Lifestyle
Jess Mori’s style philosophy? Always have “an element of discomfort”
Jess wears Hellstar shirt, Brain Dead pants, Prada shoes, Heaven by Marc Jacobs bag.
(Jennelle Fong / For the Times)
Wearing a knit football jersey and a knowing smile, Jess Mori holds a lemon out to the camera. The backyard of her Silver Lake abode overlooks a tranquil Eastside on a Friday afternoon. At this elevation, there’s nothing to hear but birds and SZA playing through the portable speaker off in the grass. Mori breaks her pose to pick another lemon, which she insists actually smells. The shoot is enveloped in a fragrance as sweetly serious as Mori herself, who immediately gets L.A.’s love for the high-low — aesthetically and geographically — even though she’s just arrived.
A Vancouver native, Mori’s recent landing in L.A. is a new beginning in a career that has seen many lives. She recounts her experiences as a fashion illustrator, designer, creative writer and copywriter. “There was this funny girl who worked at this cafe under the ad agency I worked for. Every time I came in, she’d be like, ‘Do a spin for me! Let me see your outfit!’ To the point where I’d be like, ‘I don’t work in fashion!’ But in an office space it does stand out if you wear anything remotely interesting.” Mori eventually took these encounters as a sign to quit her job and pursue her first love, moving to New York to ascend the proverbial ladder by interning and assisting stylists. Fast forward: Mori’s roster now includes Sean Paul, Salem Mitchell, Savannah Ré, Nike and Adidas, to name a few.
Like the knit jersey she wears, Mori’s thesis is all about placing the familiar in an unfamiliar context and seeing what happens. She describes her style philosophy as always having “an element of discomfort.” Otherwise, she explains, “you’re doing something super, super safe. It’s neither good nor bad. And I think that’s the worst it can be: if nobody has anything to say about it. I’ll take polar opposites versus nothing. Neutral is the worst.”
Mori is all about placing the familiar in an unfamiliar context and seeing what happens.
(Jennelle Fong/For the Times)
Alyson Zetta Williams: What is the first thing you address when styling yourself and others?
Jess Mori: When it comes to my own fashion, I like things that catch my eye as a statement piece. I like for things to have several lives in my closet. So even if it does have a standout quality, I just want to be so inspired by the piece that I can reinterpret it in multiple ways. It must be comfy, because — and probably every stylist says this — we’re always on the move. You’re never one temperature, you’re always hot, you’re always lifting things, so it’s important to be in layers.
I really believe that everybody has a certain DNA when it comes to their personality and how they dress themselves. I see everyone’s personality on a spectrum. And it’s exciting how far we can push that scale to the right or left. We always talk about resting bitch face. But it’s like, what’s your resting style? What is zero on the scale? Then, how do we dial it up or down?
AZW: You just moved to L.A. from Vancouver about a month ago. Are there any immediate or unexpected sources of inspiration that you’ve encountered since moving here?
JM: I love the idea that L.A. is this huge city, but you’re always connected to nature. There are so many plants and places to walk and hike and kind of escape to. In L.A. you already have the best backdrop for whatever you’re doing and it’s inspiring to see all the different cultures and neighborhoods. Like, this is my first time ever seeing a Thai Town or Filipinotown. I like how all these neighborhoods have their own distinct style culture. I love that you can find so many pockets of inspiration in one place.
Everybody around you is always doing something, always hustling. In order to really live this lifestyle, it helps to have other people who are doing it alongside you so that you don’t give up every time you want to. That is probably the most inspiring thing about L.A. — that you never feel like you’re doing it alone.
Jess wears Golf Wang sweater, Nike pants, Stugazi necklace, ANY7 hat, Zara shoes.
(Jennelle Fong/For the Times)
AZW: In your work, there’s a recurring juxtaposition between athletic utility and spontaneous glamour, often within the same look. Is your work more concerned with making sporty glam, or making glam into something sporty?
JM: I’ve always had this funny relationship with gender when it comes to traditional clothing. I really, really struggle with some designers who, for example, won’t let you request men’s looks for a female talent. I just don’t get it, because so much is fluid. I mean, I’m wearing a men’s collection sweater right now.
I also like to challenge the boundaries of what is high fashion, what’s luxury, what it means to be black-tie. If you tell me that something has to look elegant, does it always have to mean wearing a dress? When I’m styling, I extract all these rules about what it means to be elevated because I think that you can make anything elevated. You can make anything into a red carpet vibe.
