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Having presented well over 1,000 episodes of the much-loved BBC Radio 4 series, Melvyn Bragg has made the decision to step down from In Our Time following the series which aired earlier this year. Melvyn has presented every episode of In Our Time since the series first launched in 1998.

In Our Time is regularly one of the BBC’s most listened to on-demand programmes around the world, its appeal spanning generations. It is one of BBC Sounds’ most popular podcasts amongst under 35s.

Over the last quarter of a century, Melvyn has skilfully led conversations about everything from the age of the Universe to ‘Zenobia’, Queen of the Palmyrene Empire. He has welcomed the company of the brightest and best academics in their fields, sharing their passion and knowledge with a fascinated audience right around the globe.

While he will be much missed on In Our Time, Melvyn will continue to be a friend of Radio 4 with more to come to celebrate his extraordinary career, and a new series in 2026 (details to be announced soon).

Melvyn Bragg says: “For a programme with a wholly misleading title which started from scratch with a six-month contract, it’s been quite a ride! I have worked with many extremely talented and helpful people inside the BBC as well as some of the greatest academics around the world. It’s been a great privilege and pleasure. I much look forward to continuing to work for the BBC on Radio 4. Thank you for listening.”

Melvyn first joined the BBC in 1961 as a general trainee. His BBC career has spanned the World Service, a ten-year stint presenting Radio 4’s Start the Week from 1988 – 1998 as well as numerous arts and culture programmes. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society and of The British Academy and was given a Peerage in 1998 and a Companion of Honour in 2017. Melvyn will continue to work with the BBC on future projects which are yet to be announced.

Tim Davie, BBC Director General, says: “Melvyn’s passion for the arts, his intellectual curiosity, and his unwavering commitment to public service broadcasting over the last 60-plus years have enriched the lives of millions. Through In Our Time on Radio 4 he has brought depth, insight, and humanity to our airwaves every single week for more than a quarter of a century. He leaves behind not just an extraordinary body of work, but a gold standard of broadcasting and interviewing excellence that will inspire generations to come.”

Mohit Bakaya, Director of Speech and Controller of BBC Radio 4 says: “Melvyn has been part of the heartbeat of Radio 4 for over three decades. His fierce intellect, coupled with a wonderful curiosity and extraordinary passion for knowledge marks him out as one of the broadcasting greats. Though we will miss him on In Our Time, he leaves behind a unique legacy: the treasure trove of over 1,000 archive episodes, which are a wonderful resource for all those with a love of learning. I look forward to working with him on new projects for Radio 4.”

To mark the end of an era, later this year Radio 4 will be airing some of Melvyn’s most cherished episodes and there will also be a curated selection on BBC Sounds chosen by some of In Our Time’s most notable fans.

In Our Time will be back on Radio 4 with a new presenter who will be announced in due course.

Biography

Melvyn Bragg was born in Wigton, Cumbria in 1939. He went to the local Grammar School and then to Wadham College, Oxford. He joined the BBC in 1961, and published his first novel For Want of a Nail in 1965. By that time he had become a Director on Huw Wheldon’s Arts programme Monitor. He worked with Ken Russell on The Debussy Film and again on The Music Lovers starring Glenda Jackson, and Isadora starring Vanessa Redgrave; he wrote the screenplay for Jesus Christ Superstar and for Play Dirty starring Michael Caine.

He left the BBC and continued to write novels which include The Hired Man (Time Life Silver PEN Award), The Soldier’s Return (WH Smith Literary Award), Without A City Wall (Mail on Sunday John Llewellyn Rhys Prize), A Place In England, Son of War and Crossing The Lines (all three were nominated for The Man Booker Prize), Now Is The Time(Parliamentary Book Award 2016). Howard Goodall wrote a successful musical based on The Hired Man. There have also been non-fiction books – The Adventure of English, The Impact of The King James Bible, On Giants’ Shoulders, Rich: The Life of Richard Burton, William Tyndale: A Very Brief History. Most of his novels are set in his native Cumbria.

In 1977 he started The South Bank Show for LWT which he edited and presented for Sky Arts. He has presented the Radio 4 programme on Science, History and Religion, In Our Time, since 1998.

He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society and of The British Academy. He was given a Peerage in 1998 and a Companion of Honour in 2017.

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Expectations for the music team behind Netflix’s Wednesday were always going to be high when it came to season 2, with the first installment of the reimagined Addams Family series pulling in historic numbers for the streamer when it first premiered in 2022. With 341.23 million hours watched, it broke the record previously held by Stranger Things 4 for first-week views on the platform.  

But part of what made the show’s debut as successful as it was can be chalked up to its memorable musical moments, both planned and not. Everything from Jenna Ortega’s original choreography to the black dress she was wearing at a Nevermore Academy formal scene became “iconic” – as music supervisor Jen Malone tells Billboard – thanks to a perfectly creepy-crawly “Goo Goo Muck” synch, after which The Cramps also got an 8,650% streaming boost on the track. And when fans started using the scene to make edits paired with Lady Gaga’s “Bloody Mary,” the show’s popularity only continued to surge while the 11-year-old Born This Way deep cut became an unofficial yet unequivocal part of the Wednesday universe.  

