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Dressing Background with Sam Rockwell
115 Plays1 year ago
This week, the amazing Sam Rockwell! We talk deeply about vintage, Indie Sleaze, union work, the merits of reproduction fashion, Beauty and The Beast, 1940's pin-ups, Y2K fashion, 1980's Chuck Taylors, rats, the Satanic Panic, and, as ever, much much more.
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Transcript
Introduction and Listener Surprise
00:01:16
Speaker
Afternoon or evening or morning, wherever you are, I am Connor Fowler. And I'm Matt Smith. Welcome to Apocalypse Duts. Today, because we tell our listeners everything, for better or for worse, I have to confess
00:01:36
Speaker
I got this email from Apple and they were like, check out your Apple podcasters thing. And I was like, I'll check this out in a couple of days. And I did wait a couple of days for this. And even though there's a remarkable miracle inside of the email,
00:01:54
Speaker
a ton of listeners and like reviews and stuff which I was not even aware of because I thought it was like all Spotify all the time basically but there are many listeners which we didn't even know that we had and I mean many like doubling in our listeners
Audio Quality Journey
00:02:14
Speaker
Yeah, just because Connor and I are Spotify idiots and have not migrated to a better sounding platform that's basically the same, I personally hate change, so.
00:02:28
Speaker
They do want us to pay for something. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but they want us to pay for something. We're taking the analytics for free. Yeah. And it sounds like we have, you know, we have a lot of people that use Apple for their podcast needs. So guys, sorry, we've neglected you. Yeah, seriously.
00:02:48
Speaker
But I'm gonna say Connor is the administrator. He's the organized one. So yeah, I'm yeah, the shit falls on me and it does for me I mean, that's why I'm saying this cuz it's like stupid, but it's also humbling
00:03:01
Speaker
yes because it's like I don't know I thought we were doing pretty fucking well and now it's like holy shit we're doing really super duper well totally and which is just nice there have been comments to us personally like people telling us this
00:03:18
Speaker
Sometimes our audio quality is dog shit. And we want you to know that we also know that sometimes our audio quality is dog shit. One, two, sometimes there are just a lot of things beyond your control when you're two nerds trying to talk about something and starting a podcast about it. Someone's video feed drops. Someone's audio feed drops.
00:03:48
Speaker
with no audio experience whatsoever, with no editing experience at all. At the point of music, I have nothing or no real experience on the editing side and the recording side.
Listener Gratitude and Feedback
00:03:59
Speaker
Very, very little, all just done by myself. So it's blind.
00:04:05
Speaker
We are trying to get better. I think the Chris show last week was probably one of our better sounding ones. Which Matt, Matt edited the entire thing. Matt edited the entire thing. I'm not going to too bad about that. Yes, dude. Yes, dude. But you should because you did a great job. Yeah. Well, thank you. Connor has been trying to get me to talk about this all fucking day and I've just said no.
00:04:30
Speaker
Finally. On record. But anyway, thank you for following along. We love doing this and we're stoked that it seems to resonate with a bunch of people.
Sam Rockwell and Vintage Fashion Discussion
00:04:47
Speaker
Yeah, that's kind of what we wanted to say. We had... Oh, I do want to mention a song that if you have looked at our stories, I posted, but
00:05:00
Speaker
The man Billy Bragg, the working class Troubadour. It's so like, it has a pirate name. Yeah. The Gen X millennial, maybe Zoomer, working class Troubadour, singer songwriter, wrote a fucking fantastic response to the Astroturf, like red bearded motherfucker, shitty country, or whatever the fuck song. Yeah, not Connor.
00:05:29
Speaker
But if you're online, like I am, look it up. But the Billy Brack song is fucking great and talks about joining the union and not punching down, which we're fans of both of those things. If you're not wealthy, then you're pretty much, we're all in this shit together.
00:05:56
Speaker
Some solidarity will go a long way. Speaking of solidarity, just had my friend, Sam Rockwell on the episode. She is a Ayotzi local. I should have pulled this up first. 479. 479 Atlanta.
00:06:19
Speaker
Costumer, soon-to-be costume designer, model, vintage collector, like just one of my best friends in this fair city, and we had a great chat. Matt says the most knowledgeable vintage person that they know, which is- I will 100% stand behind him. I praise because Matt knows almost everything. And I don't say that in a mean way.
00:06:51
Speaker
There's a lot of knowledge about clothing that I do not have, basically. Well, thank you. If you'd like to show some support for the show financially, that would be great.
Supporting the Podcast Financially
00:07:08
Speaker
I mean, no pressure. We're not holding a knife to your neck or anything.
00:07:13
Speaker
If you like what we do. When we put it all into the show, this is like the crucial point. We're not trying to pay money off this shit. But hey, if we could pay for a couple of Instagram ads or something in trying to grow what we're doing, we would appreciate a buck or two if you like it. Whatever the fuck we said. We don't care. Or an email. Send us an email. That would be another nice thing to do.
00:07:39
Speaker
Say, I mean, you know, say hello. Someone is really going to send us a mean email, though. I know that they will. That's fine. If you do, you're going to get screenshot and probably post it. I will tag you, but I'll just. Yeah, we'll blow it up. Anyway, Connor's Venmo, if you would like to send us a buck or two, is at Connor Dash Fowler, his
00:08:04
Speaker
PayPal is Connor Fowler at gmail.com. And we hope you enjoyed the episode. Yeah, it was really a super one. So we'll see you soon. You're seeing us now. Ladies, gentlemen, comrades and country folk, this evening's show has been literally years in the making.
00:08:31
Speaker
When I saw our next guest as William, quote, Wild Bill Wharton in the TNT special, The Green Mile, I knew he was something else. I knew he would be a star. In 2009's Moon, he plays an astronaut, stuck on the moon. And he is the only character in the movie, Masterful. We welcome none other than actor. Wait, Connor, Connor, Connor, what the fuck are you talking about?
00:09:02
Speaker
We're interviewing my
Sam's Personal and Professional Journey
00:09:04
Speaker
dear friend that has this crazy encyclopedic knowledge of vintage fashion. She's a model, a stylist, collector, and soon a costume designer. She shares a name with an actor. Did you think that we were interviewing him?
00:09:21
Speaker
I guess that I have made a mistake. I've made an understandable mistake. Yeah, yeah. But a mistake, a mistake nonetheless. A mistake nonetheless. Sorry. Tragic. Connor was an idiot on this one. As ever. Yeah. But I would like to introduce everyone to my friend, Sam Rockwell. Sam, how are you today? Sorry, Connor's an idiot.
00:09:45
Speaker
No, no, no. And I have to say very quickly to defend myself, we have had costume designer on the list for show ideas, interview ideas since the beginning of the show. So this is a fucking dream come true. Awesome. Awesome. That's what I have to say. I love that. Yeah. So thank you. Thank you for being here. Oh, of course. Thank you for having me. So when I got married and my dad found out that I was going to change my last name to Rockwell,
00:10:14
Speaker
He got real excited because he was like, oh, like Sam Rockwell. It's like, okay, dad. That's amazing. Yeah. Also, I mean, just my last name is Smith. I respect any cooler than Smith or Jones, whatever the fuck last name, but Rockwell as a last name is pretty up there.
00:10:37
Speaker
My family last name of Meacham is very English. It's fine. But I had the opportunity to change my name to Samantha Kathleen Rockwell, and I was like, well, that just doesn't sound wealthy. Yeah. That's some mid-century movie star shit of a name. Yeah, exactly. I was like, I'm not going to pass that up. No.
