In THE LOOK, OC friends drop by to try on our favorite new arrivals and tell us about their wardrobe preferences past and present. This week, OC co-founder Humberto Leon interviewed actress and designer Chloë Sevigny ahead of her SS15 Chloë Sevigny for Opening Ceremony collection, which debuted today at The High Line Hotel in downtown NYC.
HUMBERTO LEON: Tell me a little bit about growing up and how you got to dress the way you dress. CHLOË SEVIGNY: How did I get to dress the way I dress? Well, my mother let me wear whatever I wanted. When I was a very young age, she was never judgmental with my clothes and selections; she was encouraging. There was a summer where I only wore a Wonder Woman swimsuit every day; I was probably five. She was very free as far as things like that were concerned. She had a trunk full of clothes that she had for me that she found at thrift stores—different gowns, different beaded stuff. You know, girly dress-up stuff.
That's fun, kind of costumey.
So fun, super costumey. Sequined unitards with feathers. I was super into them and super into expressing myself through my dress-up box. That was my favorite game, playing dress-up and putting on these crazy outfits and running through the house or the yard. Having tea parties, making forts in the backyard in some crazy gown.
And would you wear these to school?
School, not as much. When I was really young, I was really into Little House On the Prairie, which I’ve said a million times and I know is boring. But, I always wanted to dress like girls on Little House, so I wore little brown button-up booties and calico dresses.
Hearing about both of these two things, it kind of feels like it has really informed your way of dressing in adult life. There's a fun essence in the way you dress, but also some properness and the girliness, too.
Yeah, and then I remember after that, like getting into pre-teen when you start to discover yourself. Growing up in the community that I grew up in, there were certain standards and there were certain brands that were popular.
What were they?
This is when everybody was just trying to find their identity but also kind of go with the crowd. So it was all about Esprit, it was all about Benetton, and it was all about Guess Jeans. It was like, how many pairs of Guess Jeans do you own and how many pairs of Esprit? And Esprit was my favorite because of the catalogs. I was really inspired by the way they had the girls styled in the catalogs and the mish-mashes of patterns and the crazy braids and weird bows.
You wanted the full look.
I was really into it. My dad would bring me to Bloomingdale's or Saks Fifth Avenue in the city. We were going on the train from Connecticut into the city, going into the big department stores and going into the Esprit section and shopping. So to me, the city always had all this glamour and fashion, and I remember he just said, “Well, you know that Madonna and Cyndi Lauper shop at Fiorucci,” and I was like, “Then we HAVE to go to Fiorucci!” We went to Fiorcucci and we sat outside of Fiorucci for hours, and I said, “I don’t want to leave; I want to see Madonna! I want to see Cyndi really bad!”
And were either of them inspirations for you?
Oh, for sure.