bags and shoes.

Zadie Smith (26:30):
"When I was young I used to think, who are all these sad old women who like want bags and shoes? Why don't they get a life?"

While she acknowledges her initial indifference, her perspective shifts with age as she begins to appreciate the functionality and artistry of high-end bags, although she remains critical of certain styles like Chanel bags.

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8. Heels, Feminism, and Personal Conflict

The topic of heels brings forth Smith's internal conflict between feminist ideals and personal style choices.

Zadie Smith (31:48):
"It's not the sexiness I hate. I don't refuse to be uncomfortable or in any way, you know, just not free."

She elaborates on how she reconciles her feminist beliefs with her appreciation for heels as a form of art, preferring comfortable options like platform heels over stilettos.

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9. Fashion as a Social Strategy and Handling Shyness

Smith shares her strategy of using fashion to navigate social interactions and manage her shyness.

Zadie Smith (35:53):
"I think people do, particularly in my world when I was young, people do talk at literary girls. They talk at them, they lecture them and they tell them what books they should read."

By dressing in a way that commands attention, she creates a protective barrier that allows her to engage on her own terms rather than being subjected to unsolicited advice or commentary.

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10. Reflections on Body Image and Self-Acceptance

The conversation delves into Smith's journey towards self-acceptance and her evolving relationship with her body image.

Zadie Smith (43:43):
"What a tremendous waste of time."

She reflects on her past anxieties about her appearance and how embracing her natural self has liberated her from societal pressures and self-doubt.

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11. Literary Inspirations and Characterization Through Fashion

Smith discusses how literary figures and characters inspire her own fashion choices and character development in her writing.

Zadie Smith (44:21):
"I almost never relate to literary characters, which is a weird thing though, I guess in some of my own novels... but I don't know the person whose clothes I've always been curious about."

She cites influences like Zora Neale Hurston and Virginia Woolf, drawing parallels between their unique styles and her portrayal of characters in her novels.

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12. Transition to Natural Hair and Personal Authenticity

Concluding the episode, Smith talks about her transition from wearing turbans to embracing her natural hair, symbolizing a deeper alignment with her authentic self.

Zadie Smith (47:58):
"I just really enjoy it more and more."

This shift not only reflects her personal growth but also her desire to connect with her cultural heritage and express her individuality through her natural hair.

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Conclusion

In this insightful episode, Zadie Smith and Bella Freud unravel the complex interplay between fashion, identity, and societal expectations. Smith's candid reflections offer listeners a profound understanding of how clothing transcends mere aesthetics, serving as a powerful tool for self-expression, emotional well-being, and navigating social landscapes. Through personal anecdotes and thoughtful analysis, the conversation underscores the profound impact of fashion on one's inner and outer lives.

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For more episodes, visit Fashion Neurosis or follow on Instagram @fashionneurosis_bellafreud.

Transcript

[Zadie Smith]

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[Unknown Interviewer]

Hi, come in. Welcome to Fashion Neurosis, Zadie Smith.

[Zadie Smith]

Thank you for having me.

[Unknown Interviewer]

I wanted to ask why you chose what you're wearing today.

[Zadie Smith]

I think I was trying to will spring to arrive. So between November and late February, I seem to wear black every day. And then when March comes, I try and add color and pink is for me, the beginning of spring.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Well, it didn't work.

[Zadie Smith]

It didn't work. It never works in this country, but in America it always worked.

[Unknown Interviewer]

They have that very banal expression, which is true. March comes in like a lamb and goes out like a lion. It's been going like a lion since about January.

[Zadie Smith]

Yeah, it's exhausting. It's really hard to get dressed for, but I'm just tired of wearing winter coats and I'm done.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Do you have any obsessions at the moment?

[Zadie Smith]

I maybe have an obsession about not looking ridiculous, which is maybe a preoccupation of women in their late 40s. So I have a little more anxiety getting dressed than I used to. You ask yourself a lot of questions like, are these jeans or does this skirt or will this coat, etc. I do that a lot these days.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Does it relate back to anything? Like, did anyone in your family dress in an embarrassing way?

[Zadie Smith]

I mean, no. I have an amazing example. My mother. I mean, she dresses, I would say she dresses to be the center of attention and she always did. But she was very good at it and very chic. Actually, she wears lots more color now, but when we were young, she was kind of a specialist in like silky black separates, everything. Very clean lines and very elegant. I'm sure she's the only Jamaican woman wearing a beret around Willston in the late 70s, early 80s. So she was very chic. And she absolutely has not gone quietly into that night. She Dresses more and more outrageously as she gets older.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah. It's interesting, the thing of your mother or. Or one's mother dressing in a kind of beautiful way. But it happened to be embarrassing at the time or just distracting, I think.

