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- [00:01]
Arden Fanning Andrews
This episode of the Run through is brought to you by ebay. I'm Arden Fanning Andrews, Vogue's beauty editor at large. Everyone's talking about tassels right now, and that's the moment that I end up typing it into ebay. I found the perfect vintage triple chain belt with golden tassels, and it just looks so elegant, timeless. And it's on the way in the mail to me, thanks to ebay.
- [00:30]
Chloe Mao
Welcome to the Run Through. I'm Chloe Mao and we have another new episode for you today as part of our Paris Fashion Week bonanza. I am so excited to share Vogue editorial director Mark Guiducci and I's conversation with actress, model, and, dare I say it girl, Hari Neff. From her controversial opinions on archive dressing to working on her hero's biopic, we had a fabulous chat with Hari. We started it off with Mark describing the very first he met Hari many years ago. I won't give away too much, but it involves a flower crown. We recorded this conversation last week right as Hari was on her way to LA for the Vanity Fair Oscar party and she was frantically sourcing the perfect dress for the occasion. So it felt like a suspenseful moment to see her wearing brand new Alessandra Michele Valentino looking resplendent on the red carpet. Here's our conversation with Hari Neff.
- [01:30]
Hari Neff
Hari Nef, we are so excited to have you on the run through Hari. I was trying to remember the first time we met. And so I went through my phone this morning in a last minute preparation.
- [01:40]
Chloe Mao
Okay, but how? Like, did you search Hari's face or do you? Because I never know how to look for.
- [01:44]
Hari Neff
Yes, my phone recognizes Hari's face. And so according to AI, the first picture of you on my phone, which I think is probably the first time we hung out, was in July 2016 at a Vogue.com party that Sally Singer threw at the Ukrainian restaurant in the East Village.
- [02:01]
Mark Guiducci
Wait, it still recognizes my old face?
- [02:03]
Hari Neff
Yes.
- [02:04]
Mark Guiducci
That's disappointing.
- [02:07]
Hari Neff
But do you remember that I was wearing the flower crown that evening?
- [02:11]
Mark Guiducci
Right. I was living right around the corner at the time. I had just graduated college. I had just come back from LA after shooting my first job, Transparent, and it was like before I debuted as an actress or right after, but like, I was still kind of running around modeling, so I was going to a Vogue party one way or another. I was really happy to be invited at that point.
- [02:37]
Hari Neff
Today is Prada day in Milan. I don't know if you've seen yet.
- [02:41]
Mark Guiducci
Oh, I already saw.
- [02:42]
Hari Neff
I saw you Saw.
- [02:42]
Mark Guiducci
Yeah, I saw.
- [02:43]
Hari Neff
And this will air on the first or second day of Paris Fashion Week. So what is fueling you? What's good?
- [02:52]
Mark Guiducci
Well, I was kind of thinking that question to myself yesterday as I spent probably like two hours on the Vogue app yesterday because I got my last minute invitation to the Vanity Fair Oscar party.
- [03:03]
Chloe Mao
Ooh, what are you wearing?
- [03:05]
Mark Guiducci
Well, that's what I'm trying to figure out. And by the time this podcast comes out, we will have more of we will know. But I was going back through all the shows as I always do when I have a big event, just like, what's feeling correct right now and what's. What would make sense for right now? I mean, I saw the Prada show. I loved that show. I loved how just like, tired and rich, everybody looked. Like I related to it. It's just like one piece. You're wearing a nightie underneath, no hair, no makeup, raggedy but rich.
- [03:40]
Hari Neff
Opposite, but still rich. I really love Fendi, actually. I thought Fendi was like, the lady that was just twisted enough that it wasn't old lady.
- [03:50]
Chloe Mao
Yeah. Tell me what the vibe was at New York Fashion Week for you walking the Kalina Strada Runway.
- [03:57]
Mark Guiducci
Yes. The vibe at New York Fashion Week was only essentials. Let's. Let's do the essentials. Let's make money or support our close friends and nothing else. That's kind of the approach that I take to New York Fashion Week right now. Obviously, we've all got to make a living, and if it's, you know, a little bit of this, a little bit of that to appear somewhere, we love that. But also, you know, there's always opportunities to present something fun and support your friends, and that's what Hillary is, and I love having a little pit stop into her world.