I don’t like the term “streetwear.” But I do like taking [streetwear] and blending it with high-fashion brands and materials. I just like the clash. And that’s when I feel the happiest — when things are arguing with each other.
AZW: I’ve never heard someone say they don’t like the term “streetwear.”
JM: I was having this conversation with an Uber driver the other day, because he was telling me that he designs bomber jackets. And he was like, “Oh, I just do urban stuff, though.” And I was like, “Well, don’t describe your stuff like that, because they’ll try to put you in a box.” But what is urban? Urban is moving the culture, urban is at the forefront of so much fashion and it’s on the runway at Marc Jacobs and Louis Vuitton. All these people are using streetwear in the majority of their collections. It’s about removing that stigma of “Oh, it’s just urban” or “It’s just streetwear, it’s just sportswear,” because it can all live together.
Jess wears Nahmias sweater, JW Anderson pants, Adidas shoes, Vitaly necklace.
Jess wears Urban Renewal sweater, 1/OFF Paris top, Re/Done skirt, Nike shoes.
(Jennelle Fong/For the Times)
AZW: As we approach spring, how is your relationship to these concepts of utility and glam shifting?
JM: Spring is a great season to explore color. I love a uniform dress code, where you sort of have your key pieces as talking points, conversation starters. Spring is so unpredictable. You never know how many days of rain or sun you’re gonna get. I think it’s always good to dress in layers, and have your unexpected pieces but mix them with your basic uniform, which might be something like a nice blazer and well-fitted jeans.
Spring and fall, I love those two seasons the most because you have the most to play with. Summers are very limiting because you’re really restricted to whatever the lightest layer on your body could be. But spring is the best time to play and really clash, bringing unlike things together. Like pairing a cotton knit cardigan with a lighter skirt. It’s a time when juxtapositions are the way to go.
AZW: In a Jess Mori world, what would spring style look like?
JM: As you’ve gathered now from this interview, I’m very contradictory in all my choices. I just want to see people playing with color more. I just came back from New York and saw a lot of black everywhere.
L.A. has so much vintage and handmade stuff that I think if you’re trying to carve out something unique to you, there’s nothing better than going into thrift stores and finding something that you know you’ll be the only one wearing. Spring is a good time to be on the hunt for special pieces.
Right now, I really love football jerseys and knitwear. I’d love to see more granny-like knitwear go mainstream, like what Sandy Liang’s done. I love seeing people play with bows and then be wearing a utility work pant, or the juxtaposition of somebody wearing a hoodie with a miniskirt.
Jess wears Chopova Lowena hoodie, Zara skirt, Adidas shoes.
(Jennelle Fong/For the Times)
AZW: When you style yourself, where do you add those utility and/or glam elements?
JM: Shoes and jewelry are usually the places where I express glam the most. Jewelry and shoes are probably where I will spend extra.
And then utility … I’ve never owned more than probably two pairs of jeans at once. I don’t love tight-fitting pants. So once I find a good jean, I either get a size bigger and then have it tailored to the correct size, or vice versa. I find utility in jackets, which are always good layering pieces. Utility is very often found in my bags. Prada’s nylon collection is the best because you can’t stain it. I always have to have a huge bag. So I’m never too far away from a huge tote bag with an organizer inside. I have a Gucci backpack with the perfect pocket for receipts. I can’t do these tiny Polly Pocket purses people are carrying around. I found the best $30 sling bag, and I bought three of them, one in each color because they were so good for sets or just everyday life. They have, like, 42 pockets all over the place. Pockets are always a utility trick.
I love using my Korean and Japanese heritage as a backdrop. I’m naturally drawn to silhouettes like Yohji Yamamoto’s, or Sandy Liang’s, or Andersson Bell’s. They speak to what we were talking about before with fluidity, these designers are fluid with their shapes. So you’ll never feel too feminine or masculine. It’s a really nice balance of both worlds.
Alyson Zetta Williams is an L.A.-based writer whose work has appeared in i-D, NYLON, Office Magazine, Rookie Mag and more. Her substack is sorry4444.substack.com.
Vivica A. Fox dreamed of being a model, but in order to receive her mother’s blessing to move to Southern California, where the jobs were, she had to promise her one thing: She’d go to college.
So that’s what she did. At 18, Fox left her hometown of Indianapolis for Huntington Beach, where she attended Golden West College and got an associate’s degree in social sciences. On weekends, she’d drive up to L.A. for auditions, getting her first taste of show business while dancing on Don Cornelius’ iconic television series “Soul Train” and later nabbing her first acting gig as Dr. Stephanie Simmons on “Young and the Restless,” a role she recently reprised after more than 30 years.