[Zadie Smith]

I mean, we're not very different in age. She's only 20 years older than me, so there's often been periods where we've looked more like sisters than mother and daughter, and that seems to be happening again, actually. But she definitely, you know, she really had great taste. And no makeup. I mean, she didn't need any makeup. So that's also something that has kind of impressed on my brain. Like, I wear a bit of lipstick, but I mainly just focus on clothes.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah. My mother, she. I mean, she dressed as a hippie and she had these, like, beautiful clothes and she was beautiful. But because we were very poor, it felt really awkward and it felt. It drew attention to us in a way that was hard to sort of. It was somehow invasive. People felt that they could comment on how we were because we were, you know, we were hitching or something. We didn't have protection.

[Zadie Smith]

Right. And you want your mother to look like everybody else. I mean, today I went out, we took my son to school in a T shirt which said Black Nerd. And I was wearing a white kangal cap and yellow library socks that looked like they've been. I mean, they've got the kind of stamp of a library on them. I think I must have got them from the New York Public Library. And, you know, he was distraught, which was fair. But, yeah, there's that tension between not embarrassing your children and wanting to dress as you please.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah, I know. It's a very delicate tightrope. I remember my sister wanted my mother to wear a brown crimpling trouser suit and have black curly hair like the woman who lived up the road.

[Zadie Smith]

They want you to look like a normal mum, but I think there is no such thing, really. And I notice all kinds of little expressions of style in. In the women I live around, and particularly of your generation. Right. Like, so you see all these mums and you can kind of detect which one was the raver, which one was the Indy kid, which one was a sneakerhead. It's all, like, lost in the winds of time, but you can still see these little glimpses of the 90s or whatever. I think it's the same with my mum's generation. My dad wanted to be like a 50s beatnik and my mum wanted to be a hippie or some chic North African, living in Paris.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah, sounds really good. But of course it always sounds good to everyone else. Do you have any fashion dreams ever?

[Zadie Smith]

I mean, I quite often think dream about clothes, not so much now, but in my 30s when getting dressed was a big drama and I was, I was really into it, I would often think about outfits or imagine I had things I didn't have. And also because I, when I was about 33, maybe a bit younger, 31 or 32, I lost my entire wardrobe in a fire. So for ages after that I'd be thinking that I had things that I no longer had, you know, dresses that I wanted or missed or. So that used to turn up in dreams sometimes.

[Unknown Interviewer]

God, that sounds so stressful.

[Zadie Smith]

I mean, it wasn't great. Yeah, I lost, I lost everything and then had to start again. I still sometimes think about individual items in that wardrobe that was so lovely. But yeah, all gone.

[Unknown Interviewer]

What did you start with when you started again?

[Zadie Smith]

Trying to think. I mean, at that point then I had some money. Like when I first started buying clothes. The first thing I actually bought for myself is when I went to college and I got a student loan. And instead of spending it on necessities, I immediately went and bought some red and white Nike Air Max and was so proud of myself. But after the fire, I think I was living in Italy and I probably would have bought something from the little boutique shops there, you know, so it's like Paris. You're always buying individual, strange little things. I remember, I remember Nyx. For some reason, my husband bought a T shirt which says I have a cold robot heart. I remember that that was sometime after the fire, but I don't remember what I bought.

[Unknown Interviewer]

I think if you have the right outfit, you can think better. I think when thinking and articulating is, is so important to you, which clearly is to you. Part of my solute, you know, part of what makes my brain and my mind feel secure is my outfit. And I think that's why I became a fashion designer.

[Zadie Smith]

I mean, it's changed. I can remember when I first became a writer. It's such a different time. 1999. If I spoke anywhere or if I. When I started teaching, I started teaching quite young. The emphasis was always on, you know, same with stand up comedians at the same period. Like don't, like, don't let on you're a woman almost. You didn't want to, if you had to be taken seriously so you couldn't wear anything too, I don't know, feminine or. I was always trying to Walk that line to look like a serious person. It seems so funny to me now, but I remember dressing like that. Like, if I had to give a reading, I would be like all lady writers in the 90s in a black blazer and a black shirt and some black jeans and black boots. Like it's, it's kind of ridiculous. But then that faded away and I think, particularly living in Italy and seeing women at all levels of society, even though it's such an unbelievably misogynist country. Sorry, Italy, but it is. The weird flip side of it is that it doesn't make this puritanical thing about women and beauty so powerful. Women can be very, very dressed and still considered powerful. It's like a weird flip side of patriarchy. So there's not a lot else in Italian life I would adopt, but that part I found quite interesting that there was no contempt for the idea of a woman dressing up. Yeah, yeah.

[Unknown Interviewer]

I lived in Italy for a couple of years and I, I agree that that aspect is. It's really good. I mean, there's some sort of further misogyny that happens here about that. When a woman does make an effort to look nice, it's so up for grabs, really. It's up for sort of being derided and.

[Zadie Smith]

Right.

