transcript

Speaker 1:
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Speaker 3:
[01:18] Dressed The History of Fashion is a production of Dressed Media. With over 8 billion people in the world, we all have one thing in common. Every day, we all get dressed.

Speaker 4:
[01:33] Welcome to Dressed The History of Fashion, a podcast that explores the who, what, when of why we wear. We are fashion historians and your host, Cassidy Zachary.

Speaker 3:
[01:42] And April Calahan. As perhaps we should have switched up our intro a bit this week to be a podcast that explores the who, what, when of why we don't wear, as this week we bring our first but some might deem to be racy content. As we explore, as today's guest says, the, quote, intersections of fashion, culture, and sex work.

Speaker 4:
[02:04] In this week's two-part episode, writer, performer, sex worker, activist, and headmistress of the New York School of Burlesque, Jo Weldon, joins us to speak about her latest project, What I Wore to Work. A one-woman stage production, which is part fashion history lesson and part autobiographical confessional that reveals little known history of sex workers as fashion influencers for millennia.

Speaker 3:
[02:29] Yes. We have spoken about this before a little bit in terms of some of how 19th century elite courtesans patronize the hallowed halls of haute couture. We will mention this again very briefly in this episode as well. But in part one of this episode, we dig back even further in time to the brothel workers of ancient Greece and fast forward all the way to contemporary sex worker style as seen on the red carpet at even this year's most recent Met Gala.

Speaker 4:
[02:59] Dressed listeners, while there is no description of sexual acts in any way, please note that there is frank discussion of themes some might consider sensitive, including the professions of stripping, prostitution, and some brief mentions of politics and religion. If this content is not your cup of tea, we get it, so maybe you just sit this week out. But the very real impact quote-unquote working girls have had on high fashion is undeniable as we will soon find out.

Speaker 3:
[03:28] Some of you might recall Jo first joined us on the podcast in 2018 to discuss her book Fierce, A History of Leopard Print, and that also so many years ago, Jo was also my burlesque teacher. She has also written a comprehensive manual on the art of classic and neo-burlesque, and it's entitled The Burlesque Handbook. And we are so happy today that she's back for yet another revealing episode.

Speaker 4:
[03:53] Jo, welcome back.

Speaker 3:
[03:55] Jo, we are delighted to have you back on the show. Thank you so much for being here for what promises to be the sexiest episode of Dressed Yet.

Speaker 5:
[04:04] I'm thrilled to be here.

Speaker 3:
[04:06] Yes.

Speaker 5:
[04:06] Thank you.

Speaker 3:
[04:07] And as you very well know, we have been in conversation about having you join us to speak about sex worker style and its historical influence on fashion for some time now, as your work on this subject has evolved and grown. So could you tell us a little bit about how the seeds for this project were first planted and then its germination into its current incarnation?

Speaker 5:
[04:30] I've always known it, but it wasn't conscious realization. Everything was sort of sublimated and they think that probably has a lot to do with being indoctrinated to thinking that sex workers don't have much to contribute to society or culture generally. And the thing is, I've been an activist and I very much know better, but there's still that trace of indoctrination that sort of blocked my realization. And then when I was working on the history of leopard print, I ran across an urban dictionary definition of leopard print that says anything that is leopard print can be described as whore and gave the example of whore bra and I'm in the middle of researching leopard print and I'm already finding all these different interpretations of what it means to be leopard print and seeing all these influences from other cultures that make leopard print so powerful. And I went, wow, dressing like a whore is a really potent concept in people's minds. And then I realized it's a really potent concept in my mind. It's really important to me, it really matters to me. And so I think about the vernacular dressing like a whore, which means someone is too sexily dressed for wherever they are. And then also the actual dressing like a whore that I did to work in the sex industry.

Speaker 3:
[06:00] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[06:00] And I started doing the research informally, and then I reached out to the New York Public Library and they gave me a residency. But unfortunately, the beginning of the residency intersected with the beginning of the lockdown for the pandemic.

Speaker 3:
[06:13] Where has this research taken us to today?

Speaker 5:
[06:16] I've been writing a book and right now the book is being edited down. There's way too much, so I'm using that in my substack and in these little booklets I'm making. But while I was working on the book, I decided to make it into a one-woman show because there was conflict in my mind about whether I should do a third-person version of the history or overview of sex work intersecting with fashion, or whether it needed to be a memoir about what I actually wore to work. Then I got really annoyed when I realized it had to be both. I didn't really want to write a memoir. It's so much easier to do the third-person stuff for me. I said, I got to do the show. I've got to get this out in front of people and get responses and feedback. So I put a show together and I started performing it a year ago in New York City, and I'll be taking it on the road in 2025.