Naturally, three years later, fans of the series weren’t just going to be dying to see how Wednesday Addams (played by Jenna Ortega) would return to handle her unfinished business with love interest-turned-killer monster Tyler Galpin — and solve the mystery of her anonymous stalker — they would also be expecting even more inspired musical choices. Adding to the pressure was Mother Monster herself joining the show, with Gaga coming aboard to play the ghost of a deceased Nevermore professor — who at one point sends Wednesday down a dangerous path as she tries to regain her psychic abilities – and contribute an original song titled “The Dead Dance” to the show.  

But just as Miss Addams always seems to find a way out of trouble – near-death experiences included – the Wednesday music team absolutely rose to the occasion on season 2, particularly shining on the second batch of episodes that premiere Wednesday (Sept. 3). Below, Malone, co-supervisor Nicole Weisberg and composer Chris Bacon tell Billboard all about how they pushed the show’s sonic world into even darker territory, while simultaneously subverting viewer expectations with an Enid-approved BLACKPINK tribute, honoring the Addams family’s Hispanic roots, working with Gaga and more. 

(Also, beware – spoilers for the second half of Wednesday are fair game beyond this point!)

What was it like to score music for Lady Gaga’s scenes? Did you take any cues from her performance on screen while composing?

Bacon: It was naturally very exciting to see Lady Gaga pop up on screen, but it was also just treating her like she’s any other character. What is her job? What is her role in this story? Who is who is her character? What is her emotional arc? She brings a certain mythology with her, and there’s a certain mystery and maybe a hint of darkness to her, just like everybody in the Wednesday universe. So it was fun to get to play with that musically.

She delivers her performance in a very specific way, and I don’t necessarily need to add to that as much as complement it in a way. So, I played a lot with some more synthetic sounds, kind of at a higher frequency, and played with reverse effects based on what her job is in the story. 

The “Bloody Mary” phenomenon from last season was almost a moment of reverse music supervision, with fans being the ones to say, “This is the song we think goes best here.” As music supervisors, what was your reaction to that, especially now seeing how it led to Gaga joining the show? 

Weisberg: When we first heard about it, we were like, “What? What is happening?” That’s sort of pop culture for you at its best, evolving on its own. It has a mind of its own sometimes. 

I mean, Lady Gaga is so iconic that it’s like — who knows if this would have happened on its own or not? But it was definitely a treat for all of us to see, like Chris said, someone like that popping on screen and bringing such an added element. 

“Goo Goo Muck” also went crazy viral last season. Did you feel pressure to recreate that virality this time around?

Malone: We really don’t look for that, and that’s not really our job. Our job is to service the story and the characters. The song just being what it is, I think it really lent itself to that sticky moment. But we definitely do not look for or try to recreate moments that will go viral. 

Like with BLACKPINK, that’s just Enid’s sound. We have used K-pop in both season one and in season two, so that was just a natural extension of her character as opposed to, you know, “Ooh, maybe this can go viral.”

As you mentioned, BLACKPINK’s “BOOMBAYAH” plays during an unforgettable sequence where Enid (Emma Myers), trapped inside Wednesday’s body (and vice versa), cheerfully frolics around campus in uncharacteristically colorful clothing. Of all the K-pop hits, why was that the perfect one? 

Weisberg: Producers had this song in mind, and also, I think the nature of the song and the way the lyrics are, it kind of makes for a playful moment instead of, like, a K-pop love song. “BOOMBAYAH” and the way that song felt called for the comedic dancing that was going to go with it. But really, Jenna brought that whole sequence to life. 

When we got the script, we were pretty certain it was going to play well, just the counterpoint of her and Enid. The body-switch episode was definitely a really great script to receive. You’re kind of already imagining what it could be. 

Do you think Enid is a BLINK?

Weisberg: I think she’s a fan. Most people that age are. 

I think season one, it was more like, “Oh, she’d probably be into K-pop.” And then — I mean, it definitely hasn’t gotten less popular. So I think it sort of made sense to stay aligned there. When you think about, like, KPop Demon Hunters and what that’s doing right now on the charts … it’s sort of taking over, more so than pop music from the 2000s might have been. I think anyone her age is definitely aware of K-pop at this point. 

I bet Enid would love KPop Demon Hunters.

Weisberg: Yeah. I’m sure she would too. 

Malone: On many levels. [Laughs.]

How much was Jenna involved in the music this season?

Weisberg: She’s always involved in the cello, in her moments, for sure. She makes playlists, she’s really into being a part of that. 

Malone: She works very closely with her cello teacher because she has to get these pieces well in advance to learn. And she’s definitely involved in giving us notes and helping us get these songs arranged to where they need to be. 

This season, there seemed to be more allusions to the Addams family’s Hispanic roots, like when Gomez (Luis Guzmán) takes a shower while singing along to “Besame Mucho.” How much did you think about their heritage while crafting the music in S2?

Bacon: From a score standpoint, Morticia (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and Gomez were much more involved this season, and they had more specific moments to themselves and also in conjunction with Wednesday. I think there were some more overt Latin elements this season as well. I mean, you have Catherine Zeta-Jones and Jenna Ortega in a blindfolded duel, and it was fun to introduce little guitar elements every now and then that could kind of connect to that, or to have an accordion presence that would come in with Gomez’s over-the-top romantic gestures.