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.
“The rest is kind of history,” says Fox, who went on to star in other hit films including “Kill Bill: Vol. 1,” “Two Can Play That Game,” “Soul Food” and “Set It Off,” which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year.
Her latest project, “Is God Is,” hits theaters Friday. Directed by Aleshea Harris, who wrote the award-winning play of the same name, the film follows twin sisters as they embark on a vengeful quest to find their abusive father, who left them for dead. Fox plays God, the twins’ mother, a burn victim and domestic abuse survivor who gives her daughters a simple yet chilling instruction: “Make your daddy dead. Real dead.” Harris handpicked Fox for the role.
“I just was so honored,” Fox says. “Then when I got the script and dove into it a little bit more, I was like ‘Ooh, this is a way no one has ever seen me. This is going to be challenging.”
She adds, “I was like, ‘Wow. We don’t get things like this,’ so it was honestly, for me, a no-brainer.”
Sundays are the one day of the week where Fox can “do me,” she says. Here’s how she’d spend it in L.A.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for length and clarity.
6:30 a.m.: Quick coffee run
I’m usually up by 6:30 or 7 a.m. I’m an early bird because I’m so used to either having to be on set or when my publicist, B.J., was living on the East Coast and I’d have to respond to answer his emails in a timely manner. Once I’m awake and settled, I’d get some Starbucks. I’d order a venti white chocolate mocha with an extra shot of espresso, no whipped cream. I used to order kale bites, which I’d eat with the meat from the sausage and egg sandwich, but they discontinued them so now I just get the sandwich.
8 a.m.: Float in hot springs
I’d head to the Beverly Hot Springs. I would get a body care treatment. It’s awesome because they rub you from head to toe with body oil, then they wash your hair and give you a cucumber and yogurt mask. After that, I would get a facial and float in the water. It is one of the only spas with natural, alkaline hot springs in L.A., so the water is just heavenly.
2 p.m.: Margarita and caviar fries with a view
After that, I would meet with a friend, more than likely B.J., at the rooftop restaurant at Waldorf Astoria. The reason why I love going there is because of the view. On a beautiful, clear day, you can see all of Los Angeles. It has a 360 view that is absolutely incredible. I would start off with the caviar fries and a spicy margarita with a tajin rim. Then I would do either the salmon with spinach or if it was a super cheat day, I’d have a cheeseburger.
4 p.m.: A Broadway show or a sports game
I’d probably go home and take a short nap. But if my godson, Quentin Blanton Junior, is in town, I’d go see him perform at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre. He’s playing little Michael in “MJ: The Musical” at the Pantages Theatre. [Editor’s note: We interviewed Fox before the show ended earlier this month]. I’m so proud of him. But if he’s not performing, I’d go to a Chargers or Lakers game. I’m a sports junkie. I’m from Indiana. We grow up on football and basketball. I’ve always loved the Lakers. I remember going to the games back in the day in Inglewood because I used to live there. I used to walk to the games. That was the golden era of Magic and all those guys, then Kobe and them moved up to Staples, which is now Crypto.
9 p.m.: Nightcap before bed
I’d end my Sunday with a night cap at the Delta Club at the Lakers game. I’d have a glass of wine before heading home, then I’d drink a Lacroix to hydrate. I try to be in the bed definitely before midnight.
Kayla Bundy likes to start her day with a cup of bone broth.
She buys her milk raw, snacks on sardines, eats authentic sourdough bread — no commercial yeasts here — and generally cooks with locally-sourced ingredients. On TikTok, where she has over 500,000 followers, she claims that her diet “fixed” her skin, her hair and her depression, and she sells coaching sessions to help others with their diets.
Bundy, a 27-year-old Christian content creator, might sound like your run-of-the-mill clean-eating type, but she believes her diet to be part of a higher calling. For eight years, she has been a biblical eater, someone who consumes mostly foods mentioned in the Bible. She is part of a niche but dedicated online community trying to tie religious values to dietary needs.
In an era when the Make America Healthy Again movement has pushed for more access to unpasteurized dairy products, stricter boundaries around ultraprocessed foods and new definitions for what counts as healthy food, alternative diets focusing on simpler foods are finding popularity, even when their proponents don’t actively consider themselves part of the MAHA movement. Add to that the growing numbers of GLP-1 users struggling to eat enough protein, and biblical diets can offer an appealing repackaging of certain age-old diet tenets. (The new acting commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, who assumed his role on Tuesday, is also a vocal champion for policies to remove chemicals from the food supply.)
