What's Underneath with StyleLikeU artwork

What's Underneath with StyleLikeU

60 episodes - English - Latest episode: almost 3 years ago - ★★★★★ - 230 ratings

Join StyleLikeU's mother-daughter duo, Elisa Goodkind and Lily Mandelbaum, as they host intimate conversations about style, self-image and identity with diverse role models who stand proudly outside of norms and are comfortable in their skin. By shedding the binds of cultural conditioning placed on us with regards to how we present ourselves to the world, What's Underneath inspires radical self-acceptance by empowering you to embrace what’s unrepeatable in you. Welcome to the Self-Acceptance Revolution!

Society & Culture Arts Fashion & Beauty
Homepage Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed

Episodes

We Never Knew We Were Pregnant: How Queer Couple Syd & August Found Purpose In Surprise Parenthood

June 25, 2021 17:17 - 1 hour - 55.8 MB

Watch Syd and August's Full Video Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j43r8PbDmqA&t=42s&ab_channel=StyleLikeU About StyleLikeU If you agree that facades separate us and being radically honest brings us together, please take a moment to subscribe to our channel and share this video with any friends or family who could benefit from feeling less alone in their journeys with mental health. Don’t forget to click the bell so you’re aware of every time we upload a new episode. New Episodes drop...

Saying No to Broadway's Beauty Standards is What Makes Hamilton's Suni Reid a True Star

June 10, 2021 17:57 - 1 hour - 62.5 MB

Watch Suni's Full Episode Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUmg_OB20Og&ab_channel=StyleLikeU

How Claire Raymond Lost Mobility and Gained Freedom

June 03, 2021 18:20 - 1 hour - 58.9 MB

Watch Claire's Full Video Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TYFSm9h6xc&ab_channel=StyleLikeU

If Claire Raymond Can't Walk In the Next Pride Parade, She'll Roll

June 03, 2021 18:20 - 1 hour - 58.9 MB

Watch Claire's Full Video Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TYFSm9h6xc&ab_channel=StyleLikeU

How Amputee Domonique Echeverria Found the Strength to Love Life In a New Body

May 28, 2021 17:48 - 53 minutes - 48.7 MB

Watch Domonique's Full Video Here: 

Losing Both Breasts to Cancer Won't Stop Angela Trimbur From Dancing Through Life

May 20, 2021 18:08 - 56 minutes - 52.7 MB

**About our Mental Health Awareness Campaign with Spring Health: ** Spring Health is breaking barriers to mental health by working with employers to give employees fast and easy access to the right care, at the right time. In honor of Mental Health Awareness Month, together with Spring Health, we are creating opportunities for YOU to share your mental health journeys online and ‘in person’ at our virtual ‘What’s Underneath: Collective Therapy’ summit in June. Follow @stylelikeu and @spring...

Aki Hirata Baker Does Not Think She's Better Than Her Depression

May 13, 2021 17:52 - 1 hour - 58.8 MB

Watch Aki's Full Video Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwYBQFTe9yM **About our Mental Health Awareness Campaign with Spring Health: ** Spring Health is breaking barriers to mental health by working with employers to give employees fast and easy access to the right care, at the right time. In honor of Mental Health Awareness Month, together with Spring Health, we are creating opportunities for YOU to share your mental health journeys online and ‘in person’ at our virtual ‘What’s Under...

How Star Athlete Rwenshaun Miller Found the Will to Live by Expressing His Emotions

May 13, 2021 17:40 - 58 minutes - 53.4 MB

Watch Rwenshaun's Full Video Here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgM8ijWOw1o Spring Health is breaking barriers to mental health by working with employers to give employees fast and easy access to the right care, at the right time. In honor of Mental Health Awareness Month, together with Spring Health, we are creating opportunities for YOU to share your mental health journeys online and ‘in person’ at our virtual ‘What’s Underneath: Collective Therapy’ summit in June. Follow @stylelikeu...

