🔥FIRE SALE🔥 No. 19 - An Interview with The Preppy Witch Zoë Burnett 🧹👔
The spiritual power of objects 🔮, New England folk witchcraft🌙, and the occult nature of preppiness 🎀💀.
Zoë has a keen eye for objects, and a deeper look into her family history reveals a hereditary reverence for the spiritual power of the material world. When I first perused her stall, Ram’s Head Vintage, at a recent Alfargo’s Market, I was immediately taken with the New England staples that make up the bulk of her collection. New England is in her bones, and so are the material ephemera and the folk memories that are imbued in objects she collects and in her own modest American folk magic practice.
Author of the forthcoming The Preppy Witch Handbook, Zoë is an astute observer of the meddling of that old weird America–the one filled with folk tales, spells, paranoia, peace, and the preppy aesthetic that has become one of the most prominent, if not the most prominent American style of the 20th century. Zoë’s perspective proves that the gap between the modern and bygone folkways of this country is not so distant; they are actually intertwined, and certain styles, such as “prep,” are actually in the lineage of the strange spookiness that haunts the New England area.
Zoë and I chatted over Zoom while she was moving out of her apartment, and this transitional period provided the perfect opportunity to discuss the significance of objects, specifically clothing, in her life and in American life.
What is your first clothing memory?
It's one of my first memories ever. I was born in 1992, and we were where my mother did her shopping. It was the 90s. So they still had those cool boutique shops and clothing shops–they were all over the place. I distinctly remember one of the tall mannequins in one of those stores near the Star Market where she would shop. There were these beautiful rhinestone or sequin shoes, I forget which, but I remember they were sparkly. I was probably two or three when I ran, and I grabbed the platform where the mannequins were and tried getting up on it. I remember just being taken. To this day, I still love sequin shoes.
How does Massachusetts inform your style?
Well, it's all sort of a part of me. I grew up in Townsend, Massachusetts, which is kind of the dead center, and on the border of New Hampshire, so we had our own local place. But also, if they didn't have something that you needed, I remember filling out the catalog for L.L. Bean. And then, as I got older, I went through the phases. I was a goth in middle school, grew out of that, and then just kind of reverted back to how my grandmother dressed in the 50s–because I got into vintage.
What drew you to clothes, objects, and collecting?
My dad's an early American glass collector, which is how I ended up working in antiques. So that was a big springboard because he would take me to Brimfield (one of the largest flea markets in the country). I've been going there since I was a kid, and antiques stores of all types. Also, I really like old things. Within my own work, what I do is very much homegrown in that tradition. I only really realized how distinct it was when I moved out or even when I just talked to other people who weren't from Massachusetts or New England.
Who are some preppy witches, and what makes a preppy witch?
The first one that comes to mind is Martha Stewart. Most of the people I think of or who I mentioned in the book would never proclaim themselves to be witches, probably. But what she's done with her life and building an empire is nothing short of magical. I say it in the book, there's no such thing as supremes in witchcraft, that's an American Horror Story thing, but she would be the Supreme of preppy witches. Even in Greek life or in things that we consider to be traditional American things, there are quite a few parallels to modern Neopaganism. A lot of people do these things without knowing it. So I'm just trying to put it in a way for them to be more intentional and practical and focused about what they do.
What does your daily witchcraft practice look like?
I think the most routine things I do, is quite a few different full moon and new moon rituals. I do meditations and rituals, sometimes I'll do tarot readings to go with that. I do different intentional little tips, tricks, and things. It's very, for me, intuitive. If I get a thought, or some kind of intuitive idea, or some kind of sign that confirms that thought, I think maybe I should light a candle. And I do. I try to keep it as little regimented as possible because who has the time?
Does witchcraft inform your relationship with objects?
