Madeline Argy and I are sitting on her sun-soaked patio in the Hollywood Hills when all of a sudden she freezes. “Oh hell no,” she says, staring at her hand. “What happened?!” I ask, alarmed. “A shit…a bird shit,” she says. I peer at her hand and sure enough: a squiggly sliver of white goo, plopped in the middle of skin between her thumb and pointer finger. “I mean…maybe it’s a good omen?” I offer. She agrees, though slightly dubious, and launches into a story about the last time this happened—at Glastonbury, where a bird managed to land its excrement perfectly inside the cutout of her black tank top. Moments before, a celebrity had slid into her DMs, though she won't say who. "I was like, 'I don't know what this means, but it means something,'" she says.
Not that Argy needs the luck. Ever since launching her TikTok account in March 2021, she’s grown to be one of the most obsessively-followed creators on the app, with over eight million followers invested in her daily life. Most of them also tune into her podcast, Pretty Lonesome, each week for her unfiltered advice on rage-baiting men, what to do when you feel unlovable, and dealing with betrayal. Her niche is, essentially, that she doesn't have one: a quick scroll through her TikTok yields a video of her crying over Jane Goodall, lip-syncing to Zara Larsson, and reporting live from the front row at Louis Vuitton's FW26 show in Paris. Her closet has as much range as her feed, though she feels most "herself" in the outfit she's wearing during our interview: a white The Row tank and loose, baggy jeans. Argy shops almost exclusively secondhand—a devout ThredUp loyalist, with the occasional RealReal detour—and the results are genuinely surprising: her closet features rows and rows of candy-hued Chanel bags, a lilypad-green Hermès, vintage tanks, and an entire rack solely for denim. She bought her first pair of heels two days ago. They're brown, and from Depop.
In person, Madeline is quieter at first (though that may have something to do with what she did the night before: attending Charli XCX's premiere for The Moment and ending up at an unnamed after party). She shows me around her airy home and closet, dutifully putting on her different looks and hitting her angles like a pro. It’s not until we wrap shooting and migrate to her patio that I catch a glimpse of the “online Madeline": a melted-down coffee in hand, sitting cross-legged, she rattles off stories from her childhood in West Sussex with the disarming openness she's known for. (A few days later, she'll post a TikTok announcing that she's moving to New York. The bird, for what it's worth, called it.)
Below, Argy takes us inside her closet and opens up about her style philosophy, the breakup that led to her most-treasured pair of Chanel boots, and why she will defend the backpack until her last breath.
How would you describe your personal style?
MA: “Laidback. Pretty much what I'm wearing right now, which is just a nice tank and jeans. I do like to get more feminine, too. I like dresses a lot, silky things. I think it's a mixture. I feel very comfortable dressing more masculine, but I don't like to do it all the time. I like to know that I can play with both.”
Are you comfortable with your personal style now, or still figuring it out?
MA: “I'm still figuring it out. I feel like I'll be figuring it out forever, which is fun. I'm definitely more comfortable in the things I wear now, and I regret less of my outfits—but I wore one I regret last night. It happens.”
What did you wear last night?
MA: “I have this vintage Dolce & Gabbana mesh dress, very, very see-through, and I love it. It has these little baby sleeves and it's really short. I've never worn it because it's so hard to find a place where it's appropriate—you're naked fully underneath. That's how the dress should be worn. It's very Paris. Reserved for Europe, probably. But I had nothing else to wear, so I wore it with these brown tights and brown shoes, and it was cool—but it wasn't the way the dress was supposed to be worn. I just didn't enjoy my time because my outfit wasn't good. I hate wearing an outfit that's not good, especially when you're fucking up a good piece. Really disappointing.”
Where did you wear it?
MA: “It was the first time I've ever gone to a movie premiere—for Charli XCX's new film, The Moment. There are Getty photos, which I've been too afraid to look for.”
Where do you like to shop?
MA: “I try to shop exclusively secondhand. In England, we have Vinted, which is one of the best apps ever. It's really cheap because it's a lot of parents cleaning out their kids' stuff. Whereas Depop is curated, [Vinted is] real people cleaning out their houses. But my actual favorite is ThredUp. I love ThredUp. A lot of the time the pieces are in bigger sizes because the smaller stuff gets snatched up quicker, but if you have a tailor, or if it's a piece that's easy to fix, like a skirt, there's so much you can get and just tweak. Most of my closet is actually from ThredUp."
What are some of your favorite finds from ThredUp?
MA: “I got a really good vintage Calvin Klein skirt. And actually, that whole outfit we shot today was from ThredUp—the blouse and the skirt. The skirt is a kids' skirt and it's so small I can only put it on over my arms because it doesn't fit over my butt. But I can fit it over my hips if I put it on that way. They have a lot of designer kids' stuff on there, which is cheaper, and if you get a bigger kid's size—I'm 5'3"—it fits me. The blouse is originally Banana Republic.”