00:11:06
Speaker
So you mentioned the English thing, Micham. We were talking about this a little bit. Where are you from? I mean, not like where is your ancestors from, like where are you from and where do you live now? I born and raised Toledo, Ohio, and then went to school in West Michigan and Grand Rapids, Michigan.
00:11:28
Speaker
and lived there for several years. And then ended up in Georgia to go to UGA for grad school and ended up in Atlanta and have been here for the last eight years, have no plans of leaving. Best city on the planet. Best city on the planet. I have a house here, no plans on leaving. I got to say that once an episode. That's awesome, though. That's really awesome.
00:11:58
Speaker
Homeownership, I mean. Right. It's great. I know it has its pitfalls, but yada yada. It's good. Yeah. If you can get in, especially in a growing metro like Atlanta too, that's impressive. We got so lucky. Honestly, I don't think I ever thought I would own a house.
00:12:25
Speaker
I will not complain about the privilege of being able to be a homeowner as a millennial. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. We're not calling you out on that at all. No, definitely not. It's fucking cool. It's really good to be able to be of a place, right? Yeah. It's good. I like it. Yeah. It's one of those like, wow, I'm a real person kind of moments I would imagine. Right. Well, I guess I'm an adult now.
00:12:49
Speaker
Right, right. So Sam, I know you've listened to some of our episodes and you probably know this question is the one that we usually lead with to get into the actual interview, but do you have an earliest clothing memory? So I was trying to think if I had a very distinct memory of a garment of clothing and
00:13:20
Speaker
some of the things that come to mind, really two things that come to mind. The first one was every year for Christmas, my Papa Tony, who, not technically my grandfather, he was never married to my grandmother, but they lived this beautiful like separate domestic life. And he was the grandfather I always knew.
00:13:52
Speaker
He would buy me a party dress, a fancy dress every year for Christmas. I was the only girl in the family. I'm the oldest of four. I have three younger brothers. And I just remember every year for Christmas, it was the big thing. And it was just this special moment of getting this lovely garment, especially being surrounded by brothers.
00:14:20
Speaker
And then also with my grandmother playing dress up at her house with clothing that was hers. I mean, from like the 60s and 70s that I would play dress up in those clothes. And I have one of those dresses still that I would play dress up with. It's a
00:14:45
Speaker
neon striped 60s shift dress. It's fantastic. And then shoes that went with it were these leather orange pumps from the 60s that were from a woman who is my great grandmother's friend and her name was Franny Gula. Franny Gula. Franny Gula.
00:15:14
Speaker
the best name. So I remember there was one year also for Halloween that I wore that whole outfit. And that was my Halloween costume as I was just this like 60s go-go girl. She started early. Oh, I started very early. Wait, so what age would the Halloween outfit have been for you? That was in middle school. Oh, that's awesome.
00:15:42
Speaker
So I'm pretty sure that was middle school. I think I was probably, I mean, I was somewhere in the like 12 to 14 range. Okay, yeah, that sounds right. Yeah. But I grew, you know, I grew up in a house where we thrifted and my parents had really good taste. And, you know, as a baby in the early 90s was dressed in
00:16:10
Speaker
just some really great stuff that I'm so grateful my parents kept. One of these days when I get home and have time, I am going to dig through the basement and bring all of it back with me, whether Russell wants me to or not. Yeah, I can't wait to see this stuff because inevitably I'm going to see this stuff. I absolutely will see this stuff. That's awesome.
00:16:43
Speaker
So yeah, so like early memories of clothing, it tends to have a very like familial tie for me. Totally. Which I think really feeds into how I've become the keeper of the material history in my family, specifically when it comes to like the clothes.
00:17:11
Speaker
Man, if every family had one person like you, that would be, well, it might be bad for me because they wouldn't donate to the food stores. That's what I was gonna say. The people like, I do a lot of military stuff and while I love finding stuff and being able to put like a face to the name or whatever, so many times I'm just like, there's no like,
00:17:36
Speaker
grandkid, like niece, nephew, anyone that like actually wants this stuff, like to keep it in the family. Like I wish I had my uncle's shit. I wish I had my grandpa's shit. Like, you know, many of my family members were in Korea and Vietnam and like three uncles were pilots. Like I would kill to have their fucking flight jackets.
00:18:00
Speaker
My grandpa was a barber in the army in Korea, but I would love to have his field jacket, you know? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's such a privilege that you have to, I don't know, just be able to document and keep this historical shit in the family. And to also have family members in generations before me. Right.
00:18:23
Speaker
keep it. Yeah, totally, totally. Yeah, maybe that's where, you know, maybe old shit isn't just in your blood. And that's where it comes from. Look, there's the hoarding tendencies on both sides of my family are. Yeah, yeah. If you come from a hoarding, it's archiving. Yeah, exactly. Well, at least that's what we tell ourselves. Cataloging. Yeah. Yeah. So like,
00:18:53
Speaker
Were there things that you saw as a kid, you said that there's a familial tie to this sort of like knowledge, I guess. Were there things that you saw on your parents, your stylish parents or around you, like in Ohio or Grand Rapids, you know, any thing that you saw? I guess that stood out to you.
00:19:23
Speaker
I think, you know, with my dad, my dad was in the music scene. He was a sound tech in the late 80s into the 90s and had, you know, panties and just had cool stuff.
00:19:49
Speaker
I just grew up with, you know, my mom kept her chucks that she had in the eighties. And, you know, we still have them. They're white splatter painted. I remember wearing them in middle school and people being like, what the hell are those? Right, right. Because that's when they were like a $5 JCPenney clearance shoe. Exactly. And, you know, growing up in
00:20:18
Speaker
in the Midwest, not exactly in a fashion mecca of any sort. I've always dressed differently. I've always been a little different, been a little weird. You stand out in Toledo. Yeah, exactly. And so I kind of came to realize sometimes I would try to conform, because that's what you do when you're
00:20:47
Speaker
a kid and trying to go through puberty and a teenager and all those fun things. Totally. But for the most part, I would just, like in high school, before we had uniforms, I would dress up.
Passion for Vintage Clothing and Film
00:21:01
Speaker
I would look nice as a freshman sophomore. That's because that's how I felt good that way. Right. I would go to thrift stores and find the interesting things.
00:21:16
Speaker
It was more so, and I would go to vintage stores, even as a kid. Were there a lot of vintage stores? I mean, there are, right? You say that there are, but I'm saying like in Annapolis, Maryland, not a vintage store, certainly in the 1990s or the 2000s, not until very, very recently. There were some random ones, but for the most part, it was thrift stores. Yeah, sure. I think we all, like any of us who thrift,
00:21:45
Speaker
what I would not give to be able to go back to the moment. Oh, God, yes. As I am now. Like, with how much stuff there would have been. With your adult knowledge. Yeah. Yeah. My adult knowledge. Just. Yeah. You could stockpile all that shit. Like, if you would go into one, if you were able to go to one hot topic.
00:22:10
Speaker
in like 2004, you could just buy all the shit and resell it and probably not have to work. I wish that I would have like with how big Y2K is. It's not my thing. Yeah, it's fucking insane. I think it's right. I lived it. I had it.
00:22:29
Speaker
I would make a killing if I had kept all that. Yeah, dude, yeah. I like it. I think it's cool. I mean, Sam, I probably said this to you at some point, but I really just want to tell some of these 20-year-olds, dude, I was not too much younger than you are now when this originally hit, and it looked like shit then too, I promise you. The point is it looks like shit.
