In Conversation: Natalie Morales & Kimmy Erin

“Grey’s Anatomy” star Natalie Morales and her stylist, Kimmy Erin, may be bonded by fashion, but they’ve developed a friendship and shorthand while collaborating on red carpet looks.

“You have inspired me so much in the way that I look at clothes and being open-minded,” says Morales, sitting on a cozy couch at Erin’s Los Angeles home. “You're always trying to get me into ruffles, and I always say no. I still have strong opinions. But I wore a ruffle today for you.”

“Thank you,” Erin says with her dogs, Opal and Badger, nearby. “I appreciate it.”

Morales smiles. “You’ve been trying to get your ruffles for ten years.”

“Before that, it was big bows.”

They laugh.

But their stunning sartorial selections mask much deeper personal and professional challenges they’ve each faced along the way. For Erin, the balancing act of motherhood. For Morales, a life-altering accident at twenty-five challenged the trajectory of her career. “It took me a long time to get any work after,” Morales says of a 2010 incident, which led to her pursuit of writing and directing after being forced to leave a lead role on the series “White Collar.”

While Morales grew up in Miami before moving to Los Angeles at twenty, Erin is a self-proclaimed “born and raised Angeleno” who once dreamed of being a fashion editor. After a brief stint in New York, Erin found herself dabbling in YouTube content creation and interviewing celebrities on the red carpet — before launching her business as a stylist for talent, including her earliest clients Katherine Heigl and Morales.

“I was trying to make it as a [fashion magazine] editor in L.A.,” Erin reflects. But she says she later realized, “I do not want to sit here talking to you about your outfit. I want to put you in your outfit, and it's going to look better than this.”

Erin connected with Morales in 2015 when the actress was starring on “The Grinder” with Rob Lowe — a gig that came about after appearing on “The Trophy Wife” and “Parks & Recreation.”

“I remember being excited,” Erin tells Morales, looking back on that time. “I was a huge ‘Parks and Rec’ fan. I remember thinking, ‘She must be rad.’ …. I was pretty new in my business, but I remember our early days well because they were they were profoundly hilarious.”

Bonded by a socially minded approach and mutual love of nineties fashion, Morales and Erin have since tackled ten years' worth of red carpet looks, as well as the occasional bully. “We went on a warpath together,” Erin says, remembering a moment that solidified their partnership. (But more on that later.) For press appearances, they collaborate on chic outfits from favorite designers (like Narciso Rodriguez, Gucci, and Stella McCartney), which provide the chic armor needed for navigating nerve-racking, but necessary, red carpet moments. Of which there have been many, thanks to Morales’s consistent resume.

Fans may recognize the actress from “The Morning Show,” “Santa Clarita Diet,” and “Grey’s Anatomy.” Or from major movies — including “Battle of the Sexes” with Emma Stone (2017), “The Little Things” with Denzel Washington, Jared Leto, and Rami Malek (2021), “No Hard Feelings” with Jennifer Lawrence (2023), “Self-Reliance” with Jake Johnson and Anna Kendrick (2023), and “My Dead Friend Zoe” with Sonequa Martin-Green, Gloria Reuben, Ed Harris, and Morgan Freeman (2024). Morales has also directed projects including 2021’s “Plan B” and 2021’s “Language Lessons,” the latter of which she also co-wrote and starred in alongside celebrated indie filmmaker Mark Duplass.

“It's been over ten years now,” Morales says, reflecting on her relationship with Erin. “Once we worked together, I never looked back. I was like, ‘There's nobody else for me.’ I want us to come up together, you know? I want us to be a team.”

Here, Morales and Erin discuss their respective careers and personal journeys, professional highlights, individual challenges, earliest fashion memories, the “warpath” that solidified their relationship, and much more during this wide-ranging conversation.

THE EARLY YEARS

Kimmy Erin: What were your first impressions of coming to L.A.?

Natalie Morales: I got into USC. I really wanted to come here, and I had a scholarship to come here, but I didn't have—

KE: May I ask what year it was?

NM: 2003.

KE: That was the year I graduated from USC. We would never have overlapped even if you had gone.

