Welcome to Sleepover with Taylor DuRoss (@taylorduross), the first in a series of virtual slumber parties with GOOSE muses. With our forthcoming Sleepovers, our goal is to reimagine the journalistic profile, independent of career ambitions and experienced as though you’re already friends with the subject—by sharing a slumber party! It’s our hope that this Sleepover gives you an idea of what it is to be Taylor’s friend, as represented by intimate vignettes recorded textually, visually, and verbally.
Scroll on down to join us at her Clinton Hill, Brooklyn apartment— don’t forget your sleeping bag and pillow!
On confidence
“I think situations and the actions that I take are what really make me feel most comfortable in my own skin. And I think a fun part of getting older is making that list and then making that your checklist. Like every day, if what makes me feel confident is putting on glitter and this one pair of jeans, I’m gonna put glitter on my face and wear that pair of jeans every day! And that’s what you do to make yourself feel happy and comfortable and feel cared for by yourself.”
Taylor’s bedroom mantle, featuring lunar prints from an antiquarian shop on Portobello Road, London.
Favorite sleepover activities
“I have three. They’re all extremely important to me, like so important, and I really want to do them as adults. I think it would be crazy fun. So very often we would create scavenger hunts for each other. One person would be the clue master and they would write a series of clues and hide them all over their home. The other thing is getting prompts, like challenges: one person would be the judge of the challenge and you have a theme and everybody has to create outfits according to the theme from the host’s closet. And you show them off, of course, you have a fashion show. Sometimes it would be like ‘the four seasons’ or it would be like ‘going out’ or like ‘football game,’ you know, all the special occasions of a young teen’s life. Sometimes we would kind of combine this second activity with the third activity: we would create music videos for our favorite songs. I remember distinctly creating a music video to ‘Over It’ by Katherine McPhee. So we would have to put together a look for the music video and we would do some choreography, we would film… everyone would have their own section of the song that they were responsible for… you know, pretty similar to RuPaul’s Drag Race, which I didn’t know at the time, but I was brewing my interest at a young age.”
Taylor with her best friend (and roommate!), Erin, on their apartment rooftop.
“I feel like the types of sleepovers that I prioritized the most were like tell-all-your-life-secrets sleepovers.”
Nighttime rituals
“The biggest ritual in my whole entire life is a nighttime ritual and it’s ‘High, Low, Excited’! So ‘High, Low, Excited’ is a nightly game that I play with my partner. As we’re falling asleep in bed, we tell each other the high part of our day, the low part of our day, and something that we’re excited for for tomorrow.”
Another kind of nighttime ritual, with items chosen for the “lowest of the low or highest of the high” moments of Taylor’s life.
Favorite period piece
“The Favourite… Yeah I think it’s so well-written and so well-acted and made me laugh and cry and it was so surprising to me… I think that is like one of my absolute favorite things in a film— when it’s really beautiful and you love everything about it and feel like you want to feel at home in it and then there’s something sharp that makes you like, ‘Oh my god, get me out of here!’ Or just catches you off-guard. I think it’s such a good film.”
A quintessentially Taylor film-viewing setup: lush bouquet, GOOSE dreamdresses, and champagne in teacups.
Reflecting the complexity of her favorite period piece, Taylor is “always savory” and “always sweet.” Listen below for more!
Erin and Taylor in the Felicity and Amy gowns, respectively.
Special treats and indulgences
“Flowers and candles are my two favorite things ever and they’re both so ephemeral and so transient and so wasteful, in a sense. Like I buy myself candles that I love and then I burn up my money. And I buy flowers that are cut and are dying and I know they’re just gonna keep dying, but they’re like the most beautiful things ever and they bring me so much joy. And I think that in some sense it’s part of my desire to make a space for myself and to make a home and to garnish that home. But there’s also a creative element there, like I love to arrange flowers. So I love the expressions of creativity and the way that I get to kind of curate what’s around me. But because they’re so temporary, they do really feel like indulgences. And I indulge in them quite often, but not often enough that they don’t feel special.”
On femininity
“I think earlier in my life probably I would have been more able to explain to you what I think femininity is and I think it’s good that I’m less and less able to because it’s less and less, for me, defined by aesthetic or politics or anything. I think it’s pure subjectivity. I don’t think that there’s really anything I could say that would be concise that would sum it up. But I’ve always identified with it and I may continue to, I may not, but it’s been something that’s been really powerful for me in the past.”