How Putting The Breaks on Sex & Dating Propelled Dronme Davis Into Loving Herself

April 29, 2021 19:17 - 1 hour - 64.3 MB

Watch Dronme's Full Video Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKG0IVLHv1g&ab_channel=StyleLikeU

Reckonings Along His Journey to Stardom: Musician Olu of Earthgang

April 15, 2021 07:47 - 51 minutes - 47.1 MB

Watch the full video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf7hbSvv3yE&t=2s&ab_channel=StyleLikeU

How Queer Activist Yves Fought For His Life and is Now Fighting For Yours

April 01, 2021 18:02 - 1 hour - 62.6 MB

Watch Yves' Full Video on YouTube Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKllJo8ECIQ&t=8s&ab_channel=StyleLikeU

Bea Dixon is A Boss Who's Embracing Her Masculinity & Liberating The Vagina

March 18, 2021 23:21 - 1 hour - 57.7 MB

Watch Bea's Full Video on YouTube Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Z5PNqnFpQw&ab_channel=StyleLikeU

How Richie Reseda Found the Courage to Choose Himself Over Patriarchal Prison Culture

March 11, 2021 16:15 - 1 hour - 57 MB

To support Richie’s work to abolish prisons and patriarchy, please donate to Success Stories here: https://www.successstoriesprogram.org/ Watch Richie's Full Video Here:

Ceyenne Doroshow is Black, Trans, Powerful and Forever

February 25, 2021 23:59 - 1 hour - 60.2 MB

Watch Ceyenne's Full Video Here:  https://www.youtube.com/results?search\_query=ceyenne+stylelikeu

How Leon Ford Transformed Being Paralyzed by Police Brutality Into Love and Purpose

February 18, 2021 20:44 - 1 hour - 64.3 MB

Watch Leon's Full Video On YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCXQkMgrLQ4&ab_channel=StyleLikeU

Actress Kiersey Clemons Accepts Her Mental Health Diagnosis and Stands Up To Racism in Hollywood

February 11, 2021 23:52 - 52 minutes - 48.3 MB

Check out Kiersey's What's Underneath video interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHIZympOlLc&t=21s&ab_channel=StyleLikeU

BLM Activist Janaya Khan is The Future’s Brightest Light & Wants You to Know You Are Too

February 08, 2021 06:28 - 1 hour - 61.2 MB

Check out Janaya's full video on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vmpxcq_XZg&t=35s&ab_channel=StyleLikeU

We’re Back with What’s Underneath: Black Voices!

February 04, 2021 23:28 - 7 minutes - 7.26 MB

Check out Janaya's Full Video on YouTube Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vmpxcq_XZg&ab_channel=StyleLikeU

The Risk of Revealing Yourself: Dancing To Be Seen with Kate Shela

August 20, 2019 15:14 - 1 hour - 55.3 MB

In this week’s episode of our podcast, former Fashion Stylist turned Radical Dance Teacher, Kate Shela, wants to be seen for exactly who she is, no matter the “risk.” She exchanged her career in fashion and the dream of being a professional dancer (both paths that relied on achieving unattainable ideals of external perfection) for the rewards of healing herself and others as a teacher of the legendary 5 Rhythms dynamic movement practice, a method of dance that allows people to embody their w...

Stacy London: A Midlife Renaissance After What Not to Wear

May 30, 2019 04:05 - 1 hour - 60.3 MB

Elisa and Lily sit down with inspirational stylist, fashion consultant, author, magazine editor, and former co-host of What Not To Wear, Stacy London. Style by fire, Stacy’s trademark “Morticia” gray streak grew in when she was eleven and she has been refusing to hide it ever since. But it isn’t until turning 50 that she is actually having a midlife Renaissance in her Princess dresses and finally feeling a deep comfort in her skin. She is coming into her own having done life her way; not ma...

Too Cute for Two Genders: Activist and Futurist Janaya Khan

May 23, 2019 04:10 - 57 minutes - 79.4 MB

Their own hero, Janaya’s all-black uniform can be packed in 7 minutes flat in case they are called to the front lines as an activist and organizer, where they have the responsibility of redirecting rage and rallying community around politically and socially charged moments. You will also find them wearing black in the boxing ring, where they have learned to punch without apology and where they have found refuge as a black, queer, non-binary person in an inclusive space. Janaya’s heroic quali...