[Unknown Interviewer]

And it's very empowering because we're taught that, you know, you shouldn't care about your appearance, but it's a. It's a means to an end, so it's a strategy. So. Yeah, and actually it's very effective.

[Zadie Smith]

Also, I think there's something a bit darker about it, which I only understood when I published because I'd never considered myself. I was kind of an awkward looking kid. I couldn't dress. I was very much in the shadow of my mother. So I never thought about anything apart from my work. And then when I published and I learned to dress a bit, I kept on reading these pieces about me saying, well, she can't be good because look at her. And then I thought about it and I thought, what does that actually mean? It must mean that in England the idea of female beauty or attraction is antithetical to the idea of intellect. So the point is, why would you bother being smart if you can be pretty? That was the argument. Like, she can't be smart because if you're pretty, then that's what you. You get what you need as a woman. Why would you bother doing anything else? And vice versa, if you're smart, you must have become smart because you couldn't get whatever England has to give you any other way. I mean, that is such an extraordinary set of ideas. When you unpack them, it is.

[Unknown Interviewer]

It's totally. I mean, they completely go against each other because the brilliant combination is to be both, or they're not mutually exclusive. Like being intelligent or having intelligence that you know how to use partly in how you dress is so much fun. So intelligence doesn't only reside in intellect, does it?

[Zadie Smith]

I just. I found it really interesting. I realized that that's what these men think. They think that beauty is a kind of tool used against them and a very effective one. They understand it's effective, but once a woman has it, why. Why would she bother with any other. Any other of the tools of life? So that was kind of instructive. But, yeah, I guess living in Italy, watching, you know, literary critics and mathematicians and physicists all on telly, done up in these interesting ways, I. I found it kind of engaging, just surprising, because I'd never seen anything like that in England.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah. My father used to start a painting at the point between the eyes. And I wondered where you start an outfit.

[Zadie Smith]

I'm usually lying in bed, and I think. I do think of lipstick and a color, a kind of color scheme to go with it. I. I feel. I feel like I have a. I almost never get it wrong. And then sometimes I. Very, very recently, I got it so tremendously wrong. And I was really shocked. Part of it was the problem that the dress I was wearing, the zip split at the last minute. And then I had to go to this very fancy thing in the. And the dress code was business attire, which I realized did my head in. Like, no dress code is ever. Because. What is my business attire? Pajamas, usually. And a beanie every day for 25 years. So I literally went to this thing dressed as Stella McCartney was there and explained to me I looked like a secretary in NatWest in the 70s behind a bank till. And she was correct. I just lost the plot. So sometimes I put an outfit together in seconds, usually in my mind. And I always think that I go with my gut. And it's like playing a character. You play a role. And I really realized when I did this thing a few days ago that the role was so unfamiliar to me, business attire, that I just absolutely screwed the pooch. It was terrible. And, yeah, it was awful. And just, as you say, because I was so badly dressed and so, so wrong, I couldn't really think. I kept on talking nonsense. I sweated profusely. It was like a full disaster.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah, but I'm Interested. Do you think of lipstick at the same time as. As your.

[Zadie Smith]

Well, it's the only. Adoring. Yeah, it's the only. I can't. I just don't. I find makeup really, really boring, and I don't have any patience for it. So lipstick is the one thing. And I kind of know. I guess I only have two modes, which is bright red. No, three. Dark red or a light pink. And that kind of sorts in my mind, and then along various lines of how masculine do I want to be? Or how feminine? And that changes day by day. Like, sometimes I really feel much more butch. I want to be in a full suit. And much less common now is this kind of girlish dress thing. But sometimes I used to wear a lot of dresses, but less now.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Do you remember the first time in your life you found a piece of clothing that made you feel different? I mean, by different, I mean, it sort of gave you something. It acted for you, I think.

[Zadie Smith]

Gosh, yeah. There was a. That address which went up in that fire. It was by. I think it was a French brand. And I can't remember who it was exactly now, but it was a. I guess a tea dress. Like a 1940s tea dress, but new and just fit perfectly. And when I was in it, I felt like Joan Crawford, who is one of my great fashion inspirations, and just very happy. That kind of dress, it's. Joan Croft is such a good example. It is feminine, but it's also not. It's like, they're very bossy, those dresses. And I mean, the one style I cannot abide personally is that kind of boho hippie skirt, peasant. I know ladies look lovely in it, but I. It's like antithetical to my entire existence. I could never wear anything like that. So large periods of the 90s were painful for me. That kind of Glastonbury look, and I can't stand it. I kind of prefer, like, take inspiration from the kind of formal way you get in places like Ghana or Nigeria, like, bright lines, powerful outfits. Or those 1940s lady movie stars like Crawford.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah, I really agree about the boho. I find that totally undermining. If I had to go out dressed like that, I wouldn't know who I was at all.

