Though the Sunflower Bean frontwoman is always on the road, the pieces in her closet remain close to her heart.
Cumming and I spoke on the eve of the release of Sunflower Bean’s third album, Headful of Sugar (out May 6). She describes the album, the indie darling’s first since 2018, as more sonically adventurous than previous records while still, in many ways, a return to basics—a move that’s also reflected in the band’s sartorial choices. When Cumming, who sings and plays bass, joined Nick Kivlen and Olive Faber in Sunflower Bean, they were “semi-gothy New York teenagers.” “With [Headful of Sugar] we kind of went back to black,” she says. During their New York release show at Webster Hall, the whole band was decked out in black and leather, with Cumming wearing a showstopping leather and safety pin Balmain corset. “With this album, it's sweet in theory and dark in execution,” Cumming says. “I've always loved bands [that use] style as a way of furthering the idea [of their music].”
Indeed, Cumming’s style and music evolution have always been intimately entwined. In fact, playing in her first band, Supercute!, sparked her initial interest in style as expression at the young age of 13. She began thrifting, making clothes, and wearing her bandmate’s father’s dress shoes. “I wore crazy stuff, and I think everyone thought I was really weird, but I really didn't care,” she recalls. “I just wanted to go to the Knitting Factory and see Kimya Dawson.” If playing in a band inspired her to begin her sartorial experimentation, modeling and working with industry heavyweights like Kim Sui, Steven Meisel, and Pat McGrath ignited her love for fashion as an art form. “Style is your calling card when you walk into the room of who you are and what you want to say,” she explains. “It takes a while to realize how special and cool it is that you can sort of change everything about your life with one garment.”
While Cumming will always draw her personal style from rock icons like Courtney Love, Joan Jett, and Kim Gordon, she’s also inspired by many contemporary designers. When I asked who those designers are, she consults a running group chat she has with her manager and stylist called “Sassy Style Bitches” and names Chopova Lowena, Charlotte Knowles, Duncan, and R13. She’s excited by what she sees as a general movement “towards inclusivity and individuality,” citing a time early in her modeling career when her agency would encourage her to dress less grungy. But that grunginess is part of what makes her style special. Her signature tattered tights that raised eyebrows on the streets of Paris inspired Hedi Slimane to put her on tights duty backstage at a Saint Laurent show, cutting them up into varying degrees destroyed. These days, you can find thousands of ripped tights tutorials on TikTok. “I think that people are more accepting of being DIY and creative and sharing ideas with each other,” she says. “That's very different from when I started [modeling].”
Before Sunflower Bean embarked on their latest tour, Coveteur photographed Cumming in her home base: the very same East Village apartment she grew up in. Against the backdrop of the neighborhood where she first formed her artistic identity, she showed us the garments that mark its progression—from her lucky, one-of-a-kind Saint Laurent jacket to vintage items personally gifted by Courtney Love.
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