Kate Young

A lot of my clients are not super confident. Actors don’t like to be themselves, usually. That’s why they’re actors. They’d rather be someone else. I hope I provide them a little bit of a character. A little: “This is who you’re going to be. You’re going to be a supermodel.” And then they can play that part for the night.

Most people think my job is just hanging out with celebrities and jet-setting around the world in private planes. The reality is that it’s mostly emailing. I spend a lot of time emailing brands and saying, “Can I have look number 31?” Then they say, “no,” and I’m like, “32?” and they say, “no.” I say, “Okay, what do you have?” Then, they send pictures, and we get something. I’m now in a lucky position to have people who work with me and deal with the logistics, which is an incredible amount of talking to FedEx, UPS, and World Net. Also, packing suitcases and making sure they have the right bra with the right outfit.

It’s all of these really incredibly boring details where, if you don’t do them properly, your relationships are burned and you’ll never work with those designers again. There’s nothing exciting or glamorous about it. Then again, I stay in the nicest hotels in the world. My Vogue diary was a vomitorium of luxury.

I am really, really lucky. There is a high degree of pampering. I get to fly business class, I stay in these fancy hotels, and people loan me clothes to go to parties. And that’s amazing, but that’s not my actual life.

I have my own line of optical and sunglasses with Tura. They launched in 2015. It’s doing really well, and I’m so proud of it. It happened very organically. I met the people there, and we just immediately got along. It felt right. We also have a children’s eyewear line, and all the proceeds go to the Child Mind Institute, which is focused on children with mental health and learning disorders. I hope I get to do that forever, honestly. There have been times when I have been ready to do my own line, and I have certainly been approached by people to do a line, but it’s never felt entirely right. But if I could have a dream collab, it would be L.L.Bean. I’d really like to make L.L.Bean womenswear nice.

In my real life, I’m super outdoorsy. I like to camp; I like to hike; I like to go sailing. I like all these things, and I feel like I’m constantly trying to cobble together my version of a chic look. L.L.Bean should be chic. It’s an American Heritage brand, and it’s made here. Instead, it’s these pleated khakis that nobody would ever wear, and raspberry- and loden-colored fleece cardigans. It’s disappointing to me on a profound level.

I grew up an hour away from the city. I used to do ballet very seriously, so I’d dance at Steps on Broadway on Saturdays, take the train downtown and buy vintage clothes from this store called Unique Unique, and then take the bus back home to Pennsylvania. Liquid Sky, Milk Fed—Sofia Coppola’s clothing line—and the whole Harmony Korine thing was happening down here. Photographer Mario Sorrenti’s wife, Mary, had this snow cone cart. She would make snow cones and sell them. Mary Frey Sorrenti—she’s the chicest thing you ever saw in your fucking life. Oh my god. They were actually all right here, where Supreme is now. It was very cool. Guys were all wearing really big pants with Caesar haircuts. So cute.

I wasn’t a big pot smoker as a teenager. It gave me anxiety. But now we go to California all the time, so I’m super into all of it. My re-intro to cannabis was the Dosist Calm pen. It's the greatest thing that ever happened to me. I find it so calming in moments of anxiety and stress. Or if I can't sleep in the middle of the night, it really takes me down a notch. I don’t take any medications. Xanax feels scary to me, but cannabis, for some reason, doesn’t.

I also really like all the beauty products. Kush Queen bath bombs are insane. I use Apothecanna's Extra Strength Body Creme on my clients—on their feet—so that their high heels don't hurt. I also really like Beboe’s pens, because I feel like they don't fuck me up in a weird way, they just make me feel really good. I don't have any interest in rolling a joint. I like a pre-loaded, chic-looking pen.

It’s weird to me that fashion has been so hesitant about embracing cannabis. I find the far right so much scarier than weed. If I were a brand, I’d be more concerned about Megyn Kelly wearing my clothes than someone smoking weed in them.

I don’t mind talking about weed at all. I don’t work for a corporation. I have two kids. We live in Brooklyn, so they know what weed is. If you walk down the street in Brooklyn, you will walk through clouds of pot smoke. Every day. That’s the smell of Brooklyn. They’re not old enough to point at it and know what it’s called, but I can be like, “That’s weed.”

We are not a very “traditional” family. They’re still young, but I think that we’ll approach the conversation around cannabis in a way that might be unusual for other people but is normal for us. They’re clear on what addiction is. Again: we live in Brooklyn. There’s a meth clinic a block and half from our house. They know what an addict is. When I was a little kid, people would say, “Say no to drugs.” I’d never seen a drug addict. They’d say, “It’ll ruin your life.” I never saw someone every day on the same corner, shaking and freaking out. My kids know what that looks like. That’s fucking scary.

They don’t want to be like that. They’ll say to me, “Why are they like that?” And I say, “Because they’re addicted to drugs. It’s a disease, like cancer. It’s not easy to stop. It can ruin your life.” I don’t think I’ll have to have the same conversation about drugs that I would if we were raising our kids in Greenwich. It doesn’t mean there aren’t tons of drug addicts in Greenwich, they’re just a different style. It’s more hidden.

I just read the Michael Pollan book, How to Change Your Mind. It’s fascinating. In the book, they talk about this blind study in which 80% of the people who actually received a psychoactive substance had what they described as profoundly life-changing experiences, where they understood how they fit into this universe. They had emotionally enlightening experiences that they ranked in the top five experiences of their life. The researchers talked to them a year later, and they still felt the same way. How do you get that? A top five experience of your life? One that profoundly alters your worldview and makes you feel like you belong? We should all have that. In this world, it’s so hard to have that feeling. I want it. I did lots of acid in high school, but I mainly listened to The Grateful Dead and danced around.

If anybody knows of an LSD study supported by therapists, please let me know, because I want to get in on it. I asked my therapist about it. I was like, “So . . .” And she was like, “I’m already on a waitlist.”

To be honest, I probably know more about books and art than I know about fashion. I’m far less into fashion for myself, because it’s what I do all day. I tend to wear jeans, a navy sweatshirt, and some sneakers all the time. If I were kidnapped and had to send a coded message to someone to let them know that something was really wrong, I’d write, “I am wearing a turquoise dress.” I like to get my creative fix from interiors and art. I just think art is actually the thing that makes you feel connected and worthwhile. I don’t go to church, and art makes me feel connected to the world. When I see something that really moves me, I understand that other people feel that too. It can be a comfort, or an inspiration, or shift my perspective. It’s essential to making life good.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. Kate Young photographed by Luca Venter at her office in Manhattan. If you like this Conversation, please feel free to share it with friends or enemies.