Welcome to Profits & Losses, GQ’s new questionnaire about money that asks someone of note how they made it, lost it, spent it, grew it, and think about it.
A luxury that’s worth its price: Hermès bags, which I collect, because of the craftsmanship and the experience of being able to acquire them. If you’re buying one, you’ve been invited to a special room, and you can basically have whatever you want. It doesn’t feel like somebody’s rushing you to make a purchase. Bottega is worth it for the exact same reasons.
A luxury that’s not: Overpriced ready-to-wear. And I’ll leave it there.
Something (other than Hermès bags) that I own multiples of: Socks from Berluti. They put my initials on them. They just feel good, you know?
The best money advice I ever got: Pay your taxes. The government lets you slide a year, and then another year, but by the third year they want all that money and you don’t necessarily have any of it. With a 9-to-5 job, the taxes come out, but when you’re a freelancer, it’s something you have to worry about. Once I went to get some money out of the ATM and my balance was at zero. I ran into the bank in a panic. I’m like, “Somebody’s cleaned out my accounts.” It was like, “No, it was the IRS.”
The wage at my first job: I worked at a mental health facility when I graduated from college, and I was making $22,000 a year. So that was $600 every two weeks or something. When I quit that job, my family were like, “Oh my God, you quit that good job with those good benefits.”
The paycheck that made me realize my career is working: It was a slow crawl. When I first started styling, I was charging maybe somewhere around $700 a day. When I was getting better at the job, I raised my prices. So it was $700, then it was $1,500, then it was $3,000, then it was $6,000. Now it depends on who I’m working for and what I’m doing. I’m not Linda Evangelista. I’m never going to say I don’t get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day.
“I feel poor when…” I never “feel poor.” I would never use that term, because there’s power in what you say and what you say about yourself. If there’s something I can’t afford, it’s just that I can’t afford it at that moment. I would love to own this apartment in Paris, but not at this moment.
“I feel rich when…” I feel accomplished when I can go into a store and not look at my bank account right after I buy something. I don’t think rich is the right word, but I feel comfortable.
A recent investment: I bought the house next door to a house I already owned because I didn’t want anybody else to live that close to my property. It’s gonna become basically like a compound.
A missed opportunity that haunts me: I had the opportunity to invest in something one time, in a different field, but it was during COVID and we were all afraid of never working again, especially freelancers. I could’ve probably multiplied my investment by 8 or 9 or 10.
Most precious thing I have that I didn’t buy: A pair of beautiful emerald earrings. I was admiring them, and the person who owned them just gave them to me.