tyler vatmanuk
Sedaris has always considered fashion to be part of performance, even if he resists the term. For most of the year, he is on the road, reading and refining essays in theaters and lecture halls. He has said that his audience is his first editor. He trusts them when something is funny, and he trusts them less when it comes to matters of style. “My audience knows a lot about a lot of things, but they don’t know anything about clothes,” he said. “They’re like, ‘Oh, did you make it yourself?’ They just laugh, and I don’t care, but it’s funny to me.”
A few weeks after our outing, Sedaris and her basketball-short skirt will be seen late night with seth meyersPaired with a beautiful blazer and shiny leather shoes. He had gone to promote his new collection of essays, land and its people. Like his strongest work, this collection suffers from the oddities of life. There’s also a new honesty that should come with age. “I got a chance to turn 20 and I think I took advantage of it,” he said. “Now it’s someone else’s turn to be 20 and it’s my turn to be 69. I can do it my way, but this is where I’m at.”
At the end of our shopping trip, Sedaris tapped his credit card and was ready to go. On his way out, he stopped to consider a patterned shirt that caught his attention before deciding he could do without it. Outside, we waited for the car on a quiet Chelsea street. The conversation focused on what everyone had bought or almost bought. Sedaris left wearing a new topcoat, her mesh skirt neatly tucked away in a bag. I left empty-handed but a little under Kawakubo’s influence. Meanwhile, his publicist accepted his proposal and walked away with her own skirt.
