Style Icon: Sofia Coppola

Kat: Sofia's almost a no-brainer for a "style icon" list, what with her little Chanel and Alaia dresses, her fabulous fashion friends, her rich, connected family and all that. She's got her "little rich girl" thing happening, livened up with a bit of French chic and shot through with plenty of Marc Jacobs of course. But my favorite Sofia will always be the more West Coast Sofia, when she was with Spike and wore color and lived in a Case Study house and made flip-flops the thing. She's never been scruffy or scrappy or bad-ass or anything like that; her unerring good taste and quiet discernment seem as much a part of her general temperament as a matter of style. But that's kind of what I like about her; it's less about her actual closet and more about her consistency and unwavering commitment to fragility, girliness and the aesthetic of the little girl lost. She's gentle but intransigent; she persists in her relentless good taste and casual elegance. So I give in.

Liz: I just realized that my interest in Sofia Coppola as style icon has little to do with her actual fashion sense. (And this in itself probably has lots to do with another recent realization, which is that I basically couldn't care less about Marc Jacobs anymore - eek!) The thing is, though I recognize that Sofia's a total class act style-wise, I kind of need that scruff and scrap of which Kat speaks in order to feel all inspired. That's just my scenario.

So here's why I still consider la Coppola to be one of my number-one style icons: More than any other artist I can think of, Sofia seems keenly aware of the value of what I'm going to call "private glamour" (in spite of my fear that that may sound like I'm describing a photography studio specializing in nude portraits). Most of my favorite moments in her movies are the ones that give a glimpse into the secret world of girls as they play at being glamorous - like Lux dancing in the meadow with flowers in her hair in Virgin Suicides, or the mean girl in Lick the Star reading Edie Sedgwick's biography while costumed in vampy lipstick and black nail polish, or Charlotte quietly posing with her pink wig and cigarettes in Lost in Translation. It's about fantasy and trying out new versions of yourself, and not just as practice for the Real World. I'm so excited to see what she'll show us next.

Sofia's short film "Lick the Star," part one:

Laura: Scotch-taped to the front of my eleventh grade English notebook was a photograph of Marc Jacobs, Robert Duffy, Zoe Cassavetes, Lisa Marie, somebody else, and Sofia, all lazing about on a marshmallowy white hotel bed. This picture was taken right in the heart of the beginning of it all -- Marc looking about fifteen years old, scraggly-haired and sporting red Converse -- these were days long before his neck brace, weight gain, weight loss, Spongebob Squarepants tattoo, "I eat at Better Burger" diamond studs, etc. Marc by Marc was only a rumor; The Virgin Suicides had not yet been released. Because 1999 and 2000 were the first years in which I really began to care about fashion, I will always be of the probably rare opinion that those years were the best high-fashion ever has been, ever could be.

Whether that photograph had been taped to my notebook or not, I would have spent at least 90% of English class zoning out and daydreaming. But having that picture before my eyes gave me a pretty decent jumping-off point. I was fifteen years old, stuck in suburbia, bored to tears, and would have described myself as "starved for glamour" or something equally melodramatic. That image gave me a glimpse into the particular brand of scrappy, lo-fi dazzle that I so needed. In those days, Sofia was me. She wasn't a starlet or a phenom or a wunderkind- she was a skinny, doe-eyed scamp with a protracted nose. Her hair was mousy. She wore jeans and plain sweaters; when she did get dressed up (all-time choicest Sofia eveningwear: most definitely the plummy, ruffled one-shouldered prom dress from MJ Fall '00), she never bothered to do her hair, put on make-up, or wear heels.

I'm not the first teenager in all of history to long for something she don't got. To dream about New York City, downtown infamy, a fashion designer best buddy, a famous father. These are pedestrian dreams that anyone with a half a mind for escapism flock to without even barely thinking first. But for me, Sofia made these reveries seem a little bit realer. That photograph of Jacobs and coterie was it for me because it didn't feel insurmountable. I looked at that photograph and knew I belonged there; there was no evidence to prove otherwise. Sofia's relaxed, accessible approach to dressing is something that the fashion obsessive can always rely on. Just think: since that photograph was taken, she's won an Academy Award, moved on up to occasional Us Weekly spread, and acquired some pretty intense fame, yet her delicate take on tomboy casual has not changed one bit. Sofia style's will always be relevant because it makes you think: If she's a style icon, well then, I must be too.

"Lick the Star," part two:

Posted by Kat, Liz and Laura in Icons
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