“I had never really thought to look to the Bible for a recipe book,” Bundy, who grew up in Michigan and now lives in Bali, said, but after cutting out refined sugar made her feel good, she said, she started “studying scripture from that lens of noticing what they are eating.”
She added: “Sin entered into the world through food, and Satan doesn’t stop there. Food, for me, is really like a weapon of how I can fight back.”
Bundy is open about not having nutrition credentials, but she sells a $28 digital guide to biblical superfoods, as well as coaching sessions that start around $700 for a month, she said.
She’s not the only one. Like other health food influencers, the biblical eating proponents with popular accounts often sell products.
Annalies Xaviera, a stay-at-home mom who lives in Gainesville, Ga., and posts biblical eating tips, said her Facebook following had jumped from scant thousands to over 300,000 in just a few weeks this spring. She sells a digital cookbook.
“The Bible says that God appreciates and celebrates small steps of obedience,” said Xaviera, 32, who added that she did not consider herself part of the MAHA movement, but that some of its goals, like removing artificial dyes from foods, aligned with her own preferences.
She said her approach boiled down to eating whole foods and cooking meals at home. She still buys some processed foods, like pasta.
Eating biblically — which can mean strictly sticking to the good book’s ingredients, cooking from scratch or anything in between — is not new. “The Eden Diet,” a 2008 book, offered weight loss and nutrition tips rooted in biblical teachings. The author Jordan Rubin’s 2004 book “The Maker’s Diet” was a best seller (as was his recent book “The Biblio Diet,” coauthored with Josh Axe, a supporter of the MAHA movement, and published last year).
For years, some Christians have also participated in “Daniel fasts,” 21-day fasts based on the Book of Daniel in the Old Testament, in which Daniel consumes only vegetables and water. (There’s also, of course, the long tradition of religious diets, such as keeping kosher or halal, or following a Levitical diet. Jesus, himself, presumably kept kosher.)
On social media, however, biblical eating has appeared to have a resurgence in recent months.
A few years ago, the actor Chris Pratt talked about completing a Daniel fast when he was on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.” In January, as part of his partnership with the prayer app Hallow, he posted a video encouraging his followers to use the app to participate in a fast and prayer challenge. The bean-heavy fast had made him quite gassy, he said with a laugh. Other celebrities, including Mark Wahlberg and Patricia Heaton, have been part of similar efforts with the app.
Casper Schimmer, a college student in Amsterdam, said he sold coaching sessions for young, Christian men looking to align their diet and exercise with their faith.
“It’s not like eating healthy only is what makes a godly person,” Schimmer, 20, said. He said he also focused on physical and mental fitness as part of a larger system of “godly habits.” (For example, sabbath as the “original biohack.”)
Jennifer R. Ayres, a religious education professor at Emory University, said the biblical food movement online seemed to show “a focus on personal decision making.” She added that “the more collective and environmental analysis of what’s happening in our food system” is missing from some of the social media dialogue.
Abbie Stasior, a Christian dietitian who lives in Nashville, said much of her work looked, at first, like standard nutrition guidance. She often starts with clients by talking about the importance of breakfast. But then she’ll reference Bible verses, pointing, for example, to a scene in the Book of John in which Jesus eats a balanced breakfast of bread and fish with his disciples. “He’s got carbs and protein,” Stasior, 31, said.
Tying dietary counsel to scripture offers “an extra incentive,” Stasior said.
When it comes to meeting nutrition needs, Dr. Marion Nestle, one of the country’s foremost nutrition policy experts, said that if people on the biblical diet consume ample calories and eat “a wide variety of relatively unprocessed foods,” they are “probably doing just fine.”
She also described how wellness culture had been colliding with policy.
“The thing about wellness is that it’s based on personal experience rather than science — it’s what makes you feel good,” Nestle said, adding: “Diet is about belief. We don’t have a lot of belief systems left in this country. People are desperate for meaning in their lives.”
Xaviera, the stay-at-home mother in Georgia, said she encouraged her followers to pause before eating, describing a person who might be deciding whether to eat a cookie.
“When you’re in a craving,” she said, “have you ever thought to stop and pray?”
My horny, teenage, never-been-kissed self would be appalled by what I’m about to tell you, but it’s true: I’m sick of being a sex buddy.
