What links Julia Fox and Kanye West to a notorious collection of 90s clothes?

Kick out the jahms

Julia Fox broke big in late 2019 with the intense Uncut Gems (5 stars!). In the actor’s telling, she was writer/director Josh Safdie’s muse, and her pronunciation of the film title comes with a rather looser use of vowels and consonants (“Awncuht Jahms”). A role in Steven Soderbergh’s enjoyable No Sudden Move followed but mainly she has become a permanent, if confusing, fixture in memes and minds.

Kool thing

Fox was a designer/model/dominatrix/mover/shaker before finding wider attention, and follows the classic trajectory from Manhattan scenester to celebrity, as traversed tragically by Edie Sedgwick in the 1960s, and effortlessly by Chloë Sevigny in the 90s. Sevigny can be seen in the new series of Russian Doll (Netflix), but back before the controversial Kids, her 1992 screen debut was in Sonic Youth’s video for Sugar Kane (that rabbit-holes us to Marilyn Monroe, but stay focused). In it, Sevigny parades in clothes from Marc Jacobs’ notorious grunge collection.

Sell me by your name

After heroin chic and plaid shirts, Marc Jacobs graduated to the role of creative director at Louis Vuitton, while also pioneering his eponymous label and, ironically, endless variations on his name – from Marc by Marc Jacobs to Jacobs for Marc in collaboration with Marc Jacobs.

Chicago’s finest

The dearly departed Virgil Abloh, who died last November, was named men’s artistic director at Louis Vuitton in 2018. The fashion designer and all-round visual polymath founded Off-White and was a regular collaborator/creative counsel for fellow Chicagoan Kanye West.

Keeping up with Kanye

Recent years have been trying for Kanye West-watchers but content continues: the “desultory” album Donda 2 arrived in February, as did a Netflix documentary. Meanwhile, there was a brief, oddly staged romance with Julia Fox, playing out on the Insta grid and beyond. Fox is also writing a book that she has declared a “masterpiece”. She seems to have grasped the essence of a wild celebrity moment, telling the Cut: “Give people something to talk about … do your job.”

Pairing notes

Read In 1994, Jay McInerney profiled Chloë Sevigny in a classic New Yorker piece. Meanwhile, Edie: American Girl recounts the rise and demise of the Warhol superstar.

Drink The play Dimes Square charts the cool crowd “making the scene” in Manhattan. Fernet, an amaro, is their drink of choice.