Becoming Herself by Becoming Others: Comedian Chloe Fineman

May 09, 2019 15:42 - 58 minutes - 81.1 MB

Relinquishing shame and stepping into her fullest self is what impersonating others did for Chloe Fineman once she discovered comedy. But her journey to this comfort within only came after lots of zigs and zags. For years, Chloe struggled to fit into a traditional acting career that demanded she shrink herself both literally and figuratively to fit into a waify ingenue “hot girl box.” But a bout with anorexia followed by a chapter of overeating ice cream and blowing out her thyroid led to a ...

Neema Githere: Choosing Self-Love Over Yale and The Algorithm

May 02, 2019 09:55 - 59 minutes - 81.8 MB

Born in Kenya of Maasai and Kikuyu roots, Neema Githere has faced the harsh realities of growing up in racist America and, at 21 is proudly living the life of her choosing. With her crown of Bantu hair knots and rainbow braids, she had the smarts to get into almost every ivy league school from a small town in Colorado, where she was feared and fetishized for her difference. She later had the bravery to drop out of Yale in favor of a life outside the systems that oppress her, upon realizing t...

Neema Githere: Choosing Self-Love Over Yale and The Algorithm

May 02, 2019 09:55 - 59 minutes - 81.8 MB

Born in Kenya of Maasai and Kikuyu roots, Neema Githere has faced the harsh realities of growing up in racist America and, at 21 is proudly living the life of her choosing. With her crown of Bantu hair knots and rainbow braids, she had the smarts to get into almost every ivy league school from a small town in Colorado, where she was feared and fetishized for her difference. She later had the bravery to drop out of Yale in favor of a life outside the systems that oppress her, upon re...

Sister Leona: A Shirtless Superhero is Setting Women Free

April 18, 2019 04:05 - 1 hour - 83.7 MB

The objectification of women, as represented by the sexualization and thus censorship of their breasts, is such a profound form of systemic oppression that Sister Leona sees no other route to liberation than to rip off her shirt, tap into her inner superhero and take to the streets in protest. Her goal is to get the Equal Rights Amendment into the Constitution and showing up topless outside of the Kavanaugh Supreme Court hearings and getting arrested is not Leona’s only rebel cry. A mustache...

From Number One to Freedom: WuTang’s RZA

April 11, 2019 04:05 - 1 hour - 91.1 MB

Founder of The Wu Tang Clan, Rapper, Producer, Musician, Actor, Filmmaker, Author, Writer and soon-to-be creator of a TV show about his life, RZA (aka Robert Fitzgerald Diggs) is all grown up. From wearing army fatigues in the 90s, which represented the militant mindset that initially brought RZA to superstardom, the icon has emerged in 2019 as a Renaissance man who appreciates the reverence that comes with the occasional suit and tie. Among the many insights that RZA lets us in is on how he...

Claiming Her Queerness at 40: High Maintenance Creator Katja Blichfeld

April 04, 2019 04:05 - 1 hour - 91.2 MB

Co-creator, writer and director of HBO’s High Maintenance, Katja Blichfeld shares the agony and ecstasy of what has been a lifetime of coming to terms with her queerness. After going to an Evangelical Christian school as a child, Katja deeply struggled to honor the natural impulses of her sexuality. In her mid-thirties, during her marriage to High Maintenance Co-Creator Ben Sinclair, a full-on depression (amidst the height of her career success and her dream job) propelled Katja to claim the...

Eat, dress, connect, and love life: Lebanese Filmmaker Pam Nasr

March 28, 2019 04:05 - 44 minutes - 60.7 MB

In a world that is quick to judge and fear the other, Lebanese filmmaker Pam Nasr doesn’t want to overlook the many ways we can communicate and seek bonds without words, whether it be through the food we share or how we dress. When she walks down the street in bold colors or flaunting her strong legs, Pam’s style screams, “I love life” and “I want to connect.” Growing up in Dubai with a dad who gave her the space to push boundaries and wear mini-skirts in a country that is more conservative ...