Speaker 3:
[07:12] Yeah. It's amazing. I've seen it a couple of times now. One of the things that I love so much about your work and the show in general is how seamlessly you weave together worlds on multiple levels. On one hand, your one-woman show is funny, sexy, and sometimes it's a little bit explicit. But on the other hand, one should never underestimate its very real sincerity and scholarship. Because I nearly fell out of my chair when at the beginning of the show, you had Johnny come around and distribute your little cards to everyone that had the QR code on it, right? Was it a QR code?

Speaker 5:
[07:51] QR code.

Speaker 3:
[07:52] Yeah. So people could access your footnotes and all of your scholarly citations that went into information that you were presenting in your One Woman Show. Would you tell us a little bit more about that? I've never seen a stage show that came with footnotes.

Speaker 5:
[08:07] I follow a lot of historians. I follow their writing. I read their books. I follow their YouTube. I come from a background of studying journalism and I know what constitutes diligence and fact-checking. Even then, you can sometimes be wrong. Every thing I've ever written of any link has at least one error in it, and one error that matters to me. But I do my best. There's so much weird little history on TikTok and Twitter, and they'll just say something and I'll realize that's not a fact. That's right. That's literally not true because I've done research in that area. I wanted to give other fashion scholars, because a lot of fashion designers and scholars have come to the show. I said, if you think this might be interesting for you, or if my perspective is too narrow, or too based on my identity characteristics, here's a place to start, have some fun, go on, or feel free to fact check me. I consider anybody that fact checks me or lets me know, I have something wrong to be doing me a huge favor. Thank you. But also cite your freaking sources.

Speaker 3:
[09:18] Exactly.

Speaker 5:
[09:20] Because there's great stuff on every platform, but there is just garbage history out there.

Speaker 1:
[09:26] Yeah. Garbage.

Speaker 3:
[09:27] Yeah. If we're going to talk about primary sources and all of the primary sources that went into your work and especially the show, you begin the show with a doozy and I didn't see this coming. I don't know if anybody saw this coming as the opening of the show. You opened the show with a verse from the Bible. Could you tell us about that verse from Proverbs and why that opens the show?

Speaker 5:
[09:48] Yeah, so I decided to set my research in the context of how I would be a person reaching these conclusions. I feel like that's essential, right? And I realized that the first time I ever encountered the concept of dressing like a whore was in the Bible because I come from a Christian family. There's missionaries and faith healers in my family and I love them and they've done that for me but they've also terrified me with scary stuff that will happen to me if I don't study the Bible and get the message. So I studied the Bible and I came up with a completely different message I think than they intended. So I first read about whores in the Holy Scripture in some Proverbs which describe a woman being dressed like a harlot and subtle of heart. So she's crafty and she leads this young man into sin. And he otherwise would have been sinless his entire life. And it's a warning against women who dress and act seductively. And it describes men who encounter them as utterly powerless. In this particular proverb, like in other sections of the Bible, prostitutes have different powers. But as a kid who was finding the whole Bible unsettling, I was like, oh, here's power, glamour. Yeah, when you get to the the whore of Babylon much later in Revelations, and she's described wearing ostentatious purple and red and all this gold jewelry and everything. I was like, oh, she sounds fabulous. I gotta get me a seven-headed beast and some red and purple clothes.

Speaker 3:
[11:33] And I do believe you were wearing a purple dress the night of the stage show that I saw you. Yeah. I'd also love to give our audience some additional insight into this kind of around-the-world tour that you give in the show of the history of sex workers' relationship to clothing and style, as it dates all the way back to antiquity. Could you talk to us a little bit about some of the laws which governed attire of, let's say, for instance, the brothel workers in ancient Greece, and also the high-class courtesans of that time period too who were known as Hetira. And their influence in actually spawning fashion trends.

