Opening Ceremony provides the fertile grounds for Chloe Sevigny to create her fourth collection with the boutique chain, and this time she turns to Vision Street Wear, a skate label she cut her teeth on in her early days on the New York scene, to inspire offerings that include tops, cycling shorts, platform sneakers and other ’90s whatnot. Like her other OC collabos at first glance this collection comes off a bit awkward and perhaps overly ironic, but if history repeats itself six months from now we’ll bet it’ll look perfectly awesome and on point.
It was revealed earlier today that Proenza Schouler is in search of real estate for its first store, with a Madison Avenue location in Manhattan, as one the label is zeroing in on. Kind of makes sense that the designers behind the label, Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, would choose an uptown over downtown location for their first store. Proenza Schouler has always had that ladies who lunch gone naughty feel to it, not unlike their muse-ish pal, Chloe Sevigny, who traded her classy Connecticut possibilities for a much more tangled path but is still able to navigate the poshiest of events and people with ease. All of which leap to mind upon viewing Proenza’s Pre-Autumn 2012 collection. If last season the label went a bit further below 14th Street (heck even ventured into Williamsburg!) than it normally does with its ode to Navajo, with Pre-Autumn it returns home with a collection worthy of inspiring roots.
Rihanna’s outfit featuring a waist-tied ”shirt” for a recent performance in London, very much brings to mind Marc Jacob’s notorious Spring ‘93 grunge collection for Perry Ellis, which was so controversial it eventual led to his dismissal (who’s sorry now Perry Ellis??). My guess is that Rihanna’s skirt-shirt wasn’t designed by anyone, rather created by a savvy stylist, with the military lace-up boots Jacob’s favored updated with black, lace-up stilettos.
It’s funny that Jacob’s collection is so celebrated now because at the time it was reviled not just by fashion folks but also the punks who inspired it, including Courtney Love, who has claimed she and her husband, Kurt Cobain, burned it after Jacobs sent it to them. But oh how minds have changed. Back then, the runways and the fashion community were viewed as the establishment, and now, street and fashion are practically joined at the hip!
After the flip see the Sonic Youth video “Sugar Kane,” which was filmed in the Perry Ellis showroom and shows pieces from the grunge collection, plus features an up and coming Chloe Sevigny. There’s an also a 2001 excerpt from an Index magazine interview, in which Jacobs discusses the 1993 collection, described by him as his “favorite.”
Filmed by her pals at Opening Ceremony, Chloe Sevigny walks us through her cluttered closet and explains the inspiration for her Resort 2012 OC collaboration, plus tells some tales from her fashion-filled life. The biggest takeaway? That she enjoys a good laugh especially if she’s the butt of the joke. Plus, she comes across as totally normal, kind of the opposite of all things Hollywood.
Chloe Sevigny was profiled in the NY Times over the weekend and as is often the case the theme of the story was anchored on her status as a style maven. Chloe however, protests that she’s over fashion when she states:
“I’m just not as excited by it,” Ms. Sevigny said, of both. “I don’t know if it is a reflection of what they are producing, or just my feelings toward it. I bought a pair of Birkenstocks today — let’s be real. I wanted a chunky sandal that was functional. That should tell you where I am at as far as fashion.”
Which, all we can say is oh Chloe, we think you’re fab but you know as well as anyone that all the cool, New York fashion girls are wearing Birkenstocks or some iteration thereof. If any more evidence is needed there’s a recent Yelp post on the Buffalo Exchange thrift store in the East Village written by (yet another) miffed seller complaining about the store’s purchase for resale policy (balanced by those haughtily bragging, ”You just have to know what they want!”) with her ire raised by a clerk who stated that “high heels are out of style.” As if! Well, the truth is, they sort of are at the moment.
We showed some images from Chloe Sevigny’s Resort 2012 collection for Opening Ceremony yesterday, and here is a video of the show. I read somewhere that the a.c. where the show took place wasn’t functioning properly, which total poor timing since it was about a billion degrees in New York when this show took place. As such, a lot of the entertainment value is watching everyone sweating their asses off and doing their best to contain nerves frayed by the heat. Watch Chloe especially as her normally deadpan way of dealing with the world rachets up ten notches.
A few more celebrity images from the TriBeCa Film Festival taking place now in New York City. Chloe Sevigny is featured above, bedecked in a lace dress with a black bag and heels. On the next page images of Rachel Roy and Nina Garcia, both looking fab and happy, plus Julia Roitfeld, Hayden Panettiere, Lorenzo Martone and Eva Mendes, wearing a very red dress.
Chloe Sevigny recently stopped by Nike Stadium in New York, one of the brand’s six internationally-located, custom design shops, and worked with the design team to create a custom women’s “Destroyer” jacket, featured here. According to the site, Sevigny used ”a young, gulit ridden girl as inspiration, and chose to do one simple iconic image on the back, and a heart patch on the front, using multi-layers of felt and embroidery to make up the patches.”
Items from Opening Ceremony’s collaborative effort with Chloe Sevigny have arrived at retail, and at Colette include this retro-inspired track jacket, which features a big “Chloe Sevigny for Opening Ceremony” logo on the back. This one is leopard, but it’s also available in houndstooth and black. See more on the next page. [UPDATE: Claw points out that while the tracks jacket shown here is awfully nice, that's in part because the design--including fonts--is alarmingly similar to a line she designed in 2009! Check the gallery on the next page to see how the two designs compare.]