Amy Yeung: Having Less Has Given Her More

March 14, 2019 04:05 - 55 minutes - 75.7 MB

“When is it enough?” Amy Yeung has been asking herself this since becoming a mom 18 years ago. Now 55, Amy feels like she is a “naked baby chasing butterflies…every day is so much fun.” Amy already knew how to build success the consumerist way, with a big-brand career designing fast fashion destined for landfills. But following a breakthrough moment in the Moroccan desert, she turned her back on being a designer of disposable fashion in favor of creating success with a conscience. Her compan...

Vivian Bang: The Hero of Her Own Story

March 07, 2019 06:05 - 51 minutes - 71.4 MB

From her grade-school role of “goth weirdo” among a sea of blond hair and floral dresses to playing a myriad of stereotypical Asian-best-friend parts in Hollywood, Korean-American actress and performance artist Vivien Bang has struggled to be seen and heard for who she is. It wasn’t until Vivien began to listen to her inner voice, which included a deep dive into her roots, that she came to realize that she could be the hero of her own story. This super power has guided her to release traditi...

Kamil Oshundara: You Can’t Unsee Me

February 28, 2019 05:37 - 59 minutes - 54.5 MB

23-year-old cultural activist Kamil Oshundara invites you to judge her by her cover. An open book when it comes to expressing herself, Kamil’s body is her altar and she is continually designing it as a means of altering perceptions and making it clear that she is her own person and not anyone’s product. With a rage that is love, Kamil’s authentic tattoos, markings, jewelry, and piercings, honor the richness of indigeneity, her Yoruba religion, her ancestry, gender fluidity and a “don’tmess” ...

Betsy Huelskamp: An Everest Climber Negotiating Freedom

February 21, 2019 05:10 - 1 hour - 58.1 MB

Often while riding her Harley Davidson and always driven by her immense love for this planet and the cultures that inhabit it, there is almost no wild and untouched place on this planet to which Betsy Huelskamp has not traveled. Despite having practically no time to train, and facing life-threatening hostility from the men around her, she reached over 27,000 feet on Mount Everest. In this episode, Betsy talks to us about the Death Zone on Everest, the life-changing empowerment of riding a mo...

Lysa Cooper: Making it Cool to Care

February 07, 2019 05:01 - 43 minutes - 40.1 MB

Superstar fashion stylist turned apothecary healer, Lysa Cooper, reminds us of the authentic New York of yesteryear, a time when phones were at home and ‘living in the moment’ was the only place to be. A time when style had less to do with shopping than enhancing our experience of ourselves and those around us. She talks candidly about leaving home at 14 for the Big Apple in the 90’s, the pitfalls of our modern celebrity-and-phone-addicted culture, and starting a whole new chapter in her 50s...

Illma Gore: Losing Everything and Gaining Herself

January 31, 2019 05:00 - 59 minutes - 54.9 MB

Ilma gore is an Australian-American artist and activist whose work is such a true expression of who she is that she is willing to be banned from the internet and beaten up for her beliefs when it comes to her art. The loss of her parents, a home and any sense of stability at a young age is what she attributes to her ability to be so liberated in her life from fear. “Life and death are the same to me,” Illma states. Some of her political-centered work hones in on the obsessive significance pl...

Ty Defoe: Two-Spirited and Shapeshifting Gender

January 24, 2019 09:00 - 54 minutes - 50.8 MB

Ty Defoe is an Ojibwe and Oneida grammy award-winning performance artist, activist, and writer who identifies as Two-Spirit. In Native American cultures, not only is it acknowledged that gender is more fluid than our patriarchal binary society allows, but Two-Spirit individuals are also highly revered for their spiritual gifts. In this episode, Ty talks to us about the difficulty of being accepted as Two-Spirit, even within his own culture, as a result of colonialistic and religious brainwas...