NM: I wanted to come, but my scholarship didn't cover room and board, so I couldn't afford to live here. I had a scholarship to all the colleges in Florida, but especially the one that was two minutes from my house. So, I thought, ‘Maybe I'll just go to undergrad [in Miami]. I’ll do a couple years here, and then go to L.A.’ I just wanted to get a degree, and I was like, ‘If I'm in school, I can't have a job to get a place to live.’ I couldn't live here. But I came out here when I was 17 to check out USC after I got in to tour it and to see California. I'm not kidding the second the plane landed and I stepped foot on the ground, it was a visceral [reaction], like, ‘Oh, I'm supposed to live here.’ I just knew it. I didn't see much. I was here for two days. I remember being wowed at the movie theater that is on the 405. In 2002, I remember going home and being like, ‘The movie posters are video screens that play trailers. They're not just movie posters, and they have reclining seats. This is the future.’ And I was right about it. I just saw the opportunity [in Los Angeles]. Miami's a different place now than when I grew up there. There is a lot more opportunity now than there was then—in general—in many different careers. But it felt like a closed-minded place when I was there [growing up], and it felt narrow, and there certainly wasn't any opportunity in acting or in writing or directing. Anyway, I went to college [in Florida], and then I met my best friend Cyrina [Fiallo]. I'm so glad [I started in Florida] because if I had gone to USC, even if I had gone to a great film school, I would not have met Cyrina who has been so influential in my life. So, we met at this theater school. I was a new kid, and she had been there one semester [before] me. I looked across the room, and she was holding court, making a bunch of people laugh. I was like, ‘Who is that cool girl?’ And then she describes this [same moment] as she looked at me, and I was sitting down in the corner of the class, and she was like, ‘Who is that cool girl?’ We felt the same way, and we became fast friends and she then went to work at ‘[The Late Show with David] Letterman’ as an intern. So, she was in New York for a semester. She came back and right around that time I had booked a commercial. My first commercial was for CVS. And the school stupidly thought themselves to be this conservatory. They were like, ‘You’re not ready to do that commercial because you haven't graduated from here yet.’ I was like, ‘What do you mean?’ They were like, ‘You’re not a graduate of this program. So, we won't allow you to do it. If you miss any classes, we're going to fail you. And then if we find out you did it at another time, we're going to fail you because you're outside of the program.’ And I was like, ‘They hired me. So I must be ready to do it. Why are you keeping me from this job?’ I did it anyway. I was like, ‘I'll take the consequences. Whatever you feel like is [fair].’ And then when Cyrina came back from ‘Letterman,’ they told her that even if she made up her classes, because she missed that semester, she wouldn't be able to graduate with all of us. We were like, ‘What is this?’ I distinctly remember sitting in a class, listening to some teacher go on about how you have to open a door and mold the door knob with the character. And I raised my hand, and I was like, ‘If I'm a character, I wouldn't be thinking about molding the door with my character. I would just open the door.’ He went on and on. It turned into like Charlie Brown adult talk in my head, and I [thought], ‘Why am I learning acting from people who are teaching it in Florida?’ And then I looked at Cyrina, and I was like, ‘We should go to L.A. Why are we here? It's not like we can hand someone a degree from FIU that says I acted here and then they would hire me. What are we doing? Let's just go.’ And so we left. We moved out here [to Los Angeles] together. I had already been here, and she hadn’t. So I [said], ‘We'll go on a little trip. Just so you can see it.’ We moved out here together and that was a while ago now.

KE: Which part of town did you guys land in?

NM: West Hollywood. It was Sunset and Curson. We lived in this apartment building. We slept in bunk beds. The manager of it was this very old man, who was near death and so grumpy. And when you called the office, he would go, {slips into New York accent], ‘You have reached Currrrrson Plazaaaa Apartments. Leave a message.’ I'll never forget that or his voice. Also, with the exception of people who are from here, L.A. is a town made [up] of people who didn't belong where they were and came here because they had the ambition of wanting to do something with their lives, and that's a rare thing to run into. Maybe in New York, you get that. But in any other city, you don't meet people like that all the time, and here you do. It's all black sheep from other places. Who tend to be the people I get along with. In L.A., once you find your crew here, it's a special place. I never understand people dissing L.A. It’s like, ‘Fine. You don’t want to be here. You don’t like it? That's cool. Stay away.’

KE: One less car on the street. We don't need more traffic. Get out.

OVERCOMING CHALLENGES

NM: [I eventually booked ‘White Collar,’ and moved to New York to shoot the first season.] A hurdle that I had to get over was… When I was 25, I had just been on the first show I did, [‘The Middleman’]. And then I was on ‘White Collar,’ and I lived [during that time] in New York. I was at the Met Opera, and I fell down a bunch of stairs. I destroyed my face. [I] broke my face and had to have emergency reconstruction because my cheeks and my nose were dust. Then I didn't look like myself afterward, and I was swollen. And this is a story for another day, but I lost my job [on that show] because of a shitty person.

KE: Wow, I knew about the accident, but I did not know that happened.

NM: Yeah. And then it took me a long time to get any work after that. I broke all [of] that in January [2010]. I had the surgery in January and then I got offered my very first little indie movie—a lead role that was shooting later that February, and I [asked] my agents at the time, ‘Should we tell them that my face is different?’ And they were like, ‘No, show them.’ And so I did it, and it was difficult because I was in so much pain. I had to kiss people a lot in that movie and my face was still in so much pain. Tears would stream from my eyes after that happened. It was awful. And my nose and my face shape-shifted. I call it ‘a lava lamp year.’ I would look in the mirror, and it would always be a different shape because it was healing. I still don’t look like I did. And I became depressed because I would look in the mirror, and it wasn't me. It was dysphoric because it wasn't something I'd chosen, and it wasn't something I could change, and no matter how much makeup I put on, it just wasn't me. I don't know if it was my face or my mindset, but I was not getting any work at all. I had gone from having these two series regular lead parts—one show wasn't big, but the other show was huge—to being fired for what happened to my face. And then [I didn’t have] a job. Luckily, this great friend of mine, who I've always respected, this director named John Kretschmer, who directed just one episode of the first show I ever did called ‘The Middleman…’ A year after not booking anything, he was like, ‘Hey, I'm directing an episode of the ‘90210’ reboot. Would you want to maybe audition for this part? I think it would be fun for you, and weird for you to do and you’d be playing a psychotic cop who gets a giant tattoo of a guy's face on your back and then kidnaps him and puts him in a crate to ship him across the sea.’ I was like, ‘Absolutely. Yes, I would do that.’ It was one of the [most fun] times I ever had. I got to be a psychotic cop.

KE: You’ve played a cop a lot.

NM: Yeah, well, welcome to being Latina. So, I did that, and it gave me my mojo back because it was such a wild character. It was so fun to do it, and I still get recognized from that. A particular age goes, ‘I don't trust you. You were in that thing.’ It was such a minor part of my career now, but I do see it as a big [moment for me]. I'm so thankful for it. And then ‘Parks and Rec’ I got after that, and I started to build more [career momentum] but I had to go back to [doing] guest star roles after having already been the lead on other shows because of that [accident]. I had to, kind of, start from scratch, and it was a real mind-fuck for a second because I looked in the mirror and didn't know who I was, and it was weird as an actor. I smashed my face. I fell down twenty steps, and I landed face-first on the balcony wall.