We’re not trying to paint it too heavily, but just kind of nod to those moments. 

Weisberg: I would say it’s a pretty large part of forming their playlists. That is a big conversation point on our end, like, ‘What kind of Latin songs can we include that would make sense?’ The tango in episode three was definitely a fun way to allude to the traditions of Addams family past, but kind of bring it to now. 

“Besame Mucho” was a great choice for the comedy of the moment, while also speaking to [Gomez’s] roots. There’s an artist we use in the first episode, Chavela Vargus, that we used in season one for a Wednesday moment. It’s sprinkled in there. I don’t know how much the audience notices that happening, but it’s definitely a large part of their musical palettes. 

You also reimagined The Cranberries’ “Zombie” and R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion” as instrumentals this season. What went into utilizing those songs? 

Malone: These were songs that have been on our playlist from season one that we were able to use in season two. 

Weisberg: I really like “Zombie.” I don’t think we’ve had a piano element before. But the way the sequence turned out, it’s playing over so much plot. It’s always nice when you can milk a use, for lack of a better term, like, just have it extend and play across multiple things and apply multiple ways. And I think that melody, everyone knows it at this point. As soon as it comes in, I feel like it sort of sets a tone for that long montage.

Bacon: I think what’s fun about that moment specifically is that it plays so differently from the original version. It’s almost subconscious a little bit, until you realize, “Oh, wait, I’ve heard this before. What is this?” But it doesn’t distract you from it. And that’s where I think some of the magic happens, is that there are a lot of layers happening there, and you hear this beautiful, romantic piano version of this anthemic rock song. And then to have it happening over a prison break with zombies eating brains and things like that, there are a lot of layers that go into making it land in a unique way.

What would you say are the biggest differences between the music in season one and two?

Weisberg: Expanding on Morticia and Gomez as characters. They weren’t as present in season one, so kind of getting to dig into: What are the Morticia songs? What are the Gomez songs? That was a really fun shift.

Bacon: I think from my standpoint, it’s just bigger. You haven’t seen the finale yet, but it’s sort of, like, epic moment after epic moment after epic moment. It’s very cinematic and ambitious, but also really delivers in a way that’s very satisfying. Getting to utilize those [musical] tools of cinema for what we call TV – although, who knows what TV is anymore? – it felt very expanded and dramatic.

Malone: Everything was much bigger this season, even plotwise. There’s so much going on, and there are so many new characters. So, being able to just expand the musical palette a little bit, but still stay very true to our roots and what we built in season one … this season we had just a little bit more opportunity.

“I ask myself every day how different it would be if my mom was alive,” Debbie Gibson says. The singer-songwriter is contemplative and clear-voiced, which is unsurprising for a woman who has captivated audiences for decades. This August afternoon, she is on a video call from her home in Las Vegas, where the barefaced star shares a room with, as she describes it, “my Liberace piano” and a full-size carousel horse.

That horse, suspended from the ceiling, was in her music video for “Girls Night Out,” which was filmed at Planet Hollywood.

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“During the pandemic, Planet Hollywood gifted me the horse for my 50th birthday,” she explains. The piano and the massive horse aside, Gibson says her home in the Vegas suburbs is “normal and low-key. I wake up every day to views of the mountains.”

It’s a far cry from Brooklyn, where both Debbie and her mother, Diane, were born.

Gibson’s mother was her partner in crime, personally and professionally, her whole life. Gibson’s new memoir, “Eternally Electric: The Message in My Music,” could only have been this honest in the aftermath of her beloved momager’s death in 2022.

Pop star Debbie Gibson lives a “normal and low-key” life in Las Vegas.

(Denise Truscello / For The Times)

She says, “I think I did her justice and told my mom’s and my story honestly and effectively. I do think that there are several layers more candor in the book than had she still been here. Her passing deepened everything, especially the anniversary shows over the last few years. I’ve been considering the doors she broke down for a lot of young female singer-songwriters and producers. She was going to bat for all of them by sticking up for me in conference rooms, fighting for my voice and the young, female voice.

“That is so strong right now with Taylor Swift, Chappell Roan, Gracie Abrams and Alicia Keys starting out super young; all of them with this aggressiveness and soulfulness that my mom went to bat for.”

Gibson chronicles her childhood in the suburbs of New York and the peaks of celebrity — including her comeback in 2020, when her single “Girls Night Out” returned her to the Billboard charts after 30 years. From teaching herself to produce as a teenager, to death threats, panic attacks and international fame, Gibson, 54, mined decades of experience for this memoir.

She was only 16 when her debut album, “Out of the Blue,” dropped in 1987. It went triple platinum. A handful of albums in the ‘90s and early 2000s and singles of varying chart success all the way up to 2022 followed, and all the while, Gibson was singing and dancing on Broadway stages and serving as a judge on reality programs, or as a contestant in the case of “Dancing With the Stars.”

“I proposed books several times throughout the course of my career,” she says. “With my late, great momager Diane, we made the rounds but, truthfully, I hadn’t lived enough life. A publishing company wants something salacious, which I didn’t have, and that was never what I wanted to do.”

In December 2023, she immersed herself in remembering, writing and compiling a record of her life in and out of the public eye.