00:22:57
Speaker
The point is it looks like shit. Yeah, that's the whole point. Are people who are wearing this aware of that? That is the question. Certainly, some of them are aware of the irony. I mean, a lot of Y2K is just rehashed 70s shit with a lower rise. So, like, there are parts of it that I don't... Well, and, like, yuckier, way yuckier, way more disgusting. Yeah, I mean, and then, like...
00:23:24
Speaker
No, like as a girl who lived through the early 2000s as a high schooler,
00:23:35
Speaker
What comes to mind for me is the lowest rise jeans possible that don't look good on really anyone. With a weird dress over top. And then three tank tops layered underneath said dress. Skinnyest, most pointless scarf you have ever seen. And I just- It's a beautiful image. It wasn't.
00:24:03
Speaker
Yeah, it's like, it's like, right. I mostly think of Mean Girls, which like I love that fucking movie. It's hilarious. Pointing to that as like a style icon type movie. I really hope that like that doesn't actually happen in the history of fashion, but I'm sure it's going to.
00:24:22
Speaker
Well, it's like Mean Girls and 9-11. Like, those are the things that happened at that time. Yeah. I do have to admit that I definitely had, like, crushes on girls in high school that wore, like, the dress over the jeans thing. Yeah, hell yeah. It was all... But it was what was available. Yeah, yeah. And a lot of them were, like, grunge or, like, you know, like, weirdo people that were into cool shit, but it's like they were dressing like Kurt Cobain, I guess.
00:24:51
Speaker
Yeah, a little different sentiment, but still not a good look for most people. Yeah, because I was on the grunge side, and that's what I was doing. I was dressing like Kurt Cobain every fucking day. Yeah, totally. Why not? Why not? So Sam, when did you kind of like, it sounds like you started going to thrift stores and vented stores.
00:25:20
Speaker
at a pretty young age. Do you remember when you started to consciously seek out the vintage stuff that you've had experience with over the years, just in a bigger quantity, I guess? I think a lot of it started happening when I
00:25:49
Speaker
Like honestly, when I moved out of the house and went away to school and kind of started to have my own income. And so in like university, I know I would go to thrift stores and go to vintage spots more, partly because it was less expensive, but that's also where cool stuff was.
00:26:20
Speaker
I've always been kind of a like collector of things and taking those family pieces with me, whatever they were, you know, my, and a lot of it honestly was stuff that belonged to family. The t-shirt from the 70s that my mom wore to work at the hardware store that my great grandmother
00:26:48
Speaker
helped run in Michigan. That's just this really cool graphic t-shirt. I did not escape the hipster era. We were all in these sleeves at some point or another. But I think also that lent itself to thrifting and vintage. Right.
00:27:17
Speaker
find stuff at thrift stores and repurpose it, even though I maybe wasn't very good at it. And then just, you know, as I had my more of my more income, and I think especially moving to Athens. Yeah. And just really, you know, I was in a place as an adult. And, and had
00:27:46
Speaker
access to some fantastic vintage.
Animal Rescue Adventures
00:27:50
Speaker
And there was a community of people there who were also interested in vintage. And I think finding a community of people really helped grow and ignite that passion even more for me. That really, I think really, really helped.
00:28:11
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. And for those that don't know, Athens is maybe the coolest college town on the face of the earth. I love Athens. Yeah, I love Atlanta. Atlanta is home. Athens would be like where I bought a summer home. Not really summer, but you know, just like a little cabin to go hang out in because Athens is just that that rad. Yeah.
00:28:36
Speaker
Yeah, tons of vintage clothing aficionados, like great fucking music. And it kind of divides between the townies who are cool and then the college students and bros who are just there during semesters. It is the most stark contrast you will ever see in your life.
00:28:58
Speaker
Uh, so how has your, uh, you know, how is your kind of like taste and style of all over the years? I know like, you know, you, you still, you still go real hard on the mid-century and the like real, real old vintage stuff, but you, you kill everything you wear. So what's that like? What's that like? Um,
00:29:23
Speaker
Yeah, I think mid-century has always been where my heart lays. And that kind of, that ranges from the 40s to the 60s. I think for a long time I was really in that, you know, mid-50s to early 60s.
00:29:49
Speaker
realm with what I wore. I think Matt, when you and I met, that's kind of really heavy where I fell into. Totally. But you look so natural in that to me, as opposed to a lot of other people. And maybe it's because you were probably wearing the most dynamite 40s dress on earth and really adorable shoes when I met you.
Episode Wrap-Up and Listener Engagement
00:30:14
Speaker
Like, yeah, that just suits you so well in like your hair and your complexion and everything. Like, it's just like, oh, that's saying. Yeah, and I think that's- This is madmen time, right? What was that? This is like madmen time, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, madmen was a little later than that, because madmen started to go into the like, went started to go into the early 70s. But- Right, right. The early madmen seasons is kind of,
00:30:40
Speaker
where I fell. And for me, as someone who is maybe a little bit proportionately curvier, I gravitated to that style because it looked good on me and I felt comfortable and I felt most myself in it. And I think especially
00:31:04
Speaker
you know, throughout the early 2000s and even into the like 2010s with how styles were, the styles of the mid-century, especially those 50, 60 styles, they just looked good and they felt comfortable. And I really, I am someone who, especially at that time, I'm a little bit more lenient now, but if I was going to do it, I was going to do it right. Yeah.
00:31:31
Speaker
Like my whole look was gonna be right. And it wasn't a costume. It was just who I was. And I don't even really do a lot of like reproduction of the style. I do the true thing. Yeah, you're a purist. That's for sure. I am a purist. How do you come by it? How do you find it all?
00:32:02
Speaker
No people. Right. I mean, that's what it is at the end of the day, right? That's what it is. You know vintage people. Yeah. And that's what happened in Athens is I became friends with Stephanie who owned Atomic. Rest in peace. RIP. I'm very sad still. But and, you know, she kind of
00:32:30
Speaker
connected me to other people in Athens. I started modeling stuff for her for social media. And it became like a trade thing. And, you know, also as, as you get to know friends, or become friends with people within the vintage community, you learn what each other likes. And you're always looking for stuff for each other. Yep. Yeah. Always.
00:32:58
Speaker
And so it's just, it was one, it just kind of is a natural accumulation. And yeah, and so, you know, I, at the time in Athens would still find stuff at thrift stores. It's become far more difficult now to find mid-century things. But that's just- Yeah, to find anything. Yeah, and that's just,
00:33:25
Speaker
I think one of the beautiful things about the vintage community is it's truly a community and a lot of us really like to learn about each other and then supply each other with more things. Yeah.
00:33:44
Speaker
I mean, that's how Matt and I met, so. Right. Yeah, it's bizarre. So you mentioned either in our chat before this or in the interview now, your graduate work, which amazing. I would be curious to know what your process was like for your research, or I guess the topic of your thesis something.
00:34:11
Speaker
Yeah. So the department I was in is the Textiles, Merchandising, and Interiors department at UGA. And when I was considering going to grad school, I didn't necessarily want to do just fashion merchandising or like just. Yeah. Because wait, sorry. Fashion merchandising is what your undergrad degree is in, right?
00:34:40
Speaker
My undergrad degree is in international business. I have a business degree undergrad and decided to kind of go a little bit further into the fashion side of it without it being fashion design or fashion merchandising. And the TMI department
00:35:04
Speaker
teaches you everything from the textile sciences, so learning about fabrics at a scientific level, to historic and sociocultural history of dress, to fashion merchandising, and also you have your how to do research classes and all those things. So it's a very well-rounded
00:35:33
Speaker
in terms of everything there is to learn about fashion and about clothing. And I think one reason I love vintage clothing is I love the history of it and the story of it and all of those things. And I decided with my thesis to basically research myself.
