Arthur Jafa is an American artist. Raised in Mississippi, he studied architecture and film at Howard University, and has been working as a filmmaker and artist for over four decades. He has had a successful career as a cinematographer, working on films including his ex-wife Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust, Spike Lee’s Crooklyn, and Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut. Jafa has also directed music videos for musicians including Solange and Jay-Z. In 2005, Jafa stepped away from the art world for a while, re-emerging in 2016 with his spectacular work of video art Love Is The Message, The Message Is Death, which combined and edited disparate found and original footage documenting the Black experience in America. Other notable video works include The White Album from 2018, which won the Golden Lion for best artist at the Venice Biennale.
Arthur Jafa’s extended practice is widely considered to be at the forefront of contemporary art, independent film and cultural theory today. Witnessing, celebrating and cataloguing the deep soul of Black life through images, Jafa has forged a groundbreaking trail in the rich terrain of Black representation.
In his show at Sadie Coles HQ Gallery, Kingly St in London, on until December, Jafa exhibits new paintings and collage, alongside two new video works.
In this episode of Fashion Neurosis, Bella Freud and Arthur Jafa discuss checking Instagram first thing in the morning, wanting to frown like Roy Rogers, and the universal influence of James Brown.
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Fashion Neurosis with Tessa Thompson
Tessa Thompson is an American actor. Her father is the musician Marc Antony Thompson who founded the musical collective Chocolate Genius Inc. She was raised between New York and Los Angeles, making her stage debut as Ariel in the Los Angeles Women’s Shakespeare Company production of The Tempest. Tessa has been nominated for two BAFTAs and a Primetime Emmy for her work in the 2021 film Passing directed by Rebecca Hall, and the 2020 film Sylvie’s Love. She is also known for her role as Valkyrie in Thor: Ragnarok and as Bianca in the Creed franchise.
Thompson founded her own production company Viva Maude in 2021, which has produced Hedda, the new adaptation of Hedda Gabler directed by Nia DaCosta, in which she plays the lead. Her fashion-forward style and elegance is the subject of much interest, and she is a muse to the American designer brand Rodarte.
In this episode of Fashion Neurosis, Bella Freud and Tessa Thompson discuss playing male roles, tidying up the house in a heel, and fashion not being armour.
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Fashion Neurosis with Ocean Vuong
Ocean Vuong is a Vietnamese-American author, poet, and professor. Born in Vietnam, Ocean Vuong came to America aged two and was raised in Hartford, Connecticut, working in his mother’s nail salon from an early age. He received his BA in Nineteenth Century American Literature from Brooklyn College, and an MFA in Poetry from NYU, where he is now a Professor of Creative Writing. Vuong became an international literary sensation with his 2019 debut novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, which was based in part on his familial history. His second novel, The Emperor of Gladness, was published this year to further acclaim. Vuong is known for his distinctive elegiac prose and his heart and mind-expanding interrogation of the English language through his poems, essays, and novels. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the American Book Award, the Mark Twain Award, the T.S. Eliot Prize and the MacArthur “Genius” Grant.
In this episode of Fashion Neurosis, Bella Freud and Ocean Vuong discuss the obsession of style as a brand, how self adornment can be a medicine, and the dopamine effect of a good sentence.
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Fashion Neurosis with David Cronenberg
David Cronenberg is a Canadian film director and screenwriter. Credited with creating the body horror genre, Cronenberg has written and directed over twenty feature films including Videodrome, Dead Ringers, and Rabid, with his 1996 film Crash winning the Special Jury Prize at Cannes for “originality, for daring and for audacity.” In 2006 he was awarded the festival's Lifetime Achievement Award. Many of his films have become major cult classics, including his 1986 film The Fly, in which Jeff Goldblum plays a scientist who turns into a human-fly hybrid. David Cronenberg has appeared as an actor in cameo roles including in Gus Van Sant’s To Die For and Into the Night. In 2014 he published his first novel, Consumed. Whether his films are about body horror, or period drama like A Dangerous Method, a story about Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, his works always raise deep thoughts and feelings; he has the ability to be funny while also exploring extreme and disturbing subject matter.
In this episode of Fashion Neurosis, Bella Freud and David Cronenberg discuss dressing like Christopher Walken, adoring Sigmund Freud, and feeling good about being naked.
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Fashion Neurosis with Zandra Rhodes
Dame Zandra Rhodes is an English fashion designer. She originally became famous for her beautiful, wildly coloured textile prints, going on to design her first collection in 1969. She started experimenting with her own look, shaving her eyebrows and dying her hair bold colours until she settled on pink as her signature hue. She became a sensation in New York when Diana Vreeland, the legendary editor of American Vogue, fell in love with her creations and immediately had her dresses photographed for the magazine, also calling up the top boutiques to demand they stock her collections. Rhodes became known as the ‘Princess of Punk’ when she designed a dress adorned with tiny safety pins which is now one of the most sought after dresses on the vintage market. She has dressed numerous celebrities including Diana Ross, Freddie Mercury, and Princess Diana. Zandra Rhodes founded the Fashion and Textile Museum in London in 2003, which hosts fashion exhibitions and textiles workshops. She was made a Dame in 2014 by Queen Elizabeth II for services to British fashion and textiles.
In this episode of Fashion Neurosis, Bella Freud and Zandra Rhodes discuss being an introvert while looking like an extrovert, her friendship with the cult actor and star of John Waters’ films Divine, and the charm of pink hair.
Watch the full video episode on our Youtube and Substack, links in bio.
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Each week join the renowned fashion designer Bella Freud as she invites a special guest to ‘lie on the couch’ and explore the connection between fashion and identity. Bella’s conversations begin with questions about style and what we reveal through the clothes we wear. Bella also shares her own anecdotes and the conversations expand into deeper discussions on life’s universal themes—love, identity, culture, anxiousness, and even politics.
Through a series of tailored questions, Bella creates a relaxed, intimate atmosphere where her guests—ranging from fashion icons to cultural figures in sport, art, music and literature reveal more about themselves than they might expect. Fashion is often dismissed as superficial, but in this podcast, it becomes the lens through which we examine our inner lives, relationships, and society.
From Kate Moss to other notable guests, Fashion Neurosis with Bella Freud offers a unique, thoughtful, and engaging conversation that goes far beyond what we wear: diving into the unspoken language of clothing and the ways in which we use style to navigate and communicate in the world.
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