Written by Amanda Montell
“I quit all those movies and just took a break to sit back and read. I read a lot of scripts, a lot of stories. I sat with myself and thought, Who do I want to be? What content do I want to put out?”
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In Cameron Post, Moretz’s angsty, low-femme aesthetic consists of track pants, hoodies, jean jackets, and a pair of enviable feathered eyebrows. Like her character, Moretz also experimented with a more masculine presentation as a teen, replacing the lip gloss and ruffled dresses that defined her tweenhood in the late 2000s with iconoclastic suits and ban d tees. “I don’t want to be beholden to anyone’s gender construct,” she says.
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CHLOë GRACE MORETZ
It’s certainly not only her image that Moretz curates—the actress is trying to craft her career just as delicately. Over the past few years, she’s retreated from large studio movies, opting for smaller projects like Cameron Post, which was made for less than a million bucks, as well as two other pending indie films: Suspiria, a remake of a ’70s horror classic, and The Widow, a thriller co-starring French actress Isabelle Huppert. A light flickers behind Moretz’s eyes as she describes these films—it’s an enthusiasm she hasn’t felt about her work in some time. “Before I did [Cameron Post], I released a bunch of big studio movies, and I was unhappy with where I was in my career,” she admits. “I felt that I wasn’t really fulfilling my emotional capacity as an actor.” To the distress of her agents, Moretz pulled out of the big-budget films she was attached to a couple years back (she won’t name them on the record, but reliable rumors say a live-action The Little Mermaid was one).
I found my
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Camilla and Marc Osa Jacket ($850); Adeam Bias Ruched Dress (unavailable); Brother Vellies Checkers Kaya Boots ($675); Leigh Miller earrings
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Camilla and Marc Marlowe Long Sleeve Knit ($296); Maryam Nassir Zadeh skirt and shoes; Clyde Lambskin Beret ($198); Rachel Comey earrings
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on Fashion,
Feminism, and the
Future of Her Career
MAKE UP FOR EVER
Photographer: Harper Smith Lighting Director: David Solorzano
Stylist: Sissy Sainte-Marie Styling Assistant: Bin Nguyen
Makeup: Mai Quynh Hair: Gregory Russell
Manicurist: Michelle Saunders Sound Mixer: Bill Jenkins
Digital Technician: Danny Kincaid
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in a lot of ways,
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through education.
But neither the Barbie hair nor the power suit is the laid-back version of Moretz you’ll find at home, or at the studio today, sitting before me. Her carefully curated public persona is a form of what Moretz calls self-preservation. “Especially having grown up in [show business], people know a lot about me. So I have to wear a sort of mask not to be completely terrified of going in front of a hundred cameras,” she says. The fact that her appearance is a big part of her job is still scary to Moretz. “So I do compartmentalize,” she explains. “The Chloë Grace Moretz that people see on a carpet is a different person, and I think that’s okay. … When I’m at home, I rarely ever get dressed in a proper outfit. I enjoy a lack of vanity, a lack of presentation.”
I’m trying not to spill cold brew on the rainbow of expensive garments currently hanging like fresh fruits from an iron rack at a loft in Downtown Los Angeles when Chloë Grace Moretz arrives for her photo shoot, right on time, wearing a sundress spattered with cherries. A week ago, Harper’s Bazaar deemed that red cherry prints were “taking over” summer 2018. “It’s impossible not to turn heads,” the reporter wrote of the playful pattern, so cartoonishly sweet in its likeness that it almost seems like a cheeky parody of warm-weather womenswear. Unlike classic florals or polka dots, cherries say—with a wink—I know this looks like a costume. In 1931, Ethel Merman sang, “Life is just a bowl of cherries. Don’t take it serious; it’s too mysterious.” That’s what the image of a barefaced, stone fruit–clad Moretz seems to say this morning.
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gender construct.
