Girl talk with Allison Williams and Jemima Kirke
‘Girls’ stars Allison Williams and Jemima Kirke dish on their characters’ sartorial choices, their dorky style moments and finally dressing like adults
Allison Williams
On Marnie’s style
“She definitely leans toward conservative stuff and she makes me look adventurous — although I’m really not. I wish clothes would just fit her better. Any mistakes in fitting are 100 percent on purpose, though. It’s supposed to look like you bought a thing off the rack and it fits the way it fits.”
Her personal style
“I like color a lot. I’m interested in different cuts. I love the way [peplum] looks, but I’ve also worn more princess-y things. Day-to-day, I’m a jeans, boots and oversized sweater girl.”
Dorkiest fashion moment
“I went up to Jason Wu at the restaurant Perilla after his show and I just introduced myself to him cold. I was like, ‘I understand that it’s probably intrusive and you’re with your family, but I wanted to say that I think you’re a genius.’ He was so gracious.”
Getting red carpet-ready
“It’s really fun. It makes me feel like a princess. I have to rein it in. I recently went into a fitting and there was a rack of clothes of my stuff and there was another rack of fluffy, big gowns and my stylist was like, ‘No, Allison. No. You’re not a debutante.’”
A whole new kind of access
“I’ve had the pleasure of cultivating relationships with some designers so I can say, ‘Listen, do you have something that I can wear to this thing tonight?’ Acting is my first love, but the fact that I get to wear cool clothes and get to know myself better through what I wear in real life, that’s such a pleasure.”
Her dad, Brian Williams, is her unofficial stylist
“He has a really good eye. He’s an aesthete and he sees people in the things that he sees in stores. He looks at them and thinks, ‘That looks like Allison.’”
Jemima Kirke
Jessa’s look is based on her own
“I think it’s like a caricature of how I dress in real life or maybe even a way that I used to dress for a minute in my life. Or it might be the way Lena used to look at the way I dressed and how she pictured styling my outfit in her head the next day.”
Her personal style
“Well, that’s gone out the window since I’ve had children. I just put on clothes so that I’m not naked during the day. I used to change my outfit maybe once in the day, the way some girls do. Now sometimes I have on the same outfit for two days.”
Dressing like an adult
“As I start to feel more like an adult, I start to shop at more brand names, which I never did. It was vintage or stuff I had forever or my mother’s stuff. But now that I’m getting older I can’t get away with the T-shirt with the hole in it.”
Where she shops
“Bird and Smith and Butler, in Brooklyn.”
Jessa’s bohemian wedding dress
“You know who made that dress? My mom. Don’t get me wrong, she didn’t sit there and sew it. She has a shop called Geminola in the West Village. Half of it, she designs, and half of it is antique and vintage clothing.”
What she’s loving
“Chanel made these creeper shoes. They are like a spin on the punk creeper shoe. They’re beautiful and awesome but I can’t wear them. I’m just not style-conscious like that anymore. I just don’t wear statement-y things. I don’t wear loud things. I just wear what looks nice. I’m not wearing mom jeans, though.”