KE: That sounds so painful. That’s so scary.

NM: Yeah, it was awful. I stopped the opera. It was during intermission, but they held the intermission to get me lifted out of there. They thought I had broken my neck because I hit the wall so hard. I couldn’t speak because only blood would come out. I had shock blindness from hitting my face so hard. So I couldn't see for 15-20 minutes, but I remember… I think I've told you this before… I remember hitting the wall, coming off the wall, and you know that thing of when you hit your head hard and you just hear ‘eeeee.’ I couldn’t hear anybody. I had a concussion. So [I heard] voices but [they sounded like they were] underwater. I couldn't see anybody. I tried to say something and only blood came out. I put together, ‘Okay, my face is gone.’ Because it hurt so much, I thought, ‘[My face] must not be there anymore. It must be gone.' And then my literal [next] thought was, ‘Well, I guess I could be a writer.’ That was my [next] thought—I could still be a writer. And so then that made me want to start writing [because I thought my acting career would be over as a result of the accident], and that’s when I started writing.

KE: Interesting.

NM: Then I had all these things that I had written, and I was like, ‘Who's gonna direct them?’ I met with people to direct them, and then I was like, ‘I don't trust you to direct the thing. I'd better teach myself directing.’ So, I have a bunch of friends who… I think you and I have this in common… We've always been friends with musicians. I've always had musician circles. That's always been a thing for me. I had a bunch of musician friends, and I was like, ‘Hey, I'll do your music video for free if you just let me do it and let me have the final cut.’ And so I Guerrilla production-ed a few music videos and that eventually got me to more directing and doing ‘Funny or Die’ stuff. 

KE: Yeah, there's no budget in music videos.

NM: No. The only music video that I ever did that had a little bit of a budget was an Andrew Bird music video. Then some people saw that—including Mark Duplass. That is how I built more opportunities in directing. But yeah, there were some hurdles to getting there. That feels like a big one. I'm sure there are others that I'm not thinking of because I try not to think of things that have held me back. I just pushed them out of the way.

KE: Yeah. Totally.

NM: But every now and then I do look in the mirror and I'm like, ‘Huh, guess that's you now.’ I'm getting more used to it. It is weird to look at older photos.

FINDING THEIR WAY TO ONE ANOTHER

NM: I remember looking you up and seeing your YouTube channel and being like, ‘I like her.’ At that point you were like, ‘I'm not doing [content creation] anymore.’

KE: No. I was over it. It was so tough. I worked in New York for two years, because I wanted to be a fashion editor, and there was nowhere to be a fashion editor in L.A. So, I made the move and did the New York thing. I worked for Alloy and Delias. I don't know if you know that.

NM: I think you did tell me that. But they were not what they were. I also grew up with Alloy magazine. It was to tide me over when Delias wasn’t around. Delias was far superior.

KE: Technically, I was with the company [that owned it, which was also] called Alloy.

NM: What did you do there?

KE: I was the fashion editor. So, they had several websites that they owned, and they needed teen-oriented fashion content for all of them. When I got hired, YouTube had started a year and a half or two years earlier, and they wanted to start moving into digital and video content. I built it from scratch. I didn't know what I was doing, but I started going to fashion shows and doing fashion content and DIY content for teens. It was super fun, but it paid crap and it was New York.

NM: So, you did it to eat and live.

KE: Yes, and I don't like cockroaches. Or winter. So, anyway, long story short, I thought I could just carry over into that [back in Los Angeles]. [I figured], ‘Maybe I could help people figure out what to wear.’ At that time, there was nothing on the internet helping people decide what to wear. There was celebrity content galore. ‘This is what celebrities wear.’

NM: It was either that or ‘what not to wear,’ where people were shamed for their style. I loved that show, by the way. Aren’t they coming out with a new one called ‘Wear Whatever the Fuck You Want’ with Stacey London?

KE: Yeah. Anyway, I came back to L.A. and was trying to figure out if there was a way to be successful in the YouTube world, and I had this company reach out to me, and I was like, ‘Oh, this is kismet.’ It turns out they were marketing my stuff targeted towards females [even though they had] a predominantly male audience. And the only way they knew how to grow channels at that time was to do partnerships. So, I started creating a lot of, weirdly, male-focused content in fashion, but not necessarily to answer the question of what to wear. It was a weird moment. I didn't get to be me, but they were paying for everything, so I felt like I had to go with it. I started making content, and that was hard. I’m not one to sit in front of a computer and edit.

NM: No, I know. It’s annoying.

KE: Which I know you’ve been able to do. As a director.

NM: I don’t like it either. Editing is annoying. I like telling people what to do. I don't like doing it. You need a lot of patience to tinker. I'm good at fixing something someone else has done, or re-writing something, or re-editing something. But to do it from scratch, I'm like, ‘Ugh.’ It's pretty annoying. I have a lot of TikToks that I have to edit that I haven't done since November.

A DREAM COME TRUE

NM: [What were] the milestones in your career, looking back, that pushed your career forward?

KE: My first internship was when I was 16, and I was working for Children's Business [Magazine]. It was my first understanding that you could be creative with physical fashion and also with words, which were the only things I felt I was good at in life. And so that’s where the trajectory went. Like, ‘What was the way that I was going to be able to express myself with passion without having to make a physical piece?’ My 16-year-old self was already living her dream. It was like, ‘How does it get better than this?’ …. I was a good writer, and I was good at figuring out what went with what. I figured out that you could be a fashion editor and a stylist. So, I assisted the West Coast editor of Children's Business Magazine. This is back in the height of the nineties when there was a magazine for everything.