I don’t want to be
Crop Sweater
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Camilla and Marc Osa Jacket ($850) and Osa Pants ($499); COS Coated Crinkle Vest Top ($99); Tibi Dana Mule ($475); Faris Playsway Earrings in Teal ($196); Ursa Major Ribbon Cuff ($860)
Since entering her 20s, the actress has started using fashion to explore a wide spectrum of identities (feminine, masculine, minimalist, maximalist). She does this more as a means of “daily self-expression,” she says, less connected to her truest self and more to her mood or rebellious nature. “I love going on the red carpet and looking like a princess. I also love wearing a power suit and slicking my hair back. For me, it’s like, who am I today?” Challenging the public’s expectations is another motivator for Moretz: “If I’m doing a movie like [Cameron Post], I like throwing it on its head and doing super-feminine looks on the carpet—Barbie-doll hair; over-exaggerated, almost drag-like looks sometimes. Why not push both boundaries? I feel comfortable in both skins, and I like messing with what
people expect.”
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Chantecaille
But true fulfillment isn’t just about work, at least not for Moretz. Intermittently stepping away from the spotlight to soak in other artists’ work has kept her not only creatively satisfied but also empowered in the face of sexism in Hollywood. “I found my form of feminism, in a lot of ways, through education,” she tells me, “and knowing what I’m talking about before I say it.” Moretz recounts becoming aware of the “stark reality of sexism in the Hollywood workplace” when she had her first big lead, in 2013’s Carrie. It was then that she found herself in rooms with Hollywood bigwigs, mostly men, who made a habit of sexualizing her or trivializing her points of view. “There were a million moments—moments where I was 14 in auditions and would have directors saying things like ‘You’re a very sexy young woman’ and me thinking, How do I even reply to that?” Moretz says those experiences were a catalyst for her: “I realized I’d have to actively figure out how to speak up for myself.”
Consuming as much media as possible has been the backbone of Moretz’s self-ownership in an industry notorious for keeping women from power. “Reading books, reading scripts, watching documentaries, watching movies, just completely submerging myself in whatever knowledge I needed,” she describes. “I just recently got really into astrophysics. I love Neil deGrasse Tyson.” This diverse repertoire of scholarship is what Moretz has found to be her best defense against Hollywood higher-ups mansplaining certain characters, films, or an industry phenomenon they assume she knows nothing about (despite the fact that she’s been in the business since she was 5). “That’s what they don’t expect: for you to have calm conclusions about things, for you to be like, ‘Well, that’s actually incorrect because of XYZ,’” she tells me with a relaxed smile. Her solution is straightforward: “You just say your points, but you don’t do it aggressively. You let everyone else deliberate; then you step in and say, ‘Actually, that’s all incorrect,’ or, ‘That might be correct, but here’s a different point of view and a reason why I think we should discuss it.’ You know? Proper debating.”
It’s hard to ruffle the cool confidence of Chloë Grace Moretz. After all, she knows better than most: Life, if you play it right, is just a bowl of cherries.
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form of feminism,
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beholden to anyone's
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Whether or not Merman’s words factored in as the 21-year-old film star got dressed for our interview, it turns out that not taking life too seriously is reflective of Moretz’s style in general. “It's been fun to play with the role of femininity as a young woman,” she tells me after we take our seats, clutching twin iced coffees, at a long reclaimed-wood table in the back of the studio. Raised in Georgia by a single mom (her “feminist icon”) and four older brothers, Moretz classifies her style growing up as “incredibly tomboy.” Between surviving breast cancer and raising five kids, Moretz’s mother didn’t have much time to teach her daughter about fashion, but she did instill in her a rare confidence, which radiates off Moretz’s skin, effortlessly, like sunlight. “My mother is just a badass,” Moretz says. “After my father left my family, I saw her pick up the slack in a lot of different ways. She first and foremost never made me feel different than my brothers. It was just kind of like, Cool, you want that? Go fight for it. And that’s always what I did.”
Moretz made use of that confidence as the spunky child star we remember from films like 500 Days of Summer and Kick-Ass, and she continues to use it as she makes the formidable transition to ingénue. In her newest film, The Miseducation of Cameron Post (set for release August 3), Moretz plays a lesbian teenager in a conservative town in the ’90s who’s sent to gay conversion camp. Offscreen, Moretz grew up surrounded by a strong LGBTQ+ presence that included two gay brothers. Unlike in Cameron Post’s world, being gay was so accepted in Moretz’s family that it’s still hard for her to grasp what is so controversial about loving who you naturally love. “I want to get to a place where coming out isn’t a thing,” she tells me. “Take the person for who they are, not their gender.”
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THE BEAUTY SHELF
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Flash Color Palette Multi-Use Cream Color Palette
