Ione Gamble and Gina Tonic on the Ableism in Wellness, Snooty Status Symbols in Beauty, and the General Tyranny of Good Taste

Jessica Matlin (0:06)

Okay, we've got the incredible Gina and Ione from Polyester here in the studio, Fat Mascara. These girls built something absolutely incredible. They've built a, it would be too narrow to say, a Gen Z feminist beauty, fashion style, pop culture empire. They really, they talk about it all, and I'm not Gen Z, but when I discovered them a few years ago, they are quickly one of my favorite podcasts. So, you will hear me gush, rave, rant with them. The girls have the Polyester Book of Bad Taste out right now. It really is about owning your own, not bad taste, but your own taste, and questioning what is taste. And I think in 2026, who the heck knows? We are all kind of slaves to the algorithm, and fast fashion, new fashion, constant trends changing.

And these girls are bold and brave enough to call it like it is. So we have a great discussion about really what this is, and get into some good deep dives. So anyway, love these girls. Let's have a little chat, shall we?

Hi, Ione. Hi, Gina.

Ione Gamble (1:26)

I know.

Jessica Matlin (1:27)

I feel like I'm starting your podcast. Where it's like, oh, like, yes, I know. By the way, I mean, I think I may have said this before, but like, seriously, your podcast.

Ione Gamble (1:39)

Oh, thank you.

Jessica Matlin (1:41)

Thank you. I love your podcast so much.

I feel like I'm like screaming in my bathroom when I listen to your show because I feel, I mean, I feel like I'm the third, the shadow member. You don't know, but I am an unofficial, I've anointed myself a mini-host because I just join in the conversation by myself.

Ione Gamble (2:05)

I would love that. As you should, send us voice notes next time.

Jessica Matlin (2:10)

I will send you voice notes. That's such a good idea. What's stopping me? Sometimes, oh my God, like when you guys, one of my favorite episodes, I'm just now I'm turning this into a mini-Polyester episode. But like when you guys talked about like Saltburn, I was like a couple of summers ago, I was like in my bathroom slapping the bathroom counter. Like, yes, you guys get into it and I just love your show. But we're here, we're talking about your new book, The Polyester Book of Bad Taste. Okay, you had me at the title. What is bad taste in 2026?

Have you defined it? Is there such a thing as bad taste?

Ione Gamble (2:49)

A hundred percent. But I think the way that we view bad taste is not actually bad taste, if that makes sense. So I think when I started polyester, I was very interested in ideas of taste. This was in 2014

And why some things were considered low intellect and some things were taken less seriously. And then that was so often aligned with femininity and class and different modes of oppression anyway. So that's kind of one of the reasons why I started polyester was to be this rebuttal to the fashion industry at large that was still so obsessed with minimalism and forms of good taste and upholding these kind of hierarchies, whether it was by like race or class or body size, that all tastes just like a really good umbrella to explore that under, if that makes sense.

Jessica Matlin (3:38)

I just want to go back a little bit. So first of all, polyester is, did it start as a zine? Did it start as a podcast? Because now it's this whole media universe, media empire.

Yeah.

Ione Gamble (3:50)

So it started as print and digital, not podcasts. So I studied fashion journalism and we had to do a project, which was to make a magazine in a group. I thought of the concept of polyester and then made the first issue and then in 2020, we started the podcast.

Jessica Matlin (4:09)

When you made this issue, and I want to get back to the bad taste question in a second, but you've just kind of tweaked something in my mind. I'm picturing you making this polyester project in this fashion journalism environment. And I don't know what your peers were doing, but when you did polyester, what was the response? Because I have worked in fashion journalism, beauty slash fashion journalism, but heavy on the fashion environment my whole life.

This is not an episode about me, but I really am loving sitting with someone who has also been in that environment. There is a huge premium put on, I'm putting in big air quotes here because we are in a mostly audio environment, taste level. And it is this very nebulous, constantly moving target. No one's going to define it for you. If you know, you know, hopefully you were born with it. You know what I mean? What was the response from people who are trying to shape their taste through their project?