A few years ago I was back in my old neighborhood in Brooklyn, and when I turned a corner, there was my former boss, Joe, standing out in front of the Mexican restaurant as if no time had passed at all.
“Hey! I used to work here!” I said.
“I know,” he said, like he’d just seen me bussing tables there yesterday.
“This was my last real job before I started working as an actor,” I told him.
“I know,” he said.
“I gave away a lot of free margaritas,” I blurted out.
He rolled his eyes. “I know,” he said again, but he was smiling. I looked inside the restaurant and saw that almost nothing had changed, which was oddly comforting. It made it even easier to picture myself there as I was in 1995, when I was scrappily patched together by green Dep gel, scrunchies, and stirrup pants. I realized that even though that restaurant hadn’t been my dream job, I’d really liked working there. The rule I’d made for myself about keeping a day job until I could make a living acting was a good one. Wearing a dog costume was no fun, but I did it because it was more money than I usually made in a day, and I wasn’t too proud to hustle.
Maybe that’s why Professor Owen asked us to make those lists in the first place: to remember where we all started, and share stories of how far we’d come. To journey back to whatever each of our individual Brooklyns had been, and look in the window of the Mexican restaurant and remember ourselves as we were, young and hungry.
So, welcome to Chili’s, y’all. Whether you’re saying it for real or just trying to get the part, say it loud and say it proud.
My Life in Fashion
As you probably know, I am regularly featured on best-dressed lists, constantly praised for “owning it” and “killing it” on the red carpet, and have Zac Posen on speed dial. Wait. That’s not me, that’s Cate Blanchett! But obviously, in general, I’m a popular fixture on the fashion scene and can usually be spotted sporting free outfits sent to me by designers while sitting next to Anna Wintour in the front row of all the hottest runway shows during New York Fashion Week, before partying the night away with one to seven members of the Kardashian family. Wait. That’s not me, that’s Gigi Hadid! Wait. That’s not her either, because she’s a successful top model who is most likely to be walking in the show. Well, whoever’s next to Anna in the front row is probably pretty psyched to be sitting in this place of honor. They’re also probably hungry and their shoes are too tight. And whoever they are, they aren’t me. But for some reason, I always forget that I’m not really a fashion-type person, and every once in a while I attempt to be one anyway. Who am I? When it comes to fashion, I’m not entirely sure.
My dad is six foot three, thin, and athletic, so even without him trying very hard, clothes look great on him. He was voted best-dressed in high school, even though he went to a Catholic school where they all wore uniforms, so I’m not exactly sure how it was that he distinguished himself, or why the school even bothered to assign that superlative to one of hundreds of boys wearing identical navy blue blazers. But what that says to me is that my father was so innately fashionable he somehow managed to look better-dressed than his classmates, even though they were all wearing the exact same thing.
So I suppose my dad was my first fashion idol, which is troubling only in that when I was a preteen girl I learned everything I first knew about what to wear from a tall preppy lawyer in his thirties. This was the 1980s in Washington, D.C., which meant my key pieces included wide-wale corduroys, L. L. Bean boat shoes, and anywhere from one to forty-seven shirts layered on top of one another with collars of varied jauntiness. My turtleneck was up and scrunchy, or sometimes neatly folded down! My Izod collar was down sometimes, unless of course it was up! This made for lots of fun choices, which in any combination ensured you were both overheated and bulky—you really couldn’t go wrong.
After a while, rather than simply being influenced by my father’s law office fashions and continuing to reinterpret them as a teen girl, I began to just cut out the middleman and wear his clothes. Back then, I really didn’t like dresses. I remember having to buy a skirt for the eighth-grade band recital because I didn’t own a single one. Fine, I was a tomboy. But here I am in one of my dad’s starched white dress shirts, which he wore underneath his suits for work. So presumably all the extra length and bulk of a man’s dress shirt is tucked into my (probably boys’) Levi’s corduroys, thereby obscuring any girl shape struggling to emerge from beneath.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Gap, where I got most of my dad-like clothes, was not yet the fashion-forward ubiquitous mall shop it has become, but more of a place where construction workers got their basics. Back then, they didn’t even carry any of their own name-brand stuff. The Gap specialized in plaid flannel shirts by nameless designers and crunchy Levi’s that had to be washed twenty to thirty times before they would stop standing up on their own. Luke Danes–type fashions. Skinny jeans didn’t yet exist, but we knew enough to see that straight-leg jeans weren’t as flattering as they could be, so some girls I went to school with had their jeans taken in along the inseam. I was too free-spirited (disorganized) for such tailoring frippery, so instead of sewing mine to make the leg narrower, I folded the jeans inward along the inseam, and I STAPLED THE TWO PARTS TOGETHER. My look was stocky teenage boy meets Office Depot.
But I always liked the idea of fashion and of being fashionable, and as I got older I felt it was my responsibility to at least try—perhaps in part because of the trend toward actors being not just actors but also brands of some sort. It’s not enough today just to be a good actor, it seems. One must also be a fashion icon, colon cleanse spokesperson, and designer of a line of plus-size dog costumes on the side. Your St. Bernard has been overlooked for too long!
