Take Me Back Thursday! 90s Fashion: X-Girl
TAKE ME BACK THURSDAY
90s FASHION
X-Girl
X GIRL MOVIE, 1995
X GIRL MOVIE, 1995
"this is not how i feel, this is how i look"
What: X Girl Movie
When: 1995
Who: Unseen Flim by Phil Morrison
Staring: Actress/Model Chloë Sevigny, Sonic Youth's Kim Gordan and Artisti Rita Ackermann
Plot: “Only one thing comes between me and my Calvins,” muses a 21-year-old Chloë Sevigny before setting off on a quest for a mysterious bank boy in this unseen film by Phil Morrison. During her Manhattan frolics Sevigny sneaks a hidden camera into a Marc Jacobs show, where the likes of Ethan Hawke, Naomi Campbell and Suzy Menkes are seen toasting one of the designer's seminal grunge collections." (nowness.com)
Story: "Shot as an original video campaign for X-Girl, the preppy downtown fashion line and one of the many collaborative projects conceived by Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon, the video was “supposed to be like GODARD,” explains Sevigny, who starred as the Jean Seberg-inspired protagonist alongside Budapest-born artist Rita Ackermann. “I was hanging out with her all the time and making videos with Bernadette Corporation and all those people; it was all up in the mix.” The tongue-in-cheek script co-penned by Morrison is a loose, sharp-witted rumination on fame, gender roles and the art and music scene of mid-90s New York. “I remember being concerned that people might find it boring, and Kim being very encouraging that she wouldn’t mind that at all, that it was to some degree the idea,” says the Junebug director" (nowness.com)
When: 1995
Who: Unseen Flim by Phil Morrison
Staring: Actress/Model Chloë Sevigny, Sonic Youth's Kim Gordan and Artisti Rita Ackermann
Plot: “Only one thing comes between me and my Calvins,” muses a 21-year-old Chloë Sevigny before setting off on a quest for a mysterious bank boy in this unseen film by Phil Morrison. During her Manhattan frolics Sevigny sneaks a hidden camera into a Marc Jacobs show, where the likes of Ethan Hawke, Naomi Campbell and Suzy Menkes are seen toasting one of the designer's seminal grunge collections." (nowness.com)
Story: "Shot as an original video campaign for X-Girl, the preppy downtown fashion line and one of the many collaborative projects conceived by Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon, the video was “supposed to be like GODARD,” explains Sevigny, who starred as the Jean Seberg-inspired protagonist alongside Budapest-born artist Rita Ackermann. “I was hanging out with her all the time and making videos with Bernadette Corporation and all those people; it was all up in the mix.” The tongue-in-cheek script co-penned by Morrison is a loose, sharp-witted rumination on fame, gender roles and the art and music scene of mid-90s New York. “I remember being concerned that people might find it boring, and Kim being very encouraging that she wouldn’t mind that at all, that it was to some degree the idea,” says the Junebug director" (nowness.com)
Who: X-Girl
What: Women's skate wear
When: 90's
Who: Kim Gordon, bassist from Sonic Youth and stylist Daisy von Furth
Why: The line was made to complement the boys-only streetwear brand X-Large.
The Look: A-line dresses, skater pants, fitted tees and mini-skirts
Where are they know: Sold to a Japanese company in 1998 and from then on it was only available in Japan. Until now!! 90's girls rejoice! X-Girl apparel is available online HERE.
"After college, I moved to New York and interned at Mirabella andSassy, and was styling little things, like music videos for friends. Kim Gordon was friends with my sister [Pussy Galore and Free Kitten's Julie Cafritz], and we used to go shopping together all the time. We were really into dead-stock stuff, and so we'd go to Army-Navy stores in Danbury -- where Thurston Moore's mother lived. Or if there was a weird store on 14th Street going out of business and had like a million football T-shirts from the '70s, we'd buy them." - Daisy von Furth, X-Girl cofounder (papermag.com)
"It was around the time that the Beastie Boys, who had been in L.A. for a few years, had come back to New York. Eric Bonerz -- who was the brother of [X-Large founder] Eli Bonerz, who the did X-Large store in L.A. with Adam Silverman -- was working in the New York store." -Kim Gordon (papermag.com)
"In the early '90s, I worked at the Beastie Boys' X-Large store in New York on Avenue A. It was during the era of appropriation, like, 'Oh there's a guy wearing a mailman jacket.' I had never known boys who were so fashion-oriented. It was a real hangout. You had all these people, like Futura 2000, or Lyor Cohen who was the Bonerz's babysitter, and Harmony Korine and Chloë Sevigny all coming in."-Daisy (papermag.com)
"Doing a girl's line for X-Large was Eric's idea, and he asked Daisy and I if we'd do it. He knew we were interested in fashion. We were always going to thrift stores and looking for like the perfect '70s 517 Levi's cords or talking about the way T-shirts fit. Stuff like that".-Kim (papermag.com)
What: Women's skate wear
When: 90's
Who: Kim Gordon, bassist from Sonic Youth and stylist Daisy von Furth
Why: The line was made to complement the boys-only streetwear brand X-Large.