How often are you shopping online?
MA: “I really try not to do it too often because I have bad impulse control. Once I see something, I'll probably buy it. It happens maybe once or twice a month where I'll be bored and I'll remember I could shop on my phone. And then obviously The Real Real, I do dabble.”
Any go-to spots for in-person shopping in LA?
MA: “I'm not really an in-person shopper, but there's a council shop on Fairfax—a thrift store —that is incredible. They have house stuff, furniture, trinkets, everything. I go there every Sunday. I usually don't get that many good clothes from there, but there's a Goodwill right opposite, and I go there for a lot of my clothes. I'll just pop a Vyvanse and spend four hours. It's my favorite way to spend the weekend.”
What about designer? Any good RealReal discoveries?
MA: “I got a Miu Miu cross-body green bag from there, and also the black one. I don't shop there too much because it's so expensive and I try not to impulse buy bags and stuff like that.”
Has your style changed since your online presence has grown?
MA: “It's incredibly different now. I didn't have much money before, so I was just wearing the same pieces over and over. I had no regard for nice shoes or bags—nice shoes are so expensive. Right before I started really doing TikTok, I'd finally saved up enough for a coat. I'd never had a coat. Even though I lived in England, near the sea in Canterbury it was freezing and windy and I was always walking—I just never prioritized it because I was 21, 22. I was like, ‘I don't need to be warm ever.’
So I saved up for a North Face puffer and an H&M trench coat. And I got these H&M sneaker knockoffs. I wore them so obsessively that one of my friends actually confiscated them from me because they ended up being the most repulsive, disgusting, smelly things. And she gave me a pair of Jordans. It was the first nice pair of shoes I owned. She put me on. I was like, ‘Oh, I'm supposed to care about this now.’”
How did it feel to wear them for the first time?
MA: “More so than I ever feel now when I put on a nice piece. The first nice few pieces you get—there's nothing like that. That same hit doesn't come often in life. Now I'm so used to wearing new things all the time. But I remember the novelty of finally getting a new piece of clothing and feeling like a new person for a day.”
What's the most sentimental piece in your closet?
MA: “I have this one knit Gap sweater. It's very heavy knit, so it falls on your body really nicely—hugs the front, has a hood. I got it four years ago at a charity shop in England. It's the best thing I own. I recently dyed it blue in the wash by accident and it looks terrible—patchy and blue. But I wore it to a Calvin Klein after-party with a skirt I got from Kohl's because I was in New York with no clothes, and it was a randomly great outfit. I wore it with a Calvin Klein black leather jacket. I met this guy on the street who asked me some questions for his fashion brand's TikTok. That's the only time I've ever been seen at the Calvin Klein party—in this random guy's video, wearing that sweater. And then I dyed it blue. It was just like the perfect piece of clothing. I don't know how else to explain it. The way it fit, the way it fell, the color of it was perfect. Everything about it was perfect.”
You mentioned you love a sneaker. Do you collect them?
MA: “I don't collect them, but I've made quite the collection, it seems. The [Adidas] is my everyday shoe. I just feel like they're a nice size for the bottom of a jean. But I'm trying to branch out a little bit.”
What about heels?
MA: “Hardly ever, and I'm really trying to get more into it. I just bought some brown ones on Depop on two days ago—I was very proud of myself. I wore them last night."
So you got your first coat at 21 and your first heel at 25.
MA: “Basically, yes.”
Who are some style icons for you?
MA: “I think Olivia Rodrigo always looks good—when she's dressed down especially. And then the obvious: Bella Hadid is always my inspo. I never dress like her, but she's on my Pinterest boards. And there's a lot of cool people in London I admire. There's this one girl, she used to be really popular with street style—her name is Ruby Ward, I think. She's a model. She wears a lot of big tracksuits and has this really cool platinum white bob. She's got a similar style to Billie Eilish—just these big, baggy, cool-girl clothes.”
What outfit makes you feel most like yourself?
MA: “Probably this one. I'm wearing my own jeans—there's only one pair. They're branded ‘RG’ at the back. They're big and baggy and massive. A friend had a clothing line and wanted to push me to start a brand, so they made these and gave them to me. I've never got round to making more, but I just have them and I love them. They've got buttons instead of a zip. And then this is just a white tank from The Row—it's actually a layering piece with a long sleeve that's meant to go with it, sewn together, but I ripped them apart because I wanted to wear them separately.”
So you’re down to splurge, too?
MA: “I did not buy it. It was my friend. We went on a trip to the Hamptons, my first time there, and we went shopping.”
What's the most surprising thing in your closet?
MA: “Probably my cheetah backpack. I've never worn it yet. I'm too scared. But it's one of my favorite things. It makes me feel very maternal. His name is Chef.”
