For a long time, I derived a sense of pride in my ability to organize an email inbox. The little red numbers in the corner of my app were a thorn in my side; I did everything I could to avoid them. I promptly responded to messages and, for a while, even managed to keep my unread emails at zero. Sure, some of these habits had to do with my anxiety, but there was also a part of me that had internalized the idea that immediate responses were not just a professional nicety, but an obligation. When an email slipped through the cracks, I felt compelled to apologize.
Like most women, I have been conditioned to ask for forgiveness since I was a little girl. Recently, I even apologized to a man after he ran into me on the sidewalk. Saying sorry is a force of habit, a way to “make up for” the trouble I’ve caused just for taking up space as a human in the world.
But the tic is more than a product of female socialization. As someone who has been self-employed for most of my career, my livelihood depends on emails. If I don’t stay on top of them, opportunities seem to slip away as quickly as they come. More than once, a handful of hours has meant the difference between securing and losing a client. To cope, I became obsessed with rapid correspondence—and when I didn’t measure up, I tapped out a phrase familiar to millions of conscientious strivers around the world: “So sorry for the delay.”
But last month, my relationship to my inbox completely changed.
In June, I left my staff writer job in preparation for an international move. But while emptying our Brooklyn apartment—donating furniture we had just purchased and books we’d collected over a decade—my partner was suddenly hospitalized and spent days in the intensive care unit. For a scary period, their literal survival was our only concern. That same week, I underwent an urgent, costly surgery that physically wiped me out. And then, while still in recovery, a close family member unexpectedly passed away.
During that time, anything not directly tied to my emotional survival faded into the background; work emails, included. Although I did what I could to keep clients and collaborators informed of what was happening, I eventually found myself staring at a ballooning inbox. Some emails sat unanswered for weeks—I simply didn’t have the energy to respond.
I’ve heard it said that expressing gratitude can be better than apologizing; I once saw a comic by Yao Xiao that beautifully illustrated the concept. Staring at the blinking cursor inside one of hundreds of emails I’ve had to compose over the past few weeks, I’ve reflected a lot on this idea. And so while part of me still wants to ask forgiveness, I’ve started to substitute an alternative: “Thank you for your patience.”
Modern work culture doesn’t make enough space for people’s humanity. Though it’s hard to pinpoint what exactly caused that—late capitalism, social media, lack of boundaries—our relationship to work, and specifically work emails, is resulting in serious psychological consequences.
Whether it’s the expectation of a response at all hours of the day or night, or that haunting feeling after deciding to wait until Monday to respond to a Saturday email, these habits are unhealthy. I still (ironically) have work to do when it comes to developing better boundaries with work, but the past month helped me set a new standard: I’ve stopped apologizing for delayed email responses.
To say there’s a lot going on in Sorry to Bother You would be an understatement. The movie is fast-paced and forward-thinking, overflowing with looks that flash by. It’s a whirlwind, and though Boots Riley’s film clearly gets across its dystopian message, the makeup lover in me wanted to spend about two more hours staring at the beauty looks makeup designer Kirsten Coleman dreamed up for Detroit (Tessa Thompson), a performance artist and telemarketer alongside her on-screen boyfriend, Cassius Green (Lakeith Stanfield).
Especially considering that there are tons of Easter eggs packed into the film, heading back in for a second or third viewing would get the job done. But in lieu of that, unpacking the dimensions of Detroit’s beauty choices with Coleman was a more than welcome alternative, and one that adds another layer onto Thompson’s character. For those who haven’t seen the movie and clicked here out of pure fan love for Thompson, Detroit is a heroine unlike most we see onscreen. As the movie’s costume designer, Deirdra Govan, told Glamour, Detroit’s a self-made woman, and it feels revolutionary to see a female character express so clearly that she lives by no one’s rules other than her own. In her makeup, that means hot pink brow highlighter and golden lipstick, to name a few of her stand-out moments. As a character, she’s a moral counterpoint to Green’s shifting values; as a woman, she’s an example of opting out of society’s beauty norms, standing up for her outlook in all things, and making larger-than-life creativity look achievable in the day-to-day.
Glamour: What was the inspiration for Detroit’s makeup?
Kirsten Coleman: It was based around her character being Afropunk. It’s a really edgy, progressive style of wearing fashion and makeup by doing things you wouldn’t normally do. Putting eyeliner on your lips, or putting stickers or pieces of jewelry on parts of your face where they wouldn’t normally be applied. It’s a very artistic approach to makeup that I’ve always found very inspiring.
PHOTO: Pete Lee / Annapurna Pictures
Glamour: Why did you think that was a good fit for Detroit?
KC: She’s super independent, wild-spirited and wild-hearted. She’s very political, and she uses her entire body as a statement. Her clothing, her makeup, her hair—everything is a message. She doesn’t look at herself as a stereotypical form of a woman. She doesn’t use her body to be beautiful, she uses it as a statement. I respect that, because I think that everyone needs to be a little bit like her, and reshape how women are viewed in society. She doesn’t look at expressing herself the same way normal society would view women, and makeup, and beauty. It was all about re-approaching makeup and using things differently just ’cause. It might not even be super pretty, it’s just different.