NM: I don’t understand. Was it for children who are in business? Or businesses for children?

KE: No. It was for children’s fashion. Which is what my mom did. My mom imported children’s clothes from France. To be featured in Children’s Business Magazine was the biggest deal. The apparel industry used to have its own trade publications that were a big deal. So, I grew up [thinking], ‘Oh my God, I could work for Children's Business? That would be a huge deal.’ At 16, it was the perfect entry point because the stakes were low. It's kids fashion. The company that owned Children's Business was Women’s Wear Daily. So, that ended up getting me into the next step, which is how I [started working with WWD for a bit]. I worked at a lot of different places to try to make my parents happy. To try to get that corporate [job]. I didn't even major in fashion or art. I majored in creative writing and political science. Then, the jump to New York was disappointing, and I think making the jump back to L.A. and figuring out that I was pretty good at styling and helping people figure out what to wear [was a milestone moment for me]. It was something that came so naturally — even without too much experience, it just kind of happened. … I have a lot of very vivid dreams where my mind comes up with a whole rack [of clothing ideas]. I'm like, ‘I'm so impressed with myself.’ I never wanted to be a designer because... 

NM: That’s what I was just going to ask. Why don't you draw the things you see?

KE: Maybe because I never trusted or knew to even look to my subconscious. Until maybe in the last five or six years. I feel like that's a skill that maybe some people are born with. Maybe inherent artists are born with it. Even though I was praised for my creativity as a kid, being an artist was not something that was encouraged [as an adult]. 'You want 401K, and you want to do whatever the things are with the 9-to-5 job.' So, I was always pushed into business or having something to sell—other than yourself or your art. So, anyway, I never really trusted my art. ... I was also comparing myself to insanely talented people. I would shoot myself down.

NM: But, also, you have to be bad at something before you can get good at something. 

KE: Absolutely. And I never have the patience for that.

NM: Me neither. I understand. If I'm bad at something off the bat, I'm like, ‘Well, that's it for that.’

THE FIRST CLIENT

NM: I want to know [who] your first styling client was. … I feel like it's one of those professions, like being a psychologist or a therapist, where your first day you have to pretend you know what you're doing and be confident about it. Theoretically, you do, but you have to present this level of like, ‘I’ve got you. I’m good at this, even though they may not know you’re their very first client.’ Is this where you tell me I was your first client?

KE: No!

NM: I’m kidding!

KE: Thank God. It was high stakes. It was Katherine Heigl.

NM: That was your first client?

KE: That was my first client. My poor heart.

NM: And you had to believe, ‘You're a stylist.’ You had to convince yourself.

KE: And they saw through it. I say this with love because we still chat. We're still friends, and I love her, and I love the family so much. That's where [my dog] Honey Badger came. I love them to death, and they were so wonderful to take a chance on me, but I think about the anxiety [I felt back then].

NM: How did you get that? How did that happen?

KE: My husband… At the time, he was just my boyfriend. He was friends with Josh, Katie's husband. Technically, Josh was my first [client], and he was super happy. I was hooking him up with Billy Reid, which was a big deal back then. I was like, ‘This is easy. Everybody wants to dress these guys.’ It was so easy to get clothes, and that was fun. I remember doing my first jewelry runs on Rodeo Drive.

NM: Like, ‘I’m a Hollywood stylist!’

KE: Also, I had literally half a million dollars worth of the jewelry in the freezer. Like what was I doing? I didn’t have a safe. I had no idea that you needed insurance for that stuff.

NM: There is so much people don't know. Your job has so much intense admin and paperwork and mail trips. You’re in your car constantly. Sometimes I look at your desk when we're [doing a] fitting and you have this precise handwriting. You make notes about everything in your dates book. Your notebook says, ‘Shit list.’ And you have great handwriting and you're so neat about all the stuff that you have to do. You're so organized. 

KE: I have assistants.

NM: Yes, but you do a lot by yourself, too.

KE: I do because a lot of times it’s easier to do it yourself.

NM: You’re keeping track of so much. I think people don't realize that's a big part of your job. You don't just get to pick pretty clothes and jewelry.

KE: No, I wish it was that. And there's a lot of stress—especially when it’s awards season, and you're dealing with fine jewelry. And you know how I feel about it. I'm like, ‘Do I have to go find jewelry?’ I don't want to do it until they're paying us for the placement—to be honest. It’s just not worth it.

NM: It’s stressful [wearing high-wattage jewelry]. Okay, so sorry, I interrupted you. Back to—you’ve got your first big client…

KE: That was the first big client, which was a huge milestone. It was great, and our first look together, I'll never forget [it]. I didn't sleep that night. I kept refreshing my phone to see—

NM: To see the red carpet photos?

KE: To see the red carpet photos and to see if she got any best dressed [online magazine moments]. I [typed] ‘best dressed, Katherine Heigl.’ I kept refreshing on Google. And lo and behold, the first one that came up was Vogue Paris.

NM: Dream. Dream.

KE: I’m like, ‘Okay, I can quit now,’ and then we never worked together again. Even though I thought that was a success, at the end of the day, what I learned from that is… She wasn't comfortable. It was the first time in her career …. that she showed massive cleavage. And it was uncomfortable. It wasn't an easy thing. The dress was hard to pull off. It was something she had to think about. So, I learned a lot [from that moment], feeling so guilty—no matter how great it was to get all the headlines for Best Dressed.

NM: Now I need to see that photograph.

KE: Looking at the images, I thought she looked great. That was 2010. That dress is stunning.

NM: Yeah, but she felt uncomfortable in it.

