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Comedians and best friends Benito Skinner and Mary Beth Barone are ride or die for fashion.
The hosts of the Ride podcast have both been obsessed with fashion from a young age. For Skinner, he used fashion to express himself.
“It sounds very Carrie Bradshaw, but I loved Vogue and GQ. I just loved clothes. I loved anything that made me feel like there was something else out there,” Skinner said “I loved pop culture and I feel like expressing myself and showing that I felt different inside, and any way to express that I really loved. And I also loved trying on different characters and personalities within it, too.”
Barone loved how fashion helped women in the public eye to tell a story.
“I just loved how the women in pop culture when I was growing up, their clothes told a story and it leaned into their personalities,” Barone said. “You look at the Spice Girls, you look at Mary-Kate and Ashley [Olsen], you look at Britney Spears—fashion was part of the story.”
For the latest episode of The Who What Wear Podcast, The Who What Wear‘s Editorial Director Lauren Eggertsen sits down with Skinner and Barone to discuss their love of fashion, how they come up with the topics for Ride, and so much more.
To read excerpts from their conversation, scroll below.
For those of you who haven’t listened to Ride, it’s just this really beautiful space you two have created, where you talk about pop culture, your own lives, and amazing memories. Also, of course, what you ride for in every episode. Something, as a listener, that I cannot wrap my little head around is every episode the topics that you choose to ride for are some of the most nuanced, specific topics, or items in the world, yet they capture the hearts of the masses. How do you do that? Is there a strategy? Could you share what goes into the making or the deciding of the topics for each episode?
Benito Skinner: I feel like I became more inspired to do more random ones just based on the listeners. Initially, when we had our first podcast (I won’t say its name because you’d have to bleep it), they wanted them to be more topical. But then anytime Mary Beth [Barone] and I were a little bit more true to ourselves and chose something like dinosaurs existing—and this season, Mary Beth [Barone] rode for, I think my favorite ride of hers of all time, stop signs—it just felt more like our friendship.
I think best friends do this all day. They bring up some random topic and then have inside jokes about it.
I think we were able to bring people into it more when it wasn’t something that was totally in the discussion already. It felt private and for your friends.
Mary Beth Barone: We do zero prep, which is a really important part of it.
I think it’s hard when you go in with beats that you want to hit, because then if you forget you’re like, “Oh, should we record a pickup or what do we want to do about that?”
I think when you go in with just no agenda, just really top line, the more specific it is, somehow the more we have to say about it.
Then it gets us down those little rabbit holes that we go down that we’re never anticipating.
I feel like even sometimes we’ll have topics where it’s like, “How are we going to talk about this for two minutes, let alone 12 minutes each?”
Somehow we always do. We never run out of things to say.
Ride itself isn’t focused on fashion, but at Who What Wear, we’re a fashion publication. We are in love with the shopping and the celebs and the ‘fits, but you guys definitely have shared and went in on so many amazing fashion moments. You also both have such incredible style. I feel like you both have basically flipped the script when it comes to comedians in this space in fashion. How did you guys both start forging that relationship in the industry? Why is it important to you?
Skinner: I grew up in Idaho, and I was closeted. My sisters really loved fashion and so did my older brother.
It sounds very Carrie Bradshaw, but I loved Vogue and GQ. I just loved clothes. I loved anything that made me feel like there was something else out there.
I loved pop culture and I feel like expressing myself and showing that I felt different inside, and any way to express that I really loved. And I also loved trying on different characters and personalities within it.
I went to school at Georgetown, and I remember being like, “Maybe I’m preppy,” but then I decided I’m more Americana preppy.
I’ve always just been so in love with it. I love the art form of it. I love being able to express myself in that way. I love pulling a moment.
I just feel like it kind of wove its way into my career really easily—whether I was doing a character or at events.
Even for Ride shoots or for the tour, getting to collaborate with Mary Beth [Barone] on that. That’s just so fun.
Barone: For some reason, since I was a little kid, I was obsessed with brands, fashion, shopping, and glam.
I would make my mom give me blowouts when I was, like, five, six, seven years old. There’s a video of me dancing to the Spice Girls when I was probably eight and I have a full blowout.
I just loved how the women in pop culture when I was growing up, their clothes told a story and it leaned into their personalities.
You look at the Spice Girls, you look at Mary-Kate and Ashley [Olsen], you look at Britney Spears, fashion was part of the story.
Those things were so important to me as cultural touchstones when I was a kid.
My sisters also got fashion magazines, but none of them really care about clothes. Whatever there was in the gene pool of that, I got 100 percent of that.
As I’ve grown more in my career, I feel like my audience is more and more targeted and specific, so I have a lot more flexibility in what I can wear and still be taken seriously.
I actually think drag queens are allowing for a lot more room for pageantry and performing. I do feel like there has been a huge shift in what people feel comfortable wearing on stage—even in comedy not just in drag performing—because drag queens are such a part of culture now.
Everybody can throw a little glitter on.
I feel like we are more empowered and there are way more LGBTQ performers now, which is amazing.
If the other side of performance wants to stick in their lane of wearing pajamas and flannel shirts, that’s so fine. We’ll be over here doing it the way that we want to do it.
In your daily life right now, if there’s one outfit that you feel so amazing in, and if you had to wear it for all of season two for Ride, what would it be?
Mary Beth Barone: I don’t know what it is about where I’m at in my life, but for some reason, I went to Stella Dallas in New York and I bought three vintage button-downs.
I’m just obsessed with wearing a button-down with baggy shorts or jeans and Converse. I’m really into just comfort right now and not feeling restricted by my clothes.
Anything flowy and sometimes, you know, I’ll wear a slip dress, which also counts as being flowy, even if it’s tight.
I don’t know what it is about baggy clothes right now. This is my hot girl outfit right now. Baseball cap, baggy button-down, baggy jeans.
I bought this vintage Louis Vuitton bag with the cherries on it. That with my New York Rangers cap—and I don’t watch hockey—you could throw anything at me and I’m ready.
NHL
Men’s New York Rangers American Needle White/blue Roscoe Washed Twill Adjustable Hat
Converse
Chuck Taylor All Star Canvas
Madewell
The Tall Harlow Wide-Leg Jean in Beachwood Wash
Skinner: I guess mine is the same. I love a really oversize shirt. I just got these Bottega [Veneta] denim shorts in SoHo.
When I got them, the beautiful man working there was like, “Benny Drama, if you don’t buy those booty shorts, I’m gonna kill myself.” I’m like, now I have a personal connection to them.
I love showing my thighs right now. It’s a huge thigh era for me and dirty white sneakers.
I love a big, oversize Oxford.
Then any kind of denim—light denim—I wear that every day and show off these freaking gams.
Buck Mason
White Perfect Oxford One Pocket Shirt
Bottega Veneta
Belted Denim Shorts
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. Next, our editors share their favorite 2024 wedding wear trends and where to shop.
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