00:36:01
Speaker
All right. So I wanted to look at the consumption process of vintage consumers. Whereas the kind of the normal consumption process of just your average everyday clothing consumer is usually buy, use and throw away.
00:36:30
Speaker
It's just a linear process. You have it, you use it, and you get rid of it. But for vintage consumers, in my research, I did interviews with people around town of varying ages who all considered themselves vintage consumers and came to the conclusion that for vintage consumers, it's very cyclical.
00:36:59
Speaker
you acquire something, you maybe you use it, or you mend it, fix it, do something with it. And when you're done with it,
00:37:16
Speaker
You can keep it forever, like a lot of us do. Or when you're done with it, you push it back into the cycle. It doesn't go away. That garment never fully leaves. Yeah. Right, right. Once you came. Right. Yeah, you just keep trading the ship or like selling the ship. It goes back to Goodwill. And it's like whether it goes to an individual, whether it goes to a thrift store, or whether it gets repurposed into something else,
00:37:46
Speaker
the garment never really has an end of life. It never usually, in a very rare case, maybe it'll leave the cycle and end up in a landfill, but it very rarely does. Vintage consumers are generally more sustainable in the sense that we don't forget about the recycle part of clothing.
00:38:16
Speaker
I mean, we are not very good at the reduce side. But we're taking from what already exists in the like reduce, reuse, recycle aspect. We're not contributing new. So it was really interesting like talking to,
00:38:42
Speaker
of all of these vintage consumers and like thinking about myself in the research, which normally when you do a research project, you don't usually do, but it was something that no one had ever really done before or asked the question of. And being an Athens surrounded by all these people who were very like-minded to myself,
00:39:11
Speaker
I felt like there was an opportunity there to kind of investigate that a little bit more. Yeah. Did anyone ever publish this? Did you try to get published? No, I got published in an academic journal. I'm an academically published author. Holy shit! I wish I had known this. I don't know if I did, but we would have thrown that in the fucking intro.
00:39:37
Speaker
Go fuck yourself, other Sam Rockwell. You're not an academically published author, sir. I actually checked. I actually checked Sam Rockwell's Wikipedia. As far as I know, there are no graduate level publications. Yes. Take that, Sam Rockwell.
00:40:03
Speaker
Follow up question, and then we'll go forward. But is this like, viewable? Like, could you send us? Yeah, let me, let me, it's somewhere. I will find it. Okay, man, last week we had fucking Chris, that's a musical archivist, and like, you know, gave us a link to these awesome photos, which we still need to share. And this week we get this, so I'm very excited.
00:40:32
Speaker
Variations on a theme. Right. Dude, I guess this is probably one of the reasons why I've respected you since we met, is because you do have all of this knowledge that has gone, or that has taken basically three decades in the making, something that not most 30-year-olds can say. I've been in a bit to chip for 30 fucking years. Do you still feel like,
00:41:00
Speaker
you know, that passion grows. Like, do you still get it as excited sometimes as back in the very early days? Oh, hell yes. Good. Yeah. Correct answer. Because if you were, I know you were not a cynical human being. No, Matt, I know you've known me for a while, but. Yes, yes. I'm getting out of it. No. Yeah. Never, never. Never. No, I am still
00:41:29
Speaker
kid in a candy store. That's awesome. Always. For better or worse, my interests keep getting older and older. Right, right.
00:41:46
Speaker
I'm more in the 40s now, but my collection of like 40s and 30s pieces, I have lots of Victorian stuff. And also, working in the film industry now and having access to clothes sometimes, especially when I'm working on a period thing, it's just,
00:42:13
Speaker
It's so, I just get so giddy. Are you the only one or like your co-worker? Oh, no. Okay, good. No. I mean, my friend and I were
00:42:29
Speaker
at some storage units, storage units for Mara, who owns Rocket Vintage. And she came to help me. And Mara has probably the most impressive collection of vintage clothing I have ever seen, like for a sole individual person. And it's like a drug.
00:42:53
Speaker
You start going through it and you just like start getting lost. And it's like, well, just one more rack. What's on this next rack? What's, what about this? And especially doing with someone who feels the same way as you do and you just start feeding off of each other. And it's just like, look at this, look at this. And it just, it never ends. Yeah. It's a dopamine hit.
00:43:21
Speaker
Yep. I just, it doesn't matter how many times I, you know, see a 1950s, a beautiful 1950s dress. If I see another one that looks a little different than one I've seen before and look at it. Yeah. You're seeing it. You're seeing a different thing anyway. It's like seeing it again for the first time. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.
00:43:46
Speaker
It's amazing. So we sort of wanted to go to the next section. We looked at your Instagram. You have a million pictures, very well done, each of them. You are the subject of many of them. So you're modeling too, right? Like tons of skill goes into producing photos like this.
00:44:14
Speaker
And maybe people don't realize it, maybe people don't think about it. Of course, I'm talking about my own fit pic struggles, which everyone bears witness to sadly, you know. So I'm always curious to see how other people set up their pictures, their portraits, plan their shoots, what have you. Yeah. Um, I've always been pretty comfortable in front of a camera. Yeah. And
00:44:45
Speaker
I think that especially with the rise of social media and documenting what you're wearing and especially as someone who wears vintage, it all just kind of lends itself to itself.
00:45:09
Speaker
as I wanted to do it, do the fit pic side of it more, just getting a tripod and getting a little remote clicker, that Bluetooth clicker that connects to your phone, making it easier for yourself with that. Right. Yeah. Connor, I think you're missing the clicker.
00:45:29
Speaker
No, dude, I had the fucking clicker. I had the fucking clicker. It's just like, it just is like so tedious and it's so in a lot of ways like impractical and then it's like people are looking at you and then you really are humiliated again and again as you drag the tripod out every day to your backyard where you take your own picture every single day, multiple times in different sessions.
00:45:59
Speaker
Right. So it's just kind of weird. Whenever I see somebody who's like, holy shit, like every one of these is great. Of course, I know that means there are 100 shitty ones. But like, you're able to produce something. I don't know. Professional is like not even the right word. It's just they're just like, good.
00:46:23
Speaker
Yeah. And, you know, as I started to do the modeling thing a little bit more, and that was especially when I was wearing the 50s and 60s clothes a lot, and I kind of got typecast pigeonholed in the vintage girl pin-upy realm. Right. And would do those shoots with photographers. That's kind of where some of those photos came from.
00:46:54
Speaker
Um, but I've also, I like photography and I've been interested in photography too. So having, having some experience and understanding of like behind and in front of the camera. Right. Yeah. A lot, a lot of it just ended up being self portraits. And then just over time with.
00:47:18
Speaker
learning more about vintage, learning more about how to style and do period correct hair and makeup and all of those things, because even now I would say all of my shoots I do, I style, I art direct a lot of them. If I'm doing the shoots with a photographer, it's very collaborative. This is my creative outlet. So I've just pulled a lot of things that I love together into
00:47:48
Speaker
creating artful images. And it's less about
00:47:57
Speaker
Yeah, and it's less about, for me, with social media, social media is so exhausting and tedious, as you said. And now with the push for reels and videos, I just, I'm like, I don't need one more thing. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to skip the fucking video. It's a totally different dimension of stress. Yeah. I mean, I have to record behind the scenes while I'm doing the thing.