Speaker 5:
[12:12] Right. So there is definitely what sex workers call a hierarchy in ancient Greece with a lot of different categories of sex workers. And a lot of them were immigrant from Gaul and Germany. And some of them were the spoils of war, women who had been captured and were enslaved in ancient Greece. And among the Hetere, the blonde hair was highly prized because it was much more common for these people from Gaul and Germany to be blonde than it was for the generally dark haired Greek. And it was associated with exoticism and eroticism and barbaric animal passions. But also with Aphrodite, the blonde goddess of love, who was something of a patron goddess of prostitutes. So the Hetere would worship them, worship her and go to her temple. Whereas the brothel workers were also particularly prized when they were blonde. And some brothels actually required all of their workers to be blonde, whether it was through natural hair color, dye or wigs. And again, this association with being extremely erotic, exotic and sexually powerful, of course trickled up as fashion so often does to the wealthy classes where wealthy women would often imitate these blondes by wearing blonde wigs or dyeing their hair blonde.

Speaker 3:
[13:51] And there was a whole actual practice where they had these little sunshade hats that were like a straw ring that went around their heads and they would apply the bleach and they would sit on the roof of structures to naturally bleach their hair blonde. So like you said, it was that fashion trend was trickling up through society, not down.

Speaker 5:
[14:09] Yeah. And they would actually put the wealthy people would put like gilt powder in their hair, like actual gold powder. So that's also, yeah, I had never heard that before.

Speaker 3:
[14:19] That's amazing.

Speaker 5:
[14:20] And then the ancient Roman, who took over so many of the characteristics and culturally appropriated from the Greeks, also prized blonde hair in the same way. And there was a Roman moralist who said that the women, the wealthy women who were dying their hair blonde were committing treason by not being satisfied to be good dark haired Romans.

Speaker 3:
[14:43] There's always a whole handful of the moralists, right?

Speaker 5:
[14:47] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[14:47] So also you and I have been bandying about for a while now, different ways to approach this topic as your research expanded. And therefore a little while we were in conversation about maybe just doing an entire episode on the history of the thong. And again, it's surprising to learn that this history dates all the way back to antiquity in terms of the G-strings first association with sex work. So could you tell us, first of all, the difference between a thong and a G-string? I think a lot of people don't know this. And also, what did your research reveal in terms of one particularly notable performer slash personage in ancient Byzantium?

Speaker 5:
[15:26] So people definitely use the terms thong and G-string interchangeably. And I understand, and I'm not the kind of person who goes crazy when they call a thong a G-string or vice versa. But there's a difference. So a thong has material on the sides. They both go up between the cheeks of your derriere, but a thong has material on the sides, whereas the G-string has either literally an elastic string or fabric so thin that it's like a string. So a thong has much more structure than a G-string.

Speaker 3:
[16:01] Got it. Got it. Thank you. And who in particular do you talk about in the show in terms of maybe that being one of the first examples that you've uncovered in your research? Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[16:13] So most of the early examples, and this is all over the world on almost every continent, there's some kind of growing cover for protection against the elements, or commonly in sports, right? And they'd be worn by every gender. But the first example that I found of a sex worker wearing something like a thong or a G-string is the story of Theodora from Byzantium. And I think we're looking at the fifth or sixth century in Byzantium. And the story that Procopius told about her was that when she was young, and she was working in the circus as an acrobat and a prostitute, she did an act that was a burlesque of Leda and the swan, where Zeus comes down and impregnates Leda when he's in the form of a swan. And so making fun of this, she comes out in beautiful flowing robes, and there's a goose on the stage, and she strips for the goose. She gets down to a thong because they don't allow her to go nude. Of course, politicians are already making sure that they have a say in what the sex workers wear.

Speaker 3:
[17:29] And we're going to talk more about that later.

Speaker 5:
[17:31] Oh, yeah. And so she's in the thong, she lays down on the stage, and then a stagehand would scatter seed over her crotch, and the goose would come running over to peck at it, and she would ride as if in agony and ecstasy. And that was the conclusion of this infamous story about her.

Speaker 3:
[17:49] And later, if you want to talk about trickling up through society, she ended up becoming the empress.

Speaker 5:
[17:55] The empress of Byzantium. And an orthodox saint.

Speaker 3:
[17:59] Later on.

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Speaker 3:
[21:30] I think a lot of people will also be very surprised to learn that historically, courtesans, performers, sex workers, the adorers is one good example of this, that oftentimes these women were the most educated and independent in any given society in which they appear. So could you tell us a little bit more about this and maybe a little bit about the legendary courtesans of Venice and their role as cultural influencers?

