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It’s a baking hot summer evening in Connecticut, and Chloë Sevigny is preparing to try on a shoe. She’s spending the week with her mother and her three-year-old son while her husband, gallerist Siniša Mačković, travels to an art fair. “I thought it would be more fun than single-parenting in the city for a week,” Sevigny says with a wink from her brother’s former bedroom, where she’s illuminated only by the glow of her iPhone screen over FaceTime.
From a powder pink box, with all the ceremony of a white-gloved art handler appraising a masterpiece, Sevigny lifts a pair of brogues in lacquered tobacco leather. The piece is the product of a new collaboration between Miu Miu and British shoe manufacturer Church’s: Available as either a lace-up or a monk strap, in black or tobacco-glossed brushed leather, the shoes were first spotted on the runway of Miu Miu’s fall 2023 collection. (The very eagle-eyed among us might also have sighted them being worn by Miuccia Prada herself while taking a bow at the end of the Prada menswear show in June.)
“They feel light as air,” she says, slipping her foot into the shoe with the assistance of a shoehorn. “Whenever I find other brogue enthusiasts, they’re always talking about Church’s, so this is an exciting day for me.” The British craftsmanship of Church’s prized by Sevigny’s fellow enthusiasts is present and correct, of course, but it’s the quirkier details—molded rubber soles and an embossed logo on the side, for example—that speak to Miu Miu’s involvement and make them feel, well, Sevigny. “Classic with a twist,” she says, as she turns her ankles from side to side to appraise how they look. “I want to run down the street and jump!”
For Sevigny, the appeal of Miu Miu’s fall collection also runs a little deeper. As the latest chapter in the brand’s renewed hot streak over the past few seasons, Miuccia Prada’s whimsical vision of a “frazzled Englishwoman”—from frizzy fringes and sheer polka dots to tweeds and corduroy and (perhaps most shocking of all) athleisure-adjacent gray marl hoodies and leggings—has already become a viral sensation. “To me, it was all classic Miu Miu,” Sevigny says. “She’s always done the underwear-showing, all the way back to when I walked for her—it’s actually very timeless.”
Sevigny would know: Her first runway show with the brand was in New York in 1995, just two years after the label had launched and soon after the release of Harmony Korine’s Kids, which catapulted Sevigny to a certain kind of underground fame. “Miuccia has always embraced and championed young actresses, especially those of us making more controversial choices,” she says. “I don’t want to say it validates you, but it’s nice to have someone in fashion not just dressing you, but really celebrating you.” The feeling is clearly mutual. Not only has Sevigny starred in campaigns for the label many times since, but she also returned to walk for Miu Miu in 2018; the year before, she directed a short film that premiered as part of the brand’s Women’s Tales program.
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Her latest Miu Miu moment also arrives at a time of feverish interest in Sevigny’s style. A quick skim through her hashtag on TikTok reveals an endless stream of throwback Sevigny looks—though it’s easy to argue that this interest has never really gone away. There have been recent runway turns for Simone Rocha and Proenza Schouler, as well as an appearance in a fairy-tale-themed book for the cult London brand Chopova Lowena. There was her subversive take on bridal for her 2022 wedding, which featured daring looks from the likes of Glenn Martens for Jean Paul Gaultier Couture, Loewe, and Mugler, the latter featuring a waist-snatching bustier and eye-popping sheer lace panels. And then, of course, there was that closet sale.
“It was insane,” she says, laughing, of the spectacle in Manhattan this spring that dominated Instagram feeds around the world for the day—and came about simply because Sevigny felt her wardrobe needed a clear-out. Titled “Sale of the Century” and organized by Vogue writer Liana Satenstein, shoppers waited for up to four hours in lines snaking around the block to get their hands on Sevigny’s pieces, many of which dated back to the ’90s, when she was first enshrined as “the coolest girl in the world” by Jay McInerney. Most curious of all was its cross-generational appeal, with Gen Z vastly outnumbering those who were actually around for the first phase of Sevigny’s career. (Olivia Rodrigo picked up a plaid Versace dress that she proudly showed off in a video for Vogue: “A girlfriend gave that to me for my 40th birthday!” Sevigny says, beaming.)
As for why this younger contingent has developed such a fervent interest in her looks from decades past, Sevigny has a few theories. “I like to think that my choices as an actress when I was younger really helped generate that kind of interest,” she says. “Making films that were challenging and exciting, like Gummo and Party Monster and Boys Don’t Cry—films that are really staples of alternative youth culture now—I think helped propel people’s interest in my fashion.” Was the sale emotional, given Sevigny’s deep attachment to the clothes she wears? “Weirdly…no?” she says, after a pause. “When you’re ready to let go of it, you’re just ready.”
Over the past few years, one gets the sense that Sevigny has mellowed a little. Chalk that up to marriage, or motherhood, perhaps, but it also has something to do with the new phase she’s entered in her acting career along with her increasing focus on directing: With four shorts under her belt, she’s currently shopping around a feature-length project. Next on the slate, however, is the new Gus Van Sant–directed season of Ryan Murphy’s Feud, which charts the fallout between Truman Capote and his high society “swans.” Sevigny will be playing the socialite and style icon C. Z. Guest—meaning plenty of fabulous outfits. “The clothes are great, but the shoes are terrible,” she says with a laugh of the “dowdy” ’70s pumps. (Thankfully, she managed to sneak one pair of Chanel heels into the mix.)
Still, despite playing dress-up as a high-glamour princess for months of filming, Sevigny insists that the Upper East Side approach to dressing hasn’t rubbed off on her, even as she says it’s “something to aspire to as I’m getting older—more of an elegance.” But Sevigny has her own kind of aspirational elegance: It’s the kind that can take a humble Oxford shoe and elevate it to something that feels daring, unexpected, or subversive. There’s a reason, after all, that a youth-focused brand like Miu Miu has returned to Sevigny again and again over the decades.
“Have I outgrown Miu Miu?” Sevigny muses, then lets out a peal of laughter. “I hope I never do. There’s a sophistication to Prada, and I don’t know if I’m quite there yet. I still like the fun of Miu Miu. It feels a little less…I don’t know—you’re a writer, you should be helping me here! Just a little more playful. Is that the right word?” I couldn’t have put it better myself.