[Zadie Smith]

I feel miserable. And it's about a certain kind of prettiness. Like, I don't know, someone like Sienna Miller is pretty, but I'm not pretty. I have no. I also have no aspirations. I don't. I'm not concerned with prettiness. So for me, it's just not a thing that I would ever, ever be interested in wearing or being.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah, because the Ghana outfit that you described is. When you said that, I thought that's my version. That. My version of that is to wear a suit and a tie. And I feel much more feminine within a more formal dressing structure.

[Zadie Smith]

Yeah, it has to be formal. Like, I can't. I think my least favorite hem in the world is that handkerchief hem. Oh my God, that is an abomination. Or anything with fringes, tassels. I can't. Anything that's not distinct or isn't a clean line, I cannot. Anything silly. I just can't abide anything like that. I can't wear it. So. But I think it's so good to know what you can't wear. It just makes life much quicker. You go into a shop and 85% of the clothes there just filed under. Not for me.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yes.

[Zadie Smith]

So it's very, very quick process.

[Unknown Interviewer]

No, it's very soothing, actually, because instead of there being, you know, an awful amount of choice that leaves you then completely confused, you see immediately what's there for you.

[Zadie Smith]

Right.

[Unknown Interviewer]

It's either for you or not. And then you're done and you're empowered.

[Zadie Smith]

That's it. But that's also about not being a leaf in the wind of trend. I think that's a line of Martin Amos's. So you can't be opening magazines and thinking, oh, it's whatever it is skinny jeans are in, or that's just absurd. You have to think about what works with your body and with your sensibility, even more importantly.

[Unknown Interviewer]

But then, weirdly, within those trends, when they mostly don't suit you, you suddenly spy something.

[Zadie Smith]

I suddenly see that sometimes it's a gift. It's like when the kids came up with, I don't know, something like the word they as a pronoun. Like, oh, yeah, that's a. That's a fantastic idea. It's like something that comes to you as a gift from a younger generation. So that's certainly true of jeans. Like every now and then some kid invents a different way of wearing a jean and you're like, oh, yeah, that's much better. I hated, like, I wore a lot of boot cut jeans, but I was really grateful when that died. I never need to see another pair of those jeans again.

[Unknown Interviewer]

My next question is very much on this subject of if you fancy someone but don't like their clothes, does it kill your attraction to them?

[Zadie Smith]

That's interesting. I'm thinking, I'm trying to work out if I'm more judgmental about women or men's clothing in this department. I think it might be a close run thing. I once saw a very beautiful girl at a literary event in formal shorts and I just could not ever take that person seriously again in any form, in literature or in person. So some things like that, I just cannot, I can't. If you turn up to an evening event in formal shorts, I can't. That's it. There can be no attraction, sexual or personal or anything with men. I, yeah, I think that there can be that thing of men of my generation dressing in exactly the same cargo shorts and Adidas tops that they were wearing in 1996. I find pretty tough to take. But I don't know, I think with, maybe with men, clothes can really make a man, like really make him attractive when he might not otherwise be. Whereas I don't know, women, I'm less sure about that.

[Unknown Interviewer]

What kind of clothes for men? Because I mean, I find that lots of men are famously have no idea really what, they see something in a catalog and they buy those, that thing. And there's something very kind of endearing about a man just wearing some clothes.

[Zadie Smith]

Yeah, I mean, I, I, I always think I would have been a good stylist. And when I think about my female friends, I'm always excited to, I'd love to go help them get dressed or point them towards thing or send them links or. But if you ask me how to dress a man, I literally, if I walk into a men's clothes shop, I just don't even know what I'm looking at. It just seems to be, I have no opinion, I have no idea. I don't understand how men get dressed at all. And yet when you see a man who's well dressed, you're like, oh, you look great. But I don't know where he found those clothes. I wouldn't be able to find them. So to me, it's a complete area of mystery. I know that there are certain kinds of like really good Japanese jeans that sometimes men wear. They look amazing, but I don't know how you get those. Or I can't buy my husband anything at all because I don't understand men's shops. I don't know on the hanger you can't tell what you're looking at. Whereas with women's clothes, in a second you can tell exactly what it is, what it would look like on who it suits. So I'm in the dark a little.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Bit there also I find something about. I mean, I find it much more difficult when a man has tried to dress in a kind of groovy way or trendy or something, and then it's so painful. I mean, I remember one incident with this guy I was seeing and he came to see me dressed up and he looked like someone in the chorus of a pantomime. And it was so shocking.

[Zadie Smith]

Yeah, it's ok.

[Unknown Interviewer]

But my way of addressing it was to. You know, I knew it was a really bad sign and I knew that really I ought to run a mile, but because I wasn't really ready to run a mile, I overrode my feeling by falling more in love with him as to sort of overcome this terrible outfit. Yeah, the terrible outfit. But, I mean, in the end the outfit won out.

