Last year I made an appearance at my publisher’s garden party wearing an asymmetrical-neck, burnt-red Bianca Saunders tank top, split jeans and silver Wales Bonner trainers. It was a summer of male cleavage for me, but the outfit wasn’t actually intended to be worn around my agent, editors and a number of smartly dressed professional authors who write books on topics like the history of measurement or the premonitions that portended the Aberfan disaster. The fact is I’d been on a brunch date, where the assignment for this particular gentleman was to dress sexy but fashionably, and then had been running around completing errands and had no time to change into more conservative clothes. So there I was going to be, at a low-key but sophisticated event in the publishing calendar, with my tits out.
I’d met up with my agent beforehand and asked if I wasn’t too ridiculously dressed to be around publishing professionals all night and he reassured me that I looked fine, it was summer, and not to take myself too seriously. My publishing team reiterated much of the same, me apologising for my outfit and them telling me that I added some colour to the event. Still, the insecurities about proper dressing as an author persisted for me. I didn’t receive any negative comments at the event, though I was conscious of several glares and looks of confusion, but I do wonder about the conundrums that exist about what is effectively dressing for your career. And as I’m to finally become a published author — after four years as a freelance writer — I find myself thinking a lot, what do authors wear? Should I dress to be taken seriously? Is that even something I should care about?
When my debut book was being touted around, it was still in the midst of the pandemic, so all our meetings were via Zoom, and I remember fretting about what to wear when meeting my publishing team for the first time during that fever-dream period when we were allowed to dine out but only alfresco. I recall my mother telling me to make an impression by dressing smartly, wearing a nondescript shirt, trousers and loafers — which I did, though I didn’t feel all that comfortable. Since then I’ve realised that a more meaningful impression is made when you’re dressed not necessarily as cosplay for what you think a writer should dress like, but when you feel that your clothes can communicate something about who you are and what you’re like.
After all, as Terry Newman wrote in his 2017 book Legendary Authors and the Clothes They Wore, there is merit in “[tying] together the heavyweight value of, for example, Samuel Beckett with a discussion of the fact he wore Clarks Wallabee shoes”. And so when I went for subsequent meetings with my publisher I made sure to wear something I truly loved — a tartan-pattern woolly two-piece from Nicholas Daley, a slightly cropped yellow Ganni T-shirt. More recently, having got away with the Bianca Saunders tank, I turned up at my publisher’s office wearing a pink Jean Paul Gaultier viscose tank top emblazoned with the graphic of a woman’s nude figure. Perhaps it’s what you should wear to a nightclub or on holiday rather than to discuss the fine details of marketing a book, but what’s the point of putting anything out there if it’s just going to be like everything and everyone else?
I’ve hated uniforms and dress codes and rules for as long as I can remember. As a graduation gift in 2018 I was bought a number of grey and navy suits to wear for my first job in Westminster as a policy adviser, but I’d abandoned the blazers and ties after three days, finding them stuffy, restrictive and overserious. Even as a sixth-former, when suits were compulsory, I found ways to outrage the dress code, purchasing a deeply garish electric-blue suit from Topman for which I was threatened with suspension twice. For this new stage of my career there technically aren’t any dress rules; becoming an author doesn’t have any mandated costume, I don’t have to wear sturdy black shoes if I don’t want to and I can choose something that is more out there and dramatic. But this then makes dressing as an author and the events I’ll complete over the next few months — bookshop talks, signings, festival appearances — all the more daunting and all the more consequential.
Advertisement
It feels self-important to say it out loud —planning outfits for a tour of bookshops like you’re Beyoncé — but it dominates my discussions about publication. Not who’s going to interview you, but what are you going to wear? In fact, I confess that what I’m going to wear for events or for photographs for the release of my first book has concerned me more than what my average rating on Goodreads will be. Stuff what the reviews say — did I look good at my launch?
Your next advance instalment is typically released on your book’s publication day, and I’ve sat here wondering if I can beg my publisher to release it a few days early so I’ll have the funds to buy a showstopper in time for the launch event. I have a predilection for Issey Miyake pleats, which could make a comfortable and sophisticated choice — if I wore one of the brand’s technical tank tops it could reasonably show that I’m not shying away from putting my muscularity front and centre. Equally I could wear an oversized geometric patterned shirt from Dries Van Noten that could provide a voguish and flamboyant spin on smarter dressing.
• Men’s fashion essentials: the editor’s guide to wardrobe basics
I currently have an obsession with the American brand Bode — its sartorial distinction is achieved by repurposing the designs of old tea towels, tablecloths, quilts, oven gloves and furniture on embroidered jackets and patchwork trousers that are vintage, chic and cool. My preference for a significant book moment would be to wear something from Bode, because I suppose that brand speaks to some of my other anxieties about how I’ll dress as an author, and about my book itself. My anxieties aren’t purely about not being taken seriously enough but also about being taken too seriously and that limiting my appeal — releasing a book eclipsing my brand as a person who is young, cool, fun and glamorous. My book is a history book but one that I’m hoping to promote as a more gossipy and entertaining engagement with history, told through stories and personal tales, rather than dry detail and exposition as is often associated with books that are more academic-leaning. So I like clothes that mix vintage and fun, like I hope my writing mixes rigour and playfulness — perhaps that’s the vibe I’ll settle on for events.
All in all, though, I don’t want my “professional” dressing to be defined by rules or expectation. The thing about changing into a career in which you’re only truly representing yourself, not a firm or a company, is that you can work with what’s most comfortable for you. You don’t have to answer to anyone or explain yourself. So perhaps I’ll turn up to the London Review Bookshop in a Nike tracksuit, just because I can. Or maybe I’ll be annoying and wear another electric-blue suit.
Advertisement
Revolutionary Acts: Love & Brotherhood in Black Gay Britain by Jason Okundaye (Faber £20) is published on March 7. To order a copy go to timesbookshop.co.uk. Free UK standard P&P on orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members
