Everyone knows that Eddie Huang dresses cool. He has an unparalleled jersey collection. He can really, truly pull off a bucket hat. And shearling. And he was on the Ugg train at least two years before everyone else got on board. So it’s no surprise that fashion permeates his debut novel, Come Undone.
The book, out June 16 from One World, is about a guy named Hubie who travels the world taping episodes for his food show. His career has taken off, all the world’s bigwigs love him, he works with his best friend and has what’s ostensibly a glamorous life in LA. Except he’s still morbidly depressed, desperate to love and be loved. We go with him through the performance of dating in Los Angeles, and then — in the least likely place — he meets The Girl. The girl who flips his shit upside down and forces him to reexamine and rework his entire life.
Chaos, obviously, ensues. And so do outfits. The clothes show up chapter after chapter as mile markers to describe who the characters are and how they feel at any given moment. Their close emotional and psychological ties to fashion stem from Huang’s own experience. “My mom was very into fashion because consumerism, looking fly, being pretty covered up that my dad was beating the shit out of her,” he tells me one afternoon at his downtown restaurant, Baohaus.
When he discovered his own style, the associations were just as charged. As a kid, “I wanted to be a basketball player so I dressed like a basketball player,” he says. “But I could also fit into the clothes. On the most visceral level, I was into hip-hop and basketball and Black culture because you had Fat Albert, Fat Boys, Heavy D, Biggie. Street culture allowed for a fat kid to feel fly.” His mom shamed him for his size, but there was still self-expression, novelty, and joy in making his own stylistic choices.
In reading Come Undone, I started to dog-ear every page that name dropped a designer or a specific look. And when I spoke to Huang, I asked him to take me through each instance. The clothes speak to the characters, sure, but they speak just as much to Huang’s own integration in the world of style. (He wouldn’t tell you outright, but he was the inspiration for Justin Bieber’s giant Coachella shorts.) “I do think people who gravitate toward fashion as a form of self-expression will find another layer in this book that’s just for them,” he says.
Early-on in the book, Hubie gets roped into a group dinner with the friends of a girl he’s casually dating. As he’s getting dressed for this dinner, he picks out a waffle-knit Auralee sweater and a pair of Evan Kinori pants. Tell me about that outfit choice.
I think the men who dress that way are self-hating chic. You’re coming from some alternative culture, you’re grown up and shedding that skin, but you’re not ready to commit to something bolder. You look like a poor kid who’s emo, but you look good. And you spend so much energy, time, and money to accomplish that, which says a lot about who you are.
I used to wear a lot of Champion sweats and big Hanes T-shirts. Anyone who came to Baohaus in ’08 to 2015 saw me in uniform blanks: Dickies, Carhartt, whatever. But after the third wash, they’re all stretched out. And when I became a director, I noticed that I needed to be more executive. I still wanted to be me, but I had to look professional, and I still resent that ascension. I chose to wear those brands because the clothes look like very, very high-quality, technically crafted versions of proletariat, common-people clothes. And I do think that a big part of what you’re saying when you spend this much money on this shit is: My life is getting better, but I’m still a man of the people. I’m still 10 toes down. It’s a conflict that I intentionally chose for Hubie because I know how it feels — there’s a kind of survivor’s guilt going on. “I made it, and I hate that I made it.” And a deep-seated feeling for Hubie that he isn’t shit.
In another scene, Hubie is meeting a man whom his love interest, Janine, is with at a dinner. And the guy shows Hubie his JJJJound x New Balance sneakers. It’s kind of a hilarious scene. Why did you decide to put this man Hubie reflexively hates in these specific shoes?
I respect JJJJound; I think it’s great. I would never talk shit. I can’t do what they do. But to me, it’s a “fashion” thing for people who don’t want fashion. It’s like Loro Piana — it’s expensive for what? I feel like the people who wear it just want to make a choice that seems elevated.
When Instagram really took off around 2015, 2016, everyone started to realize, “Oh my god, I have to pay attention to what I wear.” But I loved it when there were people who dressed sick, and other people who were like, “This is dumb; I’m going to Brooks Brothers.” The thing that annoyed me the most was when agents started being like, “Yo, check out my sneaker.” I was like, now I don’t like sneakers. I stopped wearing them. Once the people who didn’t care about fashion got into fashion, I got out.
It’s still cool to be friends with creatives; Hung [La] at Lu’u Dan was like, “Yo, Eddie, I got the Bieber shorts from when you came in wearing those insane shorts.” I was hungover in London, I went by his office, and I was wearing these old all-black parachute Comme shorts. He was like, “Can I see those?” I love that people are still inspired by each other in that way. That’s what I love about fashion. But it wasn’t like I saw [the shorts] on a mood board.
Now we come to the Teatora packable pants, which Hubie wears a few times — first, I think, in the midst of a depressive episode about how Janine might end up with someone else.
I’m wearing those pants right now. I wear them basically every day.
I love the pleats. They’re professional pants, but they look comfy.
I have a pair in navy and a pair in black. I got them probably five years ago, and I wear them five out of seven days a week. It really is cool when you find a pair of pants that feel like your pants — like they’re made for you. They become your comfort pants. That’s why Hubie wears them when he’s panicking — when the world is too much.
Where did you find them?
C’H’C’M’. Simonez Wolf put me onto them in probably like 2016, and I’ve been shopping there ever since. I don’t switch up.
Hubie’s parents appear in the story several times, often in ways that help explain Hubie’s trauma and attachment issues. In one of the early instances, his mom is described as wearing a Vivienne Westwood choker — I’m picturing the double strand of pearls and the crystal-encrusted logo — and Jean Paul Gaultier glasses. Why those accessories?
The Vivian Westwood choker says, “I’m a gift; I’m wrapped” in the most attractive but also the most submissive way. And then I remember having the John Paul Gaultier glasses in high school, and they were the illest. I wanted her to project, like, “Despite everything, I’m still serving.” It’s fucking disgusting, but it’s also erotic. I think the most disgusting things are the most erotic. The brain’s relationship to attraction can be very fucked up.
I love the scene when Hubie puts on a fuchsia shirt to go to lunch with his parents. He’s using the color to try to hype himself up.
I don’t usually gravitate toward fuchsia, but I used to cop a lot of clothes from [Brian] Procell back in the day. Procell is very cool; he looks at you as a person and a character. And one time he gave me a fuchsia shirt, a weirdo brand, extra large, way bigger than it needed to be for me. He was like, “I just think you need this.” I tried it on, and I was like, “This is so ill.” It’s how I would dress if I was a happy-go-lucky white dude in Cape Cod. So sometimes, when I need to channel positivity, I wear that shirt. That’s the good-day shirt: good weather, I’m happy. It’s the color of that beer, Taihu. Hubie is trying to manifest a good hang with his parents so I gave him that shirt.
This is obviously a spoiler, but Hubie does get married at the end of the book. And I noticed that you don’t make a big deal of his wedding outfit. He pops an Adderall, takes a shower, and puts on the same Teatora pants and a sweater. He thinks about adding a hat or glasses but decides against it.
By the time I met Natashia, clothes didn’t matter anymore. When you meet your person, the meaning behind clothing starts to disappear. You get to a certain level of intimacy, and things start to fall off. Other things mean less because there’s this thing that takes up so much space in your consciousness — that means so much. And then everything is in its proper place.