- [04:33]
Chloe Mao
Hilary Taymor is the designer at Clean Estrada.
- [04:35]
Mark Guiducci
Yes.
- [04:36]
Hari Neff
Hari, what do you think is the purpose of New York Fashion Week right now? Like, for a long time? Well, it used to be something else, but for the past few seasons, like, since COVID I was saying that I felt like in the way that London exported talent, you know, you found, like, young designers who would go on and take great jobs at storied houses, that New York was exporting ideas, ideas about whether it was casting or community or like, the way that the, you know, it was just an experimental place. But I feel maybe that's shifted again. I don't know. What do you think? What do you think the purpose of New York is right now?
- [05:13]
Mark Guiducci
I try to figure that out every New York Fashion Week. It felt so coherent and clear what New York was about when I first moved here.
- [05:24]
Hari Neff
When did you move to New York?
- [05:25]
Mark Guiducci
I moved to New York in 2011. I was sneaking into fashion week as early as 2010 or even 20 years ago.
- [05:33]
Chloe Mao
Okay, set the scene. How were you sneaking?
- [05:35]
Mark Guiducci
I got kicked out of a Proenza schooler show. Girl Love. I would meet up with my friends from the Internet, from Fashion livejournal, previously known as Ontd Fashion Fags.
- [05:47]
Chloe Mao
Oh, wow. I'm not familiar.
- [05:50]
Mark Guiducci
Vogue staffers came from there, you know. Wait, what were we talking about?
- [05:57]
Hari Neff
We were talking about the purpose of New York fashion, the purpose of new fashion and what it used to be.
- [06:00]
Chloe Mao
What do you think it was and what do you think it's become?
- [06:03]
Mark Guiducci
I think it was absolutely a testing ground for ideas about casting and conversations that could be implemented through clothes. You know, we. We weren't so much experimenting with like, form and line and, you know, like, setting the trends, but, you know, like Hood by Air was doing the. I'm doing the biggest, corniest air quotes because I'm so tired of it as I'm saying this, the gender fluidity thing, like, long before my dear friend Alessandro Michele was doing it. You know, them and telfar experimenting with technology and the way clothes interact with the Internet. New York is a conceptual place, I think, because it's the nexus of, you know, the American art world, the American media landscape and fashion all at the same time. Now it feels very fragmented. It feels very like dash core. Every major New York designer is capitulating a to the department stores and, you know, the ladies on either coast and in Texas and in Chicago that fuel their business as they always have. Or they're trying.
- [07:25]
Hari Neff
It's like survival mode.
- [07:26]
Mark Guiducci
Yeah. Or they're trying to burrow into their hyper specific Internet savvy thing. You know, like Hillary has her lane of like, artsy millennials and zoomers who, like, aren't ready for the kind of like, arch, like rooksanda Phoebe Celine art gallery thing yet. They're still wearing hoodies. Sandy Lange is Miss Ballet. You know, the girls are doing their thing and it's enhanced by the algorithm. And I think that there's maybe less freedom to experiment the way there might be in other cities just because the financial demands are pronounced in such a specific way in New York. New York is really about selling. You know, it's about sticking around and getting those stockists. I mean, I guess it is everywhere else, but like, you have these like, London kids who like show four fab Collections that are never to be heard from again. But, like, we still talk about Meadham Kerchoff. Like, we. We still talk about the girls. Like, the girls are gone. They didn't, like, keep their businesses around, but we still talk about them. And New York doesn't really have that reckless energy. People are trying to make a living here.
- [08:47]
Chloe Mao
It's true. It's missing a reckless. The run through will be back in a moment.
- [09:03]
Arden Fanning Andrews
I like ebay for one of a kind items. Things that feel limited edition or collections that can't be found in stores. And with the ebay authenticity guarantee, I know that when it arrives, it's real. It is a piece that is coming from the designer's collection, the designer's archive. One of the biggest conversation points for some of the parties that I'll go to during fashion Week are the pieces that I'm getting off of ebay. Everyone's a little bit intrigued and excited whenever they hear that you were able to find something on this digital treasure hunt.
- [09:42]
Chloe Mao
And we're back.