[Zadie Smith]

But I think you see it sometimes with young male actors who've been dressed by stylists. They look lost and, like, the clothes are wearing them, as they say, and just completely. It hasn't worked in any way. So I always find that a little bit depressing, particularly with young men. The style should be. Should come from you. And some of it is, like, enjoyably eccentric. Like a sort of picture of Paul Mescal, who had, for some reason, cut his own sweat top into a kind of belly top. And his shorts, I think he cut them with a pair of scissors. And that was a good look, like he'd made an effort. I like that kind of ingenuity.

[Unknown Interviewer]

God, really?

[Zadie Smith]

Yeah, it was. It was quite a look, I suppose.

[Unknown Interviewer]

If you can pull it off.

[Zadie Smith]

If you can pull it off.

[Unknown Interviewer]

But pulling it off sometimes just means doing it. And even though it's kind of horrifying, it's something. Yeah, but I'm not sure how attractive.

[Zadie Smith]

Well, I also think, you know, black street wear, both in America and here, is pretty awesome. It's always attractive, it's simple. It's always, you know, the fresher it is. The fresher the sneakers, the fresher the sweats. I love all of that. It's like tux or something. It's always well done.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Are there certain clothes that make you feel better when you're feeling low?

[Zadie Smith]

Yeah, if I'm wearing block colours, yellow, blue, red and green together, for example, or sorbet colors. Light pink, light yellow, light blue. And the sun's out. I feel very cheery. I really like wearing an African print in the summer. That cheers me like a kente cloth. And when I was younger, I used to really love wearing 50s silhouettes. I haven't done that in years. But all the way through my 30s, I really enjoyed wearing these. Sometimes vintage from Alfie's, you know, off Church street, but like proper crinoline. So funny to remember now. Big 50s skirts. Yeah, that always made me happy.

[Unknown Interviewer]

What about bags? Do you have any feelings about bags?

[Zadie Smith]

That's only come with age. When I was young I used to think, who are all these sad old women who like want bags and shoes? Why don't they get a life? That's what I used to think about everyone who was concerned with bags. And I had literally no any interest in them apart from like 50s clutch bags, which I just get from any secondhand stall or. But of course, as you get older, the attraction of bags, shoes becomes obvious. You don't have to fit into a bag or a shoe. They're always available to you. I still can't. I honestly cannot spend money on a bag and I never have. I bought them for my mom because she likes to show off a nice bag. But it's. I'm incapable of walking into a fancy bag store and laying out money for a brand. It just, it makes me feel sick, so I can't do that. But I do admire the shape of certain bags and I've been lucky sometimes with like Loewe Jonathan Anderson, who is a friend of my husband's. Some of his family is from Northern Ireland and they knew my husband's family. He gave me a few Loewe bags and they've. They're amazing. They're absolutely amazing. I don't think I could buy one. Sorry, John, them. But I am really amazed to own them. They're like works of art. Yeah, yeah.

[Unknown Interviewer]

I feel similarly about bags. I like a kind of cheap, rubbishy bag that somehow I've bought things down Portobello. Like I bought this fantastic lion of Judah bag that was 10 quid and I. I love things like that. But shoes are in a different category.

[Zadie Smith]

Different category. I find like bags like, like Chanel bags. I find that really kind of. And it's like anti fashion to me. I don't get it. I know that it's got kind of classic connotations, but I really don't enjoy it. But sometimes big totes I don't mind. But the reality is I'm usually got a canvas bag, so it seems, and I've got to carry a laptop almost always, so. But I have one big beautiful pink tote leather bag from New York and a red one. So those kind of alternate depending on what's on my mouth. But shoes. Shoes is a Whole other affair.

[Unknown Interviewer]

God, shoes is. Shoes is just what I live for. That's where I start with an outfit, I think. How do I. What. How elevated. I mean, literally, how elevated do I want to be today? Either in a trainer or in a huge. Something that goes up. And then I just feel like. It's like my soul is repositioned. I just. I feel a different type of confidence, a different type of sense of myself.

[Zadie Smith]

I mean, I feel. I have a real hard time with it because, you know, I spent my whole childhood and adolescence reading great amounts of feminist theory. And I am a feminist, and I. I find heels really stressful as a concept, and yet I have owned so many of them. Never, ever, ever a stiletto. I can't. I hate to be unstable, but platform heels, big square heels, I mean, particularly in my 20s and 30s. And it was exactly that. The feeling of that when I was in them, I didn't feel vulnerable or the kind of feelings I don't enjoy. I really did feel like I was about to stomp somebody to the ground. And I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed the height, particularly. I am tall, but I would really love to be taller. For me, as far as women go, the taller the better. So I just. I liked being tall. And then, I mean, it's all kind of, you know, for, I think, 20 years, I didn't buy Nike because I read Naomi Klein's no Logo is a great book she published the same year I published White Teeth. And I swore to myself, I will never buy another Nike trainer. And, you know, I grew up on Nikes and they were, you know, grew up in Willesden. They are. They are fashion. Anyway, about four years ago, I broke and I bought Air Max. Red, white, the same ones I would have had in 1992. Sorry, Naomi. And I really do enjoy them. So I have those. I have a silver pair and I have a gold pair. That's the other thing I do. Pink and red lipstick or silver and gold. So lesson of my mum's. I mean, I'm sure it's everyone's lesson that you can only wear all silver and. Or all gold. Never mix them. So I need to reiterate, nothing I'm talking about is actually real silver or actually real gold, but they're separated. And I. A lot of my outfits are based around whether I'm silver or gold today. Yeah.