00:48:23
Speaker
Right, right. Like, Jesus Christ. Yeah, it's it's a train. It's a train. Yeah. I shit. I swear it is. I know. Yeah. And I just
00:48:37
Speaker
So for me, it is my creative outlet. I work with photographers who I enjoy working with. Some of my photography goes into more artistic, art nude world. And I started doing that for a whole other reason of self-acceptance. And everything about everything that I do is kind of just a way to,
00:49:06
Speaker
I don't know, embrace myself and just be myself. And sometimes that looks very different. I like becoming different people. Yes, yes. That's probably my favorite part of modeling and styling and doing all that is how can I become a different person today? Right. And I mean, that kind of goes into like you eventually transitioning to film work too. Like you get to help someone else be a different person that day.
00:49:35
Speaker
Absolutely. And so I think it's just been over time, developing skills, understanding my angles, understanding how to put things together that I've kind of ended up where I am in terms of what my Instagram looks like.
00:49:55
Speaker
It's just been- Great answer. It's just been time. Yeah, totally. Yeah, no, a great answer with like tons and tons and tons of information, which we love. It's like exactly what we're looking for. Because this is a very thinly veiled attempt for me. The entire show is just, I wanted to take better fit pics and now I've asked like almost 30 people how they do it. And I still haven't improved even slightly.
00:50:25
Speaker
I was going to say a couple of minutes ago when you were like early in the process, but I was going to say, Connor, you're getting taught by a master here. But then I also realized that you've asked almost 30 fucking people, basically a similar question about how to take good physics and you mostly not learned.
00:50:45
Speaker
more than a couple of things. I got the, I got the lighting is a little bit better for the most part, but like, I'm not even going to get into it. The camera is a piece of shit. Okay. Which everyone says, everyone likes to say that kind of thing. So it's the camera's fault. It's the camera's fault. Again,
00:51:07
Speaker
Again very it adds pounds adds Awkward Expressions it adds weird hand positioning. I'm recording video of this. So everyone is going to see that. I'm normal Haha
00:51:26
Speaker
Is that a normal person? Right, because normal people often have to tell and like reassure folks that they're normal. Well, you heard it here first on my podcast show with over 30 guests. Totally normal. Totally normal. I continue to increase the guest count, you know. Yeah, of course, of course. We're essentially a family guy episode at this point.
00:51:55
Speaker
Oh, dear. So do you have, Sam, any favorite type of shoot? You do a lot of varying things from working with friends to model jewelry to your fairy shoots. And then, of course, the mid-century thing. But do you have a favorite? It's really hard to pick.
00:52:19
Speaker
It doesn't have to be a superlative, but you know. No, and it's, and I think as I mentioned, I like doing all of those things because I like becoming different people. Right, right. I guess I should have asked what kind of person are some of your favorites to turn into.
00:52:38
Speaker
That's a better way to phrase it. The 1940s vixen. Always a favorite. It takes a lot of work. And if I wanted to do my hair every day, maybe I would do that. But it's too hot in the summer to wear 1940s clothes first off. But she's always a favorite of mine. I love her.
00:53:04
Speaker
You know, working with my friends, Erin and Rebecca, Rebecca is a metalsmith jewelry designer with her collections that she does that are usually some sort of strong concept. And my friend Erin is a photographer.
00:53:21
Speaker
coming up with who that person is for that concept. You know, one of my favorite ones we did was like Elizabethan and it was super fun. I put, I have this Pearl 1950s collar that I put on my head to like get that Elizabethan look. It's my favorite thing to do. Yeah, that's funny.
00:53:50
Speaker
Can I ask a question quickly, which is on topic? Where do you think the line is? Is this cosplaying? Is there a line? Is there a point in defining this? Because I don't know. I don't know.
00:54:10
Speaker
I feel like cosplay is more about both adopting the look of something and also, like, the style and attitude. Like, I would say... So you have to act like them also. Yeah, I would say that this is more of a, like, you know, more of... Acting, but, like, still. Yeah, like, cosplay is... Modeling, I guess, right? Cosplay is method acting.
00:54:37
Speaker
Cosplay is method acting, modeling is method acting. I see, I see, I see. Yeah, yeah. Like Daniel Day Lewis would be a cosplayer. Like, you know. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, and I think cosplaying too, usually like there is a specific character that you are trying. Exactly, yeah. So you can't cosplay 1940s Vixen. I mean, you could. That might be a little weird.
00:55:08
Speaker
I don't know. I'm ignorant on this subject. There surely are people that do. Oh, yeah. And I would say, like, I've seen people cosplay as the 1940s Vixen version of a character. Right. Sure. Sure. If it's, you know, a film noir.
00:55:27
Speaker
actress, character, maybe that's the person that they are being. I'm just being myself as all these different versions of myself. Yeah. I see. And I, none of those versions are not me. They are just versions of me. Right. You know, doing the more editorial kind of like
00:55:55
Speaker
either my hair slicked back or I make my eyebrows disappear or I just like become this kind of harsher version of myself. Those are super fun to do. You know, a lot of my other fine artwork is very Renaissance inspired. And it's, it's always very interesting to me that when
00:56:20
Speaker
The art I do is captured on film or as a photograph. It's viewed differently than it is, say, if I were painted. Right, right. There's this weird divide between the two art forms that, like, one is acceptable and one is inappropriate. And I'm like, but why? But for what? Yeah.
00:56:45
Speaker
Yeah, because the world has morphed so much into just the stupidly puritanical society. And it's like, dude, we all have fucking bodies. We've all got skin. We've all got genitals. We believe it or not. None of this shit fucking matters.
00:57:10
Speaker
I don't know. I don't see a naked person in a photograph or a painting or whatever and see that as inherently something sexual because it's a fucking person. Right, exactly. I don't know. Yeah, it's funny that you phrased it that way, like acceptable versus an appropriate. Yeah, and that is what I found. I have been
00:57:37
Speaker
painted before. And that painting was in a gallery. And, you know, with other paintings that were, gosh, I think they were like seven feet tall. The canvases were like seven feet tall of nude women floating in space. Right. And beautiful, amazing. Yeah. Carla, the artist, fantastic.
00:58:02
Speaker
But it's just this weird dichotomy between fine art-based and I can take this on my phone, therefore, it is no longer art. Well, it's a little bit what I did with cosplay just a second ago, kind of inadvertently, right? I was like, well, where's the line between this and cosplay? As if one was the lesser, which isn't what I meant to imply. Yeah, there's definitely not. I know people were certainly
00:58:33
Speaker
super into it and awesome at it. And I have attention to detail. I would even draw a line maybe a little closer of what I do and where I fall is more in the purest form of
00:58:54
Speaker
wearing vintage clothing. I want to wear the true vintage. I want to wear the undergarments of the era that go with the piece so that the piece fits my body the way it's supposed to. I'm going to wear the 1940 shoes. I'm going to do my hair as accurately as possible. Where the parallel to that, I think in a lot of ways, is the people who are more the reproduction pinup. Right.
00:59:23
Speaker
who is a little less historically tied and it's more about an aesthetic. Neither are wrong, they're just different. And I find myself more in the former rather than the latter.
00:59:39
Speaker
That totally makes sense. It's like buying a pair of buckleback jeans that are actually old or buying a pair of double RL. Both are going to be pants you can wear. Personally, I'm a cheap bastard, so I wouldn't spend the money to buy a real pair, but I can probably thrift a double RL pair.
01:00:00
Speaker
Like, you know, there's, there's, and it's like six in one hand, half dozen in the other. Like neither of these things are inherently bad or sorry, better or worse than the other. It's just different. It's just how, you know, you, you make the, the choice.
01:00:17
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And, you know, with I, you know, I am privileged enough and lucky enough to have a body that can fit into a lot of true vintage. For sure. For sure. Which is where reproduction comes into play. Absolutely.
