This Is Cult Classic.

A newsletter about film and fashion: here's what to expect.

Welcome to my newsletter, Cult Classic, which is about film and fashion. An iconic outfit is like a Cult Classic, often misunderstood by many but beloved by a small subset of those who really get it. Talking about fashion in film (and TV!) at length is what I do here. 

To explain my qualifications to do such work, let me start with the story of how I once was a teamster (briefly).

I was 23 when I found myself driving a 25 foot truck in a stupid striped Brandy Melville crop top. Whenever I tell people this, they ask me how I ended up there and the answer is, I was an English major at UPenn. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do after I graduated, and thought maybe screenwriting, so I ended up working in the art department of various indie films where I found out they needed desperate, inappropriately dressed assistants to drive set furniture around the city. 

I was pretty sure this would be how I died…but it wasn’t, so like anyone with a new lease on life I thought maybe I would give fashion journalism a try. I would say that has gone over pretty well—I’ve since worked as a fashion editor at Harper’s Bazaar, InStyle and Glamour, without ever having to get behind the wheel of a big rig again. But I’ve always really been interested in the intersection of the two. Film and fashion that is—not truck driving—although I’ve learned that all three certainly require intricate skill sets to master. 

My other credits include making Robert De Niro a spicy pepper sandwich he enjoyed very much (“This is the best spicy pepper sandwich I’ve ever had” — Robert De Niro to Me) and helping Danny Devito cross a busy street in Queens while walking a weiner dog multiple times for a Todd Solondz film called “Weiner Dog.” 

I’m standing off-screen somewhere, likely dressed in my favorite 2014 outfit: a striped Brandy Melville halter top and silver Bermuda shorts from Topshop.

I never ended up writing a script, or writing very much at all. As it turns out, not trying to die while driving a truck when you’re a native New Yorker who barely knows how to drive in the first place, constructing the perfect Italian hero for Robert DeNiro against a director’s wishes who said it would be too messy (but DeNiro insisted, so I persisted), and making sure Devito and a gorgeous show dog looked both ways before crossing a busy intersection was a lot of work. I did other things too of course, those were just the best things.

I made Bob that sandwich. Can you believe it?

“This is the best spicy pepper sandwich I’ve ever had” — Bob to me, off camera. He also went out of his way to make sure I knew that he knew I was the real genius behind the sandwich, not Zac Efron who makes him the sandwich in the skit (and I guess in a sense…plays me?).

And despite no longer working in that industry, I’ve always been obsessed with movies and television because I love a good story. I think the way a character dresses is such a crucial part of that and it doesn’t often get discussed in the way I think it should. There’s a lot more to it than just “That’s a very good look!” And it doesn’t even have to be necessarily good to be interesting or worth discussing. Of course I always want to dress like Parker Posey in Party Girl but I also think about that terrible yellow mesh tank top Hannah Horvath wore in Girls all the time—and it brings me both terror and delight.

Sometimes it’s the worst looks that are the ones you remember the most. This bright neon net top from Girls is actually engrained in my memory.

Cult Classic will explore the very good (and sometimes so bad it’s very good) fashion of film and television and everything in between. I watch a lot of things, and my hope is that you can also walk away from this newsletter with a list of new things to watch you’ve never thought to watch or maybe even heard of. 

Now this look from Party Girl is the complete opposite of Hannah’s net tank top. It is an outfit that I remember for the right reasons. An outfit I want to wear. An outfit that makes me want to get arrested. And it’s an outfit I don’t think people are talking about enough!

While getting to the bottom of what makes some of the best looks on the silver and small screen so good, I’ll also be sometimes recreating them with my own closet, making theoretical The RealReal wishlists of and compilations of current brands and pieces I think certain characters would like, taking stylish people to the movies to pick their brains about which ones influenced their aesthetic, looking at how films referenced by designers like John Galliano, Alexander McQueen and Mrs. Prada have impacted their work, and maybe discussing the outfit Danny DeVito really should have worn to walk that weiner dog or why no Girls watcher will ever forget Hannah Horvath’s tank top….amongst lots of other things.  

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I first came up with this idea years ago, actually, while I was in that truck. The production assistant next to me was explaining how I’d have to memorize certain routes because google maps hadn’t done the best job of marking off where I could and couldn’t smash into a bridge. 

I took a long look out the window, pressed my finger against my neck to confirm I was still alive, and tried to envision what an audience would think if this moment was projected in front of them. 

I just know they’d take one look at that stupid little striped crop top I was wearing and know I would be the type of girl to go home after for a nice cry before calling up the production designer to quit.

And while I was staring out that window contemplating Brandy Melville and morality, I thought, wouldn’t it be fun if there was a place for those kinds of conversations? 

This is that place! 

I wanted this first send to explain what you can expect from this newsletter. See you next Sunday for the first ever real send, where I seriously get into it—and that’s when you can expect Cult Classic to land in your inbox from here on out. I am so excited about this and so happy you are here!

x

Tara