- [09:43]
Hari Neff
So you are the ringleader of a group chat.
- [09:48]
Mark Guiducci
Ooh, here we go.
- [09:51]
Hari Neff
That's famously called a famine of beauty.
- [09:53]
Mark Guiducci
It is called that.
- [09:55]
Chloe Mao
Mark was kicked out of it. Mark was kicked because he was giving Lurker.
- [09:58]
Mark Guiducci
I just kicked out a handful of other people too, because they were giving lurker. And listen, look, I have a day job.
- [10:03]
Hari Neff
I could not contribute as much as others.
- [10:06]
Mark Guiducci
It's no shade. It's just kind of this mutually assured destruction thing of like, the deeper you are into the guts of the industry. In order for all of the other industry people in that chat, like, the deeper you are, the more you have to participate. Or else there is like, that's true. Or else.
- [10:23]
Hari Neff
How many people are we talking Skin in the game?
- [10:25]
Mark Guiducci
Might be like 14 people. It's a mix. There are editors and critics. They're Internet girls. They're. It's. It's just a mix of people I.
- [10:33]
Chloe Mao
Know who are three of the last thing topics discussed, you know, Prada.
- [10:38]
Mark Guiducci
But also, we're obviously so just like fatigued. And over the designer musical chairs, every single rumor gets floated in there.
- [10:52]
Hari Neff
You know, people who are more experienced, let's say, than the three of us have told me that they have never experienced or seen a moment like this in our industry when all the cards are in the air and it's unclear where they're gonna fall. And it's really interesting to think about, especially as the industry's struggling from a bottom line standpoint, that in a couple of years, the Cards could have fallen in a totally new scenario. And whatever we think is the biggest, most important, you know, you have to remember when, before Alessandro was at Gucci, it was a healthy but not a massive business in the way he made it to be. And that kind of a moment, you know, I try to think of everything as an opportunity, and it could be a really exciting thing to see what is currently, you know, who knows what Givenchy will be in two years? Who knows what?
- [11:44]
Mark Guiducci
I think we're getting some clues about what Givenchy is going to be in two years because of these that Cynthia Erivo has been doing. I do not think it is a coincidence that she's wearing McQueen Givenchy at the SAG Awards, and she wore it to this other thing last night. And Sarah is going to Givenchy. I think those archive polls are clues, honey. I think it's gonna be fun.
- [12:05]
Hari Neff
But that was beautiful.
- [12:07]
Mark Guiducci
The Cynthia, my favorite look of the entire world.
- [12:10]
Hari Neff
That was incredible.
- [12:10]
Chloe Mao
Oh, heaven. Can you describe.
- [12:13]
Mark Guiducci
Was like, a raffia kind of silver coat with this high neck. It's like fringe woven. Wizard esque.
- [12:25]
Chloe Mao
It is very wizard esque.
- [12:27]
Mark Guiducci
Yeah.
- [12:27]
Hari Neff
She looks so cool. And, you know, it just. It actually plays into something. Yes. It gives clues to what Sarah Burton might be thinking about, and that's very exciting. But also, it's like, we've been talking about this at work a lot, that the archival revival, this idea that the right vintage look is actually better than custom. Like, if you can. That there's so much. No, no.
- [12:49]
Mark Guiducci
Okay.
- [12:50]
Hari Neff
She disagrees.
- [12:51]
Mark Guiducci
This is the rare exception. Like, these clothes look fresh, they look supple, they look well preserved. I think a lot of these girls are coming out in these garments, and they just look like musty garments. These garments need to be so well preserved. And I feel like they look droopy most of the time. And this is not a zoomer mentality. This is not a cool mentality. Like, I'm cooked and washed and old for thinking this, but, like, it's just not as fab to me to, like, you know, pull the archive piece from the archive dealer with 30,000 followers on Instagram as it is to have the house make you a garment.
- [13:36]
Hari Neff
Okay, but what if you're going into the, like, perfectly preserved Vatican, like, archive of the house itself?
- [13:45]
Mark Guiducci
Well, then we have Zendaya in Mugler then, I think. I mean, I don't know whether Cynthia is from an archive or from Givenchy. I feel like it looks so good that the house would have a hand in it. And. Okay, I actually will say it's kind of fab and kind of cool that these ambiguities can still exist around celebrity dressing. With the vintage thing, I think it's cool not to know how a girl got something that is cool. It inspires me if it looks good, but it so rarely does.