01:00:34
Speaker
Absolutely. I mean, you know, you're not going to find the pair of like size, extra large pants from World War Two or the chances that you find the pair. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I'm I'm just a basic ass normal human shape. And, you know, I've always had problems finding that. But yeah, like a lot of reasons for that. But if we have we've ever talked about it, like,
01:01:02
Speaker
beyond just the idea that, oh, larger people didn't exist. Right. And it's like, well, no, survivor's bias plays a role in it. Totally, totally. The really small sizes were not worn quite as often. Yeah, because nobody was that fucking size. Yeah, right.
01:01:23
Speaker
or the larger sizes may have been handed down, may have been repurposed, totally been completely worn out. And that's the thing with a lot of menswear is like men wore their stuff to death.
01:01:38
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Women's fashion. You never hear this. You never hear this. You only ever hear like, everyone just wasn't a fat piece of shit. Right. You don't need McDonald's for breakfast. I mean, like everything, I have personally found that the median sizes are the ones that you can't really find.
01:01:58
Speaker
because people were still the median sizes. Yeah, funny how that happens. I can find a pair of 60-inch waist overalls from the 40s in probably 10 minutes online somewhere. There's going to be 5 billion of those pairs, just like there's going to be 5 billion 24-inch overalls because there was no adult really that size.
01:02:27
Speaker
basic median shit has always been the same. And like, you know, depending on where you were, like the South, especially, people wore shit into the ground because they didn't have as much money. That's why you find a bunch of tailoring because that was the special shit that they didn't wear all the time. Right. And like all of this, all of these aspects of vintage clothing and like
01:02:55
Speaker
historic dress and understanding why fashions and clothes were the way they were and continue to be how they are. That's the stuff that I love. Totally. The socio-cultural aspects of historic dress and how, you know, that's part of the reason I think why I like 1940s fashion so much is
01:03:23
Speaker
just how affected by World War II it was. Every little aspect of the clothing was so, so affected. Or even finding 1930s pieces that you can tell were altered for the 1940s. Those type of things are fantastic and
01:03:49
Speaker
The idea that, well, fat people or people of larger sizes or people of, you know, not tiny figures just didn't exist. Well, that's not, that's just not true. Yeah, not even remotely. But you seriously hear it all the fucking time. That's like the only thing. God, it makes me want to drive an ice pick into my ear every time I hear that.
01:04:13
Speaker
And it's like, sure, our diets have changed. The amount of antibiotics in our food have changed. Like all of these things, sure, have changed and have contributed to maybe what the average size is. Sure. But that's not to erase the fact that these people just didn't exist. It's like, well, no, no, no, it's way more well-rounded. It's like way more well-rounded than that. There's so much more to it than just like an erasure of a whole
01:04:42
Speaker
group of people. Yeah, I think my personal favorite anecdote that I've heard, God, and I probably repeated before I realized like how fucking stupid this was. So if I ever said this to you, and you're listening to this program, I am a fucking moron saying this. But the Oh, Marilyn Monroe was a size 10.
01:05:06
Speaker
You know, that or whatever, you know, whatever the average women's sizes, I've heard multiple things. And it's like you you you do realize that like that that number means, first of all, nothing. And second of all, like sizing categories like that have changed dramatically over the years. So I mean, 50s 10 is not a 2023 10. No, no, I'm I'm probably a modern well and
01:05:37
Speaker
is to get in a whole other thing of modern garment sizing and how it hasn't changed ever and how there is no actual standard anywhere. Not even. Not nothing. Nowhere. But it's like I probably fall somewhere between a four and a six in modern sizing. Right.
01:06:03
Speaker
For vintage sizing, that probably puts me somewhere around a 12, 14 mid-century size. And then get into things like shoes. A lot of women's shoes, and men's shoes too, have a number written in them. And sometimes that number isn't even accurate.
01:06:29
Speaker
because the woman buying it wouldn't want to know that her foot was a certain size. And just write a size that was like smaller or not totally correct. Or, you know, with Victorian shoes being so tiny. It's like, well, yeah, that's what survived the last years because those teeny tiny narrow shoes clearly did not get worn. That's why they're here.
01:06:59
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. You think the boots that they were wearing like on the daily survived this long? They were probably like, they were probably handed down three times and then just thrown into a burn pit at some point in the, you know, 40s or 50s when that was not like even, you know, they nobody gives you. Exactly. When as now, everyone was littering.
01:07:24
Speaker
Right. Yes. Yes. This is true. Like that Mad Men episode where he I think of you mentioned this on the show before that Mad Men episode where Don is like at the picnic and he just like throws the picnic blanket full of like all of the stuff. Yeah. Yeah. It's just like.
01:07:43
Speaker
It's like a verdant, beautiful scene, you know, and they're like doing whatever. And then he just throws all the trash into the fucking woods and they leave. Just perfect. Yeah. And I and I need to rewatch Mad Men because there are those little things on that show that are so accurate. Right. Yeah. I think one of my favorite tiny little things from that show is every time a woman answers her phone, she takes off her clip earring.
01:08:11
Speaker
to put the phone forward. I forgot about that, but you're totally, you're totally right. It's the smallest thing, but it's like, yeah. Yeah. In order to like, hold the phone. Right, right. Yeah. Or else suffer the consequences of not, A, not being able to hear and two, hurting your fucking earlobe. Exactly. And it's like,
01:08:36
Speaker
Well, is that how a lot of earrings got lost? My brain didn't even go there, but that makes sense. These are the things I think of is like the cause and effect of everyday life of this time. How did it affect these clothes? Right. Yeah, that's funny.
01:08:58
Speaker
So Sam, you know, when I walked into a random vintage store in 2017, after I started, you know, doing this dumb shit that I do full time, and you were managing and like we kind of hit it off immediately, you know, we've come a fucking both a long way in the past six years.
01:09:20
Speaker
Um, since then you started working on film productions and I know you've done, you know, you've got a lot under your belts. Um, so I guess this will be a two parter. How did that get started? And did you see yourself going into like film work when you were younger or is this kind of something that like, you know, just popped up randomly? Um,
01:09:47
Speaker
Well, Kiwi is how it started. The vintage store where you and I met, I was working there and that phone screen places next door, like repair place. Oh yeah, yeah. And Monica, who ended up being the one to get me my first PA job in film, wandered in
01:10:14
Speaker
Because she was next door getting her phone repaired, and we got to talking. And I found out that she worked in film, worked in costumes. And I told her I was interested in it. When I graduated from UGA, I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do. I didn't want to go into corporate world.
01:10:37
Speaker
It's not my cup of tea. I didn't want to continue education and get a PhD in order to teach and go through that whole process. Going into conservation in museums is awesome, but the people who have those jobs keep them until they die and highly competitive. So it's a really hard field to get into.
01:11:03
Speaker
And I knew that the film industry was going strong in Atlanta. Had no idea how I was going to get my foot in the door, but working at a vintage store, running into Monica. And it just kind of went from there. She got me my first PA job. And I was a PA for a year and a half before I joined the union and became a full-on costumer.
01:11:35
Speaker
As for, you know, did I always want to be in it? I think I kind of just answered it with it kind of just happened. Yeah, totally. It's like process of elimination. Well, I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this. This seems interesting.
01:11:53
Speaker
If you ask my parents, they're zero percent surprised. Dude, yeah. I am also not surprised, like, you know, just knowing, knowing you a little bit better now historically, like, yeah, all this shit coming from a mile away. Yeah, and I don't know if I've ever told you this story, Matt, but when I was little, like, little, Beauty and the Beast was my Disney movie.
