Lifestyle
How Stacy London, of ‘What Not to Wear,’ Spends Her Sundays
Stacy London wants you to wear whatever you want.
Ms. London, a fashion expert and entrepreneur, is best known for the show “What Not to Wear,” which she co-hosted with Clinton Kelly on TLC for over a decade. But as she’s changed, so have her views toward style: She no longer wants people to adhere to a specific set of fashion rules.
“Style is about the individual, and that is never about whether or not you are participating in trends,” Ms. London, 55, said. “It’s about what you are doing with your raw material, your body and your self-expression.”
“What Not to Wear” ended in 2013, but the co-hosts teamed up again for “Wear Whatever the F You Want,” which airs on Prime Video. Instead of rules, it focuses on channeling inner fashion desires. “I may not think this is the best we could have done, but have I made you the happiest? Because that’s the goal, and that’s the shift between where we were and where we are now as a society,” Ms. London said.
In addition to the show, Ms. London designs clothes for women going through menopause for her QVC line By Stacy London. “I still love style and I still love fashion, but I wear suits, I wear trousers. I feel more confident that way than I did wearing skintight pencil skirts and five-inch heels,” she said.
Ms. London moved into a three-bedroom apartment in the Carroll Gardens neighborhood in Brooklyn in 2006. It’s filled with racks of clothes, art and dinosaur knickknacks.
“I knocked out every single wall, so it’s just a duplex loft with no doors,” she said. “There’s a huge staircase in the middle of the apartment that leads down to the bedroom and the dressing room.”
Ms. London shares her home with Dora, a “completely vindictive” 8-year-old Morkie (Maltese-Yorkshire Terrier).
SLEEP MODE It depends on what Saturday night was like, but I can sleep in anywhere from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. There’s just something about sleeping in. My bedroom is a dark little cocoon, and Dora sleeps with me. I love my sheets and my mattress, and sometimes I’ll get coffee and get back into bed and read. I have a whole separate shelf with books on my reading list, and I’m slowly working through them.
FINDING THE CURE I’m obsessed with Salt’s Cure’s brunch and sitting on their patio. You can go one of two ways: You can do salty or sweet, or salty and sweet. I can never decide, but I usually start salty and then go sweet. The egg, avocado and hash brown is one section of my breakfast, and the gluten-free chocolate chip oatmeal griddle cakes are the second. I always have to order extra eggs because Dora’s going to eat them. Yes, I’m that person.
WALK IT OUT I love walking to Dumbo, and I like to go to Brooklyn Flea. I’ve found incredible designer pieces there for really reasonable prices. Some things that people wouldn’t necessarily know, more so ’90s designers that I love, like Romeo Gigli. Also, because I love tchotchkes, it may be something like accessories or a weird little trinket I want to put on a shelf. If I’m in Dumbo, I’ll also without fail go to Front General Store, which has vintage clothing and jewelry. Walking by the carousel is always fun for Dora. There’s tons of dogs she could potentially attack, but she also loves being by the water.
PERFECT FIT I’ve been working with my friend Suleika Jaouad, who recently went on tour. She does not love shopping, and she doesn’t love styling. She has great taste, but I don’t think she trusts herself enough. So on Sundays, I’ve been doing fittings for her here, just in my clothes. She’d rather wear things of mine that she likes and she can fit and she knows.
COFFEE CATCH-UP I like to go to Liz’s Book Bar, which is a bar and a bookstore. It’s a lovely atmosphere, and I’ll meet my friends there. They’re my neighbors, and we try to make a point to see each other on the weekends. I might order an iced latte, or I might get a bottle of rosé.
SUPPORTING LOCAL I’ve been in Carroll Gardens for so long that I’ve really watched this area gentrify completely and utterly overnight. It’s been hard since Covid to watch so many small businesses not make it, so I try to be as supportive as possible. There are two stores I love on Court Street, Rue Saint Paul and Woods Grove. If I’m in the mood to shop, I’ll go there.