- [14:14]
Hari Neff
Okay, so other than Sarah Givenchy, what is interesting or intriguing to you or the rest of famine, of beauty about Paris, what are you looking forward to?
- [14:26]
Mark Guiducci
I cannot speak for feminine beauty at large. As fatigued as I am around all of this fanfiction and all of this speculation, I think that someone, somewhere, or maybe all of them collectively, it's time to give birth to something new. It's time to figure out the due date is here, what the fulcrum is, what is the look, what is the vibe, what are we going to orient ourselves around or against? Hopefully, because that's always fun. I think it's fun when there's a dominant look, there's a dominant reigning designer, whether it's like Phoebe Filo at Celine, Alessandra Micheli, Iguchi, Demna. Demna was the last person to reinvent the way we all dressed. Demna was the last person we are due to, you know, like, we took the shoulders out here, we cropped the jeans here, the shoes were like this. The sunglasses took up our whole face. Like, nobody has set an agenda the way he did. And that was like 10 years ago. There hasn't really been anyone since. You know, we have, you know, like, brilliant, you know, artists like Jonathan Anderson who are giving us these, like, conceptual extravaganzas, but, like, it's less about, like the day to day, ready to wear in the shows. It's more a concept.
- [15:49]
Hari Neff
Well, luckily we have many very talented people at new venues where they will be able to. Where it's almost. They're mandated to try to give us something new. So let's see.
- [16:01]
Mark Guiducci
Let's give birth to something, honey.
- [16:05]
Chloe Mao
I want to know about the other group chat. I've heard about the Drag Race group chat.
- [16:09]
Mark Guiducci
Oh, my God.
- [16:10]
Hari Neff
Can I get in that one?
- [16:12]
Mark Guiducci
No. Yeah, come through.
- [16:14]
Chloe Mao
Do you have an all time favorite Drag Race contestant?
- [16:16]
Mark Guiducci
Oh, God.
- [16:17]
Chloe Mao
Who's at the top of the pedestal?
- [16:18]
Mark Guiducci
Oh, my God. It's so hard to pick just one top three. I would probably have to say Sasha.
- [16:31]
Hari Neff
Colby.
- [16:31]
Mark Guiducci
Sasha. Colby. Sasha. Colby. Ra'jah. And I'm gonna throw a curveball in there and say Nina Bo'nina. Brown.
- [16:43]
Hari Neff
Wow.
- [16:43]
Mark Guiducci
Nina Bo'nina. Brown is like, really, really slept on. And I just think that there's a reason why? She won episode one of season nine where Lady Gaga was the judge.
- [16:54]
Hari Neff
Hello.
- [16:55]
Mark Guiducci
Because she came out there dressed like a peach.
- [16:59]
Hari Neff
She did.
- [17:00]
Mark Guiducci
She turned her head into a peach with paper. She blended her face into the paper and came out as a peach.
- [17:10]
Hari Neff
And Stephanie Germanotta said. Yes. Yes.
- [17:15]
Chloe Mao
The run through will be back in just a moment.
- [17:30]
Hari Neff
Moving on to your acting work, one thing that I know that you have been working on, that's been announced is a biopic of Candy Darling.
- [17:40]
Mark Guiducci
Yes.
- [17:40]
Hari Neff
How would you introduce Kandy Darling?
- [17:44]
Mark Guiducci
I would introduce Candy Darling by saying that she was an actress in the late 60s and early 70s. She was amused to Andy Warhol. Lou Reed wrote a couple songs about her. And she was the first transsexual to almost kind of bridge the underground to a legitimate career in film, fashion and beyond. And she is my hero. She's an icon. She's a legend. I've wanted to play her and help tell her stories since I started acting.
- [18:29]
Chloe Mao
Did you manifest this project?
- [18:31]
Mark Guiducci
Oh, yeah, no, I just. I heard they were making a movie about her. I knew one of the producers who is now also the director, Zachary Drucker. I literally just, like, banged on their door and was like, hey, can I play Candy? And they were like, sure.