[Unknown Interviewer]

I mean, I don't think being sexy is a odds with being a feminist at all. Or heels or anything.

[Zadie Smith]

It's not the sexiness I hate. I don't refuse to be uncomfortable or in any way, you know, just not free.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Zadie Smith]

So when a heel gives me pain or slows me down or I cannot. So stilettos are not a possibility for me. I can't. I can't have it as a kind of liability. So. So I have. I do have a conflicted feeling about it, because I do. I do like the costuming part of. Of feminine life. And I've learned to enjoy it more and think of it as a kind of art form mainly through actually meeting fashion designers and fashion people who. Who I realize take what they do as seriously as I take what I do, and that they're making the world. Like. One of the things, when you look at fashion history. I just wrote this novel set in the Victorian period, and I read a lot of books about Victorian clothes, is that they're genuinely. It's not a new thing to say, but they are expressing the mood of the time, like in the most practical and direct sense. So you can look at a photograph of any decade in the 20th century and know within a second what decade it is. And it's. It's from what people are wearing. It's a media, even more than their haircuts or anything else. So it's a way of expressing time. So I. I think when I was younger, I just. I just thought of it as a system that oppresses women. And so I. I found it really hard to take, but I. I've learned to have more fun with it and think of it as, like. Just as, like, what I do when I'm making characters on the page, like it's characterization, except I'm the character.

[Unknown Interviewer]

A friend told me he masked his shyness with misbehavior. Have you ever tried that? Do you dress up or down with shyness?

[Zadie Smith]

I absolutely am shy. In a sense, I'm not because I spend so much time by myself during the day. In the evenings, I'm a bit. I have. I think I have, like, a permanent lockdown personality. So I'm just a bit rusty. I'm aware of people having jobs and being with colleagues all day long and so having these social skills a bit more fluid than I have them. So when I go out in the evening, I am liable to have an awkward conversation or say the wrong thing or just not know how to talk to people. So I absolutely dress. You know, I think I learned it from my mum. Like, she enters the room like a queen. And that means that people are wary of you. They might be a bit scared of you. It gives you a bit of time to get yourself together. And I just, I just much prefer to enter a room like that than to enter in a kind of mousy or vulnerable way. So things like capes are very important to me. I like a good cape and I just. I enjoy, particularly when I lived in New York, if I had to go to an event or a literary event, I'd rather walk into a room in an outfit which makes people anxious to talk. Like they don't. They're too scared to come up to talk to me. That's. I guess that suits me better, basically.

[Unknown Interviewer]

It's interesting what you just said, because I was thinking about asking you what was the first thing you knew would invite disapproval and did it make you feel more free or more self conscious. But I'm very interested that it's part of your way of handling going into a room, that there is a level of intimidation that creates a pause between people just being presumptuous about invading your space. I mean, it sounds a bit grandiose.

[Zadie Smith]

But I think people do, particularly in my world when I was young, people do talk at literary girls. They talk at them, they lecture them and they tell them what books they should read. And there's a lot of that. And I didn't really want. It's kind of about wanting to be the person who's talking rather than the person who's being talked at. There's definitely a part of that and sometimes it's a bit perverse. Like I, you know, if I was going to a very stuffy literary event, then I might want to wear a big afro or, you know, to wear something quite street wearish or, you know, because it's funny, it's funny. The contrast is funny. It amused me at least when I was younger that everybody's dressed like a blue stocking and I'm dressed in streetwear or sometimes the other way around, you know, like I'll go to a more street like party and then I'll be dressed like a blue stocking. Something like that. Like, the contrast amuses me. I guess it works that way, but it's never. I don't know if I think if the aim was to look pretty in the conventional sense, that would be such a different. To me, that's such a vulnerable thing, place to be like, as if you're asking the question when you enter the room, am I pretty? That's something that I never ever wanted to ask or get the answer to, I suppose. Just not a question that interests me.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Do you Remember the first thing you wore to be consciously attractive to someone?