Dana Falsetti: A Yogini Dismantles Fatphobia

January 17, 2019 19:39 - 47 minutes - 44.4 MB

Dana Falsetti, speaker, writer, yoga teacher of larger bodies, and body positive insta-warrior visionary on a mission to make the world a more accessible place, talks about how her yoga practice was born out of a need to prove herself but quickly grew into something much bigger than that, even steering her away from the legal profession path she was on. We discuss the double-edged sword of social media commodification and why Dana felt the need to take a break from Instagram, and how perilou...

Heidi Lender: Breaking Her Fear of Success

October 04, 2018 07:05 - 58 minutes - 54.2 MB

From being a fashion director for W Magazine to studying yoga and opening her own studio, to growing pot in Northern California, to making a spontaneous move to the magical, middle of nowhere in Uruguay, Heidi Lender has lived many lives. After years of following the dreams and wishes of the men in her life, in the last seven years, Heidi has had a slow and uncomfortable awakening to the fact that over time she had developed a pattern of dimming her own light in exchange for pleasing her par...

Wunmi: From Cinderella to Dancing Queen

September 27, 2018 07:05 - 55 minutes - 51 MB

Singer, dancer, and fashion designer, Wunmi, short for Ibiwunmi, meaning “a birth loved, a child loved, a life loved”, is a force of nature, but it took her a long time before she felt she could step into her name and really own it. Abandoned by her mother and sent to live with family in Nigeria by her father, Wunmi grew up fantasizing over and yearning for her mother’s love. Feeling deeply lost and invisible, clothing and dancing became a way for her to be seen, “I didn't want to dress like...

Naomi Shimada: At Home In Her Body and Hashtag “Herself”

September 20, 2018 12:05 - 55 minutes - 51.3 MB

We interviewed Naomi Shimada three years ago for the What’s Underneath Project video series. She inspired us then and continues to inspire us daily on social media with her singular embrace of herself, which includes her voluptuous curves, her boldly colorful style, her overall joie de vivre and its inextricable link to her darker side. In 2015, when we asked Naomi what her favorite body part was, she said it was her mouth because everything she loves most in life comes from the lips, “Kissi...

Lola Kirke: Prolific Through Self-Doubt

September 13, 2018 12:05 - 59 minutes - 54.9 MB

We are super excited to be with the youngest of the three Kirke Sisters, Lola Kirke. We have already featured both Jemima and Domino on our What’s Underneath video series, and Domino was also with us in episode 6 of this podcast, so now we are thrilled to be able to dig deep into what’s underneath the equally radical and truthful younger sister. Lola talks candidly about growing up in a bohemian family of artists, the struggle to be heard in a room of men, how sexual rejection fueled a song ...

Terence Nance: Has Nothing to be Unapologetic About

September 06, 2018 12:05 - 43 minutes - 40.8 MB

We sit down this week with the incredibly multi-talented artist, director, and musician, Terence Nance, to get inside his head about things like his HBO series, Random Acts of Flyness, that airs out, in almost a stream-of-consciousness, many of today’s most salient issues like systemic racism, white privilege, gender, and masculinity. Not knowing it all is especially important to Terence’s work, “I think of making stuff as conversation; why would you get into a conversation if you knew where...

Chloe Garcia Ponce: Creating Her Own Definition of Motherhood

August 30, 2018 12:05 - 48 minutes - 45 MB

Curandera (Mexican Healer), Chloe Garcia Ponce, was introduced to darkness at 8 years old when her father passed away. “In order to understand or to speak about light you have to experience darkness. The amount of light that I'm capable of working with is also because I have witnessed a lot of darkness and sadness and grief and pain, and all that is part of this beautiful wheel of life. We cannot have one without the other.” In a way, the passing of her father was her first teacher on her sp...

iO Tillett Wright: Living & Learning His Self-Evident Truth

August 23, 2018 12:05 - 1 hour - 58.4 MB

We reunite with author and activist, iO Tillett Wright, who we first interviewed about four years ago for our What’s Underneath Project video series. In that interview, he told us about his radical self-awareness as a very young child, asking his parents if he could live as a boy, despite the fact that he was born into a female body. Even after a childhood of gender-bending, for the majority of his adult life, iO identified as a queer woman, and it wasn’t until 3 years ago that iO officially...