Are you team backpack?
MA: “Massive one. My favorite is a Chanel one that comes everywhere with me—it's my travel backpack, this golden graffiti one. I also have this skinny Chanel backpack that sits flat on your back and clips at the front. You don't know it's on you. It's so safe because it has an internal pocket pressed against your back, no opening. I wore it all around Paris. It carries nothing except your wallet and your lip gloss. It's like an accessory, but it's a backpack.”
Why do you think backpacks get a bad rep?
MA: “Probably from everyone's school days. They were so uncool. And if you put a lot of stuff in a backpack, it does get a bit lame—it's like you look like you're working but you're not."
What was your first backpack?
MA: "Actually, there was a time when I must have been going into year five and I begged my mom for this very specific backpack. She was like, ‘You don't want this backpack. You're going to be embarrassed.’ It was pink and had 3D fairies physically stuck on it, and I was like, ‘You don't understand. This is the coolest thing I've ever seen in my life.’ We fought and I stood my ground. And I rocked up to school first day with it and immediately shrunk into a shell of myself. I had a matching lunchbox, too. No one said anything to me, I just immediately understood what she was saying. Everyone had matured to the black backpack phase of their life and I was there with 3D fairies and tassels. It stared at me from my peg all day and I was like, ‘Fuck.’”
Now you would rock it.
MA: “Now I would fuck with it. But I remember the feeling of being like, okay, I fucked up and I've got to go through the whole day with this stupid big pink backpack.”
What has it been like to let a brand dress you?
MA: “I love it because it taught me a lot about my own taste. They would put me in things that would make me so uncomfortable—I'd be like, ‘I'd never pair this, I can't imagine it's a good silhouette.’ But if you just let someone execute their vision, you see it and think, ‘Oh, it looks good.’ It took a couple of my first photoshoots to get there. I used to low-key cry in the changing rooms. I hate it because I'd actually worked as a model from a really young age and ended up quitting by 10—I was booking good jobs but it would just be me fighting with adults all day because I was so shy. And then I wound up in the exact same position in my adulthood. But then I'd sit back, let them do it, and see: ‘Oh, it looks way less weird than I thought.’ And it freed me up in what I wear out as well.”
What about when you want to feel sexy?
MA: “Sexy's changed a lot for me lately. It used to just go straight to more skin. But there was this time my neighbor's house had an art exhibition and my friend called me and was like, ‘Dude, I'm at your mysterious neighbor's house, I can get you in, just come down.’ I was up here with my best friend in pajamas, so we had to find outfits really quickly because I wanted to see inside the house.
I threw on this satin champagney spidery dress I got from a charity shop, with my Chanel boots. I'd had my hair in plaits all day, so I just took them out and it was really wavy. I didn't think it looked particularly good, but it got me through the door. And I had never felt more pretty than I felt that night. I think it was because it was such an easy outfit, unlike anything I'd really worn before. My best friend was like, ‘I love this look on you.’ It kind of redefined sexy for me—a bit more almost boyish and fun. I felt much more pretty and sexy in that than I would have in a lower-cut top and a skirt, like how I would've dressed when I was younger and going to the club.”
Tell me about the Chanel boots.
MA: “I was going through a breakup and I was really crashing out. I was like, ‘We're going to have to pull an outfit together—at the very least, I need to look good on Instagram right now.’ It was a Sunday night and we were freaking out, so my best friend sent an email to this woman she knows who owns a shop in London called Lovers Lane Vintage—one of the best stores ever. She was like, ‘Listen, this is the situation and we need an outfit.’ And the woman said, ‘The store is closed, but come in.’ We get there and there's a sign on the door that says Closed, and then in brackets: Except for fashion emergencies. She gave me a couple of outfits to borrow, and that's when I bought the boots.
My best friend wanted the same pair, so she had the saved search results going on every secondhand shopping app. She finally found them on eBay, vetted them in person, and got them. Now whenever we go out and we're trying to be treacherous, we wear the twin boots and you hear us coming.”
Who’s your bestie and do you guys borrow each other's clothes a lot?
MA: “Her name is Toa. She's an artist. Her style is really, really cool she really knows how to layer pieces. She's very Rick Owens. Kind of goth-ish, but more colorful. What's mine is hers and what's hers is mine. We're the same size in everything. It's wonderful.”
Would you trade closets with anyone?
MA: “Her. I mean, we do trade closets. I recently watched Gia. I would trade with her.”
Credits:
Photographer: Pavielle Garcia
Makeup: Pircilla Pae, A-Frame
Hair: Eduardo Méndez, A-Frame
Editor-in-Chief: Faith Xue
Senior Fashion Editor: Ella O'Keeffe
Social Creative Lead: Natasha Sheridan
Social Strategy Lead: Kala Herh
Talent: Madeline Argy
Production: Gillian Stern
