Hyper-Femme Meets High Fashion

Claire Sullivan revives couture through hyper-feminine codes and expressive silhouettes, reflecting a broader shift toward identity as aesthetic ideology.

Claire Sullivan posing in one of her signatures, a tutu, for a fun feature editorial from Harper's Bazaar. Photographed by Ben Taylor, June 2024. Available via Harper's Bazaar. © All rights belong to their respective owners. No copyright infringement intended.  

Fashion It Girls like Doechii, Clairo, and Addison Rae have been turning out looks that align with their personas and have solidified them as style icons over the past year. Courtier and stylist Claire Sullivan is the one to thank.  With the resurgence of hyper-femininity in fashion post-pandemic and the push of maximalist trends in favor of expressive personal style, Claire Sullivan offers a personal and evocative new perspective on embracing and celebrating it. As a rising force in fashion, she shows the reshaping of modern hyper-femininity through haute couture. 

From reimagining SJP’s iconic newspaper dress from Sex & The City to creating Addison Rae’s pink polka dot Coachella catsuit in collaboration with Victoria’s Secret PINK, her innate ability to design looks for others that maintain their individuality while still embracing her ultra-feminine signatures is reintroducing couture dressing to fashion a way fashion enthusiasts are hungry for.

Sullivan started her journey in fashion at just seven years old, when her mother taught her how to sew. She recalled to WhoWhatWear what it was like to sit at the sewing machine and begin to make pillows, saying that she “just could not stop dreaming about making clothes and wearing clothes”. Growing up, she dreamed of going to fashion school, and she fulfilled her dream by learning to sew clothes at 16 and then later attending the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she graduated with a degree in Fashion and Apparel Design. 

During her time in school, she interned at a couturier, Red Shift Couture, and at the brand Eckhaus Latta. However, her first full-time stint in fashion wasn’t until post-graduation at Vaquera, which she helped co-creative direct and design for. She, alongside the rest of the team, began getting noticed after several collections from the brand garnered attention, with their SS19 and AW19 being some of their most notable shows. 

These collections, which feature many looks utilizing dramatic silhouettes, draping, and feminine touches like ruffles, form the foundation for some of Sullivan's most well-known style motifs. Sullivan left the label a few short years after the COVID-19 pandemic and began establishing her own stylist / creative label under the self-titled Miss Claire Sullivan in 2022. 

Born out of a passion for the history of couture as an art and creating a narrative story in dressing, she began providing custom couture looks tailored to individual clients. Her approach to couture revives its original purpose - to tell personal stories through construction, form, and fabric. On her website, she notes that she intends pieces to be worn as an experience, and she deeply considers the moment, personality, and physical body of her clients while also considering her brand’s aesthetic. 

Some of her first individually reported-on pieces utilized inspirations such as Josephine Baker, Anne Boleyn, André Leon Talley, and Isabella Blow, resulting in a beautiful array of draped and curvilinear pieces. In an interview with i-D on this collection, she said she wanted to keep an aspect of the designs light and playful while playing with more dramatic and historic styles and constructions. 

Throughout her time at her namesake brand, she has often utilized exaggerated proportions and sensual shapes, such as corsets, to create custom pieces, a move many designers are heading towards in opposition to the more mass-produced garments. Some of her many signatures include feminine flourishes such as bows, frills, tutus, and ribbons. She references Carrie Bradshaw as a major inspiration, which you can see in the playful mix of garments she’s created. In an era full of creatives following trend cycles and remaking the same things, Sullivan crafts visual identities that merge the past and the present. 

The following year marked the beginning of her breakthrough rise to more mainstream fashion and styling, with notable moments including her reimaging SJP’s newspaper dress with SJP’s Vogue covers, and creating and styling a look for Vogue editor Chioma Nnadi for the 2023 Met Gala themed “Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty”. The look, featuring a taffeta skirt, pinstriped bodice, and dramatic sash, perfectly combined Lagerfeld’s influences while implementing some of her own, showing her expertise in tailoring and custom pieces. 

2024 saw Sullivan featured in many major media publications, including Harper’s Bazaar, Interview Magazine, and The Cut, for her work with several major celebrities like Troye Sivan, Sarah Paulson, Addison Rae, and Chloë Sevigny. She also collaborated with brands like Ganni for their first Paris Fashion Week Show. In the present day, Sullivan has already made a custom piece and styled it for Doechii on the cover of The Cut, Clairo for the Grammys, Emma Chamberlin for the cover of Byrdie, and Addison Rae for her Coachella performance. 

These examples aren’t just performances, but carefully constructed characters that resonate with a generation raised on curated identity. Her work has gained notability among fashion critics, consumers, and prominent figures alike, as she feeds into the craving for authenticity and individuality in fashion. 

Cultural Relevance

It is not difficult to see why Sullivan has become such a powerhouse in fashion, with her custom designs having swept the industry at large off their feet. With her ability to customize pieces based on a person's sense of style while still incorporating her personal aesthetic, her rise indicates a growing acceptance of femininity in fashion and popular culture, which were previously frowned upon and tamed to be more socially acceptable. 

Sullivan is reclaiming hyper-femininity through couture and elevating it with playful design elements. This suggests that the industry is looking for designers who know who they are and what they like. As fashion continues to search for authenticity in a sea of sameness, Sullivan offers a tactile form of self-expression tailored and grounded in a way that resonates with today's fashion.