01:12:22
Speaker
Okay. I was of that age and Beauty and the Beast was my thing. My parents would have to pause the movie as I watched it so I could do costume changes while I acted out the movie. Nice. So not surprised.
01:12:47
Speaker
Yeah, no, not at all. I know, dress people. My personal thing, and there are pictures that no one will ever see at my parents' house to support this theory, was sports uniforms, because I was very into sports when I was really young to eight or nine, mostly. But if I was watching baseball, I had to be dressed like a baseball player. If I was watching football, et cetera, et cetera.
01:13:17
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Sadly, soldier. Yeah. Well, that's my shit. I wanted to be a fucking soldier. The great cosmic joke. Yeah, I did my my fair share of that shit, too, when I was like watching the G.I. Joe or something. But yeah, you know, it's so funny. Like we all have our things like that, that like when you when you start, you know, working or like being super, super
01:13:47
Speaker
interested in something people people like that have known you forever just like oh yeah that makes sense yeah yeah if you really luck out yeah if you really luck out if not if not they're gonna wait till you're fucking 35 and be like oh yeah that tracks and you're like motherfucker couldn't you say this 20 years ago right
01:14:09
Speaker
So as I said at the top of the show, we have wanted to have a costume designer, costume person, what have you on the show forever. So I was hoping that you would talk a little bit about that. Yeah, absolutely. Working in film is a wild
01:14:31
Speaker
wild thing and right now it just doesn't exist which is super fun for all of us. Although we support the strikes on the show to go on record again. 100% and no one's talking about it but my union, our contract's up next year.
01:14:52
Speaker
Oh shit, you're IOTC, right? I'm in IOTC, yeah, I'm in Local 479. So anyway, we have this to look forward to next year too. Woo hoo! So yeah, working in film is way less glamorous than everyone likes to think it is. Sure. It's long hours. It consumes your life.
01:15:21
Speaker
And yet I keep going back to it. It's just so constant and there's just so many problem solving things to do. And I prefer unsurprisingly to work on period things. It's a whole other can of worms compared to modern film television.
01:15:48
Speaker
but it's what I like to do because I love the history of clothes. And I just, I like the fashions more. Modern stuff is just so boring. It's so boring. Heaven forbid I do a military thing and that's just even more boring. It's just, oh, uniform. Okay.
01:16:13
Speaker
Yeah, buddy. But that's but, you know, that's somebody's shit also. So it's like that would be my shit if I was a costume. Yeah. And I, you know, I've worked with a costumer who is ex-military who got into costuming with the specialty in military because it's a whole it's a whole other thing. Oh, yeah. You gritty details that you need to know and.
01:16:38
Speaker
Did this camo print exist in this year? When did they transition over to this? It's a whole other knowledge base that is just when it's your thing, it's your thing. And I have huge respect for it.
01:16:57
Speaker
And I think parallel to it is doing historic dress stuff, doing period pieces. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. It's two sides of a coin because it's like the same details, but it's just a very specific knowledge that you have to have for both. Yeah. And when I was a PA, I was really lucky that the
01:17:24
Speaker
The second show I worked on, the designer had me help her for a 1960s flashback scene. She bumped me up to a costumer to help her shop and help her fit background and then be on set that day because she knew that's what I was interested in and what I had a knowledge base in. And so I'm very, very grateful to have had somebody who gave me that opportunity because a lot of PAs don't have that opportunity. Hell yeah.
01:17:53
Speaker
And what I do now, I've gone through a couple different iterations of jobs, but what I do now and what I really love, have found that I really love doing is dressing background. They're kind of looked down upon a lot on sets and just kind of after thoughts.
01:18:20
Speaker
But they're so, so important. Oh, yeah. So, so important. Well, I would imagine that if you're trying to create a period scene and the people in the background aren't wearing the right period shit, like maybe, maybe 99% of people don't notice that. But like,
01:18:39
Speaker
That's an important detail. You have to have that. But if things are off, it's going to feel off. It's like painting a picture, but just forgetting about the background. Right. Right. Exactly. Exactly. It completes the world. It completes everything. And so if there's a disconnect between your principal actors and the background actors, it's super noticeable. Yeah.
01:19:09
Speaker
And the show that I was on before we got shut down because of the strike, 1989, Southeast Michigan, Satanic Panic. Oh, nice. And you get to dress more people, too, right? I mean, theoretically, you get to dress more people. And as background key, I was really grateful. So Deborah McGuire is the designer, and fingers crossed it comes back.
01:19:39
Speaker
Deborah McGuire designed Freaks and Geeks, friends. Oh, that's cool. She is a legend in the industry. Yeah. And I am very grateful to her that she trusted me. And I basically designed a background with very little change
01:20:03
Speaker
from her that she saw what I could do. She trusted that I would do it. And it was, it was fun. And it was a lot of, you know, a lot of high school kids, a lot of it takes place in a high school. So creating 90 individuals, it's not just a mass group of 90 people, I have 90 individuals. Who is the student? What click are they in? What
01:20:30
Speaker
jacket do they have at home? What, you know, are they a jock? Are they a burnout? Who are they in this environment? And so it's not just slap some clothes on a bunch of people. Right. You really have to think about who each person is as an individual. Yeah, there's a background, there's a history. Right, exactly. And
01:20:53
Speaker
Obviously, these are all things that a designer thinks about when it comes to principal actors, but you really have to bring that. And I'm really grateful to have learned all of these things from other costumers who think about background in the same way that look at them in the face. Who are they? Create them as an individual person because it makes the collective so much better.
01:21:21
Speaker
It just makes it so much more well-rounded. Especially with a period thing, I think. Yeah, I would agree with that entirely. Although we- Well, it's like you see sometimes, right? Like they point out the thing in the movie and then you're like, God damn it. Like I'm going to see that canister air can for the rest of my fucking life. I'm never watching the movie Gladiator ever again.
01:21:47
Speaker
because there are those people who are like eagle eyed. And when something is wrong, it's wrong. And yes, sometimes you have to fudge it. Sometimes, you know, I was key background on First Ladies and did the Eleanor Roosevelt block and then the Betty Ford block. And that was a hell of a show.
01:22:13
Speaker
But all that being said, you have to fudge things sometimes. You're not going to be able to put X number of people all in true 100% period accurate head to toe. For sure. Again, where a lot of the reproduction stuff comes in. Right. Or even understanding if I go into a thrift store and I'm doing something 1960s,
01:22:42
Speaker
a flat front trouser is gonna read pretty accurate on a better front actor. They pretty much haven't changed. They haven't really changed. That's kind of the benefit of men's fashion is it hasn't really changed too drastically. It's boring as hell, but I love it, God damn it. Unless you're doing like
01:23:06
Speaker
cool 1970s. Right, right. Yeah. You can be loud in the 80s, like, but this is like a subculture that we always talk about. It's like the subculture, subcultural penetration, even like, that's what it is. It's like that kind of coming out in the mainstream. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, as long as what I usually tried to do is, as long as a top layer is accurate,
01:23:37
Speaker
usually not going to see what's going on underneath. Right. As much as I want to be a stickler for everything to be correct all the time, it's just not feasible. Yeah, definitely not. So knowing how to navigate and fudge and do all that. And you know, with shoes too, you very rarely see feet. So sometimes you can get away with things not being totally 100%. Right.
01:24:08
Speaker
Well, shit, man, it's been really, really fun talking to you about a million different aspects related to clothing. Yeah, we usually do like a most worn and favorite item. But honestly, like, I think that would take away from everything else you've already said about, you know,
01:24:27
Speaker
where your love of vintage comes from. Like I don't want to have to make you think about those two things. So. I mean, the jeans I'm wearing probably fall into that. Yeah. Yeah. OK. Tell us what those are. We didn't do an ensemble investigation, but man, these jeans are fucking sick.