TAKEOUT TIME There’s nothing better than Han Dynasty. I order the rice noodles stir-fried with scallions, egg and shredded chicken. The noodles are oily, and they come with chili oil on the side. I find that it’s spicy but not salty, so I add some salt. Then I’ll literally eat an entire container. Currently, I’m watching “The Righteous Gemstones,” but I’m a scripted TV connoisseur. I watch everything scripted.
HOUSEKEEPING The thing I have to do to cap off my Sundays is to go through my entire week. I’ll look at my calendar, coordinate with my assistant and coordinate with my housekeeper, who takes care of Dora when I travel. I get very overwhelmed with too much information, and frankly, there’s a lot going on right now with the promotion of my new show. I have the best assistant in the world — she’s like my other half.
SNUGGLES My scrubbing and polishing — what I call my skin care and teeth polishing — routine can take about 40 minutes. Dora goes and sleeps in her little anti-anxiety bed and then we go downstairs. I usually go downstairs to bed before her and then I wait for the little pitter-patter of her feet before I turn off the light so she can get up on the bed, too.
At the start of “Mile End Kicks,” a film set in the Montreal indie music scene of 2011, a music critic in her early 20s, played by Barbie Ferreira, has arrived at her Craigslist apartment share fresh from Toronto. She’s promptly invited to a loft party by her Quebecois D.J. roommate. “Dress hot,” she’s told.
The camera scans the critic, Grace Pine, as she walks into the night. Brown lace-up brogues. Black socks over sheer black tights. A short burgundy corduroy skirt. A navy sweater with a white collar peeking out. A denim boyfriend jacket to finish the look. Hot? Depends on whom you ask.
“It’s a punchline to a joke in the script,” Courtney Mitchell, the film’s costume designer, said in an interview. “But there’s a genuine understanding to some audience members where that is what we felt sexy in, in a kind of nerdcore way.”
Montreal as an indie sleaze epicenter
“Mile End Kicks,” written and directed by Chandler Levack, is the semi-autobiographical story of a music writer who moves to the Mile End neighborhood of Montreal in the summer of 2011, a time when rents were cheap enough that artists could afford to live blocks from the venues where they played.
Ostensibly, she’s there to write a book about Alanis Morissette’s album “Jagged Little Pill.” But other items on her to-do list, such as “have actual sex,” take precedence, leading her to loft parties, poetry readings and a love triangle with members of the fictional band Bone Patrol.
The era, called “indie sleaze” in retrospect (but referred to as “hipster” by those who were there), with its messy, gritty-glam looks, is captured extensively in the film. “I never felt as free a dresser as I did when I lived in Montreal,” Levack said in an interview.
Head-to-toe in American Apparel
The clothing brand most closely associated with indie sleaze is American Apparel. Think deep V-neck tees, ’70s-inspired separates and ads featuring young women splayed in suggestive poses. “I was always digging something lamé out of my butt crack,” Levack said, not without a twinge of nostalgia.
To recreate the vibe, Mitchell collected more than 200 garments and accessories from the brand, including high-waisted jean shorts, shiny disco shorts, hoodies, bodysuits, rompers, bandeaus, oversized tees, jelly shoes and belts. She was adamant that the items date from 2011 or earlier to reflect that they had been in the wardrobe rotation for some years. She found them on a mix of resale sites including Facebook Marketplace, Poshmark and Craigslist, as well as at one Montreal dry cleaner that happened to have a trove of American Apparel dead stock.
And there was a personal history, too: Mitchell had worked at American Apparel stores while in high school and in college, and Ferreira modeled for the brand in 2012, when she was 16. They shared a deep familiarity with the clothes. “That really brings out an emotion, when you return to a beloved silhouette,” Mitchell said.