[Zadie Smith]

I mean when I was in school. Because I felt so outside of all of that I had to kind of. I was just very angry about pretty people and their pretty clothes. I just didn't want to be involved with them. And I consider I had that kind of resentful, like, oh, you do that and I'll sit here and read all day long. And so I was very negative about all of that. And in those days it was kind of. We called them Becks. They were like beautiful North London girls in skinny white jeans and with huge blow dries and. And then there were. I didn't aspire to that. But then the other girls, like the girls I knew, like black girls in big trousers and tiny belly tops. And I couldn't wear any of that either. I didn't feel comfortable in it, I didn't look good in it. So I just felt very kind of that those were the hot girls and that wasn't my thing. So to try and be attractive, I think I made lots of faltering attempts. You know when you're a teenager you think, well, I've got breasts. Is that a thing? You wear awful push up bras and terrible things that didn't work at all. They just didn't. They didn't work. I just found it very. And because my father was a photographer, wanted to be and was very preoccupied with beautiful women, kind of like your father and was always looking at them and thinking about them and photographing them. And so I always felt very like just that that was just not my world and I felt embarrassed not to be whatever that was. And he actually said to me he took some pictures of me when I was 18 because my mom had said to him. My parents were divorced by then, but my mom said look, Sadie feels so ugly all the time. Couldn't you take her out and just take some nice pictures? So she had a few nice pictures so she could feel and so this was all conjured up and they did my hair like print, like a bouffant. I had a massive sweatshirt on and I think a long black skirt. And my dad took me up to his office, he was working in a paper company up to the roof of his office in Houston and took these professional shots and I look absolutely absurd. So awful. And my dad, because he's very honest, maybe your father was like this about aesthetics. He just said well look, these are awful but one day you're going to be very beautiful. Just not now.

[Unknown Interviewer]

That's funny.

[Zadie Smith]

It's so funny. And he said, your face will change. You're 15, and one day you're going to be very beautiful. And now I think about it, I think that's such a crazy thing to say to a kid. But I kind of took it seriously. I was like, yeah, okay, fine. So I'll just get on with what I'm doing. I won't worry about it. So I just didn't really think about it for about eight years.

[Unknown Interviewer]

That seems incredibly tender, sweet, sort of.

[Zadie Smith]

I mean, it's a thing of honesty. It was honest.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Zadie Smith]

It was like, you know, this is not. You are not. This is not your time. You are an awkward teenage girl. It's fine. And I was. It's fine.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah, I remember. I mean, I had such a thing against my body for most of my life, which improved a lot after I got pregnant. And I thought, God, it's so handy, this body.

[Zadie Smith]

Yeah.

[Unknown Interviewer]

But I. Before that, I even had. I asked someone to take some photographs of me naked so I could look back on them when I was old and think I was fine.

[Zadie Smith]

Yeah, I mean, that's the revelation that you were just fine. Like, all this anxiety and sadness, and I can't believe it now. And like, every now and then, like, I had to write something about my adolescence for the New Yorker, and they needed a photograph. And I was like, oh, you guys, you wait till you see this photograph. It's gonna be so funny, this photograph. How awful. And then I looked at. I found one. I was like, oh, there was literally nothing. There was nothing wrong with me. It's a. It's like it is a mental illness called being an adolescent girl. And I. It's such a shame. So much time wasted. But I just think in that case, and I think my father did have a very kind of conventional idea of female beauty. And my mother had been a model briefly. That's how they met. That him kind of saying, you're not in this competition of female beauty. I know I should have been insulted, but I actually found it very liberating that that wasn't going to be my concern.

[Unknown Interviewer]

How do you feel about being naked, then? If you. And if you have to be naked, do you keep something on to make.

[Zadie Smith]

You feel, oh, no. Now I'm like. I remember when I was. You know, when you're 15 and have probably like, the most beautiful body in reality, and you spend your entire time in changing rooms carefully disguising it in case anybody sees this monstrosity that you think you have, and then you see These older women who are objectively monstrous just walking around naked. I am one of those older women now. I just don't care. I don't care at all. I just don't care. It just completely vanishes. It's. It's all the wrong way around. Right. Yeah, it's backwards. But no, I don't have any. That's gone completely.

[Unknown Interviewer]

I. I was never naked, except, oddly enough, when I sat for my father, when I felt perfectly fine and at ease and.

[Zadie Smith]

But how. You must have been asked many times, but how did you feel? Totally at ease. It's the opposite of what most people would feel in that scenario, I suppose.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Because I had something to do. I had a job. I needed to be naked in order to do that job, which was sitting. I knew you had to do that. I was good at it. And then as soon as the clothes were off, I never really thought about them again. I could have practically gone onto the street naked because I was adjusted. I wasn't preoccupied with revealing, as you described, this thing that I was so paranoid about.

[Zadie Smith]

Right.

[Unknown Interviewer]

And I knew that he was happy. He, you know, he needed a naked figure and that I was providing. So it was just sort of matter of fact.

[Zadie Smith]

Right. That's it. It's incredible that when I try and think back about how I thought about my body and the clothes that went on it, and it's like thinking about a different person, to be honest.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Yeah. It's really very.