Glamour: To me it was almost about disobedience, and breaking free of the norms of what you’re supposed to do.
KC: There’s rebellion there for sure, absolutely. And I think that was her thing—she had earrings that were penises covered in diamonds, you know? She was all about pushing the limits and making sure people noticed what she was trying to say. I appreciated her fierce fearlessness. She just wakes up, throws something on, paints something on her face, puts a bindi on and goes out the door. She’s constantly on the go, and she’ll change her makeup throughout the day. There’s a scene [where] they’re at a bar and she’s putting stickers on her hand as they’re talking. She’s constantly vibing on her look, because she’s constantly changing as well.
She knows what she wants. She’s very direct and honest, and she’s not passive, which is what this culture [teaches women] to be. I think that’s changing. I do hope people see this and look at Detroit, and go, ‘That’s the kind of the archetype I want to reflect, because she’s a strong woman and she doesn’t take any shit.’ I want people to look at this as a way of approaching life differently, and being risk takers. In general, just being a female in this lifetime, I think it’s good for women to have these different archetypes that are breaking out of the mold of women being expected to look a certain way. Women for thousands of years have been controlled by men, and that needs to stop.
PHOTO: Annapurna Pictures
Glamour: It seems like the idea of layers and special meaning was really important to the character. Blending all those influences must have been a challenge, especially drawing on other cultures with the bindi. How did you toe that line? Detroit is fearless, but appropriation is such an issue these days.
KC: What I like about Detroit and her approach with these things is that it’s like reassessing and reusing the things that we usually look at these cultures with. With the bindis, we had put bindis on her hands, on her nails, she’d have a bindi. There were these cool pieces on her hands, and I think it’s her way of re-approaching it. It goes back to how cultures look at beauty, how they express themselves. I think it’s a way of re-celebrating things in a new light. I think that was her mission. It’s not about misusing a culture’s influence, but it’s about recreating, re-exciting, re-celebrating it in a new way. If anything, someone would look at her and go, oh that’s different, look at that. Or, that’s kind of strange, and maybe does confuse me or frustrate me. But it’s not caring about what somebody thinks, and that’s always been her purpose.
Glamour: In terms of seeing things in a new light, the movie takes plausible ideas about things that are happening, like working conditions, and unionizing for wealth redistribution, and takes them to the next level. How did that translate through in the beauty choices?
KC: I think it’s a wake up call for people, that everything this movie expresses is just an accentuated version of what we live with everyday. It’s not far away. You can get caught up in all the glam, and money, all the things the world thinks that we need, but those aren’t the things that we need. It’s insane where we are politically as a culture, as America right now. It is a satire, and it’s sort of shoved in your face what the world really is. This film reminds me of The Handmaid’s Tale, which is another show that makes you think, “this could happen and it’s not that far off.”
I hope in general, it breaks the mold of expectations with makeup and how people look. Go home and be a little more experimental and take more risks, that’s definitely a message. I hope any woman who sees this film goes, “Hey, I can do that, and it doesn’t matter how old I am or what I do.” Be willing to take risks with yourself; be willing to push your own limits. Pushing yourself out of your comfort zone will absolutely be a case of learning and experience, and that’s the only way you grow as a person.
PHOTO: Peter Prato / Annapurna Pictures
Glamour: Lastly, we couldn’t discuss Detroit’s makeup and not talk products. Which ones were essential to her look?
KC: I used a lot of Make Up For Ever artistry palettes and foundation; plus a bunch of LimeCrime lipstick, which they have in all these different wild colors. We also relied heavily on Glossier. I used its Boy Brow on Tessa. Even in her most nude moments, her brows were always thick and defined and dark, even if she had blond hair with different colors in it. I also used Anastasia Beverly Hills powder sometimes to begin her brow a little bit. She wore a lot of the Generation G lipstick in Leo—it’s her favorite color. When her eyes were more intense I’d keep her lips pretty natural.
And then I was a frequent at Michael’s craft supply store for stickers, jewelry, flowers, and feathers. Things that have different textures, like glitters, shimmers, and foil—anything to just put on her that would be different. I really liked using a lot of these millennial brands, which are a little more simple, girl-on-the-go makeup. I felt like that reflected Detroit.
There’s a lot going on in Sorry to Bother You, Boots Riley’s wildly creative, sci-fi comedy about a black telemarketer who discovers the key to success is using a “white voice”—and there’s not much one can discuss without spoiling the movie. (Trust, the less you know, the better on this one.) One spoiler-free way to unpack the film is how it weaves searing political commentary with pure pop entertainment, most notably through its costumes.
