THE NORTH RIDING PROJECT

Chloe fires up a Camel Light and resumes her study of Vogue.  Watching Chloe read a fashion magazine makes you think of Alexander Woollcott devouring a ten-pound lobster à l’américaine or Casanova undressing a servant girl.  “This Marc Jacobs dress is beautiful… Helmut Lang is my absolute favourite… God, Armani is so old-ladyish… Lagerfeld ruined the house of Chanel; Coco would never have done miniskirts.  I watched this documentary about her.  She was great… I’m like a fashion magazine junkie.  I love them, but they’re usually pretty lame.  By the time they print it, it’s already happened.”

McInerney/Scene

Sometimes, when she’s really thinking, Chloe weaves in her seat like a snake arisen from a charmer’s basket, and this evening she’s put her hair up in a ponytail and taken it down again at least three times.  The tape recorder’s been switched off for ages and she’s talking about how she’s almost killed herself in her friend’s flat in Soho several times by getting up too fast out of a boiling hot bath.

The Face, Winter 1996