“It felt like such a great time at this point because I’m in a true second act, the party is still going. … I feel so grounded, so connected to my audience in a way I recall feeling back in high school. I’ve been through so many of the universal challenges and difficulties, but my story has had so many plot twists, and I’m at a point where I feel I’ve landed on my feet.”

Debbie Gibson performs in 1988, the year she became the youngest person to write, produce and perform a No. 1 hit.

(Paul Natkin / Getty Images)

Gibson was a rarity in the late 1980s, writing and producing her own work at a time when record labels saw young women and girls as pretty faces and nubile bodies delivering songs written by established male songwriters and produced by male engineers. “Out of the Blue,” which sold 5 million copies worldwide, was written and produced in Gibson’s family garage, which her mom had custom-built into a studio. Gibson set out on a tour of nightclubs and within months, the first single, “Only in My Dreams,” was No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100. “Seeing my name printed below Michael Jackson and Madonna and immediately above Whitney Houston was surreal,” she writes.

By 1988, Gibson’s first chart-topper, “Foolish Beat,” established her as the youngest artist in history to write, perform and produce a No. 1 U.S. single, breaking the record set by George Michael. Nine months later, she repeated the feat with “Lost in Your Eyes” from her 1989 double-platinum second album, “Electric Youth.”

It was an unusual childhood, but a happy one, by Gibson’s account. “I remember the sense of joy and freedom as a young girl making music,” she says, “I had no bills, nothing on the line if I failed, so to speak. If I didn’t get a record deal, my life would go on. I don’t know quite where that self-motivation came from.”

Gibson says Diane empowered her and her sisters, so perhaps the source of her inspiration isn’t a mystery.

“My mom, my sisters — a family of mostly girls — our mom empowered us all, and she really instilled in us that we should do whatever makes us happy and that we had the power to do so. I was always doing things that are usually reserved for males. I was doing production when there were no techie girls in my town. I was a freaky, techie kid, wiring my own patchbay in the studio. I was doing whatever I had to do to get what I visualized out of those speakers.”

Debbie Gibson hugs her mom Diane before her high school graduation in Merrick, Long Island, in 1988.

(Paul DeMaria / New York Daily News Archive via Getty Images)

For the high schooler, that catapult to fame coincided with the onset of crippling panic attacks. She and her parents faced death threats and several stalkers, so Gibson had a security guard when entering and leaving hotels and tour buses. It was isolating. But the perks were undeniably big. At 18, just before setting off for the Electric Youth tour, Gibson bought her family a 10,000-square-foot house in Lloyd Harbor, N.Y. She met Princess Diana during a London trip, received praise backstage from Michael Jackson and “battled” Kylie Minogue for the same pool of dancers.

She reflects, “Some people feel like, ‘the arts are not a real job, not a real profession, and it’s too risky.’ And it is very risky. So you need parents that are as crazy as you are. And I had that, which is amazing. I wouldn’t be here talking to you now if I didn’t, and so, what a life. You know, it’s a hard life, it’s an uncertain life, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

While Gibson recalls some dubious, if not deeply concerning, interactions with male celebrities and executives, she insists she was never treated inappropriately. Still, she mentions Australian actor Craig McLachlan showing up to her dressing room wearing nothing but a “dance belt” to play guitar for her and a suggestion from her label that if she wanted her record to get airplay, she had to go to dinner with a radio program director, “this man old enough to be one of my school teachers.”

In 2005, the butter-wouldn’t-melt Gibson finally agreed to pose nude for Playboy, which had “called us like clockwork about every two years or so” since her 18th birthday. At 34, she rationalized that she’d already shown most of her body for her roles in the musicals “Les Misérables,” “Grease” and “Chicago.”

Gibson reflects on the thin line between what was Playboy material two decades ago and what is album cover material today. She says, “It’s so funny, because I saw the Taylor Swift artwork for her new album, and went, ‘Oh my God,’ because she’s got the cropped dark wig on and I did that exact look for Playboy. It’s so interesting that the line between showing what you need to show for it to be a Playboy shoot or not is a thin line, but that’s everything.”

She adds, “I always had a freedom about me, and Playboy was a chance to express it. It was a final frontier in breaking out of what people might have boxed me in as.”

“I’ve been considering the doors she broke down for a lot of young female singer-songwriters and producers,” Debbie Gibson says of her late mom and manager, Diane. “She was going to bat for all of them by sticking up for me in conference rooms, fighting for my voice and the young, female voice.”

(Denise Truscello / For The Times)

Four decades into her career, Gibson epitomizes the relentless drive that her momager instilled. Her performances and her music are independently produced, which is nonstop work, but that hasn’t dampened her plans for tackling even more projects.

“This whole ‘book chapter’ has been a long time coming, and continuing my own independent tour is a bitch,” she says (though it’s “bee-atch” in her intonation). “It’s a round-the-clock job, but I’m planning on expanding it internationally.”

Then, there’s the album and Broadway.

“Next on the plate is more international touring and recording my next album. I referenced some of the newer songs in the book. Writing for musical theater is definitely on the plate and possibly getting the musicals I have written off the ground. I have people ask me all the time, ‘Do you want to come back to Broadway?’ And I might, but I’d rather go back to Broadway next as a creator, as a composer and lyricist, producer, musical director and all of that.”