- [18:50]
Chloe Mao
Wow.
- [18:51]
Mark Guiducci
There was a script. They were trying to move things along and maybe access something different with the script. So I actually volunteered to write a new version of the script. Wow.
- [19:06]
Hari Neff
Did you write it?
- [19:07]
Mark Guiducci
Yeah.
- [19:08]
Chloe Mao
Oh, my God.
- [19:09]
Hari Neff
I didn't know that.
- [19:10]
Mark Guiducci
No one knows that.
- [19:11]
Hari Neff
Oh.
- [19:11]
Mark Guiducci
I kind of just proposed an alternate version of it. And my ambition for the longest time has been to write for myself, to act, you know, to. You know, you don't always feel like the parts that are available to you are the parts that you want to play. I think every actor feels that way. And it would be my first starring role. I've never been number one on the call sheet. I've never played the lead. I've always been a supporting character. And we're now casting, and so we're trying to get some stars. All right. And I'm really hopeful that we'll find some fabulous people who want to come on this journey with us.
- [19:53]
Hari Neff
Have you spent much time with people that knew Kandy?
- [19:56]
Mark Guiducci
It was very important for me to get the blessing of her best friend and the executor of her estate, the late Jeremiah Newton. He passed quite recently, actually, and I was blessed to have met him and to have sat with him. He is, you know, we have her life rights, we have her archive, and he was the mediator of all of that. And he gave me his blessing. He says, you're beautiful like Candy, you're smart like Candy, and you're the right height. And that was one of the most magical, like, New York afternoons I've ever spent in his, you know, tiny apartment in Alphabet City, just filled with boxes of her stuff.
- [20:45]
Chloe Mao
Are there any lessons from Candy that you feel are helpful for navigating this political moment?
- [20:52]
Mark Guiducci
Yeah, and this is hard. I finished the script this summer. I parked myself on Fire island for a month, and I wouldn't allow myself to leave until I finished the script. And I finished it, like, three days before I was supposed, before my rental was up. And it kind of plunged me into, like, a really, really deep depression to finish it. I could, like, barely move. I was so sad when I finished the script because it had built toward this conclusion that I almost had prevented myself from really looking at head on, which was the fact that Candy died young of an illness.
- [21:27]
Hari Neff
How old was she?
- [21:28]
Mark Guiducci
30. She was 29. Wow, that is wild. She was 29 when she died. She died of lymphoma. The causes of her lymphoma are not as clear as people seem to think they are. You know, it's published in several different papers of record that her hormone therapy caused this cancerous lymphoma and gave her this tumor. But I've consulted with medical professionals, trans medical professionals, even, and they would see no correlation between the hormone treatments at the time and her diagnosis. So it's sort of this, like, transphobic idea that she, you know, ended her own life by pursuing her authentic self. It's like the messaging that we're getting from the health department right now. And that's not actually the case, but what kind of is the case? And I didn't even really realize this was the case until I had to finish writing the film, which has to have a sad ending, is that this illness was manifesting in her body as early as, you know, the late 60s. She had a visible tumor in her stomach, and she didn't pursue medical attention during those years. She was hustling day in and day out, trying to become the old Hollywood movie star of her dream. She was obsessed with, you know, Kim Novak and Jean Harlow and Joan Bennett, Marilyn Monroe.
- [23:03]
Hari Neff
Me, too.
- [23:04]
Mark Guiducci
Yeah. I mean, girl, you know, from my perspective, she was so fixated on manifesting her dreams. She was in with the Factory. She was getting cast in Andy Warhol's films. She was getting cast beyond that. She was doing art films in Europe. She was going to her big Premiere at the Manchester. Yeah, she was successful. She was blossoming. 1970, 1971, 1972. And she was dead by 74.
- [23:33]
Chloe Mao
Wow.