In my family, there are several well-dressed ladies. My mother could take something odd from any sale rack and turn it into part of an elegant ensemble. My stepmother, Karen, and sister Maggie both have a great eye for patterns and fun accessories. My sister Shade always looks chic in her New York City color palette, which ranges from black to black. And my brother, Chris, like my dad, has a classic East Coast style. It’s in my blood, or so I’ve tried to convince myself again and again. Those first twenty or so years of dad shirts and Stan Smith sneakers were my dormant phase, but I knew that Trendsetter Lauren was in there somewhere, just waiting to come out.
So when the call came one early summer day to be a judge on one of my favorite shows, Project Runway, I thought my fashion destiny had finally found me. Peter and I were spending the weekend in East Hampton, so not only was the call exciting in itself, but the whole request took on a beachy, Nancy Meyers–movie golden glow. Oh, oh, look at me! I walk barefoot on the beach, wearing a straw hat I paid nine million dollars for at Calypso on Main Street! I got this iced coffee at Once Upon a Bagel in Sagaponack! I vacation in the Hamptons! I’m a judge on Project Runway! Whose life is this—Bethenny Frankel’s? After all those years of schlepping around Manhattan in my black puffy Reebok high-tops, I’m now positively killing it as a New Yorker!
The episode I’d been asked to do was the season ten premiere. I learned that Pat Field, the incredible stylist from Sex and the City, would also be a guest judge, along with the regular judges Michael Kors and Nina Garcia, and of course host and supermodel Heidi Klum. Just picturing the company I’d be keeping already made me feel better-dressed. I got to borrow a Michael Kors dress for the shoot, and I had fancy people doing my hair and makeup. This was unusual for me then, but I dreamed that in my new more fashionable life I’d be calling a day like that “Tuesday.”
Because it was to be the first episode of the season, and an anniversary to boot, they set up a special runway in the middle of Times Square so that fans could be in the audience for a portion of the show. I was driven over to the location in a limo with Heidi, who was extremely friendly and welcoming. She waved from the open window and smiled for photos in the middle of Times Square. People were giddy to see her. Back
stage, I met Tim Gunn, who was kind and gracious. “What a lovely way to start our season,” he said upon meeting me. I blushed from head to toe.
The judges were then seated in a row of chairs near the runway and handed index cards on which to write our comments. Heidi and Tim welcomed the audience and announced the start of the season. The crowd cheered. Loud music thumped through the outdoor speakers. The show began.
I guess what I remember most about the runway show was NOTHING I REMEMBER NOTHING OH GOD WHAT JUST HAPPENED. The show was over in what seemed like a blink. Prior to this night, my concept of a “show” involved popcorn or an intermission or perhaps complaints about the unnecessary length of that one scene in Act Two. This show was over before I even had time to become uncomfortable on my folding chair. Also (and this will come as a shock to absolutely no one) models make everything look great. I’d just watched a series of the most beautiful young women in the world walk by—who cared what they were wearing? Oh, supposedly me.
The other judges stood up and started musing about the show while, in a state of utter panic, I racked my brain for details, trying to come up with anything at all I could remember from the blur I’d just experienced. Um, okay, think, think. That one model was wearing…pants, I guess? Or were those actually pants? Or was it a skirt of some…no, pants, I think? These were my detailed fashion impressions. Then someone came to collect our index cards from us. I looked down at the cards in my hand and, heart pounding, realized I’d written almost nothing on them. “Wait, are we—these are their scores? We’re turning in the scores now?” I said to Nina, dumbstruck.
“Yes,” she said, totally friendly. “What did you think of the show?”
I grinned idiotically in a way I hoped looked haute couture, mumbled something like “Wow, it’s—with the clothes, making!” and turned back to my blank cards. Hastily I wrote down as much as I could remember from what I’d just seen and assigned some scores randomly. Even now, I couldn’t tell you what the scoring system is or even the range of numbers it involves. It’s like I had a fashion-induced blackout. Was it 1–10? Or 0–100? The giant X’s they use on America’s Got Talent? I have literally no idea.
Once back in the studio, I calmed down a little. It was exciting to be on a set I found so familiar after having watched every episode. The judges have all worked together for years, so there was lots of laughter and chitchat as we waited to begin. Then, one by one, the contestants filed out to stand on the stage beside the models wearing their garments.
The first thing I noticed was how close we were to the contestants. Almost uncomfortably close. Much closer than it looks on television. Yet still too far away to make small talk. Whatever the distance is that makes those two things simultaneously possible is one I’d never experienced before. The effect of this strange faraway intimacy meant that everyone just sort of stared at each other without saying much in between critiques. Plus, in order to get those swoopy camera angles, they put the camera on a swoopy mechanical arm thing, and we were warned that the swooping takes a while. So between critiques, the camera flew around on its arm like some sort of drunk helicopter, getting reaction shots from each contestant, and then from the judges. They asked us to hold our reactions as best we could until they got to us. Ever smile for a photograph for someone who doesn’t know how to work their camera? Twenty times longer than that. My mouth started to tremble from trying to hold a smile. During one of these awkward frozen moments, one of the contestants grinned at me and mouthed the words “I love you,” and I tried as best I could to communicate my thanks while also maintaining my frozen mannequin face.
