#mario sorrenti

Kate Moss | © Mario Sorrenti

Interview Magazine (1992)

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Kate Moss | © Mario Sorrenti

Interview Magazine (1992)

Named from the eponymous INXS song, Suicide Blonde has been on Tumblr since 2008, blogging about fashion, streetwear, arts and culture.

11 Questions recently caught up with Suicide Blonde to discuss her blog, her fashion sense, and how to be confident.

11 QUESTIONS: What’s your earliest fashion-related memory? 

SUICIDE BLONDE: When I was little, probably 2 or 3, to age 10, my gramma was a color and fashion consultant.  This is a very 80s thing, Color Your World, “Are you an Autumn, a Winter, a Spring or a Summer?” (I’m a Winter, by the way.) 

It started out as my gramma and my aunts doing color consulting for the ladies in their church, draping them with fabrics to show them which colors they should wear, and then evolved into them teaching color and fashion consultant classes.  I was always their little helper, cutting fabrics, photocopying booklets on what lengths of skirts and shape eyeglasses, etc, that ladies should wear.  I would watch them transform a woman with little to no confidence into a strutting fancy lady with things as simple as the right shade of lipstick, a well cut blazer, a kicky pair of heels.  

I learned through watching them the transformative power of fashion, how looking good can make you feel good and give you the confidence you need to put your life on the path that you want it to be on.

2:What were your favorite fashion magazines, growing up? 

SB:I had a subscription to Seventeen magazine from ages 12 to 17, and it introduced me to a lot of the supermodels when they were just starting out - I vividly remember a Kate Moss editorial in a 1992 issue where she was photographed by her then boyfriend Mario Sorrenti.  This one!

From age 11, I read Vogue and Elle and Marie Claire and Bazaar and Mirabella and Allure and basically any fashion magazine I could get my hands on. Without knowing it at the time, I was finding out about all the fashion photographers, designers and models that I still admire today.  

I would tear the pictures out of the magazines I would get and put them on my walls, always changing and rearranging the collage.  It’s really what I still do now with my tumblr. 

3:How did you start with Tumblr? 

SB:I came upon these picture blogging sites via Audrey Kawasaki in March 2008 - I got lost in her FFFFOUND! and when I couldn’t get an invite for a ffffound I settled for a tumblr.  I didn’t actively start using my account until September of that year.  Tumblr was a lot different then in terms of tone and community, it was more art, design and vintage based.  You would get lambasted for posting a picture of celebrity then.  

4:How else has Tumblr changed since 2008?

SB:There are the obvious changes - the incoming of fashion and fandom, the gifs and memes, and all the other subcultures of the internet that changed the overall tone, I think for the better. When publications and photographers and celebrities started to get tumblrs, that’s when it all started to feel like a big deal, and I was glad I had gotten in early.

The feeling of a small community isn’t there as much anymore, but the issues of always feeling like there is someone who has a greater advantage than you, that’s always been there.  It was there when someone would get 50 reblogs (there used to only be reblogs, and 50 was a huge number) and you would get none.

June, 2012 archive for Suicide Blonde.

5:How would you describe your blog, or the theme of your blog, to someone at a party? 

SB:Positively reacting to things I find beautiful and/or interesting in my worldview.  But to someone who’s unfamiliar with tumblr I usually call it an arts and culture picture blog, which is pretentious way of saying I post subtitled caps from Mean Girls and pictures of girls looking fine.

6:How has running this blog influenced your own sartorial style?

SB:This blog really is a reflection of my style. I post girls wearing what’s trendy as a source of inspiration, but my style has always come from movies, art, vintage photography. I’m more about dressing in something different than something trendy.

Having run my tumblr for this long has helped me refine and define my aesthetic. It’s also helped me see things I would have never imagined, so my style has gone places it never could had I not been doing this everyday.  This interaction with other people’s style is one of my favorite things about tumblr.

7: If you could raid anyone’s closet, and have the clothes magically fit you as well, whose closet would you raid?

SB: Dita Von Teese’s, definitely, for the shoes and corsets alone.  The clothes Kate Moss has gathered over the years is amazing. Chloe Sevigny’s, as well. Daphne Guiness’ collection of fashion is so highly praised they have musuem shows of it.  And John Waters, for his devotion to thrift, vintage, and Comme des Garçons.

Photo of Chloe Sevigny, from Suicide Blonde.

8: What are some of your favorite books?

SB: The titles I would highlight from my favorites shelf on goodreads would be Leonard Cohen’s Beautiful Losers, LM Montgomery’s Blue Castle, Warren Ellis’ Transmetropolitan series, Jeffrey Eugenides’ MiddlesexandThe Virgin Suicides, Joan Didion’s Blue Nights, Patricia Highsmith’s The Price of Salt, Sarah Waters’ FingersmithandTipping the Velvet, Alan Moore’s Lost Girls, and Nabokov’s Lolita.

9: I see on Goodreads that you’ve quoted Michael Cunningham a few times. How did you come to read By Nightfall? What do you like about his writing?

SB: My lady bohemea’s favorite book is his The Hours. She read By Nightfall a year ago. We bought a copy of it a couple of months ago and I read it based on her recommendation.

10: Many fashionistas say the key to good style is “confidence,” but for someone who doesn’t feel confident, that can seem like a cruel joke. What would you advise less-confident, would-be fashionistas to do if they want to start looking fabulous and aren’t sure how?

SB: We’ve all had moments (or months, or years) of not being confident.  I went through a period of about 4 yrs in my mid 20’s where I was extremely depressed due to what I thought then were unchangeable circumstances.

The main thing I would say to anyone who is in a dark place is that nothing lasts forever, and that these dark times happen to teach us things, so just take each day at a time and find joy in small things.  But, when you’re ready, and you will be one day, you have the ability to change your life.  It starts with the decision to make things better for yourself, and then, with each subsequent decision, your life can be better.  That’s how I was able to pull myself out of that depression - my grandfather died of a stroke and it made me look at where I was.

I made one change for the better, then another, and from there things got better and better.  I was able to feel confident because I knew that there was hope.  I might not know what the future holds, but I know I’m strong enough to make the smart decisions to navigate my way through it. 

11: What advice would you offer someone who wants to start a blog, either about fashion or something else they’re passionate about? What does it take to run a good blog? 

SB: Know what you’re talking about.  Don’t feed the trolls.  Don’t complain all the time.  Don’t post all your messages.  But after saying all this, fuck what anyone else says and post for yourself only.

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Make up by Diane Kendal for Jana Julius photographed by Mario Sorrenti for Document Journal Summer PreFall 2021