Don’t freak out… but original indie kid Chloë Sevigny turns 47 today. Still, let’s not dwell on the passage of time, but focus instead on just how good this woman’s wardrobe is and always has been.
Sevigny was 17 when she was scouted by a fashion editor in New York’s East Village, and not yet 20 when novelist Jay McInerney – then the bad boy of Manhattan’s literary scene – described her as “the coolest girl in the world” in a profile for The New Yorker. If Sevigny felt any pressure on her young, vintage-clad shoulders, it didn’t show.
The actor and Miu Miu fangirl has spent the decades since cultivating looks that suggest she’s the closest thing to Carrie Bradshaw that exists in real life. Eighties-inspired prom dresses, underwear as outerwear, eye-wateringly short shorts with heels… just three memorable Bradshaw motifs that have featured prominently in Chloë’s wardrobe over the years. She’s done bike shorts and romper suits, hair bows and crop tops, Western boots and berets.
That she has never been predictable – Sevigny herself has described her early style as “radically experimental” – is a big part of her appeal, but look closely, and it’s possible to discern the recurring themes of a signature uniform – one that has kept Chloë on best-dressed lists (and designers’ moodboards) for some 30 years now.
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An early proponent of the clompy shoe, Sevigny was striding around the East Village in chunky loafers when the likes of Hailey Bieber and Zoë Kravitz were not yet twinkles in the showbiz firmament, and still pairs them with prim ankle socks to this day. Her clogs and denim cut-offs still have a spot in her off-duty wardrobe, too, likewise girlish dresses by Miu Miu and Simone Rocha.
On the red carpet, she likes an ultra-feminine dress with an unexpected twist, like the spray of feathers on the skirt of the Chanel couture dress she wore at Cannes in 2018, or the giant shoulder bow that finished the flirty asymmetric pink Miu Miu number she wore to a Once Upon a Time in Hollywood premiere the following year. Directional tailoring is also key to Chloë’s wardrobe: she often embraces the androgynous vibe with a scraped-back bun, only to offset it with a liberal expanse of bare leg and an ultra-ladylike heel.
Sevigny made precisely zero concessions to maternity wear while expecting her son (how many mums-to-be do you know who spent their second trimester in velvet flares and micro sunglasses?), and after Vanja arrived in 2020, continued to breeze around Manhattan in floaty Mimi Prober mini dresses, Miu Miu cowboy boots, and block heel Mary-Janes – only now she had a pram in tow as well her Loewe Balloon bag.
As influential and enigmatic at 47 as she ever was, it seems that Sevigny – a little like her classic Chanel suit – never gets old.