[Zadie Smith]

It's hard to think yourself back into that person who was so worried or concerned about what different parts of their body look like in different kinds of clothes. I just. What a tremendous waste of time.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Is there a literary figure that you've ever imagined wanting to look and dress like?

[Zadie Smith]

Yeah, absolutely. Zora Neale Hurston. I think she's an incredible dresser. Who? Zora Neale Hurston. She's this. She's been dead a long time now, but great African American writer. She was an amazing wearer of hats, of those kind of 1940s dresses. And then there were kind of. I have a lot of colleagues, like people like Donna Tartt, who's incredible suits all the time. I remember meeting Toni Morrison once, and she had the most amazing shoes, like really ridiculously expensive, beautiful brogues. You know, there are a lot of women writers whose dress I really admire. My friend Katie Kitamura is an incredible dresser. Leanne Shapton Candy's Carty Williams, amazing dresser. So, yeah, there's quite a lot of.

[Unknown Interviewer]

But what about people in novels? Is there anyone in a novel? My first collection was completely designed for Colette's Claudine, right? She was my lit, you know, she was my muse. And with the little Lady Penelope from Thunderbirds sort of chic thrown in, but I very much thought of her all the way through, but just made her skirts incredibly short instead of ankle length.

[Zadie Smith]

I think I almost never relate to literary characters, which is a weird thing though, I guess in some of my own novels, like Kiki and On Beauty, I always imagine her dressing well, but I don't know the person whose clothes I've always been curious about. Virginia Woolf, though, really, her. All of those kind of shapeless hanging boho things she wore would never suit me. But I kind of. I'm just interested in the way she thought about clothes and how much she loved them. And there's a really funny bit in her diaries where she goes to Bond Streets where she always went and bought massive. She describes it as a massive green, I think it might be velvet hat. And she's very pleased with herself. And she goes off to see Vanessa, her sister, who she's in kind of constant low level, passive aggressive competition with. And she walks in and everybody's there, Clive Bell and Canes and everyone strachey. And they just burst out laughing. Poor Virginia. And at her hat and at her. And at first you think it's like a funny episode and then literally for the next two or three weeks in a diary, she's just burning up with shame about it. She can't. She can't let it go that she's so angry, angry at them and angry that she wore the hat and angry that she bought it. And I really relate to that thing where you so happy with a piece of clothing and then you go out somewhere and turns out to be completely wrong. And the humiliation is so intense. So I always feel for her in that moment.

[Unknown Interviewer]

One of the first times I remember meeting you, as it were, we would pass on the bridge nearby where I live and you'd often have a big hat on, like a big beanie. And I noticed that when I looked at photographs of you before and before I knew you'd be wearing a turban a lot. And now you have your hair out and you often have these beautiful decorations in. And I wondered what. What's changed?

[Zadie Smith]

I mean, I think originally it was a series of things with a turban. One is that I. I just like makeup. I can't be bothered with haircare. I just. I'm lazy and it's quick and there's something regal about It. And. And I like its connection with the diaspora I come from. I like its African connection. And I like the idea of being one of the many, many women in the world who cover their hair. That's an enormous community. So I like participating in that. I liked all the different colors. And also at a very practical level, it was a way of separating the person who writes the books from me. So I guess I really, you know, I don't. I don't really enjoy being recognized in the street or anything like that. And the more books I wrote, the more I wore the head wrap in. The few times I have to be photographed or out in the world, then when I'm not wearing it, which is every other day of the week, nobody recognized me. So it was a really convenient thing. So the head wrap was just for a kind of public version of me. And then I could be my private self all the time. Nobody, literally no one would ever notice me. Even if someone would be sitting in a tube, some would be reading a book of mine, sat right opposite me, and they wouldn't notice me because they're expecting this head wrap. So that was good. And then it kind of just stopped working, I think. And. Yeah, so I kind of. And then I couldn't really wear it anywhere. Like, I couldn't wear a head wrap to get to somewhere because people recognized it. So. And I just got more interested in, like, taking care of my natural hair using protective styles or wearing out or just wearing a big Afro, or. I met this wonderful writer, Yaa Jayasi, who wrote Homecoming. It's a beautiful novel, and she's extraordinary. Natural, thick, what we call type 4C African hair, tight curl. And it's so beautiful. And I. And she. I said, well, how do you. How do you do that? And she just said, you know, every night I just oil it and twist it. Which, of course, my mother had told me a million times, but you never listen to your own mother. So I just started doing that and enjoying the feel of my hair and the things it does and all the different effects you can have with Afro hair. You can just do so many interesting things. So I just really enjoy it. And sometimes I can just wear it huge and it just covers my face anyway. You can slick it down, you can wear it in a bun. It has an amazing effect on your outfits, on. On your style. So I've just really. I really enjoy it more and more.

[Unknown Interviewer]

Well, thank you so much, Zadie, for sharing your fashion neuroses with me. I really enjoyed it.

[Zadie Smith]

Thank you.