Speaker 5:
[21:59] Yeah, frequently, whether by law or by tradition or by some kind of decree, wives were expected to stay at home and maintain the home. And-

Speaker 3:
[22:11] Bare children.

Speaker 5:
[22:12] Yeah, even wealthy wives, although you hear about them breaking out all the time. They'll have their way in their blonde wig. These Venetian courtesans are an example of the kind of sex worker that would work their way up because of extreme beauty or cleverness, or just being great at interacting with people. And they would become the companion of wealthy men in their leisure time. And leisure time is when people tend to enjoy the arts. So they would often be their companions at functions and intellectual discussions. And they would often be the muses, like statues and representations of myths and stories. But they would also contribute their own opinions, often their own writing. They were often also the entertainment dancers and musicians who carried on the artistic traditions of a culture.

Speaker 3:
[23:11] And these societal freedoms and opportunities for self-determination that a lot of these women had, were not exclusive only to European sex workers in history. We see it all around the world. Perhaps you could tell us a little more about the courtesans of Edo period Japan and also the Indian Tawa-if.

Speaker 5:
[23:30] One of the fascinating things is that the platform shoe has a very long history of being associated with sex workers, even when people who were not sex workers were wearing them, because sex workers would be out and about more than most people who were keeping care of the house. With the Venetian courtesans, you had these very tall stilt-like platform shoes called Chopin. Stilt-like platform shoes again on the courtesans of Yoshihara, which is the brothel district in Edo Japan, when Tokyo was called Edo. They have these three-legged platform shoes, and those shoes are so strongly associated with these courtesans known as Iran, that they still do marches in them and they still do processions to celebrate these women in the same three-legged platform shoes and do a very characteristic S-shaped walk. At the time, they were influencing literature and art. Again, they were singers and dancers. They were often writers themselves. They were the subject of operas, poems, and woodcuts that were distributed widely. That again, affected fashion. They were known for their shoes as well as their extremely elaborate hairstyles and robes. And again, the gaudier, the better. The more lavish and luxe, the better.

Speaker 3:
[24:57] Because you're advertising your profession, right? This is a little bit of advertisement that's happening.

Speaker 5:
[25:03] Yes, absolutely. They had to stand out. They had to be fabulous. There were prestigious kimono makers who were known for their work with these courtesans. And they were just, they were legends in their own time often. Although one of the reasons they were popular opera subjects is because their lives were difficult.

Speaker 3:
[25:22] So that you have that little bit of like tragedy and gravitas in terms of like literary content. And what about the Indian Tawaii?

Speaker 5:
[25:29] These were women who, they were courtesans, they had houses, and they were dancers, musicians, interior designers, and the arbiters of etiquette for their societies. And of course, when the British occupied this region, we're talking about Mughal India, they occupied this region. And these Tawaiis were some of the people who organized military actions against the British in movements that eventually got that occupation out. And so the Tawaiis were really powerful, they were known for their fashion, they were known for their style, and everybody followed it. And Tawaiis were also part of the beginnings of cinema in India and are still very popular subjects for Indian cinema. One of my favorites that I read about was Bhagum Hazarat Mahal, which is a 19th century Tawaii, and she led one of these military expeditions against the British and she's celebrated as a hero now and actually had her own postage stamp in 1984.

Speaker 3:
[26:37] A lot of these women made big impacts in their own day. They were celebrities of their day.

Speaker 5:
[26:43] Absolutely.

Speaker 3:
[26:44] And with the invention of photography, a lot of these women's fame and fashions had international reach. And would you tell us about two celebrated 19th century courtesans that you speak about in the show, and I'm referring to Skittles, just single name there, Skittles, and also Cora Pearl. And what was their relationship to the fashion industry?

Speaker 5:
[27:08] Both of them were pretty horse breakers, which was what Victorians called these young women who modeled the wares of carriage makers and stables. And then they would ride in the processions through Hyde Park. So they'd be alongside the wealthy who were showing off their wealth and fashion. And of course, they could come from anywhere as long as they had horseback skills, and they would also be supplies with lavish clothing. And they became the companions of wealthy and extremely influential men. And her name Skittles comes from her working during an early part of her career in a bowling alley. So Skittles is like bowling. And her real name was Catherine Walters, and her house is actually landmark. Oh, wow. And yeah. And she became really well known for her incredible writing habits and influenced the fashion of everybody. People would literally riot when she came to see what she was wearing. And she had an incredibly tiny waist. She was known for wearing her clothing so tight that she couldn't wear underwear. And so she was a known style icon, a big celebrity in her day. Again, known for her lavish lifestyle. Skittles was literally known as the girl with the swan's down seat because she was insidious for having this cushion toilet seat.

