Laverne Cox

[upbeat music] Laverne Cox is an Emmy-winning actor, producer, advocate, and one of the defining cultural figures of our time.

She became internationally known for her groundbreaking role as Sophia Burset on the television show Orange Is the New Black, a performance that made her the first openly transgender person nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in an acting category.

Since then, she has continued to expand what visibility can mean as an actor, a producer, a host, a speaker, and an artist whose work insists on complexity, dignity, glamour, truth, and humanity.

Her brand-new instant New York Times best-selling memoir, Transcendent, offers a portrait of an artist whose life has been shaped by survival, discipline, beauty, and truth.

Laverne Cox, welcome to this very special live episode of Design Matters at the Pride Book Fair in New York City.

Thank you so much.

That was so beautiful.

I appreciate that.

Laverne, first, I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about your love of Salvation Armani.

[laughs] Um, it's a phrase I sort of coined in, i- in the book.

Um, I started, um, in middle school thrifting, going to thrift stores, and I-- that's when I started dressing myself.

And we had, um, in walking distance from my, our house on Broad Street in Mobile, Alabama, there was a Salvation Army and Goodwill right next to each other.

And this would've been the early '80s, and I could literally get like, you know, a pair of pants for 25 cents or a whole outfit for, like, 99 cents or something.

So I would like, you know, with $5, I would come out with quite a haul, and it was fabulous.

And I got to kind of experiment and begin to kind of fashion myself and create myself anew, um, with my Salvation Armani, with the clothes I got from thrift stores.

And the great thing about me as an adult now is that, um, I still love vintage clothes.

Um, not, not necessarily thr- you know, we've elevated maybe a little bit.

[laughing]

Um, I am wearing Comme des Garçons today, not Mugler, and many people-- like, people are like, "It's always Mugler." It's mostly Mugler.

[laughing]

But occasionally it's Comme des Garçons.

Um-

As one does.

Yeah.

Vintage, of course.