By far, the most memorable outfits come courtesy of Detroit (played by Tessa Thompson), the artist girlfriend of Cassius (Lakeith Stanfield). While the latter makes questionable moral choices in the name of success, the former remains clear-eyed and consistent in her view of the world—and both of these character progressions are reflected in their individual fashion choices: Cassius’ thrifted sweaters shift to slicker suits, while Detroit’s statement earrings (“Tell Homeland Security We Are the Bomb,” one pair reads), slogan T-shirts, and hand-painted jackets remain a constant.
“For me, Detroit is a true activist of her own making,” Deirdra Govan, Sorry to Bother You‘s costume designer, explains. “Her art speaks to her both in form as well as her clothing.”
PHOTO: Annapurna Pictures
“What I really wanted was for her clothing to be her whole business card,” she continues. “[Detroit] is definitely a strong female, very self-aware, not willing to sell out by any means necessary to obtain the level of success that Cassius was seeking. She’s her version of a made woman.”
Govan drew from a range of sources—political movements of the past and present, ’80s and ’90s New York City, afro-futurism and afro-punk—to create the wardrobe for Sorry to Bother You, scouring vintage shops and working with artists in Oakland, California (where the movie takes place) to source the pieces featured on screen. “It’s not a store-bought movie. It’s not a shopped movie. It’s not something that you simplistically just stumble upon. This is true artistic creativity at the core,” she says. “It’s going in vintage shops and finding the beauty in the refuse and starting a language from there.”
PHOTO: Peter Prato / Annapurna Pictures
Detroit’s style, in particular, has a personal connection to Govan: The designer says that the character reminded her of her classmates at Pratt Institute and Parsons School of Design, where she studied. “I had girls like this in my class—I was one of these girls at one point, at any given time that I wanted to change my hair or shave my head or do something creative with my clothing,” she remembers.
Thompson also had a hand in crafting Detroit’s wardrobe, contributing her “The Future Is Female Ejaculation” T-shirt to the production, after she picked it up during a press trip in New York City. Govan was thrilled with Thompson’s find: “I was very keen on using [the shirt] because it was a statement. It was just like, wow, OK, this woman has something to say. She’s using every layer, every piece of clothing, to articulate her statement loud and clear.”
PHOTO: Annapurna Pictures
While a “female ejaculation” T-shirt is, yes, a clear statement, it’s not even Detroit’s most political moment in the movie—that comes during her big art show: She gamely puts on sunglasses, slicks back her hair, and wears a bikini made of rubber gloves, standing defiantly on stage as she asks the audience to throw objects at her.
It’s a bizarre and powerful moment, but it took lots of collaboration to get to the final product. “In the script, [Detroit is] written as being nude, and Tessa and I both felt very strongly [about] not about having nudity for just nudity’s sake, for the gratification of the male gaze,” Govan explains. “Things need to be equally weighted.” Riley, who both directed the film and wrote the screenplay, was open to the change, even suggesting rubber gloves as an alternative. This idea reminded Govan of pants and shirts with hand imprints over a woman’s breasts or backside she’d seen growing up, and she knew she wanted the same statement for Detroit.
“A woman having a glove bikini is like, ‘This is my body. I own it. It’s mine. You don’t.’,” Govan says. “And if you notice the middle finger, it’s very clear, like, ‘Fuck you. This is MINE.'”
PHOTO: Annapurna Pictures
And while a middle-finger-up glove bikini is not an everyday look for most—though, how amazing if it were—there is something to Detroit’s style that can be co-opted by anyone fighting the patriarchy. Govan incorporated plenty of real-life references into her wardrobe (and collaborated with artists and stores one could actually shop to create it); plus, slogan T-shirts have had a bigger presence on the runway in recent seasons, from Dior’s wildly popular “We Should All Be Feminists” to Prabal Gurung’s “Our Minds. Our Bodies. Our Power.” Interested parties can cop Detroit’s “female ejaculation” T-shirt from Otherwild for a cool $36. More importantly, we’re in a cultural climate where activism can mean many things—organizing a Women’s March, chanting #BlackLivesMatter, and, sometimes, putting on a “Feminist AF” T-shirt.
Clothing has become a platform in and of itself, as loud as any social media post, to make your opinion known—or, in some cases, for others to assign meaning to. Look at the fervor around Melania Trump’s “I Really Don’t Care, Do U?” jacket, from her visit to the U.S.-Mexico border: While Trump’s team claimed the jacket didn’t have any larger significance or hidden message, it’s taken on a new life with clap-back “I care” shirts that have raised money for Democrat-backed causes. Nowadays, a top isn’t always “just” a top—and Detroit’s fashion sensibility exemplifies the power your sartorial choices wield.
It’s easy to imagine Detroit making her own riff on the “I Really Don’t Care, Do U?” jacket, maybe even finding a way to take it a step further. As Govan puts it: “I don’t want to sound so cliche, but [this is a woman who] sets her own rules. She is her own design. That sense of individualism is what I really wanted to bring across, because that’s the most exciting thing about her. She is her own tastemaker.”