Homage to the ironic graphic tee
An ironic T-shirt coupled with a cardigan became a totem of indie style, thanks to icons like Kurt Cobain, who served as inspiration for Bone Patrol’s lead singer, Chevy (Stanley Simons). At his day job selling shoes at Mile End Kicks (a real store), he wears a plaid mohair cardigan over a pocket T-shirt emblazoned with “Time to Be Happy” in off-kilter print. “The slogan was Chevy’s tongue-in-cheek nod to his retail job,” Mitchell wrote in an email. “As if he is wearing a salesman costume while dying inside because he is ‘a real artist.’”
Two of the shirts worn by Grace belonged to Levack: a Spin magazine shirt she got as a summer intern at the publication, and a Sonic Youth baseball tee from a 2007 show at McCarren Pool, then an abandoned public swimming hole in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn. But the runaway star is merch from a vacuum store, La Maison de l’Aspirateur, in Mile End — a black shirt with a hoovering elephant logo worn by Archie (Devon Bostick), the lead guitarist. “It’s become an iconic shirt for the film,” Levack said. “I’m going to screenings and people in the audience are wearing the shirts.”
Hidden gems found in vintage piles
In the Mile End of 2011, vintage clothing was a fact of life for reasons of style and necessity, and it became core to the hipster aesthetic. “These aren’t characters that are buying clothes; they’re, like, finding them in the street and rummaging through the giant clothing pile at Eva B,” Levack said, referring to a Montreal vintage institution.
One of Chevy’s most lurid onstage looks is a shimmering shot silk women’s trench — worn over a pair of American Apparel briefs, of course — courtesy of Renaissance, a chain of thrift stores in Quebec. “Everyone at those shows, whether or not you were onstage or not, you felt like you were onstage,” Levack said. “People would dress up to be noticed and to outdo each other. But it was so creative because nobody had any money.”
Pete Yorn moved to Los Angeles almost exactly 30 years ago.
“I remember it was May 16, 1996 — maybe three weeks after I graduated from Syracuse,” says the singer and songwriter known for his smart, tender folk-rock stylings. “Which means I’ve lived here longer than anywhere else. But when people ask where I’m from, I still say I’m from New Jersey.” He laughs. “I guess I identify very strongly with my upbringing.”
In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.
Jersey pride notwithstanding, Yorn’s 2001 debut album, “Musicforthemorningafter,” is suffused with his experiences as a young transplant moving and shaking in a busy L.A. social scene he compares now to Doug Liman’s classic “Swingers” movie — “at least if you take away the swing dancing,” he says. “But the driving around and the going to parties — it was all the same stuff.” (Yorn’s older brothers, Kevin and Rick, are both prominent players in the entertainment business.)
The singer, who’s 51, is on the road this year performing “Musicforthemorningafter” in its entirety to mark the LP’s 25th anniversary; he’s also playing songs from throughout the rest of his career, including a 2009 duo record he made with his friend Scarlett Johansson. On July 24, he’ll release his 12th studio album, “All the Beauty.” Here, he breaks down his routine for a Sunday in his adopted hometown with his wife, jewelry designer Beth Kaltman, and their 10-year-old daughter.
7 a.m. Rise and dine
I’m like a 6:45 or 7 wake up just because I’m used to driving my daughter to school every day. I like to eat right away, and I eat the same two things every day: either yogurt with frozen berries, or there’s this overnight oats called Mush. The blueberry Mush — I can’t get enough of it. That’s what I eat before my shows too. I’ll go to a venue and the people are like, “What would you like for dinner? We have this beautiful menu,” and I’m like, “I’ll just have the Mush.”
10 a.m. Horsing around
Sunday is usually a day for something with my daughter. She’s taken a love to horseback riding — she’s much braver than I am — so I’ll drive her out to this barn near Bell Canyon, which my wife told me is actually in Ventura County. I said, “No way — Ventura County is way up there.” And sure enough, there’s this southern tip of Ventura that’s like 25 minutes from my house up the 101. Anyway, I’ll go and I’ll watch her ride the horse. I’ll be honest — I’m very nervous every time. But my wife grew up horseback riding, and my daughter, she just loves it. She can be very fickle, but this is one thing that’s stuck.
