When Busy Philipps and her family spontaneously uprooted their lives in Los Angeles and moved to New York City in September 2020, the actor didn’t anticipate an even bigger shakeup on the horizon. After nearly 15 years of marriage, Philipps and her now-ex-husband Marc Silverstein decided to part ways in 2021. But the terms of the split don’t appear to be contentious. In fact, Philipps and Silverstein are hosting a garage sale together in partnership with Cure Thrift on February 10 and 11 in New York City. “Bless Gwyneth Paltrow and all that shit she took with the ‘conscious uncoupling,’” Philipps tells Vogue. “God bless her for paving the way to [recognize] there s actually different ways of doing things, and you don’t have to feed into this patriarchal idea of what a divorce and separation is.”
Philipps is sifting through boxes upon boxes of old clothes that have been gathering dust in a Connecticut storage unit for the last three years. As she tries to tell me more about the sale over the phone, she cuts herself off: “Sorry, my ex husband, is holding up ridiculous things,” she says with a laugh. Silverstein is sorting along with her, and over the course of our chat she regularly includes him in the conversation. “Marc has a gorgeous vintage [Ralph Lauren] suit that he’s selling, and Dries [Van Noten], and—what else, Marc? Oh, tons of vintage T-shirts. What else? What other suits are there, Marc?”
In addition to Silverstein’s suit collection, Philipps is selling her own pieces from Chanel, Celine, Isabel Marant, Rachel Comey, Ulla Johnson, Escada, Valentino, Opening Ceremony, Reformation, and beyond; as well as furniture, pottery and kids’ clothes. She also tapped her good friend Michelle Williams for donations, and other family and friends. “We’re calling it a garage sale because it is legitimately a garage sale. There’s everything,” she says.
Philipps considers herself a sentimental person. “I am a collector. When I care about anything, I care very deeply and wholly about it,” she says. But the actor—who has previously opened up about having an abortion at 15-years-old, and was arrested at a pro-abortion rally in 2022—is also acutely aware of her privilege when it comes to reproductive rights, and wants to maximize her impact. “I’m asking all of my friends, and family members, and everybody that I know to keep remembering that there are millions and millions of people in this country suffering because of these draconian and totally unfair abortion restrictions and laws that have been put into place,” she says. “[We’re doing] anything that we can do in any way, shape, or form, in this moment, until the laws reflect the will of the vast majority of people and aren’t being controlled by an extremist few.”
The actor and advocate also understands the unique power of celebrity—and the celebrity closet sale. “[If] this person is going to take it and love it, then I feel honestly a little bit better about [letting go]," she says. "And maybe they love it a little bit more because they know it’s mine.”
For Philipps, this sale is something cathartic—both in terms of the evolution of her relationship with Silverstein, as well as an opportunity to contribute to a cause so close to her heart. “This is such an interesting, wild opportunity to unload all of our stuff from our life together and be able to give the money to abortion funds,” she says. “It’s interesting—I thought I was going to be super precious about it, but more and more as we’re going through all of it, we’re like, ‘Yeah, let’s sell it.’”
