Chloë Sevigny for Opening Ceremony

Book excerpt: Now anybody can raid Chloë Sevigny's wardrobe! Re-inventing the looks of 1989 for 2008, Sevigny has designed her first collection for the discerning New York/Los Angeles boutique Opening Ceremony. It's a concise and carefully assembled collection, comprised of 40 pieces, and this volume presents each of them as photographed by Mark Borthwick, who first shot Sevigny for Purple magazine 10 years ago. The collection was inspired by the teen fashions of the late 80s and early 90s in Connecticut and New York, where Sevigny grew up, and further inflected by the looks of "women who are outrageous yet effortless--Liz Goldwyn, Cecilia Dean, Angelica Houston, Marlene Dietrich, Debbie Harry, Poison Ivy, Slim Keith, Patti Smith." In Sevigny's vision, calico and Liberty prints might be matched with gingham check trousers--each piece evokes a look but can be combined to many ends. In this mix-and-match volume, in which each page is split into two separately flippable sections, Sevigny models each ensemble with a minimum of fuss, allowing the clothes to speak for themselves. Borthwick's ethereal photographs are complemented with drawings by Marika Thunder, Rita Ackerman, Lizzie Bougatsos, Benjamin Cho, Dan Colen, Matt Damhave, Amy Gartrel, Lily Ludlow and Spencer Sweeney.