Well, I'm a lifelong collector, because I was raised by collectors. It's kind of a proprietary illness. It's a weird thing that came about–people would give me rabbits all the time. When I was a kid, people gave me rabbit figurines, and it continued into adulthood. So now I collect. I've gotten very specific: the little Japanese bone carvings. If I see a rabbit, and it's not wildly expensive. I'm getting that. This is where the witchcraft kind of comes into it. Things that are bone, things that are coral or tortoise shell, that were made out of actual beings, or in natural materials is what I strive towards. That also moves over into fashion a bit. I know people who cleanse everything they get from the thrift store. Again, who has the time? But when you think about it, and you think of all the work it took to think of a tailored wool suit. When you think of the animal, the wool came from the person who wove it, the person who stitched it, there's just so much energy that goes into one garment. And if I can get a little bit woo-woo about it, our fashion is becoming worse, just material wise, and how it's destroying the earth. We need to support wool, and we need to support cotton and real materials because they're not only bad for the planet, but they're also just completely soulless.
Is there anything you would never sell or donate?
Honestly, it's things that I've worn into absolute bits and can't–you can't recycle them. They're not good for anybody anywhere because I've had these things with me. My sweat is in them. They're just as much a part of me as anything else. I'm so upset about this ratty pair of boat shoes that I just put my foot through. They gotta go. I've gotten a lot better, but it's mostly things that I've mended 100 times.
Is there a genderless quality to preppy style or clothing from the Northeast?
I definitely think so. Because the gender-bending borrowing from the boys began pretty much on the campuses of women's colleges in the early 20th century. That was really where girls started wearing trousers. Because there were no boys around and they didn't have to wear skirts. There were all these reasons, but it made just more sense for comfort and everything else. That's always been in the DNA of the area. And also because if you're not super wealthy, you're expected to work. Women are expected to do work. My friend, and I always joke about how our dads didn't have sons. That's why we know how to chop wood. So there's a practicality element to it. I think it has a lot to do with the landscape itself because you have to be somewhat hardy, which is why throwing on Dad's sweater makes sense because it's freaking cold.
You mentioned that you transitioned from Goth to wearing essentially your grandmother's style. How did you transition from Hot Topic to Poodle Skirts?
When I was a kid, I was just very into fashion. So in the 90s, that eventually became Posh Spice. Posh Spice was my favorite. I always wanted to wear black as a kid, and you couldn't find black children's clothes. Then, when I transitioned into goth–kind of sixth grade-ish. It was really more of a “my parents were both artistic, so they just kind of let me express myself as was needed”, and I got the shit bullied out of me. That didn't stop me. I guess I was technically mall goth, because that's all we had. So that's where I got the black clothing. I also went for the darker silhouettes and would find black clothing at thrift stores. So it wasn't as much a transition as it was more of just a brightening up. I just kind of switched color palettes.
Do you think Massachusetts has a greater connection to clothes than other places in the country? I’m thinking of the Lowell Mills and the old industries of the area.
It definitely does. I think certain families were connected to it; for example, my great-grandfather worked in the wool mills in North Andover and at the Stevens Pond Mills. We recently found a coat from them, so it was very exciting to see the label. But it's all about quality. Is that a good wool coat? Or how to sew it so that it transcends in that way? For example, there’s Bobby from Boston - they're like the original vintage clothing guide. He passed away. His daughter is now running the business out of a shoe factory in Lynn, Massachusetts; weirdly enough, the shoe factory is where my other great-grandfather worked. It's kind of like three-degrees of separation. Anyone who has family going back at least a few generations in Massachusetts, at least have some connection to that [the garment manufacturing industry].
It seems like so many menswear people have a goth or hardcore punk background. What do you make of that pipeline?
I've definitely I've noticed it for sure. And it overlaps kind of with, for example, when I started really working in the field, when I wrote for Ivy Style a few years back, and this was still under Christian Chensvold, who I believe is a third or fourth-generation astrologist. So, he was already tapped into other things. I talked about this in my book, but preppy is in itself a kind of occult practice, and occult society, because people are always looking into it. And you can't really know unless you are in it. That's why even the original Official Preppy Handbook by Lisa Bernbach, she, and Ralph Lauren–there are a lot of Jewish people who are seen as these particular preps who, luckily, society has evolved, and they can be part of the clubs, and they can go to the schools and all the things, she talked about how she still always kind of felt like an outsider because of that, but it gave her a unique perspective. So, that's a roundabout way of saying, secret societies are part of the American heritage. So, I think the inclination to be eccentric, secretive, or exclusive is witchy in itself.
You can follow Zoë’s research and musings on clothing, New England folk magic, and much more on her substack, as well as Ram’s Head Vintage on Instagram.