Unfortunately, when it came time for the judges to give their critiques, this same girl turned out to be in the bottom three. This part is also a bit of a blur, but from my many years as a viewer I’ll guess Nina said something about a garment being reminiscent of “Dior in the seventies,” Michael said a textile looked like a “frat house bath mat,” and Heidi found one of the dresses “too sad.” When it came to me, I tried my best to come up with an opinion that was also not an opinion. I think I said something like “Maybe the T-shirt is a little too…T-shirty?” or something equally benign. But the girl who’d mouthed that she loved me looked as if I’d punched her, and that’s when I realized the real problem I’d been having all evening was simply that I didn’t like being a judge. I’d never judged anything in my life before. And even if I’d discovered I was an okay judge in general, even if I liked telling other people my opinions, the truth was that I wasn’t really very qualified in this particular arena. If anyone at the show had seen how many pairs of sweatpants I had at home, they’d have shown me the door. My favorite outfits are jumpsuits. I buy too many. They always just seem like such a good idea at the time. I’m probably drawn to them because they remind me of my favorite childhood pajamas, but without the built-in slippers. There’s one jumpsuit I wear that Peter calls my “that nice lady who works at the gas station” look. In fashion, I’ve always been more of a follower than a leader.
Here I’m copying not only my cousin Heather’s wardrobe but also her bedhead chic hairstyle and rockin’ smize. That’s what a smize is, right?
I actually really love when I get to prepare for a big, over-the-top event that is seriously glamorous. I view the work of fashion designers like I do any art, and I get a kick out of occasionally dressing up in a big way. But being exposed to the world of a Big Night Out doesn’t necessarily translate into real life. It’s like learning how to make a soufflé, then being asked to put dinner on the table for five teenage boys on a Monday night: “I know you just got home from basketball practice, but would you guys mind waiting forty-five minutes to an hour for an airy and eggy dessert that isn’t even filling?”
As a viewer of Project Runway, my favorite part has always been watching people create things, then following the decisions they made to see how they got to a finished product. In so many ways, that’s the work of an actor too, and something I totally relate to. The judging was the least fun part. As a friend, I don’t mind giving advice when I’m asked, but if you don’t take it, I’m not going to ask you to clean up your work space and go home. I felt embarrassed too. I can’t even stand giving feedback to the potato peeler I bought on Amazon—what made me think this would be any different?
For weeks after the show was over, I went on and on to all my friends about my runway show semi-blackout, how worried I still was about the nice girl and my “T-shirty” comment, and how in general my reaction to being a judge was much different from what I’d expected. I told them all about who got cut and why, what really went on behind the scenes, and what we had for dinner (everyone wants to know what models eat). One day I was telling my lawyer, Adam, my stories, and he stopped me midsentence. “Wait. It’s just me you’re telling all this to, right? I mean, you haven’t been telling other people any of these stories, have you?” When I told him that yes, in fact, I had, because I was really, really traumatized by judging, he stopped me again. “Lauren,” he said, with genuine concern in his voice, “you aren’t allowed to talk about any of that. You signed a confidentiality agreement.”
“Ugh, well, right,” I tried to joke, “but I didn’t actually read it that carefully—what do you think I have a lawyer for?”
He responded by telling me that everything I’d been saying was in total breach of my contract. Great. I was such a bad judge that now I might have to sit in front of a real one? I pictured Tim Gunn, sad about having to testify against me: “Well, I thought it was a lovely way to start our season, but now…”
Over the years, I’ve gotten to do some pretty exciting things. Peter and I once made an appearance at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, where we got escorted through the crowds and massive balloons to have an up-close experience I’ll never forget. I was flown to Amsterdam for a week to promote Gilmore Girls. I hosted the American Cinema Editors awards (the Eddies), where I got to fulfill my lifelong dream of delivering this piece of genius comedy: “Hey, who cut
one?” I once rode the Disney jet when I was doing a series for ABC. I got to bring my friend Jen, and there was a marching band waiting for us on the tarmac when we arrived—not the usual way you expect to be greeted at work!
I’ve also been asked to do a lot of really unexpected things. One time I was invited to speak at a toilet paper convention. Another, to go on a morning show and discuss calcium supplements. Over the course of my career, I’ve gotten requests as odd and varied as promoting a line of cat food (I don’t have a cat), being on the cover of a golf magazine (I don’t play golf), and appearing on Sesame Street (I did this one! I know he’s really famous, but guys, Grover is so down to earth in real life). I’ve learned that it’s always nice to be invited to a party; there’s just no way to know ahead of time what the party will be like.
In fashion, one day you’re in, and the next day you’re out. I was literally in for just the one day, but I realized I’m happier being out, or better yet, at home on my couch wearing sweatpants, watching as a fan.
Oh, and in case you were wondering, we ordered from a nice Japanese restaurant in Midtown, and Heidi had tofu in black bean sauce. Please remember how much you enjoyed that information, because I’m writing it to you from jail. This prison jumpsuit I’m wearing isn’t as flattering as some of the ones I have at home, but that’s okay.
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