On Jemima Kirke’s first day of fifth grade, she put a lot of thought into her ensemble. A recent New York transplant from London, she’d grown accustomed to school uniforms. “I was terrified because I'd never worn normal clothes to school,” she says. With the help of her mother, she settled on a pair of overalls, one strap undone, over a white pointelle tank, a choker—which was really a piece of leather with a charm—and a Stussy hat. By sixth grade, she had already embraced the downtown thrift scene—Stella Dallas on Thompson Street was a favorite (since shuttered, though the Williamsburg location remains)—styling her spoils in outfits featuring skirts over trousers and see-through slip dresses with just her Gap underwear underneath. The actress laughs, noting the way she dressed as a middle schooler isn’t so far off from her current approach, “But I have better taste now and more money.”
She’s been billed as the queen of “boho-chic” for her eccentric pairings and proclivity for vintage, an exaggerated version of which informed her character Jessa’s wardrobe on the hit 2010s television show Girls. But that’s a reductive label. “I don't hate that word [bohemian]; I hate how it's used inaccurately,” Kirke says, reflecting on the way fashion has co-opted the term and assigned it a certain aesthetic of floral prints and flowy fabrics. “It's not really about dressing in a specific way; it's dressing towards a lifestyle. Anything can be bohemian.”
“I hate waste. I know everything that's in my closet, believe it or not. As little kids, we all had to wear dresses with Peter Pan collars and smocking on the front. And patent leather shoes and socks. And if we weren't wearing that, there was even a ‘look’ for casual [outings]. I was that sort of rich kid who had a new dress on her bed every day but wasn't happy. That's the stereotype. And then, I would get in trouble when I would throw a tantrum and didn't want to wear something. I wanted to wear a denim skirt, but it wasn't allowed. And so the idea was that 'I buy you all these things, and you wear none of it.' And I always felt guilty about that. Even today, I'm like, ‘Okay, I spent this money. It has to mean something. I can't just spend flagrantly, or this is just an addiction.’”
Kirke is focusing on the metaphorical and physical comfort of what she’s wearing in lieu of their aesthetics. Her vintage collection is rather anonymous; the style speaks louder than the tag. Instead of label after label of 2003 runway grails, her Red Hook closet, presided over by photogenic housecats Hank and Homer, houses '80s skirt suits, western-inspired shirting, and worn-in T-shirts. She also sells screen-printed upcycled versions of her personal T-shirt stockpile via Instagram. She collects children’s clothing, with a particular affinity for their Halloween costumes. Favorite spots to shop? Aside from eBay search-term rabbit holes, there are pharmacies (great granny underwear) and Miami antique stores. She enjoys bucking society’s notions of sartorial correctness.
“I love Jean Harlow, her stuff. Oh my god. Everything's cut on the bias and there's no room for a bra anyway. It's totally impractical. And she wears things in the way that I think people want to think Jessa does. What she really does is wear things without them ever wearing her. Like, she's sitting in boxer shorts and a T-shirt like she's ready for anything. And underneath this, she's completely naked, probably hasn't washed for a while, and she's pulling it off perfectly, even though she's in a terrible mood and she has a horrible voice. She was a real New York broad—that was her voice.”
“Miami has better shopping than New York, especially for home stuff like antiques. You can find all kinds of crazy stuff. I found some amazing softcore oil paintings that I have in my room. They cost me nothing. It's very sort of the-gilding-of-a-lily, just over-the-top pretty.”
“There was a time where every fucking photo shoot I went to, that was the rack. I just would go through all the flower stuff like, ‘No, I can't.’” She has since stopped wearing florals almost altogether. “It's not just me being rebellious that I don't want to wear this stuff,” she says. She has, however, fallen victim to certain fads in the past. After the downtown New Yorker slip dress phase, “I went to art school, so we picked the dumb men's worker shirts or '80s sweaters, ill-fitting jeans, and hiking boots. We were cute; we could get away with it.” After she had a baby, comfort trumped expression. Leggings and sweaters triumphed. “Then, when I got divorced, I went straight for the overdressed sex-kitten look. I wore matching underwear, sometimes a garter belt, heels. I wore heels during the day,” she says. She found solace in the way an outfit could rejigger her mentality for the day.
“I was also dancing ballet. I gave up at 16 and I made it quite far. The front développé was the hardest for me. My teacher would poke at my stomach, and one day, I just collapsed it, and I just grabbed—I'm not kidding—my leather jacket at the time. It's like fame, right? And I stormed out and they called my mother. And my mother, I guess, had enough sense to say, ‘She's old enough now.’”
At 38, she’s scrapped the characters, though certain predilections remain. The thrift-store-fueled T-shirt collection she began in her teens persists, as does her penchant for great denim and unique vintage. “Now I'm like, ‘Oh, there's a point to this whole expression thing.' You get to do it on a daily basis. I get to wear a dress if I feel like it, but I get to wear jeans if I feel like it,” she muses. “I guess this is just me finally being authentic with my clothing.”
Click through the slideshow to see more of Jemima's closet below.
Art Director: Smiley Stevens/ Managing Editor: Hilary George-Parkin/ Casting Director: Yasmin Coutinho/ Creative Director: Matthew Daniel Siskin/ Executive Producer: Marc Duron
