When Samantha Bee was doing test shows for her late-night program, “Full Frontal With Samantha Bee,” the Canadian-born satirist, feeling the pressure to conform to nominal precepts of TV show glamour, chose a sartorial statement completely antithetical to her essence.
“I willingly squeezed myself into a tube dress and really high heels,” she recalls. “I was tottering around the set. The heels were so spiky, they punctured the floor and got stuck.”
Observing this wardrobe misfire, network executives gently suggested she try wearing what she had on in rehearsals: a blazer and sneakers.
As anyone who has watched Bee’s TBS show knows, the blazer look stuck. And as the show marks its 200th episode on Wednesday, Bee has further galvanized the once-pedestrian men’s wear staple into a feminist power symbol. Whether it’s fire engine red for a Donald Trump screed, classic black in the wake of the Jan. 6 Capitol riots or canary yellow to call out corporate America’s record on paid family leave, Bee’s jackets are a sartorial cudgel to the patriarchy.
“There’s nothing I love more than a great blazer,” she says, during a phone interview this week from the Acela to Washington, D.C., where she hopes to have enough daylight to
“I willingly squeezed myself into a tube dress and really high heels,” she recalls. “I was tottering around the set. The heels were so spiky, they punctured the floor and got stuck.”
Observing this wardrobe misfire, network executives gently suggested she try wearing what she had on in rehearsals: a blazer and sneakers.
As anyone who has watched Bee’s TBS show knows, the blazer look stuck. And as the show marks its 200th episode on Wednesday, Bee has further galvanized the once-pedestrian men’s wear staple into a feminist power symbol. Whether it’s fire engine red for a Donald Trump screed, classic black in the wake of the Jan. 6 Capitol riots or canary yellow to call out corporate America’s record on paid family leave, Bee’s jackets are a sartorial cudgel to the patriarchy.
“There’s nothing I love more than a great blazer,” she says, during a phone interview this week from the Acela to Washington, D.C., where she hopes to have enough daylight to
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