Chloe Sevigny Tells Us All Her Vintage Shopping Secrets
The star joins Bazaar’s podcast to talk ’90s red carpets, her love affair with Tabis, and more
Reported by Harper's Bazaar.
Chloë Sevigny doesn't need a stylist's rack of backup options, which is precisely why she remains a master class in getting dressed. The actor—whose indie film credibility and red-carpet presence have made her a permanent fixture on best-dressed lists—approaches fashion with the same intentionality she brings to her roles: thoughtful, slightly off-kilter, entirely her own. In a recent interview with Harper's Bazaar's podcast The Good Buy, she walks us through decades of shopping philosophy, revealing a woman who's as comfortable in reconstructed sweaters and vintage Margiela as she is in custom luxury.
The reveal that Sevigny spent her early red-carpet years styling herself—calling in one or two dresses, wearing whatever fit—reframes those seemingly calculated early-2000s looks we've all obsessed over. They weren't mood-boarded; they were born from necessity. Now, working with stylist Haley Wollens, she describes their process as scrappy and collaborative, the opposite of the celebrity-styling machine. They send pictures back and forth. Wollens doesn't do the rack-and-truck thing. It's a partnership that allows Sevigny to wear a YSL neckline simply because she decided it was great, not because a trend cycle demanded it.
The Vintage Hunger Never Stops
Sevigny's shopping origin story—thrifting with her mom from age five, then graduating to early Margiela at eighteen—planted a seed that's never stopped growing. She mines Instagram archival pages for inspiration, follows emerging designers obsessively, and haunts boutiques like OPEN24HRS and Byronesque hunting for early Martin Margiela pieces. Her acquisitions skew specific: artisanal Margiela, vintage denim (August Barron, early Vetements, Alaïa), Tabis in multiple iterations, and oddly, actor-themed vintage T-shirts from the '70s. Even her regrets aren't really regrets—just occasional heavy winter coats she questions in the morning.
What makes Sevigny's approach resonate is its refusal to perform. She's honest about struggling with costume designers on film sets despite her fashion mastery—vulnerability in fittings unsettles her, and she resents that actors must surrender to that process in ways musicians don't. Yet off-set, she's relentless: always searching, always building, mixing underground designers with archival finds and luxury labels in combinations that feel alive rather than curated. The Giovanna Flores reconstructed sweater, Lou Dallas sweatpants, and Maison Margiela booties she wore to film the podcast episode isn't a statement. It's just Tuesday for someone who's been obsessed with the hunt since she was five.
Her decades-long relationship with Margiela's Tabis—a shoe that shouldn't work but somehow does—tells you everything you need to know: Sevigny buys what speaks to her, keeps what works, and never, ever stops looking.
Read the original at Harper's Bazaar.