Creating is her “happy place,” she confesses, which sounds like a reprieve from the experience of writing her memoir.

“It was very emotional,” Gibson acknowledges. “It’s like being in therapy all day, every day, talking about your life, writing about your life.”

Everything in Luchita Hurtado’s life belonged to a daily practice.

Her artwork was, of course, a major part of that routine. But her need to express herself often took forms beyond the canvas. She kept shelves full of journals which documented her day-to-day life and tracked all her dreams — never excluding the most mundane moments, from what she ate for lunch to taking her car to the mechanic. Her living spaces were delicately curated, with indigenous artifacts, rocks and leaves she would pick up on her walks and vintage wind-up toys. And no matter the occasion, Hurtado led this intentional lifestyle wearing a wardrobe she crafted entirely for herself.

The Venezuelan-born painter lived in a utilitarian uniform of sorts. She designed all kinds of pieces, from striped vests and floor-length dresses to lightweight pants and winter coats. But almost every silhouette was inspired after a specific design she used for almost all her shirts: a boxy shape with four front pockets and partial buttons, similar to a smock. Seemingly inspired by Japanese workwear, Hurtado wore these oversize, functional looks for around 80 years.

Inside a Gardena warehouse, where her and her husband Lee Mullican’s estates are housed, racks hang from the high ceilings. It’s the first time her personal wardrobe is being shared with the public in this capacity. Surrounded by packaged canvases, drawers of sketches and displayed family photos, Hurtado’s clothes are color-coded, labeled and tagged with identifiers. There are dozens of her favored shirt form, each made from the same sewing pattern in colors ranging anywhere from beige to a deep magenta. Other racks hold the matching skirts and pants as well as stylized denim shawls and double-breasted, patchwork coats she made for special occasions.

In 2018, Hurtado was featured as a part of the Hammer Museum’s “Made in L.A.” series. The pictured clothing item is a version of her signature shirt, which she designed specifically for the exhibit. It was sold in the gift shop at the time.

Hurtado’s “uniform,” though, wasn’t without modifications. Once she figured out her signature boxy silhouette, she experimented from there. Some were made from colorful tweed, iridescent fabric or patterned upholstery material. The shirts, though of the same shape, varied between full button-ups and a more pop-over style with a few buttons. Some tops had no buttons at all. She would sometimes use erratic stitching to pattern her clothes or reversible patterns to give a rolled sleeve a bigger pop.

“She was somebody that didn’t want to settle for what was around her and made her own path for everything,” says Cole Root, the director of Hurtado and Mullican’s estates. He worked with Hurtado, as a registrar, from 2017 until 2020, when she died. Now, he helps carry on the two artists’ legacies.

Though Hurtado created art throughout her almost 100-year life, she didn’t start to gain mainstream recognition until her 90s. In her last years, she was able to see her paintings fill places like LACMA, the Hammer Museum and London’s Serpentine Gallery.

Over the summer, Hauser & Wirth’s downtown L.A. gallery opened “Yo Soy” (on view through Oct. 5), a more expansive look into Hurtado’s first solo exhibition at the Woman’s Building in 1974. The show is centered around her “Linear Language” series, where Hurtado abstracted various words into geometric shapes and patterns to create a new kind of portrait. Some of the paintings are brightly colored and spell out many hidden words like “mouth,” “alone” or “child.”

Luchita Hurtado, “Face for Arcimboldo,” 1973, Oil on canvas, 189.9 x 189.9 cm

(Jeff McLane / Courtesy The Estate of Luchita Hurtado and Hauser & Wirth)

She writes in the original artist statement: “I had a good response to the show but no one saw the letters, the messages. Just the color and energy. It didn’t seem important that they were not fully seen and I thought it superfluous to explain.”

While leading a tour of the show, Root even joked about how it’s taken him years to spot some of the camouflaged words.

From her repetitious linework to her paintings of blue skies with surrealist feathers and self-portraits of her fragmented nude body, Hurtado’s art is marked by her sense of experimentation and constant changes in style. At the heart of all her work lies her deep interest in what it means to be human and exist in nature.

But before settling into art, Hurtado got her start with clothes — roots that she at first rejected yet returned to throughout her life.

She was born in Maiquetía, Venezuela, where her mother was a seamstress and her father a representative for Singer sewing machines. It was initially her grandmother who taught Hurtado to sew, as it was a skill most Venezuelan girls acquired during childhood. Hurtado’s early moments of solitude and daydreaming were often interrupted by her grandma, who would tell her that “idle hands tempt the devil” and then guide Hurtado through undoing and restitching the hem on her favorite dress. Hurtado then immigrated to New York City in 1928, when she was 8.

For high school, the aspiring artist attended Washington Irving, one of the first women’s vocational schools in the city. Her family was under the impression she was studying dressmaking and following in the steps of her family. It wasn’t until after graduation that they discovered she had been studying art the whole time.

“Her family was trying to establish themselves in this country, so they stuck with the support systems they had,” says Root. “But Luchita was really branching out from that.”

She returned to the sewing machine while pregnant with her first son. She wasn’t a fan of any of the contemporary maternity clothes, writing that stores only offered “‘butcher boy’ dresses with an ugly hole cut out in the skirt.” So she decided to make exactly what she wanted: long flowy skirts and comfortable but operational tops.

