Style Spotlight: Chloë Sevigny, The Style Icon Who’s Too Cool for Hollywood
“Everybody's in Lululemon and has a f****** dog, and it's driving me crazy” (Chloë Sevigny, The Cut, 2024).
Chloë Sevigny by Mark Borthwick for Purple Fashion S/S 2002.
If you don’t know who Chloë Sevigny is, your big sister probably does, but she was called “the coolest girl in the world” by the New Yorker in 1994 and remains to be even as she turns 50. She filmed her first movie “Kids” at 19, and has remained a New York City It Girl ever since. In her 20’s and 30s, Chloë was obsessed with vintage pieces from designers like Holly Harp, Azzedine Alaia, and Thierry Mugler. More recently, she has been seen wearing Vivienne Westwood, Phoebe Philo, and Chopova Lowena.
“People can see that I have some sort of other perspective—an alternate perspective,”
Chloë Sevigny in Maison Martin Margiela S/S 2000 by Mark Borthwick.
“Here’s a Hollywood star who dares to walk the red carpet without an overpaid stylist dictating what shoes she should slip into.” (LA Times)
Spring/Summer 2022 Supreme X Gummo collaboration, originally released on April 28th, 2022 (and now can be found on Grailed for $140-400). The collaboration honored Harmony Korine for his Gummo direction, which was released in 1997. Korine also wrote the screenplay for “Kids” (Sevigny’s first film, released in 1995), which had its own Supreme collection released on May 21, 2015, in collaboration with director Larry Clark in honor of the film’s 20th anniversary.
When “Kids” was being created, there was a different actress originally chosen for Jenny, and Chloë was replaced last minute because she had previously met Harmony Korine in Washington Square Park in 1993 when she was a senior in high school. Chloë was raised in Darien, Connecticut, and would stay at friends’ or acquaintances’ houses in Lower Manhattan on the weekends. “I liked hanging out with skater boys because I found them stimulating.” (Interview Magazine, 2023)
In the fall of 2024, while I was abroad in Paris, she was in a giant YSL campaign featured along the Seine, and the same one was above the Corner Deli in Soho.
In November, Sevigny shared a photo of the campaign on Instagram with the caption: “If my teen self who scoured local thrifts for dusty YSL blouses could ever have imagined…”
Chloë Sevigny in British Elle, 2005.
FA X Chloë Sevigny skateboard, orginially released in 2014, and rereleased in 2023 along with FA’s first womenswear collection.
Rookie Mag, 2011: “Were you a troubled kid?”
[Sevigny laughs] “I was very troubled, yes. Me and my brother both—we were troubled and troublemakers. But I kind of wanted to mix that stuff with some sort of finer pieces: all of the eyelet white cotton, and the leather laser-cut pieces.”
Her style is playful while still being chic, and has always been influenced by downtown New York City culture, although in the 90’s she was considered to have a huge influence on what the “It” new looks were on the streets for adolescent women.
“Sevigny’s casually cool premiere look consisted of baggy jeans, a khaki trench coat, and knitted one-shoulder top. Oh, and a Gucci handbag for good measure.” (W Magazine)
Her style is particularly admirable for its ability to convey her as a character, without her even speaking.
Some of my favorite moments of Sevigny are in this video when she shows off her Chloë Sevigny X Opening Ceremony flouncy mini dresses that can also be worn as tops, some featuring zipper detailing, originally released in the resort collection in 2011 in cheetah print. Recent Free People and Urban Outfitters silhouettes are very reminiscent of this one…
“I had nothing else going on,” jokes Chloë Sevigny on how she found time while filming cult HBO series Big Love to design her third collaboration with Opening Ceremony.” (Vogue 2010)
“I love Chloë Sevigny, but she is more Vuitton/Loewe/Celine. She maybe has too much personal style for YSL by Vaccarello”. (TheFashionSpot’s forum)
Whoever thought someone could have too much personal style? I can understand wanting a model that fits a brand’s image, but Chloë’s personal style has only progressed her career, so I find comments like those inconsequential.
But I also just love Chloë.
xoxo,
Leah
July 2025 Note:
More recently, Chloë has been seen alongside Kate Moss as the new faces of YSL for AW25 campaigns. The New Yorker’s March 2025 release of the article Naomi Fry on Jay McInerney's “Chloe's Scene”, discussed how a young girl living in Israel could perceive a whole world of fashion through just one page because of the original profile done on Sevigny in 1994. The original noted not only on her early success in acting, but how Chloë’s nonchalant attitude towards features in big media names like Vogue is what made her personality so admirable from an early age, even from the point of view of journalist Jay McInerney and stylists who were on set with her in her early acting days in New York City when she was in her early 20’s.