- [23:34]
Mark Guiducci
And she was so fixated on achieving her ideal. And the stakes were so high, and the window she saw to get there was so slim that she didn't get the help that she needed. It's not that she didn't take care of herself. It's not like the hormones she was taking were, you know, hurting her necessarily. She wasn't up and down on speed and alcohol the way her peers were. Yeah, it wasn't as extreme. She just didn't give herself that grace. It seemed to take a moment and take care of herself. And, you know, as the writer, I had to kind of get into all of that and, like, you know, was it an issue of self love? Was it an issue of self worth? Had she already resigned herself to the fact that she wouldn't survive? Right now in this moment, there are feelings of helplessness and hopelessness everywhere. I just think, like, it's so corny and so broad, but, you know, coming back to the brass tacks of, like, life is long, there's a big picture. Take care of yourself. Take the time. Seek the help you need, whether it's medical help or, you know, help for your mental health. And I think that's maybe a lesson to take away at this moment. End rant. Sorry.
- [25:00]
Chloe Mao
I wanna know what you are reading, listening to, watching right now.
- [25:04]
Mark Guiducci
I'm rereading A Midsummer Night's Dream right now because that's a nice idea. Yeah. I wanna write another screenplay, and I wanna write something fun. And I'm also reading this novel, John O'Hara Appointment in Samarra.
- [25:19]
Chloe Mao
It's fantastic.
- [25:20]
Mark Guiducci
It's so good. My friend gave me a really old copy of it years ago. And then I saw a shot where the book was featured in Queer.
- [25:28]
Chloe Mao
Oh, funny.
- [25:29]
Mark Guiducci
And I was seeing it with the friend who gave me the book. So I'm like, this is a sign. I finally gotta read the book. I feel like my visual sitting down to watch something diet. I'm either watching a capital F film or I'm watching Garbage on YouTube. I am watching a scripted TV show right now. I'm watching Queer as Folk for the first time. The American one?
- [25:46]
Arden Fanning Andrews
No way.
- [25:47]
Hari Neff
The first time?
- [25:47]
Mark Guiducci
Yeah.
- [25:48]
Hari Neff
The original?
- [25:49]
Mark Guiducci
Yeah. Well, not the. Not the British original.
- [25:51]
Hari Neff
Not the British original.
- [25:51]
Mark Guiducci
The American original.
- [25:52]
Hari Neff
The American original.
- [25:53]
Mark Guiducci
It's so fun.
- [25:54]
Hari Neff
Yes. Yes, it is. Queer as Folk taught me I was gay too. Queer as Folk is like. Yeah.
- [26:01]
Mark Guiducci
It taught my friend in middle school, he was gay. Like, even before I came out, he was like, I found this show Queer as Folk. I'm totally gay. I'm like, that's crazy, sister. And I remember watching it being like, okay, I wasn't ready to go there yet. And then two years later, I had a boyfriend. Go figure. Go figure. It's fun.
- [26:22]
Hari Neff
Hari Neff, thank you so much for coming on the Run through.
- [26:25]
Mark Guiducci
Thank you, thank you.
- [26:27]
Chloe Mao
We can't wait for candy.
- [26:28]
Hari Neff
You're a Vogue girl through and through.
- [26:30]
Chloe Mao
Something I say every day.
- [26:32]
Mark Guiducci
Wow. We really covered everything we did.
- [26:35]
Hari Neff
We covered a lot of ground.
- [26:43]
Chloe Mao
That's it for the run through. See you tomorrow, everyone. The Run through is produced by Chelsea Daniel, Alex DePalma and Joanna Solotarov. It's engineered by Jake Loomis and James Yost. It is mixed by Mike Kutchman. Stephanie Karaoke is our executive producer and Chris Bannon is Conde Nast's head of Global audio.
- [27:16]
Arden Fanning Andrews
The other day, I, like, went on a real ebay spree. There's this huge push for like 80s opulence and 80s sort of glamour and we're going to see that returning. And so I was already kind of tapped into that just from my gorgeous ebay watch list. And I found a really beautiful Chloe blazer from the 80s and a really great Miu Miu Kilt Be's great Dior boots. And I'm combining them all together. Sometimes trend forecasting doesn't require something that's going to be, like, produced in the future. Sometimes you can, like, tap into the past and tap into the archive as well. That's what makes ebay a fun place to actually discover things because you're not going in with something so specific in mind, but you have an idea of what you're interested in or what you're excited about or, or, you know, just truly trend forecasting. And so one thing that I would say people should be watching out for is like, very opulent 80s style.
- [28:15]
Mark Guiducci
From PRX.