“It’s really the way Lucita lived her life. She wasn’t going to do the thing that her family was doing. She always kind of chose her path,” says Root. “So, she returned to making clothing when what she wanted wasn’t available. She manifested her own reality and perfected this uniform.”

The striped denim suit, pictured on the right, is one of the last suits she made. It was made from fabric she had found in L.A., sometime in the 80s or 90s. As someone who “ended up with a passion for denim,” she notes that “it’s by far the nicest.”

Her collection was meant to last her through different phases of her life. All of the skirts had elastic waists, were cut on the bias (a nonnegotiable for Hurtado) and had a little contrast stitch on the trim. Motherhood marked much of her adult life, as three of her four children were born 11 years apart.

Root shares, “She found great joy in it. It was something she could do to make her happy. She could envision making things for her children, even when she couldn’t afford it or if it didn’t exist.”

As a mother in her 20s, going through a divorce from her first husband, Hurtado had to come up with new ways to support her family. She turned to her familial roots in fashion and combined them with her artistic practices. She worked on window displays and murals for department store Lord & Taylor and did fashion illustrations for Condé Nast.

Root points out a heavy winter coat among one of the racks. The bright red material with thick black stripes was originally a Pendleton horse blanket in a Lord & Taylor’s Christmas window display. Hurtado’s employers at the time allowed her to keep it. She then turned it into a jacket which she wore her whole life, especially in New York winters.

In an indirect way, her closet was a factor in her decision to settle down in Los Angeles. It was 1951 and she had recently coupled up with Lee Mullican, a member of the post-surrealist group Dynaton. He was headed to Oklahoma, tending to some exhibitions, and she was pregnant, unsure of where to go.

“Her sister had told her not to come home to Venezuela because their mom wouldn’t want her there pregnant, with no husband. She thought about going to New York, but it was winter and she didn’t have any warm clothes. So she found a support system in L.A.,” says Root. The story continues that she found a fully furnished apartment for her family immediately after giving birth and while still in the hospital bed. She and Mullican eventually got married and settled into a home in the Santa Monica Canyon where they split the remainder of their lives between Los Angeles and Taos, New Mexico.

Almost every article in Hurtado’s archive has a unique story. Before her passing in 2020, members of her team sat with her, went through her entire closet and took note of each anecdote she shared. Today, these records exist digitally in an organized spreadsheet, with columns detailing when each item was made, the materials used and Hurtado’s associated memories.

Some of the remarks include notes like, “used to wear with big platform shoes,” “good for travel because it doesn’t crease,” “very art nouveau” and “I ended up with a passion for denim.” Others are more in-depth, telling stories about the time she dressed as a geisha: “They put on ropes that bind you in to put on the back part of the clothing. My ribs were black and blue. It really hurt.” Or she recounts the story of wearing her white cotton jacket with these “Indian shoes … that point and turn up at the end, very unusual combination. I met a couple who were intrigued by my outfit and wanted to know where the shoes were from. It turned out to be Dalí and his wife!” She knew exactly where she wore most of these logged outfits, like when she would attend Condé Nast parties or one of Frank Gehry’s functions.

Among the racks, there are some pieces left unfinished, threads hanging and pins pushed in. Every single article of clothing, whether it was worn hundreds of times or never completed, still carries the feeling of being lived in. Behind a partition in the warehouse, bins full of fabric cram the storage space. Hurtado always had plans to continue creating more pieces. Her daily practice truly never stopped.

When you’re talking about Blondie frontwoman and style icon Debbie Harry, nothing is predictable. She appeared at our interview with opaque cat eye sunglasses and her signature shag haircut stylishly mussed. The smirk on her lips told me that our conversation would be memorable.

Decades before, she crashed onto the rock ’n’ roll scene with new wave and genre-bending band Blondie in 1970s New York City. It wasn’t without work and a lot of risk-taking— throughout her career, Harry has not been wanting to shy away from risks. From being the first musician to rap in a No. 1 Billboard song to pursuing a solo career and an acting career post-Blondie break-up, following her creative instinct is something that comes naturally.

“The seeds of creativity aren’t really just numbers and letters. It’s a lot more. It has to do with us. It has to do with soul,” Harry said.

Most recently, the fashion icon released a line of clothing inspired by her lifelong punk aesthetics and androgynous style. In collaboration with Oregon-based brand Wildfang, her most recent foray into fashion is indicative of one thing: Debbie Harry is still hungry to do more.

As Blondie gears up for its most recent album produced by John Congleton of St. Vincent, set to release early next year, Harry sat down for a conversation on her influential style in her new fashion line, how AI has nothing on her, doing the “wrong” thing and how that “old search for soul” is motivating her as she steps into the studio once again.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

I noticed in researching your career that there’s just so much reinvention. You’ve constantly reinvented yourself from a harmony singer to a lead singer in a band to soloist to an actress to band member again and now as a fashion collaborator. What do you think pushes you to constantly reinvent yourself and pursue new creative passions?

There are some things that I absolutely loved, but I didn’t take the chance. … At this stage in the game, I have to follow my rules. And I think for a young woman or a young girl to find that out about herself, it creates an awareness of who you are and your personality. And that’s sort of what young people do. They look for themselves, they look for who they are. And fashion can be a big part of that.