Now, I should say: If it’s NFL season, I can’t skip football. I’m a huge Raiders fan — it’s terrible. So if there’s an important game, I’ll have my Sunday Ticket on my phone and peek at what’s going on. But that’s fine — it’s understood.
12 p.m. Retail therapy
After the horse, we might go this place in Van Nuys called Iceland. It’s ironic because my wife, her dream trip is to go to Iceland the country, and the closest we’re getting to that right now is an ice-skating rink. Or I love going to the Fashion Square mall [in Sherman Oaks] — I don’t know if it’s a remnant of growing up in New Jersey or it just gives me the nostalgic feeling of being with my parents at the mall. I don’t even have to buy anything. I mean, I might end up getting roped into buying something — not a Labubu because that’s over but some sort of kawaii animal stuffy. I just like that the mall still exists in a time when it’s so easy for everyone to buy everything on their phone. My daughter was like, “Whoa, you can go in and touch things?”
3 p.m. Guilty pleasure
Here’s a naughty one: There’s a little bakery right off Ventura Boulevard called Schazti’s, and they have this chocolate banana pudding that is ridiculous. It comes in a paper cup.
6 p.m. Time to dine
If it’s Football Night in America, my wife and daughter would order Japanese or Chinese or Thai. They’d probably order that every day if they had their way — they’re obsessed. Sometimes I’ll just eat a bowl of cereal and call it a night. If there’s no game, a cool place to go that’s been there forever is the Smoke House in Burbank. I’d always seen it but had never been until a few months ago. Just a classic, old-school place — steak is great.
10 p.m. Slow for show
I’m early to bed because I know I’m gonna be up early to drive my daughter to school, which is my favorite thing when I’m home. I don’t want to miss it. I’m very conscious of how fast she’s growing up, and I know me — I’ll be sad when it’s over. We might watch a show or a movie but I’ll feel my eyes getting heavy after like 10 minutes. It takes me quite a few nights to get through an episode.
Zoe Latta, a co-founder of the fashion brand Eckhaus Latta, saw the clock on Instagram and started searching for pharma swag on eBay. “It was just a hole I got in,” she said. Latta soon rounded up some examples at “Rotting on the Vine,” her Substack newsletter, describing them as “silly byproducts of our sick sad world.”
Pharma swag feels somewhat like Marlboro Man merch — “like this very specific modality of our culture that’s changed,” Latta said, adding, “At first, I thought it was ironic and cheeky. But it’s also so dark.”
In particular, swag like the OxyContin mugs that read “The One to Start With. The One to Stay With” is regarded as highly collectible and highly contentious. Jeremy Wells, a newspaper owner and editor in Olive Hill, Ky., remembered, for example, seeing the mugs sold at a Dollar Tree in New Boston, Ohio, in the late 1990s or early 2000s. “At the same moment that the epidemic is blowing up,” he said.
“You can do a chicken-and-egg argument, and I doubt very seriously that those mugs made anybody get addicted,” he said. “But I do feel like things like those mugs did add to the mystique and the aura of seduction.” (After a protracted lawsuit, Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, has been dissolved and is on the hook to pay more than $5 billion in criminal penalties for fueling the opioid epidemic.)
“I was surprised to see how much this stuff was selling for in general — there is demand,” Latta said, pointing to a vintage Xanax photo frame listed for $230. Latta said she could imagine buying it for a friend who takes Xanax on planes (“if it was at a thrift store for under $10”) or maybe a pair of Moderna aviator sunglasses that she found, which seem to nod at Covid vaccines and the signature Biden eyewear, she said.
Pharmacore — medical-branded pieces worn as fashion — has found new expression at the confluence of identity, medicine and commerce, and at a time when skepticism toward pharmaceuticals is at a high (see: the MAHA movement).
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