Speaker 3:
[28:32] A lot of these women like Cora Pearl had very real connections to haute couture as well. Yes.

Speaker 5:
[28:39] So Cora Pearl was one of the most outrageously dressed women in this circle in London and Paris. And she was known for doing things like dying her hair and dog blue to match her carriage. And she threw outrageous parties and she was an activist as well. But she was known for whipping her men harder than her horse. She was also a dominatrix.

Speaker 3:
[29:03] Yeah. And she was an actress. She was a stage actress at certain points. Yes, as well.

Speaker 5:
[29:08] She had moments. Yeah. That was not her primary gig. But yes.

Speaker 3:
[29:12] And a lot of these courtesans and stage actresses were major patrons of some of the early couture houses, like House of Worth and also House of Doucet as well. He had ongoing relationships with these stage actresses and very famous courtesans.

Speaker 5:
[29:28] Yeah. So Cora Pearl is known for being both a muse and a client of Charles Worth. It's a very significant relationship for both of them. And since so many people talk about Charles Worth as the founder of the modern fashion system, it's interesting to know that there was a sex worker there all along in that atelier making an impact.

Speaker 3:
[29:53] Absolutely. And also a lot of times they had the ability to wear the more outlandish designs from these very established couture houses. So they were really pushing fashion forward even from the very birth of couture industry.

Speaker 5:
[30:08] Yes.

Speaker 3:
[30:08] So earlier you mentioned the silver screen. And I want to get back to that because from Victorian photography to the silver screen, sex worker style has really permeated our visual landscape for centuries. And a lot of times I think that the character's portrayal in movies allows them to fly under the radar a little bit to media consumers because of the glamour in which and how they are depicted on screen. Once you really start pulling these threads to all of these influences, and the connections to high fashion, they start to reveal themselves and you can't unsee it once you see it and think about some of how your favorite films where this dynamic is actually happening.

Speaker 4:
[30:53] And it's a feature of the plot.

Speaker 3:
[30:55] So could you tell us about some of the depictions of sex worker style in film and television, and especially maybe some instances which the audience doesn't give too much consideration to at that time?

Speaker 5:
[31:07] The ones that were really powerful for me when I was young, because we had all these stacks of Life magazine around, were for instance, The World of Suzy Wang, which was about a young woman who was doing sex work, and she was wearing a chongsam, which was not unknown to American fashion at that time. But it had a huge impact because the film was of enormous success. The actress Nancy Kwan looked incredible in them, they were styled super sexy, and so it initiated this wave of that silhouette, as well as that neckline in fashion. Of course, the most famous example of sex worker fashion on film is also one of the most famous examples of fashion on film, which is Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's, with all our outfits designed by Givenchy. Yes. And as you said, sex workers have the opportunity often to wear whatever they want. And people often don't think about the fact that the sex worker character had this enormous impact on both fashion and film. And every now and then people will say, oh, she's not really a sex worker. And like, $50 for the counter room. What do you think is happening there? And also her boyfriend is clearly a gigolo, clearly. So it's definitely showing that a connection that I think should always be made when people are studying fashion, which is that in cities, fashion is connected to nightlife. And nightlife is full of queer people and sex workers.

Speaker 3:
[32:48] Absolutely.

Speaker 5:
[32:48] And they are always there and they were always influential. They help popularize things. They may create things that inspire designers. And I feel like this movie is a great example of how that influence travels, even though, you know, say, Givenchy is not designing outfits for most sex workers. They're like, we know of one.

Speaker 3:
[33:09] Yeah, absolutely. Right there, 50 foot tall on the screen.