I am a sexually adventurous woman who has dabbled in BDSM and enjoys a good sex party here or there, but I also want a partner I can share a deeper emotional connection with as well. Unfortunately, I have constantly found myself stuck in relationships with emotionally unavailable men.
Which is why I got so excited when I saw Jon’s profile. It was on Feeld, the alternative app for kinky, polyamorous or sexually curious people — people like me. What I love about it is that people are explicit about their physical and emotional interests.
So, Jon wrote that he was interested in exploring his kinky side and that he ultimately wanted to find his forever person. I mean … samesies!
Jon was super cute. A very sexy, boy-next-door, Glen Powell type. But as I studied his photos, I realized I knew him. I racked my brain trying to figure it out, and then I remembered that we had sex 10 years ago.
We met on Tinder and got together a couple times for sex. This wasn’t rare for me back then, but the reason I remembered him so well was because he had this weird mystery hip problem, which made it difficult for him to walk and move his hips in certain ways.
When we had sex, our positions were limited, and I constantly worried that I was going to hurt him. I know people say they’re going to “blow your back out” during sex, but I didn’t want to literally break Jon’s body.
It was a bit of a buzzkill, so I just gave up on him — and ghosted him. Ten years later, there he was again, and I couldn’t help but feel like this was a sign. That the universe knew we weren’t ready for each other back then, but we were ready for each other now. We were getting a second chance to start fresh and go for it.
So I swiped him right, and we instantly matched. I messaged him saying, “Hey, so not to sound stalkery, but I think we’ve done this before. Like forever ago.” He wrote back saying, “If by forever ago you mean 2016, then yeah, I think so too.”
I thought, “Ohmigod, he remembered me too! How cute are we?!”
We caught each other up on the last 10 years of our lives. He said he had become a therapist and that he had his hips replaced. Nothing was gonna stop us this time!
We exchanged numbers, and he texted me. “Jon (Tinder)” showed up on my phone. I still had his number saved after all these years. I was even more convinced this was destiny. It’s like my past self knew this thing with Jon wasn’t over.
We made plans to hang out that week, and I was super anxious about it. I mean, my expectations were dangerously high, but as soon as we saw each other, there was this level of comfort and familiarity that made it all so easy.
We spent that entire day together reconnecting, and then the enthusiastic vibe continued. He texted me all the time and wanted to hang out — and not just to have sex! He wanted to hike in Griffith Park, hit up Thai Town for dinner and cozy up with some Nintendo “Mario Party.” I was getting more excited and hopeful about where this could go.
Then one night, we were talking about our kinks and other sex stuff. I didn’t say much other than I was generally down to try new things, but it wasn’t a priority for me. He, however, emphasized that he really wanted to “explore his kinky side now before he settled down in a relationship.”
I paused wondering, “Does he think those two things are mutually exclusive? Does he not think you can have an exciting sex life and a committed relationship at the same time? With the same person? Were we still doing Madonna-whore complexes? I thought those died out with low-rise jeans. Guess not!”
I wanted to talk to him more to get clarity about what he meant, but I never got the chance. A few hours before our next date, he texted me to say that he had hung out with his ex and they were going give it another go. He couldn’t see me anymore.
I was totally blindsided. I knew he had been with his ex for five years, but I didn’t know they were still talking or on the verge of getting back together. There was nothing I could do except say the calm, mature things you’re supposed to say and wish him luck.
Three days later, he came back. It didn’t work out with the ex. And you know, there are fewer things in life more vindicating than a guy dumping you and then crawling right back.
I had a million questions, so we had a long conversation about what happened, and the two most important things I learned were: 1. This ex wasn’t the five-year ex. This one was a new, more casual ex he briefly dated earlier in the year. 2. She was virgin. The Madonna-whore complex got literal really fast.
He kept apologizing and asked if we could start over again. Again, I was tempted. The fateful way this guy kept coming back into my life was compelling, but it became so clear that he only valued one side of me. I couldn’t wait for him to care about the other side. A partnership isn’t an “either/or.” It’s a “both/and.”
The sign from the universe, I realized, wasn’t to keep holding onto him. It was to let go. Of him and every guy who only saw me as a fraction of a partner.
The author is an actor, writer and public policy advocate based in Los Angeles. She shared a version of this essay at the L.A. Affairs Live storytelling event in April. She’s on Instagram: @ratigupta.
L.A. Affairs chronicles the search for romantic love in all its glorious expressions in the L.A. area, and we want to hear your true story. We pay $400 for a published essay. Email LAAffairs@latimes.com. You can find submission guidelines here. You can find past columns here.
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