The Look: A-line dresses, skater pants, fitted tees and mini-skirts
Where are they know: Sold to a Japanese company in 1998 and from then on it was only available in Japan. Until now!! 90's girls rejoice! X-Girl apparel is available online HERE.
Fun Fact: Chloë Sevigny walked in X-Girl's very first fashion show, which was produced by Sofia Coppola and Spike Jonze. In true a X-Girl rebellious style, the guerrilla fashion show was held down the street from the Marc Jacobs show in Soho. Among the attendees where The Beastie Boys and Linda Evangelista.
"After college, I moved to New York and interned at Mirabella andSassy, and was styling little things, like music videos for friends. Kim Gordon was friends with my sister [Pussy Galore and Free Kitten's Julie Cafritz], and we used to go shopping together all the time. We were really into dead-stock stuff, and so we'd go to Army-Navy stores in Danbury -- where Thurston Moore's mother lived. Or if there was a weird store on 14th Street going out of business and had like a million football T-shirts from the '70s, we'd buy them." - Daisy von Furth, X-Girl cofounder (papermag.com)
"It was around the time that the Beastie Boys, who had been in L.A. for a few years, had come back to New York. Eric Bonerz -- who was the brother of [X-Large founder] Eli Bonerz, who the did X-Large store in L.A. with Adam Silverman -- was working in the New York store." -Kim Gordon (papermag.com)
"In the early '90s, I worked at the Beastie Boys' X-Large store in New York on Avenue A. It was during the era of appropriation, like, 'Oh there's a guy wearing a mailman jacket.' I had never known boys who were so fashion-oriented. It was a real hangout. You had all these people, like Futura 2000, or Lyor Cohen who was the Bonerz's babysitter, and Harmony Korine and Chloë Sevigny all coming in."-Daisy (papermag.com)
The business model was completely the X-Large template. It was all about being cool and having stuff that other people didn't have. We had no official style background. The first thing we did was a T-shirt that said 'X-Girl' in agnès b font. We got a quick cease and desist. -Daisy (papermag.com)
I was in high school, interning at Sassy. Kim was looking for a sort of street, grunge girl who was androgynous. [The 'Sugar Kane' video] was actually the first film I ever did. So I met Kim and Daisy on the set of the shoot, and started babysitting for both of them. Then a few years later, when they started working on X-Girl, I had moved to New York at that point. They loved the way I dressed, and they asked me to be their fit model. I was very skinny then. -Chloë Sevigny, X-girl model, actress (papermag.com)
"At the time, everything was Lycra, and everyone was dressing very '70s -- lots of grunge, vests, floppy hats and corduroy. And the initial thing was sort of rejecting that. We were just kind of like, 'Oh my god, can we get a stiff dress with a zipper up the back?' We wanted things to be new and fresh and clean again." -Daisy (papermag.com)
"We wanted to do clothes that were fitted and casual. But fitted wasn't meant to be 'tight,' even though sometimes the clothes came out that way. There's this whole tendency with skater looks that everything needs to be over-sized, but we wanted to do stuff that was more fitted for girls. Stuff that was a little modish, more like '60s meets preppy; A-line skirts and A-line dresses, which was what we thought would flatter the most body types." -Kim (papermag.com)
"That time -- 1994 -- was grunge. Girls were wearing ratty shirts, and beat-up cords. Or like an old slip with a flannel shirt over it, like Courtney Love. X-Girl was the antithesis of that. And it was also a reaction to streetwear. You'd see girls in big T-shirts and big clothes -- at that time girls just kind of threw on whatever. They maybe didn't realize that their jeans were really bad fitting. X-Girl was sort of preppy-tennis meets skater-cool-girl. They had skinny jeans in different colors and then you wore it with a little X-Girl baby tee and like a visor or something." -Wendy Mullin, X-Girl pattern-maker, owner of Built By Wendy (papermag.com)