What would you describe as your style philosophy?

I think comfort. I want to put on what I’m going to wear and I want to feel right in it, and then I don’t want to have to think about it. I don’t want to have to be walking around the room making sure that my seams are straight, or my sleeves are right; I just want to have it on. I want to look great and I want to be comfortable in it.

For Wildfang, I got introduced to them through suits, and you know, I’ve always worn suits, like little boy things, and they’re fun. I think fun is an important thing to embody in what you do, that and some kind of silliness or fearlessness, that’s what turns people on, so I’m all for that. I’ve been doing it for so long, but I encourage younger artists to break the rules.

Something that I really love about your style is this very DIY approach to fashion that you’ve always had. Especially with the infamous zebra print pillowcase dress and other looks where you seem to tear things up and put different pieces together. How does this DIY approach translate for you today?

Sometimes when you start out, you have to experiment. And I’m really in favor of that. I think experimentation is the key to success, and that’s always been that way for me. I was sort of lucky in not having many options when I started and I did things that were wrong. They weren’t really styles at the time. They weren’t appropriate for the era. But doing things that you feel strongly about, coupled with the workability of a piece of clothing, even if it’s wrong, it could be right for you. So, I always tell people not to be afraid to do something that might be considered wrong.

I think that sort of applies to, as you were saying earlier, do it yourself, like taking that zebra striped pillowcase and making a hot little number out of it was the right thing. I don’t know, it just worked for me. I don’t know if everybody wants to be that individualistic. So that’s why finding a line of clothes that fits you right and suits your activities and your frame of mind, your mood, it’s all very, very personal, very important.

I wanted to talk about your new album. I’m really excited to hear it. I listened to “Pollinator,” and I really loved this very fresh, almost rebellious sound that permeated the music. How would you describe the essence of your upcoming album?

I think our tradition has always been to cover a lot of different styles and to embody some different moods. So in that respect, it’s a very traditional Blondie album. I think the thing that makes people carry on with us is that we’re excited about what we do, and we work hard at it, and it’s not sort of like, oh, well, I guess let’s do [an album]. We write songs. We write stuff that’s about our lives and about today.

I know for a fact that when I write a song with Chris [Stein], he usually comes in with a demo of the track. And then, this has happened from Day 1. I would say, “Chris, what are you thinking when you’re writing this music? What’s going through your head? Are you saying any particular phrase? Are you thinking of a particular word? Were you thinking about a special evening or a special event, a special movie?”

It’s very easy for him to come up with a definition in words. Many times, that would be a jumping-off point for me, with like “Heart of Glass” or “Dreaming.” More recently, we have a song on the new album called “A Man with No Face.” And so I asked him, “What was that root? What was your mantra? What were you thinking of?” And very often that led me in a really good direction.

So did he lead a lot of the writing, or was this a joint collaboration between the band for the album?

Yes, well, we had a lot of contributors. Glen Matlock [original Sex Pistols bassist] started playing bass with us a little while ago, and he contributed a song that is so terrific. It’s just a wonderful song, and it really sticks in your head. It reminds me of his contribution to the Sex Pistols; it has that feel to it. It’s a great, simple, three-chord, four-chord song with a great feel. It’s on the album, and it’s called “Sleepwalking.”

There’s also some really great dance music [in the album]. It’s very rock and roll, but yet, we’ve always managed to squeeze in elements of other sounds in music and other styles of music, other moods of music. And Blondie has always done that. We’ve always embodied the present. So it feels like Blondie.

That genre-blending is obviously a recurring theme in Blondie’s music. Between having the first [Billboard] No. 1 rap song to the reggae influences and playing around with styles in general, I notice that you never really let genre limit you. What are your thoughts on breaking the barrier of genre and not staying within a musical box?

I think that there was a time when it wasn’t done, and I think that was back in the ’70s. It’s quite a few years ago when the styles weren’t blended. If you did a reggae album, you did a reggae album, and if you did a rock album, you did a rock album. But then we started mixing in influences because we were so urban. These were the influences that were around us [in New York City], and it just seemed normal; I don’t know how else to explain it. These were the things that we liked.

We liked Donna Summer, we liked Giorgio Moroder. We liked all these different varieties of sounds and styles. And it just fed into what we were doing. We were at a time, fortunately, where we went from analog to digital, and it made so many more things possible that everybody today is really used to all the things that I’m saying, because that’s what’s done. This is what it’s all about. But there was a time when it was about discovery.

It goes along with my ideas about what I was saying about fashion, discovering what you are, who you are and what you want to look like. It sort of applies to what we did with music. We had feelings about rap. We had feelings about reggae. We had feelings about dance music and club music. It was part of our underpinnings, so to speak. And so therefore it became obvious in the music when the music sort of transcended just a basic rock four-by-four.

The world has become a much smaller place because of digital communications and the improvement in communication. If only that communication went beyond the arts and so that we had this understanding in other aspects. I mean, we have intercultural understandings in food and fashion and music and art, and we should have it in every phase of our lives.

How do you think Blondie as a band and as a collaboration between artists is growing and changing over the years?

Well, one thing I know is practice. “Practice and you get to Carnegie Hall” is the old saying. But, when you keep playing, you just get better and better at what you do. And I think that applies to anything, like writing. I mean, the more that you’ve written, the better you become at it, and then the easier it is for you to say things that resonate within you, and that take place in your life and your observation of life.