KE: But she felt uncomfortable. It was a massive learning experience for me. Who cares if you're Best Dressed if the entire time you were worried and you couldn't be yourself?! That was the Janet Jackson era where God forbid there was a wardrobe malfunction… which I'm going to go ahead and say… That phrase reminds me of the ‘Battle of the Sexes’ premiere, which I — a thousand percent — think of as a milestone with us. Where we were faced with something totally out of our control.

BONDING OVER BATTLE

KE: There’s so much that happens once I leave you and you’re out on the carpet. Somebody can step on a train. But for a zealous photographer to target you?

NM: Yeah, to shoot up my skirt purposely and then post the pictures and say I had a wardrobe malfunction when I didn’t. They just shot up my skirt and then printed the photos.

KE: And then I went on a warpath. We both did.

NM: I was like, ‘How is this a wardrobe malfunction if I'm wearing underwear? And that's what their purpose is. And it wasn't sticking out. You shot up there.’ I did a whole thing about it on Twitter at the time.

KE: You did, and I started emailing editors who had posted that crappy headline as a wardrobe malfunction. And I remember specifically writing to [one fashion media outlet] because I knew the guy. I was like, ‘I am so disappointed in you. You are supposed to be talking about her gorgeous shoes. Her shoes are gorgeous. That is the headline. What are you doing trying to reduce this beautiful woman to a wardrobe malfunction for your clicks?’ … I remember writing that email and being enraged.

NM: And did they write you back?

KE: He did. And with a serious apology.

NM: Did they take it down?

KE: He did, and they talked about your shoes. That was a huge moment for me in our career together. It united us. You had my back.

NM: Yeah. I wasn't like, ‘Why did you dress me in this thing that someone could have [photographed up my skirt]?’ Because it wasn't your fault. It wasn't my fault. It was that person's fault.

KE: And I try not to take that stuff personally. Like, ‘I should have done something different.’

NM: No, it had nothing to do with you.

KE: But I make sure that my clients are comfortable. I make sure that it is a collaborative process where you are as happy with it as I am. If I'm not happy, you're not wearing something. If you’re not happy, you're not wearing something. That's just the way it is. I'm never going to force you to do anything. You made that choice. You're a big girl. You owned it, and we went on a warpath together. My other favorite moment was that gorgeous Stella McCartney archive [piece]—the embroidered [look] with the shoulder pad that we wore to the [Green Carpet] Eco Awards.

NM: I also love the Stella McCartney suit I wore for the ‘No Hard Feelings’ premiere.

KE: That was hot. And that bra? Oh my God.

NM: I've never felt so good as I did at that premiere. I loved that outfit. I mean, I love Stella McCartney because [she has] a strong sense of morals in fashion. She does it and does it well. I’ve always been a Stella McCartney girl. Since her Celine days. I love what she does. What she does is beautiful and there's a conscience behind it.

KE: She’s an easy choice.

NM: One thing I like about you, also… When you look for clothes for me, and I'm sure for your other clients as well, you are really conscious about where you're shopping. There are certain brands we don't go for, no matter what, because of what they've done in the world. I see people on red carpets all the time who talk so much about fairness and equality and gay rights, and they're wearing Dolce & Gabbana. And I'm like, ‘What are you doing? You're talking out of your ass [if you’re wearing that brand].’ It’s inspiring [that you stick to your moral compass when selecting designers], and you also are always looking at indie designers and trying to lift them up. You're so good at that.

KE: It’s equal opportunity unless you’re an asshole.

NM: You make a point to find designers from other countries.

KE: And especially ones that have particularly difficult stories to tell right now.

NM: Yes. I’ve worn Ukrainian designers. We've talked about all these different things because you want to highlight those people. Not only everyone in the world cares about that. I think it's why we get along so well because your moral compass is in the right place while also getting beautiful clothes and doing good things. And I admire that about you.

KE: Thank you. I feel super lucky that we get to be so aligned morally, and that it's something that you see as an asset. Because sometimes it can be a limitation. Sometimes I [say], ‘Oh no. We would never [wear that designer],’ because of the way somebody behaves.

NM: Not to be holier than thou about it. But just being [aware and], like, ‘Yeah, I'm not giving you my business. I’m not promoting your morals that I don’t agree with.’ … I don't mind pointing out people who are wearing Dolce & Gabbana. I see it all the time, and I’m like, ‘What are you fucking doing?’

KE: Exactly. [But] sometimes it can be a little limiting. People want to dress you, and I'm like, ‘No.’

NM: When I think about your job, you have so much more patience and strong will than I do. Because if I was writing to a company and they were like, ‘Sorry, we're not lending to your client right now,’ I don't know how I would be nice to them again.

KE: Therapy. It took years of therapy to be able to handle the nos.

NM: You get rejected more than I do. And you also protect me from the rejection. Which is infuriating, I'm sure.

A LOVE OF DRESS-UP

NM: When do you remember [first] being interested in clothes?

KE: Always. My entire life. I remember one of my earliest meltdowns, I [was probably] four or five. My mom had brought me back this really cute floral dress from Paris, which ended up starting her business. She [imported] children's clothes from France. She loved these five dresses she brought back from a business trip with my dad. And this one dress had to go to the dry cleaner. I'd gotten chocolate ice cream on it, but I wanted to wear it, and that meltdown, I distinctly remember … I couldn't wear the dress that I wanted to wear. And from that moment on, what Kimmy wanted to wear was the most important thing in my family because I’d set this precedent. Like, she's gonna lose her shit if she doesn't want to [wear something].

