Jenny Slate Gets Dressed

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 22 November 2019

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Jenny Slate is on tour for her new book “Little Weirds.” It comprises short, strange essays, many of which involve clothing and how we present ourselves to the world. While Slate was in New York, the fashion columnist Rachel Syme paid her a call at her hotel room. Together, they rifle through Slate’s suitcase and analyze what she had packed for her appearances as a début book author, and what those choices said about her. Syme finds to be Slate a kindred spirit: someone for whom getting dressed is a complex but pleasurable business. Sweater vests, top buttons buttoned, and other choices are dissected. “More and more,” Slate says, “I want to turn away from things that are designed for men—or a certain man, I should say, to be fair. ” Her authorial wardrobe, Slate says, expresses a simple credo: “I know who I am, I know what’s going on, I’m not freaked out, and I think I’m allowed to be here.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	From One World Trade Center in Manhattan, this is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:10.8	Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.
0:14.3	Hi.
0:15.3	Hi. Hi. Oh, my God. We're on the radio. Hi. I'm Jenny. Hi, Rachel. Hi, Rachel.
0:20.3	Rachel Seim writes a regular column for The New Yorker on fashion, style, and consumer culture.
0:25.6	And recently, she went to pay a call on Jenny Slate, who was passing through town.
0:30.6	All of the snacks are complimentary. So please feel free.
0:35.9	Jenny Slate is an actress, comedian, author, and one of the most fashionable celebrities I know of.
0:42.1	She thinks of clothes as performance, as a form of pleasure, as a blend between play and political
0:47.7	statement.
0:48.9	Like me, she's a woman who feels the tension between feminism and looking feminine.
0:54.5	Her Netflix special and her new book, Little Weirds, both deal with that.
0:58.9	I asked her to read a passage from her book.
1:02.6	Hello, I changed from the white cotton nightgown with light blue embroidery on the collarbone
1:08.2	into a very smart outfit for living in the day. A cream-colored
1:11.9	skirt with a grid of white and pleats all the way around, an accordion of cotton. The pleaded
1:17.8	skirt is the color of tea with lots of cream. Traditionally speaking, it is the color of tea with too
1:23.6	much cream and sugar in it. The skirt is the tone of a slightly warm dessert drink hiding in a cup,
1:30.3	a secret, gentle, creamy treat for me while everyone else drinks a darker, more serious, scalding thing.
1:38.3	Jenny is currently on tour for her book.
1:40.3	And since clothes are so important to her, I went to her hotel to rifle through
1:44.7	her suitcase and see how she packed. So what kinds of thoughts were you having when you put
	...

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