Speaker 5:
[33:14] Another favorite of mine, so I'm a kid and I'm not supposed to be seeing some of the magazines I'm seeing, but there was a lot of incredible portrayals of scenes from Blacksploitation movie. In the late 60s, early 70s, I would see these incredibly fashionable women and just be so inspired by what they wore. There's one movie called Truck Turner, where the dialogue is just, oh, God, you don't, oh, it's terrible. But the outfits, oh, my God. Everything in the movie, all the gowns that they wear to this one funeral, these black cut away, all these wild gowns, look exactly like the gowns designed by Versace in the 90s. Versace acknowledged that he was inspired by prostitutes clothing. I absolutely loved Flute. Yes. There are no movies from these eras that aren't problematic, so it isn't, oh, yes, it's a perfect example of how sex workers should be portrayed. But it's an amazing movie. Jane Fonda is so incredibly stylish in that movie. I remember people, I was little, so I must have heard this later, but I remember the shock of her haircut, like people talking about this wild haircut. Jane Fonda was in the middle of a divorce and she wanted a big change, got this shag haircut that then everybody had to have. She's wearing incredible clothes in the movie, including thigh-high boots, which are practically a trademark in a lot of people's minds of sex workers. They're worn in Pretty Woman. They're worn in so many movies about sex workers, and I wore them as a sex worker. Also, I love that the costumes were by Anne Roth, who played the beautiful older woman on the bench in the 2023 movie Barbie.

Speaker 3:
[35:17] Yes. When you make this point in the show, everybody in the audience goes, so amazing.

Speaker 5:
[35:22] It gave me chills when I figured it out. I was so amazed and so touched.

Speaker 3:
[35:26] Also, Clute had a real impact on contemporary fashion. There's a couple of more contemporary editorial fashion spreads that I can think of that are using that reference directly in the fashion magazine. So people are still influenced by that film.

Speaker 5:
[35:44] Yeah. That turtleneck sequin dress, we've seen so many versions of that.

Speaker 3:
[35:48] One of my favorite movies of all time, since I was a kid, is actually Gigi. Gigi. Costumes by Cecil Beaton, of course. I was just obsessed with the way that the movie looked in all of her clothes when I was a kid. It wasn't until I went back many years later and rewatched it that I realized that they were grooming her to be a courtesan the entire time. That completely flew over my head when I was a child.

Speaker 5:
[36:17] Yeah, sex work and fashion on film is a whole topic.

Speaker 3:
[36:22] Yeah. This happens again and again. These connections to high fashion jump the shark from portrayal in movies a lot of times and then to the runway in the collections of so many beloved fashion designers. So many of them have been very candid on this point that sex worker style was their source of inspiration for maybe an entire collections even. Besides Versace, do you have a few other high-end fashion designers that you might like to mention to illustrate this point?

Speaker 5:
[36:53] If you look at almost any of them, you'll find examples of them referring to sex workers naming outfits after famous sex workers, that kind of thing. But I wanted to give a few concrete late 20th century examples. So there's the infamous Standold Collection from Yves Saint Laurent, who also costumed Catherine Deneu in La Belle D'Azur, which is a movie about a sex worker.

Speaker 3:
[37:22] This is what I mean when I'm saying once you start pulling these threads, you can't unsee it.

Speaker 5:
[37:26] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[37:27] It's everywhere.

Speaker 5:
[37:28] That's why I'm like, how do I shorten this book? How do I make it? Maybe it's an encyclopedia of fashion and sex work. There were references to the women on the street in Paris at the time. It was scandalous because in Occupied Paris, a lot of people associated sex workers with complicity. But it's also definitely a reference to sex workers. Yves Saint Laurent, when he received all the criticism, he said, I don't care. This is what young people want, and this is what I want to give to them. It's really an amazing statement. Obviously, Vivian Westwood, as a kid, I would go to the mall and I would read every rock and roll punk rock magazine, and there would be pictures of sex. Vivian Westwood's boutique in London. They would show people in these outfits where they were like sex workers from the waist down. They were wearing fishnets and garter belts and everything. Then up top, they would have this asymmetrical tops and wild intimidating makeup and hair. The juxtaposition of the two was so thoughtful and powerful. I think it really had a lot to do with her original impact. She had a pair of platform shoes that were like the infamous ones that Naomi Campbell fell off, but they have Mary Jane straps that were called the prostitute shoes. You see these influences of sex workers across the eras in her work all the time. Who could be less ashamed about acknowledging that than Vivian Westwood?

Speaker 3:
[39:03] Yeah, who named one of her boutiques sex.

