Claire Sullivan would like to reintroduce herself. Well, sort of. It’s not that she’s gone anywhere—in the last year she has created custom looks for Shygirl, Addison Rae, Chloë Sevigny, and Clairo; and Doechii, Sarah Paulson, Rachel Zegler, Kylie Jenner, and Troye Sivan have all worn Miss Claire Sullivan in magazine editorials. Her latest “collection look book” is unlike regular look books: Instead of showing clothes that people might be able to purchase in the future, it documents most of the custom work she has done since 2022, presenting it as a body of work.
“Everything we make is ‘one-off,’ so everything that’s here was something that I made for myself to wear to an event, or I made for an editorial and we got it back,” the 31-year-old Sullivan tells me during an appointment at her bright and airy studio in Bed-Stuy. “This is a ‘collection’ of all the pieces we’ve done so far. We wanted to see what it looks like to have the Miss Claire world all together, and I think it’s exciting because it kind of opens the door for what the expansion could be.”
The Miss Claire Sullivan aesthetic is high-femme, characterized lots of volume, and expertly draped fabrics that caress the body—with a bit of sequins or a bit of shine for an extra dose of drama. “Somebody shared with me recently that witches say that glamour is a form of protection magic—and I was like, ‘Oh my god! I really identify with that,’” she explains. “For me, dressing up is literally magic, and to be able to share that with other people through the custom experience is really, really beautiful.”
The 20-look slideshow features many of Sullivan’s most memorable pieces, including the map dress she created for Hailey Bieber to wear during Vogue World promos in 2022—her first celebrity placement—and the tutu Addison Rae wore at last year’s VMAs, that has been repurposed as a top. She considers her two trademark items to be a tutu made of “angel wings” she had previously fashioned as part of a Halloween costume, and a lace catsuit. “[The catsuit] is one of the first pieces I made that felt like it could be worn casually; and it’s since become a staple,” she adds. Other highlights include a short cotton dress made from men’s shirting, a bodice made from a deconstructed tuxedo jacket, an asymmetrical draped sequin gown, and her Minnie Mouse costume from last Halloween. What emerges is a definite vision of glamour and sensuality with an all-important touch of playfulness.
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“I don’t believe there are any coincidences in what opportunities present themselves,” the designer says. “It definitely aligns that musicians and performers are orbiting the MCS world—I’ve spent the last nine years on New York dance floors. The reprieve of music and dance is foundational to my inspiration.” When she makes clothes for specific people, living in their specific bodies, and bound (or not) by their specific performance needs, she is creating for them a vessel through which they can access the freedom and ecstasy that can only be found on the dance floor or other similar places of community.
Sullivan grew up in Richmond, Virginia, and knew she wanted to be a fashion designer, she says, “from the time I was five.” She continues, “I went to the School of Art Institute in Chicago because I knew it was an interdisciplinary school and I wanted to try other modalities. I did a lot of fiber, materials, and sculpture, and a bit of performance too.” All of those influences can clearly be felt in her current work. After moving to New York in 2016, she became part of the Vaquera collective along with Patric DiCaprio, Bryn Taubensee, and David Moses (Moses has also since departed). The four of them took the city’s fashion world by storm with their intelligent, witty, conceptual collections almost immediately, becoming finalists for the 2018 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund prize.
It was during the pandemic that Sullivan decided to strike out on her own, and her first project came about by chance. “My friend Tourmaline, she’s an amazing artist, and she asked me to style a video that she was working on,” she recalls. “When she gave me the brief, it was just so specific and I was like, ‘I should make you something custom for this.’” From there the opportunities continued, culminating in a custom look for a Sarah Jessica Parker Vogue digital cover inspired by the iconic Dior by John Galliano newspaper dress worn by Carrie Bradshaw on Sex and the City. In Sullivan’s version, the print is made up of old SJP’s Vogue covers. “It just snowballed from there,” she adds. Her custom work also includes bridalwear. “Most people DM me on Instagram, but we get a few emails as well.”
For Sullivan, showcasing her recent projects this way works two-fold, as a way to “formally present” what she’s been doing (“Sometimes people ask me, ‘When are you going to launch?’ and I am like….?”), but also to show the younger generation that a different, more sustainable—creatively, ecologically, economically—path is possible. “I am proud of the fact that we’re suggesting that there are different routes,” she notes. “That’s something that I feel is important because I have experience in doing it the formal way—and there’s so much validity for that, and I am 100% here for it—but it feels really refreshing and liberating to be able to work in this way where there are no rules. It’s very intuitive right now, we are looking at the possibility of expanding, but what that looks like right now is still to be determined.”