01:24:47
Speaker
Yeah, so there are 1950s side zip that I bought damaged. They're pretty sun damaged. And the moment, they already had holes in them when I bought them. And I bought them at a good price because of that. Right, right. And I put them on, and they immediately just split down both front of the way. It's like, OK, well, guess we're going to have to. So every time I wear these pants, I have to fix them. Yeah.
01:25:17
Speaker
They're patched and mended and they're like a pair of sweatpants. I feel comfortable wearing them on a day like today when it's 100 degrees humidity in Georgia. And I still feel comfortable in them.
01:25:38
Speaker
They're fucking fantastic. I've seen a lot of the evolution of this over the past few years. I've probably seen them, whether you realize it or not, in every iteration of New Hole and New Path. Well, they will surely be in one of the photos that we post for this episode.
01:26:04
Speaker
But I, because it is one of the funniest fucking things that I've ever heard in my life, wanted to talk a little bit to cleanse the palette here about the great wrath debacle of 2022.
01:26:20
Speaker
You and your partner, Russell, do foster work for rescued rats. I've learned a lot about these things from you. I've lived in Brooklyn a few years and subway rats are a whole other kind of shitty fish.
01:26:37
Speaker
like pet rats are fucking adorable and they're like hyper intelligent and like i don't know i love hearing the stories but um can you uh give a little rundown about this wild situation oh boy yeah that i remember what a time that was
01:26:59
Speaker
So yeah, we work with the Georgia Rat Rescue, really fantastic organization. And yeah, we foster rats. I can go on and on about how fantastic of animals rats are. Yes. You're a rat ambassador. I am 100% a rat ambassador. I've got my little ratty friend on my arm always. Oh, yes. Nice. Yes. But yes, this rat debacle.
01:27:28
Speaker
So how the organization works is somebody will contact the organization and say, I have these rats to surrender for whatever reason. Moving, allergic, got them for kids. Kids won't take care of them anymore. Whatever it is. Well, in this case, these people got three rats, thought they were all the same sex. Turns out it was two boys and a girl.
01:28:00
Speaker
Look, you can sex rats basically from birth, not that hard to do. And adult rats, really not hard to do. You know when a boy is a boy rat. Yeah. Yeah. There is no denying that rat is a male. So female rat got pregnant, obviously. They kept them all together. How did it happen? Because they had. Yeah.
01:28:30
Speaker
crazy. Wow. Wow. Yeah. What a mystery. What a mystery. Hmm. How does this work? Well, apparently, you will conception. Yeah, that happened a bunch of times. Um, so Amy, who runs the organization went to the house to go pick up the mom rat and her litter.
01:28:56
Speaker
Well, turns out that these people didn't pull the mom rat out or the litter out from the other two male rats. They just kept everybody here, their one big happy family. So she got the two adult males and there were, I think 11 babies in that litter.
01:29:24
Speaker
And I don't remember now the breakdown of boy to girl, but it was significantly more, there were more girls than boys. So we, my husband and I got the two adult males. I think we got some of the baby boys. And then we got three, I think it was six girls total.
01:29:52
Speaker
and four boys somewhere in that realm. Is there a name for a boy rat? Is there a name for an adult male rat or adult female rat? This is a good question. Sal kind of named. Interesting. Then we must know then what the baby rat of both sexes is called.
01:30:17
Speaker
Yeah. We'll find this out. We'll get this information back to you rapidly. Well, maybe, yeah, it's rapidly. We'll maybe even edit it in. Yeah, I'm not. I'm not sure I know that a group of rats is called a mischief, which is adorable. Mischief? Oh, my God, it's a pup. It's a pup or a pinky or a kitten is the baby rat now. Oh, OK. A pup.
01:30:47
Speaker
So long story short, mom, since all the babies had hit a certain age before they were separated from the two adult males, all of the baby girl rats got pregnant. Wow.
01:31:15
Speaker
Oh, I forgot to mention that when Amy went and picked up the rats, mom had just had a second litter. Right. Which is why mom had to get left behind because mom was still weaning off a second litter. Right. Because rats could get pregnant twice at the same time or whatever, right? So then turns out she was pregnant with
01:31:40
Speaker
a third litter. Because rats have this crazy evolutionary thing where they, after giving birth, will go back into heat, like two days later or something insane, can get pregnant and then can hold off on gestation of the pregnancy until the current litter is weaned. Wow. Wow.
01:32:11
Speaker
So anyway, three rats became a hundred rats in a very short amount of time. A rat fuck indeed. A rat fuck. I really don't know why I wanted you to tell that story, but Connor can tell you that I have referenced that story no less than five or six times since we've known each other.
01:32:34
Speaker
in some way, shape, or form. It's just fucking hungry. Matt likes the rat fucking story for some reason. It's one of those things I'm like, did y'all not realize how this happened? Right, right. That's the whole thing about rodents, I thought, is that they breed a lot. There's a reason that there's a lot of them. Right, right. They breed a lot and they're really fucking smart.
01:33:01
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Like, I mean, if you don't get them fixed, like, what do you expect to happen? Well, right, exactly. And, you know, because they're so small, getting, getting them fixed is really difficult. Right. It's just more dangerous. So all you do is you just separate the boys.
01:33:26
Speaker
Right right because they're like solved Rats are very social creatures, right? Yeah. Yeah, they're highly social like it's kind of like a duck You can't have one or they'll just be like incredibly depressed
01:33:39
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And so like, yeah, make sure you get two males because you can see their fucking balls and make sure you get two females. Female rats, only female rats have nipples. Male rats don't have nipples at all. So even when they're just big, you just look at them and you go, oh, that's a girl. Identification is not that difficult.
01:34:01
Speaker
This is more rat fucking information than has ever been assembled. And it's here on our show. We have Sam Rockwell. We have the rat fucking diatribe. Yes. Oh yes. My mom is going to be so happy that I'm finally swearing again. Nice.
01:34:27
Speaker
Well, Sam, thank you again for coming on the show and putting up with Connor and I's dumb shit. Sorry Connor's mom, I curse a lot, I know. We always give our guests a chance to shout out and promote whenever they want to, so this is yours.
01:34:45
Speaker
Well, you can find me on Instagram at at owlista, O-W-L-I-S-T-A. I have a page for my vintage that's owlista.vintage. You can get to both of those things from my main feed. I have a website and I sell prints of myself portraits.
01:35:11
Speaker
And I didn't fully mention, but I am getting ready to design for the first time a short film that I'm super excited about. So yeah, that's just kind of it. Hell yeah. Follow along and keep up with the journey. Keep up the journey. Keep up the journey, guys. Keep it up.
01:35:39
Speaker
everyone uh thank you for listening um please subscribe rate uh whatever you do follow on spotify apple or your platform of choice um if you have questions comments concerns apocalypse studs at gmail.com or at apocalypse studs on instagram uh if you if you just want to send us a note and be like hey
01:36:05
Speaker
wait i appreciated this or like just a little fuck you even the guy who said that our audio quality is bad which is not wrong but hey
01:36:17
Speaker
Send us, drop us a line. We'll pay good money for that. Drop us a line. Even if you want to say, hey, go fuck yourself. That's fine. Yeah, just please communicate with us. We are so lonely. We might post a screenshot if that happens because I'm a petty bitch. But anyway, I'm Matt Smith at Rebels Rogues. And I'm Connor Fowler at Connor Fowler. And we'll see you soon.