Speaker 5:
[39:06] Yeah, absolutely. I loved that Patrick Kelly, who's a designer that really touches my heart, had Pat Cleveland dress up like Josephine Baker, who was considered extremely scandalous for her naked dance in a banana skirt. Pat Cleveland wore the banana skirt on the runway in his show in 1986. He talked about how he loved the glamour of the church ladies, but he's also acknowledging that it isn't all about church ladies. There are some ladies of the night and some naked dancers that have their place too. He was always championing people who were under-recognized for their impact on fashion. I already mentioned Versace, but Mugler's Follies. Yes, right. So Thierry Mugler. Those were based on Follies from the Gilded Age, the 20s, but also modern dominatrixes. One of Mugler's primary performers in the Follies was famous fetish model and burlesque performer named Alada Boutay. He very openly acknowledged it and always has. For me, it's been interesting to be in New York and be a sex worker. I've been a stripper and an escort and a dominatrix, among other jobs in the sex industry, and I've always been in nightlife. I've always seen that nightlife is culture, which means queer people and sex workers are culture because we are nightlife. We are nightlife. But in New York, I started to realize how many designers were in the room. I can't name check them all because I don't know if it's appropriate, but I know that I can comfortably name without compromising them in any way. I can name Mark Jacobs and Calvin Klein were always there. Yeah. So many other amazing designers. A lot of my companions were associated with Mugler and you see the fetish fashion in his daily wear that he wore. It's just undeniable that the impact is there, that sex workers are able to popularize styles that might otherwise have been marginalized and forced them to trickle up, and that designers are there being inspired by their creativity. Right now, we have major influences like Cardi B, who's very open about acknowledging her history as a stripper and how influential it's been on her style and her life, and Julia Fock, who's very upfront about having been a sex worker, a dominatrix, and how that influenced her sense of style. I think that's really powerful. Stripper shoes have been seen on the red carpet at the Met Gala on Helen Mirren and Kim Kardashian. When I say stripper shoes, I'm talking about those clear platform heels made by the company Pleasers. But people call them stripper shoes. People know that's the association, and they're worn because they're built for comfort and durability, and they can raise you up six to eight inches. Jo Peens are back.

Speaker 3:
[42:05] Bringing us full circle to 16th century Venice. We're going to end part 1 here, Dress Listeners. But don't worry, Jo's going to be back later this week for part 2 of this discussion, where we're going to get into what she wore to work.

Speaker 4:
[42:21] Jo, thank you so much for undressing the long-standing history of sex workers as fashion influencers and style icons, as well as their depictions in film history and very real impact all of this has had on contemporary fashion today. There are so many things that were exclusively workwear for strippers a few decades ago that are now commonly found on the runway, red carpet, and even in our own closet. These are exactly the sort of hidden histories we love to uncover on Dressed.

Speaker 3:
[42:50] Yes. As Jo mentioned, at the top of the episode, she's going to be touring her one lumpen stage show, What I WORE to Work in 2025. You can stay tuned to her website, which is joeweldon.com, and that's W-E-L-D-O-N, to learn more in the coming months for more details on that. You can also find her book, Fierce, The History of Leopard Print on our Dressed bookshelf at bookshop.org/shop/dressed.

Speaker 4:
[43:16] I do have to say, Dressed listeners, I have been a subscriber to Jo's newsletter, and it is absolutely fantastic. I highly recommend subscribing. Jo will be back with us later this week to discuss further in detail what she wore to work in her own career as a sex professional. If you enjoyed this episode, part two really turns up the heat. I think that does it for us today though, Dressed listeners. Until Friday, may you consider where you find sex appeal in your wardrobe next time you get dressed.

Speaker 3:
[43:46] As always, remember we love hearing from you. If you'd like to write to us, you can do so by way of email at hello at dressed history.com. Dressed history.com is also where you can find any and all details about our upcoming classes, trips, and tours. Or you can also DM us on Instagram at dressed underscore podcast, which is where we post images to accompany each of our episodes. If you'd like to find the Instagram content specifically related to this episode, you can search the hashtag Dressed 506, and also for next week's part 2, that would be hashtag Dressed 507.

Speaker 4:
[44:21] Thank you as always for tuning in and more Dressed coming your way on Friday. Dressed The History of Fashion is a production of Dressed Media.

Speaker 6:
[44:32] For over a 100 years, the world has been captivated by Hollywood.

Speaker 5:
[44:36] The stuff that dreams are made of.

Speaker 6:
[44:39] Where stars are born.

Speaker 4:
[44:41] Made it by some of the world.

Speaker 6:
[44:44] But just beneath the stardust lie a million more fascinating stories that when sewn together form an incredible history. The Secret History of Hollywood. Available now wherever you get podcasts.