Chloë Sevigny on Designing Fucking Awesome’s First Women’s Line – celebritiestalks
Chloë Sevigny was initially skeptical of reissuing her Fucking Awesome skateboard. The 2014 deck, which bares Sevigny’s senior class portrait, is now worth upwards of $1,000 on EBay.
“At first, I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t know,’” Sevigny tells celebritiestalks. “It was such a perfect thing and it existed in its own little bubble.”
What sold her on the idea, though, was the prospect of creating the brand’s first-ever women’s collection.
Chloë Sevigny x Fucking Awesome
Lizzi Bougatsos
“For a while, the only skatewear you could ever get as a girl was like, a Thrasher panty,” Sevigny jibes. “I thought, ‘let’s do a sexy baby tee, let’s do a crop, let’s do a booty short with Fucking Awesome across the butt.’”
Featuring a sparkly new version of her coveted skateboard deck, Sevigny’s capsule puts an edgy spin on back to school attire.
Eyelet-trimmed tennis skirts, knit argyle vests and patch logo polo tees give the collection a uniform feel that still manages to honor the brand’s DIY roots. Even Sevigny’s skirt design is based on a garment she upcycled herself. “I actually sewed rows of eyelet onto a kilt because [stylist Haley Wollens] had cut it really short,” Sevigny explains.
Ranging in price from $18 to $200, items from the collection will be available to purchase online and at FA’s Los Angeles, New York and Seoul stores starting Sept. 6.
While the capsule is branded as womenswear, Sevigny hopes that it bridges the gender binary. “I wanted to make it for girls, but it can also be for boys,” she says. “It can be for everybody.”
It’s this inclusive attitude that attracted Sevigny to the skate subculture. Through her brother’s obsession with the sport, she learned to develop her own sense of style, eschewing the conventional Laura Ashley, Benetton and Esprit garb that had a firm grip on her hometown of Darien, Connecticut.
“Skateboarding is one of the first things that young people feel like they can be a part of, especially kids that are looking for something outside the norm,” the actress says.
Sevigny doesn’t consider herself much of a skater, but her reverence for the sport is clear: growing up, she studied Spike Jonze’s seminal 1991 tape “Video Days” and had a photo of Stereo’s Jason Lee plastered to her bedroom wall.
Chloë Sevigny x Fucking Awesome
Lizzi Bougatsos
After moving to New York City in the early ’90s, Sevigny became a fixture in the skate scene, starring in Harmony Korine’s “Kids” and modeling for Kim Gordon’s streetwear brand, X-Girl.
Eventually, a friend introduced her to pro skateboarder and FA cofounder Jason Dill. To Sevigny’s surprise, he was nothing like how he had been portrayed on MTV’s “The Osbournes.”
“I was like, ‘This kid is so dynamic,’” says Sevigny. “The way he put clothes together, the way he wore his hair, how flamboyant he was – and obviously his skateboarding style — was amazing.”
Sevigny was just as enamored by Dill’s brand, which he launched alongside fellow skater Anthony Van Engelen in 2001. Marking the tenth anniversary of Sevigny’s first board, Dill sees its reissue as an opportunity to honor up and coming skaters.
Chloë Sevigny x Fucking Awesome
Lizzi Bougatsos
“The original Chloë boards are only available on EBay for ten times the price,” Dill said in a press release. “There’s a whole new generation of kids that I wanted to give a chance to get one.”
The re-release of Sevigny’s FA deck also attests to her enduring relevance. Decades after her ’90s come up, film and Fashion lovers alike continue to be captivated by Sevigny’s fortes for acting, designing and dressing. Her undeniable cool factor doesn’t hurt, either. In April, New York magazine crowned Sevigny “the ‘it’ girl to end all ‘it’ girls.” Weeks later, fans queued for blocks to attend her closet cleanout sale in SoHo.
“I cherish my career and the choices I’ve made,” Sevigny says. “I’m also really flattered and astounded every day that I’ve made some sort of cultural impact.”
Chloë Sevigny on Designing Fucking Awesome’s First Women’s Line – celebritiestalks