NM: I would love to do a series on meltdowns we've had about clothes. And what those were. ... This is a question I ask people all the time unrelated to this interview, which is… Do you remember the outfit you picked for your first day of high school? I want to know what it was. What were the big, important first-day outfits that you remember?

KE: I think ninth grade was the biggest. One of my best friends who I’m still in touch with still teases me about it because it was her first impression of me. So I had gone to the same school, and she was new to the school. She was middle class, and then there was a bunch of rich kids, and I was somewhere in the middle between being rich and middle class, taking summers in Paris, but we weren't super loaded. I wasn’t wearing designers. I was just wearing nicer contemporary designers. So I was wearing, back in the 90s, Morgan de toi. Do you remember Morgan de toi? That was a Parisian line that had a maybe five-minute stint in America, and it was a big deal. So I was wearing head-to-toe, Morgan de toi, which was a baby tee with a pastel heart on it, and this lavender mini skirt.

NM: Very L.A. This is like ‘Clueless.’

KE: No knee socks, no thigh highs. I was a little young for that, and ‘Clueless’ had not come out yet.

NM: What shoes?

KE: They were pastel pink Converse One Stars.

NM: Oh, nice. High top or?

KE: Low top.

NM: What color was the baby tee?

KE: It was white with a pink, mint, lavender, and a light blue multi-color heart.

NM: And what was your hair like?

KE: Similar to what you have now.

NM: Cute. That’s a cute outfit. You put me in an outfit almost exactly like that. For that shoot for Glossier. You literally did. Except it was a butterfly.

KE: I think I said, ‘This is my 90s dream.’

NM: I do love lavender.

KE: You look amazing in lavender.

NM: Thank you. My prized possession that I lost somehow... I wonder where it is, but I went on this trip to Europe as my gift for my 14th birthday. My aunt took me. She’d saved a bunch of money. It was not a fancy trip. It was 14 cities in 10 days on a bus. I missed Austria. I was sleeping. I couldn't handle it. And I made friends with this family, and their daughter had a Baby-G watch. At the end of the trip, they bought me a little pastel orange Baby-G watch. That was a 90s dream for me. That trip was also where I met this girl Sarah, who I'm still friends with today. I was 14, and she was 16 or 17. You know when you're 14 and you look at a 16-year-old girl, and you're like, ‘Who this is a goddess?’ She was sitting on the bus, and she had a lot of eyeliner on and a lot of attitude. From her purse, she took out — what looked to me like — a silver bullet. She uncapped it, and it was a MAC lipstick. She put it on, and I was like, ‘I've never seen lipstick like that.’ It was such an impactful thing for me.

KE: That MAC lipstick was such a big deal — with the lip glass. I feel like you need to share your iconic high school outfit.

NM: Oh okay. I wish I still had it. I searched for this shirt everywhere. The thing that was big for me was that… When I first started going to school—kindergarten through eighth grade—I went to a tiny parochial school. So I was in uniforms. The only way we could express ourselves was through our shoes. Mine were black vinyl Airwalks. You had to wear white socks. [The shoes] had to be black, but those were mine because I couldn't afford Vans. And anyway, going to ninth grade, I went to a public school, and it was the first time I could wear my own clothes. I had four things [in my closet].

KE: And your mom didn't take you back-to-school shopping?

NM: She did, but I had to very immediately develop my personal style, you know? I had no practice. Every now and then someone would have a party, and I would have to go shopping for that. But I never had everyday clothes. I didn't have enough clothes [for public school].

KE: Did you read magazines?

NM: I’ve always been obsessed with magazines. I love magazines. I realized not so long ago that Delia's catalog was a meditative experience for me. It was like a Bible. This feels blasphemous to say on Good Friday. But if I was allowed to light the decorative candles in my house, I would have lit a candle. I literally would read every single thing and look at every picture. It would take me hours [to finish that catalog]. It would take me days, if not hours, to go through it, and I miss that experience.

KE: Did you take notes?

NM: Yeah, I wanted to dress like that. I thought it was so cool, and it was too expensive for me at the time. So I couldn't afford anything from there but I loved the catalog so much. Anyway, it was 1999…

KE: Sorry to interrupt but I just remembered my mom's reaction to Delia's was, ‘That stuff is trash. You’re not allowed to have any of that.’

NM: Really? I was obsessed with it. 

KE: We both couldn't have it but for the opposite reason. It’s so fucked up because it’s so foundational to how we dress [now].

NM: Since it was 1999, I'll give you one guess what kind of pants I was wearing.

KE: They were probably JNCO pants.

NM: Yeah. JNCO, which [were] the coolest, best pants. I guess we all do this when we’re past a certain age. We just dress to please our 12-year-old self. That's how I wanted to dress. I just want [my 12-year-old self] to think I'm cool. I wear a lot of clothes like that. But anyway, they were JNCO jeans [with] this double-sided cotton mesh, kind of gauzy, baseball shirt. A blue shirt with white, and that was my first day of school outfit. I love baseball shirts like that. I’ve always loved them. It was so cool. I don't know what happened to it. I still have clothes from middle school, and I don't know what happened to that one. I loved that one. Fashion was really important to me in high school. I never repeated an outfit. Even though I had limited clothes, I wouldn't ever wear the same thing every day. I put a lot of importance into how I dressed. It just felt like I was finally able to express myself, and it was important to me. And speaking of meltdowns, the one I can remember, which I still think about to this day and still am mad at my mom about sometimes… And I still have PTSD with irons… For eighth-grade graduation… There was a history behind this. There was this boy in eighth grade that I liked from sixth grade to eighth grade, and he strung me along, and then asked me to the eighth-grade dance, which was three days before the graduation. It was about to happen. He asked me to this dance, and then he ditched me. He didn't show up. And then I went anyway, and he was there with somebody else. And then three days later was our graduation. I was like, ‘I need to [wear the best outfit].’ This had to be my Diana revenge dress. You know what I mean? Except [I was] 14. And I was like, ‘I need something great.’ And I found it. I love it still. Imagine this. It was straight out of Rachel Green's closet at the time. It was a grey suit material, like crepe I would say, but business grey, right? Tube top pencil dress.

