When I was little, I was such a tomboy - I loved a baggy T-shirt and leggings.
You see those guys wearing baggy pants, descendants of the parachute pants, wearing an odd, weird Frankenstein haircut. It all comes out of Peter Lorre.
I don't raise my daughter differently than her twin brother, to the point where she only wanted to wear his clothes - sweatpants, baggy T-shirts, and high-tops - for a year straight. She claims it's because she needs to be 'comfortable and functional,' and who can blame her? I would wear a tracksuit seven out of seven days if I could.
It was hard knowing that you walk into a store sometimes, and you're wearing a baseball cap and a hoodie and some baggy jeans, or your skin is a little darker, and the clerk is just staring at you a little bit harder. The cops treat you a little differently.
Gender-neutral clothing is often, for lack of a better term, bags on bags. A baggy shirt with baggy pants, that sort of erases any individuality, as opposed to enhancing it.
On my first album I was wearing a lot of guys pants, baggy clothes and stuff like that. I was 17 and I was a little tomboy. And you would never see me wearing a dress or heels on my first record.
I was really sensitive because people would say they thought I was a boy or call me a boy and stuff like that. I always had my hair back and, like I said, baggy clothes. So it was kind of sad. I didn't know what to do about it, and I didn't know what I was doing wrong because I was just being me.
The clothes are different: pre-dog, I used to be very finicky and self-conscious about how I looked; now I schlep around in the worst clothing - big heavy boots, baggy old sweaters, a hooded down parka from L.L. Bean that makes me look like an astronaut.
I don't like baggy clothes and looking like anything sloppy. The arms have to fit. The collar has to look perfect.
And I was victim to that very early in my career, where I would go into auditions, and I'd be wearing a big T shirt, a big baggy T shirt and loose jeans. You know, to try and show people that there was more to me than just that.