And we’re lucky [to have new technology] now, because the brain works very quickly. We see things and we can change things very instantly. Nowadays, you can actually make your thoughts fact just as easily. And so I think it serves us well.

I remember when cassettes became a threat to vinyl. And how the guys from the record companies were all sort of going, “Oh my God, anybody can copy an album and make it into a cassette, and then they don’t have to buy the album!” So we weathered that storm, and then cassettes went to CDs or 8-tracks, and it’s sort of the same thing now when we’re looking at AI. So everybody’s saying, “Oh my god, AI! What will we do?”

Well, AI is much more comprehensive than any of those transitions. And I have seen AI-generated pictures of me, and I look at them and I just say, “Oh, well, that’s AI, that’s not me.” I can tell. So, I think people are worried about it, and I don’t know how much time anyone should worry. The seeds of creativity aren’t really just numbers and letters. It’s a lot more. It has to do with us. It has to do with soul. And, bring back that old search for soul. That’s something that was very obvious in the 1960s, to make something with soul. And basically that’s what the contrast with AI is. I’ve been played songs that were built on an algorithm, and I found them kind of boring.

So you’re personally not worried about AI. You feel like it’s not a threat to musicians, because music needs soul?

That would be my preference. But I think that somewhere, somehow along the line, somebody will come up with an AI piece of music or artwork that is stunning.

I think if you do stuff that’s mistakes or wrong, that becomes the best art of all. I can remember, when I was in school, centuries ago, that we’d go down and we’d buy these little 45s. Very often, the B-side would have mistakes, they would never have been pressed or released in today’s world, but something about mistakes that lead to a “Oh well, maybe we can use that?” moment, and it just grows from there.

I read this really beautiful interview that you did with Gaga 10 years ago, and in it, she was expressing how much you inspired her and how much seeing a lead female musician made a big difference for her in her career. How is that for you to see your impact on younger artists and see them taking some nods from you in their work?

It’s great. I mean, we did the same thing, we all do that, we absorb what’s around us. I don’t think that I want to take eight bars of so and so’s song and throw them into mine, but the impetus, or the feeling of their song, triggered something in me. Sometimes if I go to a live show, I’ll come out with maybe just a beat that they’re playing that I’ve really liked, and that will inspire a bit of a lyric. This creates this sort of a mantra-like effect, where you’re just feeling that thing, and then a phrase comes to your head and your mind because of something that happened to you that day or that week. And it’s like puzzle pieces. It’s really fun. It’s really fascinating.

But no matter what was your inspiration, you are going to describe something only like the way you would do it. And that’s what the value is for me.

Is there something that you’re excited for in this new stage of your career, and something that you’re looking forward to?

Well, I’m excited for the album to come out. [“Am I releasing the title?” she asks her manager beside her.] Okay, we’re calling it “High Noon.” And it’s very funny. I was just playing one of my old songs, very old songs, and I actually used that name, “High Noon,” in a lyric. So there is a continuity with the way that we think and the way that we lead our lives. And it’s very important. And it’s a building block kind of thing. It’s Legos. That’s right, our life is nothing but Legos.

I was really curious, was there was ever a pivotal moment in your career that really impacted the way that you approach music or approach creative pursuits?

Well, I don’t know if there was any one extreme, pivotal moment, but I think working in an ensemble situation was a really, really valuable lesson. I think when you’re in the recording studio, it’s very intense and very focused. It’s like when you catch someone on a candid camera, like a candid film or video; it’s very revealing.

Being in the studio like that, I think that a pivotal moment for me was to not be afraid of that, to not hold on to my idea for fear that anything else would be terrible, but sort of see it as building blocks. I think that’s what art is about, it’s something that actually grows, it’s almost like it’s another level of being. It’s about consciousness, I suppose. Embodying all the stuff that’s around you that you can’t really escape. You can escape it if you isolate yourself, and make yourself stick to something because that’s what you know, but I think that searching and trying to express yourself is art.

Andy Warhol, when he started out, was so criticized in the art scene for using print work instead of doing everything by hand. Using that medium, he was really heavily criticized for that. In today’s world, it’s nothing, it’s normal. He took a chance and did something that’s “wrong,” but absolutely right. I love that idea. Especially coming out of the “punk thing,” that little era, that little moment, that little glitch in time, when you had people like the Talking Heads doing what they were doing, I think that was a breakthrough.

But even Gaga, with the way that she “pounds” music out, I think at one time that would’ve been considered “wrong.” The way that she is a pianist, and she will stand up and play with her knee, that kind of stuff. And, well, Little Richard did that too, and Elton John, and these are expressions of passion. That’s the complete value, is passion.

Is passion what motivates you to continue making music, or what would you say is your motivation?

I have to feel right about it; it has to feel like an automatic thing. I’m very fortunate that I’m very musical, that I like hearing music. I like odd chord changes; when I was singing with the Jazz Passengers, that was sort of like going to college for me, they used all kinds of time signatures and harmonics and things. That was really exciting for me. And, I don’t know, I’m just very lucky, I guess. I’m lucky I get to enjoy oddities in my life. I’m going to keep creating until I can’t anymore.