KE: You would wear that today.

NM: 100%. Very Victoria Beckham at that time, 1999. I was like, ‘This is the hottest thing I've ever worn in my life, and I'm so excited about it.’

KE: And there's something about that suiting material. Especially at that age where you're just like, ‘I’m an adult now.’

NM: Yes. And my boobs had come in, and it looked so good on me. I looked like a fucking woman, and I was so excited about it. Right as I got ready, I looked in the mirror, and I was like. ‘Yes, this is it.’ We were about to leave and my mom said, ‘Wait. It's wrinkled.' And I go, ‘No. It's fine. It's not wrinkled. Mom, I’m wearing the [graduation] gown over it. I have to sit for four hours. Let’s go. We're already late.’ She goes, ‘No. I need to iron it,’ and she burned a hole through it.

KE: This happened to me, too. My mom burned a hole in my prom dress. I've never been so mad at her. I cannot believe we share that.

NM: I remember holding it together. I remember being like, ‘Okay,’ and then I had to borrow a dress from my aunt that was big on me and frumpy and awful and that's what I had to wear to graduation. Because there was a big graduation luncheon afterward.

KE: I'm sorry.

NM: So what was the story with your mom and your prom dress?

KE: At least your mom approved of yours. I had bought my prom dress at a vintage store, and I love my mom. She's the reason I have my career in fashion. I’m so grateful. She was integral in my formation of fashion. But she did not like cheap clothes, and she did not like me buying second-hand, and I loved it.

NM: My mom is like, ‘Those are other people's clothes. Why are you wearing that?’ She never understood it. She was grossed out by wearing other people's clothes.

KE: I don't know if that played into it with my mom. I never asked her. I think she just genuinely was like, ‘Let's just go to BCBG. Why are we shopping in this second-hand store?’ I found this gorgeous 50's dress. That was back when they used to paint on silk—polka dots. It was so pretty. It was ivory that had been discolored with time, and peach. It had this beautiful peach silk sash. It was flared and tea-length, and it was exactly what I wanted. I had little gloves on with it and the whole thing. She really wanted to get those wrinkles out and that hand-painted silk just burned a giant hole. At least we had a day before, and we were able to get somebody to create a new seam.

NM: So you were able to wear it?

KE: The perfect circle was gone because there was this chunk of fabric that got cut out of the center.

NM: I need to see a photo of this.

KE: You never even got a photo of yours?

NM: No! Because I had a big iron hole in the front. I was literally graduating with tears streaming down my face because of this dress. Because there was a plan with the dress. I think that is a big part of my personality now. 

THE DIGITAL ERA

KE: The entire world [and media landscape has shifted toward] everything’s video, [and if you do not participate] you will not be seen, and you have so beautifully and seamlessly gone into that world, just by being yourself hilariously. [By] being able to comment on social stuff. Or your potato chip [video]…

NM: Oh yeah, that went viral. My most viral video is me trying to open up a hyperinflated bag of potato chips on a plane, and it [sounds] like an explosion.

KE: I’m still laughing thinking about it.

NM: I will confess. … I did add a gunshot sound to that video to make it funnier. It works well, and it makes it funny. It’s 58 seconds of me trying to open this bag. It's a tiny little bag of Sun Chips and then at the last minute, it explodes and [scares me]. It did make a loud sound that scared the shit out of me. But because I was wearing headphones, you couldn't hear how loud it was. So I added a gunshot sound. It worked. It has like 20 million views, which is crazy. I don't know that I went seamlessly into TikTok. I have zero presence on YouTube. I don't like feeling like I have to do something that no one's paying me for. And you know this… I have a really hard time being false. So, I can't make a video if I'm not in the mood to do it. I have to have [inspiration] strike me, and then I do it. So, my lack of consistency on those platforms is what probably keeps my follower count lower than it could be if I were posting every day. The better TikTokers—who I follow, who are great, and who I like seeing—are posting three videos a day. I watch their videos, and I'm like, ‘This is great.’ But if I did that, I'm like, ‘This is too much Natalie. Who wants to see three videos of this every day?’ But that's how you grow an audience and that's how you build things. They have a better understanding of how it all works, and they've made careers out of it. I think about it a lot… I could probably have a career in that if I focused on it. But I don't want to do the work that it takes to do it. It doesn't come naturally to me. Because I also want to do other things more.

KE: I feel like we've always struggled with social media. Especially since 2016. We’re both socially minded and sensitive to all the suffering around the world and sometimes what we do feels shallow…

NM: Or trite compared to what's happening. Then it feels dumb to post a picture of me in a dress when people are dying. I think about this all the time because... What I do for a living is play pretend, and I make movies, and then I have to promote those movies, and the world is still burning around us. There are people in my community [who have] disappeared and [been] deported. There are things that I want to talk about. That I care about, and then there's my career [to consider]. And not only my career but your career and other people's lives that depend on what I post on social media—[like] the publicist that you work with [to borrow pieces for the red carpet]. It's a chain that isn't only about me. Then, I am like, ‘Well, how do I factor all of this [in] and put it in the context of what it is?’ It's an interesting and difficult conversation because I didn't go into politics or law or social work. I went into this, so as much as I can think that this is no longer important now [given the state of the world]—it's still my livelihood, and it's still something I like, and it's still life. Independent of what's happening in the world, this is the stuff to fight for. It's the beauty and the art. And I know there's commerce around it, and I know that's what feels gross about the social media of it all. I think it would feel less gross if I was like, ‘Look at this beautiful garment that I sewed.’ It's a difficult balance because I'm aware of all the other people and livelihoods involved. People will just look and see, ‘Oh, Natalie posted this,’ without thinking about what the chain of that involves. And there's been several times where I've told you, ‘Kimmy, I can't post this right now. I can't post it for a month. I literally can’t.’ And you've always been so gracious and so understanding of that. And maybe I'm too sensitive about it because I see people posting shit all the time.

