X-Girl’s Make The World Go ‘Round
X-Girl est 1994. - the cult favorite brand that was the catalyst for kicking off the female streetwear scene as we know it today.
A brand that dressed a whole generation of young women looking for just one simple thing. Cute and casual clothes that fit them properly.
Founded by Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon and stylist Daisy Von Furth The label was created as a female-led response to the streetwear brand X-Large. The brand was also considered a pioneer for the Generation-X led “Girls Movement” of the 1990s, impacting the fashion, art and music industries.
By the early 1990s, Grunge was king. oversized flannel shirts, baggy pants and oversized Doc Martens had come to be seen as the unofficiauniform of the genre; Gordon,- ‘Godmother of grunge’ - voiced her own disdain against the aesthetic that was drowning girls in layers of ‘masculine’ clothing, that felt ‘borrowed from the boys’.
The line was aimed to create a more female oriented approach to the skater/riot grrrl image. 60s French new-wave heroine inspired A-line cut t-shirt dresses, street-inspired graphics on french sleeve baby shirts, and work-wear slacks that were designed to fit at the waist, just for you, no longer needing to steal a pair of baggy 874's from your skater boyfriend’s closet.
Infamously, The launch of the brand was commemorated by a side-walk guerilla fashion show on the streets of Soho, New York City. Produced by a young Sofia Coppola and Spike Jones, modeled by friends and family, including a young Chloe Sevigny where a hotel room bed-sheet was hung up with ‘X-GIRL IS NO.1’ in hot pink spray paint.
Since 1998, X-Girl has been exclusively under Japanese management, and maintained a steady presence in the young fashion market.
Despite not being centered in the US for close to three decades, X-Girl has maintained a legendary influence among high-brand labels; Miu-Miu and Heaven by Marc Jacobs as a precursor of influence for guerilla marketing and striking the balance between tomboy and girly.
