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Sign up todayStrip Tees
A Memoir of Millennial Los Angeles
Narrator
Kate Flannery
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Length
7 hours 15 minutes
Language
English
Bookseller recommendation
“Both juicy and deeply upsetting, this story of what went on behind the scenes of the cult-like clothing brand American Apparel makes for a truly entertaining memoir. If you like being let in on secrets, this is a great listen!”
— Sydney • Book Soup
This program is read by the author.
“Compelling and brave, Kate’s story is a must read for all young women learning how to navigate adulthood and identity.” —Lili Reinhart, New York Times bestselling author
Strip Tees is a fever dream of a memoir—Hunter S. Thompson meets Gloria Steinem—about a recent college graduate and what happens when her feminist ideals meet the real world.
At the turn of the new millennium, LA is the place to be. “Hipster” is a new word on the scene. Lauren Conrad is living her Cinderella story in the “Hills” on millions of television sets across the country. Paris Hilton tells us “That’s hot” from behind the biggest sunglasses imaginable, while beautiful teenagers fight and fall in love on The O.C.
Into this most glittering of supposed utopias, Kate Flannery arrives with a Seven Sisters diploma in hand and a new job at an upstart clothing company called American Apparel. Kate throws herself into the work, determined to climb the corporate fashion ladder. Having a job at American Apparel also means being a part of the advertising campaigns themselves, stripping down in the name of feminism.
She slowly begins to lose herself in a landscape of rowdy sex-positivity, racy photo shoots, and a cultlike devotion to the unorthodox CEO and founder of the brand. The line between sexual liberation and exploitation quickly grows hazy, leading Kate to question the company’s ethics and wrestle with her own.
Strip Tees captures a moment in our recent past that’s already sepia-toned in nostalgia, and also paints a timeless portrait of a young woman who must choose between what business demands and self-respect requires.
A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt & Company.
Kate Flannery was born and raised in Northeastern Pennsylvania. She holds a BA in Creative Writing from Bryn Mawr College and currently works for the Emmy Award-winning RuPaul’s Drag Race. She is the lead singer and frontwoman for LA’s premier Little Richard tribute band, Big Dick. Strip Tees is her first book.
Kate Flannery was born and raised in Northeastern Pennsylvania. She holds a BA in Creative Writing from Bryn Mawr College and currently works for the Emmy Award-winning RuPaul’s Drag Race. She is the lead singer and frontwoman for LA’s premier Little Richard tribute band, Big Dick. Strip Tees is her first book.
Reviews
“As the author details her initiation into the realities of corporate misogyny, the author provides a disturbing look at the dangerous ways modern capitalism can debase, deform, and blind the individuals it exploits...A candid and provocative memoir.”
—Kirkus
“Hypnotically devastating and funny in unexpected ways, Kate Flannery's Strip Tees fearlessly guides us back to her early working days, questioning her choices while exposing the heartbreaking, often outrageous, manipulations that seduced her into the cult-like milieu of American Apparel. It's so wild, and she captures it superbly.”
—Laura Albert, aka JT LeRoy, author of Sarah and The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things
“Strip Tees was a book I could not put down. As I read Kate Flannery's memoir of being one of the first American Apparel employees, I was flooded with Millennial nostalgia and then hit by the realization that I wore tube socks as a 14-year-old girl because Dov Charney was into old issues of Hustler where women wore tube socks. This book is a feminist, inside look at one of the creepiest corners of the 2000s.”
—Blythe Roberson, author of How to Date Men When You Hate Men
“Reading Kate Flannery’s memoir Strip Tees felt like stepping into a Sofia Coppola film about Los Angeles in the mid-aughts: Everyone is smiling and laughing and flirting and then the soundtrack turns ominous and the walls start to melt. This book is a rapid, queasy descent into hipster hell, and I couldn’t get enough of it.”
—Heather Havrilesky, Ask Polly columnist and author of Foreverland: On the Divine Tedium of Marriage
“Kate Flannery's technicolor tale of innocence lost is a searing, time-capsule portrait of the American millennial dreamscape--both it's shimmering veneer and sordid underbelly--backlit by sex, sun and scandal, and written in prose that sings as it breaks your heart. Every generation produces a handful of memoirs that define it. Strip Tees is one of them. I couldn't put it down.”
—David Goodwillie, author of Kings County