KE: Oh yeah. People act like nothing is [going on]. I'm honestly sometimes offended by it. ’You’re going to post that red carpet shot [right now]?’ 

NM: Everybody's mind is on something else every day. If you didn't read the news today you may not be in the same mindset as me. I may be offended at something but you may be in Iceland and not paying attention to what's happening here and to no fault of your own. There's shit happening every second. When things are dire in the world, you go, ‘Oh, the only things that matter are taking care of other people.’ It's the only thing that matters. Life is good when you can focus on other things. But part of taking care of other people is recognizing that other people have jobs that depend on what you do and what you post, and that they need to feed their kids, and they need to pay their mortgage, and they need to look good for their boss. And somebody's hoping that you will post that because it will help their business. And that's a weird line, but I try to think about that [when considering what and when to post red carpet and fashion moments].

KE: I come back to the place, ‘We’re hired to entertain and bring joy,’ and you are so great at that. It's amazing to see any of your finished products on screen but to really see you shine? Just go to a Night Crew Show, [your live show in Los Angeles in which you invite special guests like Anna Kendrick, Rachel Bloom, Bradley Whitford, and Jake Johnson to perform alongside you]. [I’m] like, ‘Holy cow this woman is just bananas.’ I cry every show because I'm so proud and elated and impressed and just like, ‘Damn, I’m so lucky to have this girl in my life. Not just as a client but as a human that's so rad.’ So that's what I always remind myself before I post. ‘This is a moment of joy.’ Hopefully, somebody can look at that image and think, ‘That’s better than what I just saw from some political person, where I got depressed, and hopefully [we provide] that dopamine hit that brought people to that app in the first place. Look at that gorgeous human being looking even more gorgeous in whatever she’s wearing. 

NM: If nobody wants to hear actors or fashion people talk about the things that are going on in the world, [fine]. But people do this and it gives you a platform… If people don't want to listen to me, it gives me the audience to give the platform to somebody else.

WHAT’S NOW & NEXT

KE: You have massive accomplishments, between directing and writing. Debuting two movies at the same time. I mean, do you top that? You're also acting in some incredible things. I feel like you haven't stopped [working] in the 10 years that I've known you. That’s an incredible feat. I know a lot of actors who cannot say that.

NM: Thanks. As far as goals for the future, I have been working hard on [filmmaking]. I did get to make one thing that I wrote and directed, which was ‘Language Lessons,’ but I have directed stuff that I didn't write. I've acted in a lot that I didn't write or direct. I would like to do more of the stuff that I've written and created. I'd like to do more of that, and I've been working on a lot of [projects] with Cyrina, my best friend, who's my writing partner. A goal for me is to get something that we've worked on together made because I also don't see anything from our perspective on television or in movies at all. It doesn’t exist, and I do think there's a vacuum, and there's an audience for it. I'm here. I would like to fill it. I just need someone else’s money to do it. … Do you have any goals for your career in the future? What do you hope to accomplish?

KE: Here's the thing. Since becoming a mom, which you know has been a rougher transition for me, I’m very open about that… I've tried to quit a million times, right? And you're the only client I've ever told, ‘Hey, I'm quitting.’ And you're like, ‘Well, are we fitting this week or not?’

{They laugh.}

KE: And it's like, ‘Well, yeah, because it’s you.’ And then we’ll have a great fitting, and then the red carpet pictures will come out, and I'll be like, ‘Oh, this is so great! I love this!’ Honestly, when it's aligned with an amazing client, and I am so lucky, I have a handful of phenomenal clients who allow me to be part-time and a mom. So I'm winging it. I know that that's so anti-L.A.—if you're not meditating and writing down five goals every morning. That's just never been me and any time I have sat down to write a goal if I don't make it in two weeks, [I feel like] I’m a failure. I don’t want to set myself up to this place where [I feel like] I'm a failure.

NM: I feel the same way about manifesting. Some people go, ‘I’m gonna manifest things.’ I'm like, ‘If it doesn't happen then I'm gonna be pissed.’ I don't want to think that something's wrong. So I feel the same way.

KE: I will have a manifesting moment. Like, ‘Yeah, this is something that I want. That is the direction I would go.’ But I'm not going to say with a deadline, right? But I will try and [ask myself], ‘Where does my gut lead me? How do I attract great clients? How does that keep going?’ I'm not chasing a million dollars. … I don't play with the idea of needing to be on this many Best Dressed lists or whatever. I’ve let go of that because there's so much noise out there. 

NM: It’s all kind of bullshit anyway.

KE: And it does feel like bullshit. A lot of it feels paid. It feels publicized. It feels placed. It doesn't feel authentic.

NM: It’s political.

KE: Yeah, [it’s focused on] what’s going to get them the most clicks. Not necessarily about what's genuinely, authentically true. So that stuff I've let go of. I just want to make sure that I'm working with great people, and that I make them feel good because if I'm not making other people feel good, then there's no reason for me to do it.

NM: And you do make people feel good.

KE: Yay. That's all I want.