Interview: Aging, menopause, and rethinking fashion for comfort in midlife | Stacy London

May 13, 2025·52 min·4 clips

Stacey London confesses she didn't know who she was after quitting What Not to Wear, calling it embarrassing.

1. TED Health presents Stacey London, stylist and former TLC host of What Not to Wear, speaking with Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter at the 2025 TED Conference in Vancouver about midlife, menopause, and fashion. 2. Stacey London is a fashion editor and stylist who co-hosted What Not to Wear with Clinton Kelly; Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter is the TED Health podcast host and a physician who underwent surgical menopause at age 42 after discovering a BRCA2 mutation. 3. The conversation centers on the thesis that midlife is not a decline but a 'renaissance' requiring unlearning old beliefs about aging, the female body, and self-worth. 4. London describes quitting What Not to Wear when she felt reality television had shifted from teaching to 'shocking' formats like My 600-Pound Life, and then discovering she had no idea who she was without the show—'it was actually kind of embarrassing.' 5. She describes struggling to adapt to social media, missing the shift from television to influencer culture, and framing this as a loss that became a deeper question: 'What do I do in the face of a complete media reinvention?' 6. London identifies the most unexpected benefit of getting older as the ability to say 'no' without explanation: 'No. Period. Is a complete sentence.' 7. She reveals that the snark she was hired for on What Not to Wear came from a well-developed capacity for self-loathing; the show cured her of it by forcing her to see beautiful people who also hated themselves, generating a rule: 'If I could see such good and such beauty in other people, then I had to have the grace to give it to myself as well.' 8. London describes walking into midlife around age 45-46 without recognizing herself, failing to get a permanent co-host role on The View after a year of auditioning, and entering a period where her phone stopped ringing. 9. Physical symptoms then followed: inability to run, body pain, insomnia, racing thoughts, headaches, dry skin and hair. Multiple doctors offered SSRIs or anti-anxiety medication without identifying a root cause. 10. She describes her father's illness and death from heart disease in November 2018 as coinciding with her own symptoms: both had heart palpitations, both struggled with food, both described a sense of a black cloud. 'Nobody ever once sat me down and said, there are almost a hundred symptoms you can experience during perimenopause.' 11. Her summary of the menopause experience: 'Menopause starts as a reckoning and ends as a renaissance.' 12. London acquired the State of Menopause brand, saw millions of article views on doctor-vetted perimenopause content, but no product conversions. At her lowest she could not walk across the Brooklyn Bridge without intrusive thoughts of jumping—'nobody needs a face oil if you want to throw yourself off a bridge.' 13. She closed the company immediately, calling it 'the worst financial decision of my life' and 'the smartest decision that I ever made for myself,' because she could not sell products with no scientific mechanism to address changing hormones to people as vulnerable as she was. 14. She now argues that her advocacy 'cannot be attached to a paycheck' because commercial attachment makes it 'extractive capital and not additive.' 15. London quotes birth doula and maternal health advocate Latham Thomas to argue that women have never been taught to feel safe in their bodies—period shame, fertility framed as 'performance' and 'failure,' perimenopause framed as 'ending'—creating the conditions for persistent medical dismissal. 16. She and Dr. Ungerleiter agree that women must be willing to fire dismissive doctors; London saw eight specialists before finding adequate care for hormone replacement therapy; Dr. Ungerleiter recommends the Menopause Society's directory of certified menopause providers. 17. London is returning to television with Wear Whatever the F You Want alongside Clinton Kelly on TLC, airing April 29th; the new show's philosophy is that 'style does not start on your body, it starts in your brain,' excavating the belief systems behind clothing choices rather than applying rules. 18. The conversation moves between confessional personal narrative, systemic critique of women's healthcare, and fashion philosophy, with Ungerleiter offering her own BRCA2 surgical menopause experience as a counterpoint throughout. 19. Women in midlife, people navigating perimenopause or menopause without adequate medical support, and fans of What Not to Wear will find the episode emotionally resonant and practically useful. 20. Listeners seeking clinical guidance or structured medical information rather than personal narrative and advocacy framing may want to supplement with the Dr. Harstad episodes in the TED Health catalog.

As heard by us

Stacy London makes menopause feel specific, less hidden, and tied to grief, style, calm, and reinvention.

Stacy London turns menopause into a whole-body story: mood changes, weight gain, hair loss, chin hairs, palpitations, food sensitivities, grief, recovery from spine surgery, and the unsettling moment when work stopped coming as she began to look different.

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Why you'd press play

You want a candid midlife conversation that treats menopause as a real transition, not a punchline.

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