Chloë Sevigny Online – Your Daily Dose of Ms. Sevigny

• Opening Ceremony

More information on Chloë Sevigny’s two clothing lines for Opening Ceremony.

• The Collections
• Chloë talks Collections
• Collections Online

The Collections — back to top

In early February 2008, following a string of celebrity fashion lines (à la Kate Moss, the Olsen twins, Sarah Jessica Parker et al.), Chloë Sevigny premiered her much anticipated first clothing line for hip fashion label Opening Ceremony, titled “Chloë Sevigny for Opening Ceremony” at the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York. The line featured quirky, patterned and feminine ready-to-wear pieces with a dominant 50’s and 90’s vibe, all mix-and-match friendly, and fashion enthusiast around the world were ecstatic.

Here’s how the line was described in Page Six, February 3 2008 issue:

“This month the 33-year-old is launching her Chloë Sevigny for Opening Ceremony collection, a line of covetable street wear inspired by her own vintage classics-meet-avant-garde aesthetic. Collaborating with her friend Humberto Leon, of the downtown boutique Opening Ceremony, she’s dreamed up high-waisted pencil skirts and skinny pants, slouchy shifts and bustier dresses, n Liberty print florals and ginghams. — The aesthetic is polished punk with a feminine undertone, not unlike the look Chloë rocked while growing up in her conservative hometown of Darien, Conn.”

Much like Chloë’s personal red carpet-style, the line was sure to divide opinions upon its early 2008 launch, but was nevertheless a notable success, despite the rather high pricing (reportedly ranging $150 – $595) which made the collection largely unavailable to the common fashionista. Among others, Chloë’s Big Love co-star Amanda Seyfried has declared herself a fan of the line.

Click on the below images for a peek at the line:

Fall/Winter 2009 Collection

In early 2009, Chloë Sevigny introduced her second, Fall/Winter 2009 collection for Opening Ceremony. This collection, a unisex/menswear line for the label, was notable turnaround from the highly feminine aesthetic of the first collection. For whatever reason, this collection was also notably less promoted and publicized in the media than the first.

Chloë talks Opening Ceremony — back to top

Below is a selection of relevant Chloë quotations regarding her clothing lines with Opening Ceremony.

From BlackBook, February 2008 issue:

On the title of the line, “Chloë Sevigny for Opening Ceremony”:
“Yeah, not all that clever, I know — but the logo, I like. The line itself is very body-conscious, and kind of a mish-mash. It grew out of what I was into as a kid — Depeche Mode, but also A Tribe Called Quest, so it’s this alterna-girl meets fly-girl kind of thing. And it’s by no means high fashion; it’s daywear. Casual, absolutely — a lot of cottons, comfortable fabrics. I still wish it were cheaper; it’s in the $100 to $400 range, because we used Liberty of London for the printing. They did an amazing job, of course — that’s why you get them. But I’d still like a high school girl to be able to afford it.”

On how she approached her line:
“The difference with it, for me, is that I really thought about it as a commercial product. I really thought about the consumer, which is something that, well, I just don’t normally do. I really want it to be successful. I want people to buy it, and to like it. So I thought about a lot of the more universal aspects of the clothes: Does this work if a tall girl wants to buy it? Or a skinny, skinny one? And if the answer was no, we just didn’t make it, and moved on.”

On why she waited until 2008 to launch a clothing line:
“Well, it’s the first time somebody offered [to back it]. I was always thinking about it, of course, and everybody was always asking me why I hadn’t done something. For a little while, I was in talks with this Japanese company to do a one-off, just one piece with them, but every time something like that would come up, I was always under contract to some other company that involved restrictions. A deal with one company meant I couldn’t go out and do anything to promote another, so it never worked out.”

From Doingbird, issue #13 2008:

On how she got involved with Opening Ceremony:
“I was out at a party one night and Fashion Wire Daily was there, y’know, doing little areas and they said, ‘How come you never did a line? If you ever did one, who would you wanna do it with?’ and I said Opening Ceremony. Humberto [Leon], the owner of Opening Ceremony, read it online and called me the next day and said, ‘Do you really wanna do something like this? Let’s sit down and talk about it.’ So, it’s kind of lucky, being who I am, that, y’know, they would take notice and be interested in doing it with me.”

On why she chose Opening Ceremony:
“Well, it seems that, y’know, so many celebrities or models have been doing lines and collaborations with stores or things like that, and I always thought that if I did it I wouldn’t want to do it with some huge, mass-market company. I’d rather do it with a small company. And I also shop at their store and I like the line that they design, and it just seemed like a good fit.”

From He Magazine, February 2008 issue:

Seeing her first line in retrospect:
“Looking back now, I wish I had done a few more masculine pieces. We did some Oxfords, and a few blazers, and a few bigger, bomber jackets. But that was about it. [...] I think I would’ve done a fuller trouser, maybe a couple more oversized shirts. A lot of my girlfriends like to wear stuff that’s oversized — and then it would have been something at least for boys to buy… I didn’t mean to exclude them. To give them anything, you know, just to be able to buy!”

Seeing her first line in retrospect:
“I would say it was probably more of a vanity project! To sort of design things that I’ve always wanted, to alter things that I already have in a way that I would prefer them to be. [...] I like to think I’m designing for the alternative girl everywhere.”

On how she approached her first line:
“Well, I think I just wanted to do something young and trendy — you know, it’s not like I do this every season and have to come up with something, like that, to justify everything that I’m doing. I feel like more designers do that, you know? I was thinking about my own years, in junior high, thinking about what I was into then, grasping at my own youth — one last hurrah or something.”

Chloë Sevigny for Opening Ceremony Online — back to top

Below are some related media as well as off-site links that may be of interest to you.

• OpeningCeremony.us