Opening Ceremony founder Humberto Leon recently sat down with Chloë Sevigny to discuss her newly revealed Resort 2012 collection for the label. The interview on the Opening Ceremony website or below.
Chloë and Humberto on Resort 2012
Humberto interviewed Chloë right before her RESORT 2012 SHOW to get the inside scoop on her inspiration, her love for teenage youth, the artwork in the show’s installation and more!
Humberto Leon: Tell us a little bit about the line.
Chloë Sevigny: I was inspired by lots of different things, I guess mostly my youth. I’ve always been drawn to eyelets — it’s something that I wear over and over again — so I wanted to do a lot of eyelet dresses. I also wanted to play with the dark and light, the good and the evil. So we did some white cotton eyelets, very angelic, and then we also did them in a laser-cut leather, which has more of an S&M, saucy, dirty-girl vibe.
HL: And you also collect Victorian aprons and things?
CS: I do, I have a whole collection of pinafores. There are a lot of garments that I’m inspired by, like different pinafores that I’ve collected over the years. A lot of shoulder, flounce…
HL: How did the VISION STREETWEAR collaboration come about?
CS: OC and I have done collaborations with different brands in the past, like last year with NANA. Growing up, my brother was a skater and he had the best style out of anyone I knew. He was my style icon and he wore a lot of Vision. I just always loved their graphics and their patterns were, I don’t know — there’s just so much fun behind them, but they’re very complex at the same time. In our collection, I wanted to capture all the feelings that I get when I see them and that sense of memory.
HL: I think you did an amazing job. It’s a good combination of all that, which is really cool.
CS: Thank you.
HL: What about Charlie [Wing, who created the installation]? How’d you find Charlie?
CS: I was shooting a film with Doug Aitken, and Charlie collaborates with him a lot and works with him on lighting and stuff. Charlie was there one day we were all sitting around just hanging out. Doug’s like, “What have you been working on lately?” Charlie pulls out his iPhone and starts showing all these different sculptures and stuff that he’s made. I was like, “Oh my gosh, this kid is amazing.” So I asked, “Do you show with anyone?” He said, “No” and I was like, “Would you be interested in doing something, someway, somehow? Maybe mannequins in a window or something?”
Then when we decided to do the fashion show, I wanted to bring in a different element. Not just have a catwalk, but something else for people to look at. Something to set the mood and the tone, like this element of danger and a sense of recklessness. That feeling you have when you’re a teenager — like anything could happen and you’re questioning everything and just kind of that … “argh.”
HL: What about Saint Patrick’s Cathedral? What does it mean to you?
CS: Well, Saint Patrick’s Cathedral is one of the oldest Catholic churches in Manhattan and I go to mass there a lot — it’s a beautiful church. We wanted to do the show in a gym, and we just happened to find that old Saint Patrick’s had this one. When you come in here, you feel (again) this sense of youth. The vibe of being back in school. The color of the walls, the cinderblocks, the bars on the windows… I just wanted to transport people back to that.
HL: Yeah, it was cool because when we first walked in here we saw kids playing tennis. Definitely a good youth vibe.
CS: It’s a youth center; it says so on the outside [laughs].
HL: What’s the best part about doing the collaboration with OC?
CS: That the girls love it. There’s a girl here wearing the SS11 paisley dress and she says has it in two patterns. All the girls I know that have the garments wear them over and over again. There are girls still wearing the first collection. I just want to make clothes that girls can feel powerful, sexy, and good about themselves in.
HL: I think the most exciting thing is that this is all really stuff that you would wear.
CS: It is, and I’m sure all my friends sitting here today are like, “It’s so Chloë, it’s so Chloë, it’s so Chloë.” It’s got my fingerprints all over it.