Lorri Davis: Falling and Fighting for the Love of her Life

August 16, 2018 12:05 - 1 hour - 73 MB

Last week we spoke with Damien Echols who was incarcerated on death row for more than 18 years for murders that he did not commit. It became crystal clear during that interview that the heroism of his story was as much to do with him as it was his wife, Lorri, the heroine of this truly incredible love story. Lorri was a successful architect working in New York when she saw the first Paradise Lost film (which documented the circus of Damien’s first trial) at the Museum of Modern Art in 1996. ...

Damien Echols: Discovering His Authentic Self After Death Row

August 09, 2018 08:05 - 1 hour - 62.7 MB

In this episode, we are joined by a gigantic hero of ours, Damien Echols, who was incarcerated on death row for 18 years and 76 days for murders that he did not commit. We became aware of his story with the first of a series of three documentaries called Paradise Lost and have since been forever strengthened by his two books (we can’t wait for the next one soon to be released). Damien’s story is one of almost superhuman inspiration in terms of what the human spirit is capable of enduring and...

Mara Hoffman: Letting It Go to Let it Grow

August 02, 2018 08:05 - 56 minutes - 52.1 MB

We greatly admire New York-based fashion designer, Mara Hoffman. Her designs and principles stand out in a sea of homogeneity and “buy more” culture. The former dancer studied at Parsons School of Design in New York and London’s Central Saint Martins College. She was “discovered” by Sex and the City stylist, Patricia Field, who sold Mara’s samples in her shop. We sat down with Mara in her 6th Avenue studio to talk getting comfortable with change by facing our mortality, not being too attache...

Molly Guy: Finding Inner Sanctuary During Her Darkest Hour

July 26, 2018 08:05 - 59 minutes - 54.6 MB

Having graced us with both a Closet and a What's Underneath video, Molly Rosen Guy is no stranger to StyleLikeU so we are honored to be sitting down with her again for a very real talk about death, divorce, finding inner sanctuary during her darkest hour, and the comfort of knowing she was a rock for her father during the last weeks of his life. We have always been enamored with Molly’s piercing presence and vivid honesty, something that is startlingly evident from the writing on her Instagr...

Riya Hamid: Radically Honest About Mental Health

July 19, 2018 08:05 - 1 hour - 62.3 MB

*Please note that this content contains sensitive information regarding mental health and topics related to suicide. The extraordinary artist, poet, model and mental health activist, Riya Hamid, opens up to us about the very brave and honest work she is doing on Instagram surrounding her own personal struggles with mental health, a subject that is all too taboo and that needs to come to the surface, because we all struggle with mental health in one way or another. She describes what it was l...

Alex Auder: Highly Uninhibited on High Maintenance

July 12, 2018 08:05 - 54 minutes - 50.9 MB

Yoga teacher, actress, activist, and (we think) should-be-comedian, gifts us with her company while offering insight into what it was like growing up in the (in)famous 70s New York Chelsea Hotel, daughter of Warhol’s “superstar,” Viva, and artist Michel Auder. She tells us why she and her sister, Transparent actress Gaby Hoffman, are both so comfortable in their physicalities, at times to the discomfort of others, and tells the story and motivation behind her incredibly inspiring role on HBO...

Chani Nicholas: Parented by the Planets

July 05, 2018 08:05 - 1 hour - 55.9 MB

Coined the ‘Social Justice Astrologer’ and a rock “star” to us, Chani Nicholas’ readings make you feel as if she is speaking to you personally in the deepest, most intuitive, profound, psychological, and empowering way. She talks to us about how her relationship with the planets as early as 8 years old, was the first thing that made her feel seen, having grown up neglected while locked in a “sex, drugs and rock’n’roll party” on the side of a mountain, finding love at 38 just when she thought...