“Get Weirder and Fucking Weirder”: Erin Magee and Lourdes Leon on Boys Clubs and MadeMe Girls

Being a woman means perpetually deciding whether to follow or flout the rules you’re given, but for some, the easy answer is to unflinchingly give zero fucks. That irreverence is what makes a MadeMe girl— “and it’s the opposite of it girl,” quips founder Erin Magee. The designer was holding down her day job at Supreme when she started MadeMe in 2007, and over the following years, starring in one of her campaigns became a stamp of approval for a specific type of New York cool girl (the likes of Coco Gordon-Moore, Princess Nokia, Lourdes “Lola” Leon, and Paloma Elsesser). Nearly two decades later, the brand is still true to its scrappy self-funded roots, functioning as a sort of middle finger to the streetwear blueprint. In Rizzoli’s newest tome, MadeMe, Magee has compiled writing by Leon and Chioma Nnadi with her favorite photography by Mayan Toledano, Petra Collins, and more in a 240-page love letter to the “for girls, by girls” label. “MadeMe is just moving parallel to the way a man moves,” said Leon when she called up Magee just before a launch event with covergirl Princess Nokia to reminisce on their collaboration-turned-friendship. “Maybe that’s why they don’t understand it, because there’s an element of fear that we could potentially be equal to them.”—MEKALA RAJAGOPAL

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LOURDES “LOLA” LEON: Hello?

ERIN MAGEE: Hi. What’s the art in the background? Who is that man?

LEON: That’s the guy from the Pringle cans, but the hot version. Henry drew it.

MAGEE: Oh my god, that is so funny. 

LEON: And then this is Lola Bunny, that one of my crazy ex-boyfriends made—

MAGEE: I remember this.

LEON: I was always screaming at him. I was told to take it down by a more recent guy, and then I put it back up, because I was like, “You’re insane.”

MAGEE: A real art critic on our hands.

LEON: Well, I just want to say thank you, first of all, for letting me be a part of your world. As a woman, you’re kind of presented with a guidebook and a set of rules to adhere to, which didn’t really work for me or for you, I think. I always felt like a bull in a china shop, and you made me feel like that’s okay and I wasn’t alone.

MAGEE: Oh my god, I’m crying. Thanks a lot. Me and Destiny [Princess Nokia] were preparing for tomorrow’s talk and we spent a long time talking about you. Both her and I remember the day you were born, because it was the front page news. I was living in Canada, but I played sports in the United States as a teenager. I came to America and it was on the cover of USA Today. And I thought, “Wow, this golden baby.” 

LEON: Well, it was so non-consensual on my behalf. [Laughs]

MAGEE: I was like, “Wow, this child.” So to have you be part of everything, and really trusting of me and friends with me, it means a lot. Destiny and I both can feel that you are one of us, like you said, somebody who just does what the fuck she wants. 

LEON: Yeah. Not to sound pessimistic, but like, this is my life. I’m doing what I want. I’m not going to be out here trying to please people, because it’s too exhausting and stupid.

MAGEE: And thanks for only being five minutes late, because usually you guys are five hours late. You’re growing up.

LEON: I had an emergency. Okay, why do you feel right now is an important time to release this book? Was it on purpose, or it kind of just happened?

MAGEE: Well, the world is completely out of its fucking mind at the moment, so I feel great having the book out now. Books take two years to make and I had no idea that the world would be in this state. No one can predict it. I do feel like, as an artist and as a woman, it’s important, especially in this time, to continue to push things forward. I keep telling myself, “Get weirder and fucking weirder.” This is when we have to be. Choosing Destiny on the cover with a bloody face, that was highly intentional. People will question, “Was she in a fight, or was she eating bloody pussy?” I don’t know. It’s up for interpretation. But it’s important to not feel censored.

LEON: Yeah. I’ve known Destiny forever. I think you’ve known her a bit longer than me. She’s always protected me. I think the first time I met her, she was dating Wiki, and there was a bunch of drunk 18-year-olds—is this bad to say?

MAGEE: No.

LEON: We were all just kind of underage drinking at my friend’s house. I remember being annoyed that she said this to me. She came up to me and was like, “Sweetie, do you need some water?” In her Destiny voice. And I remember being like, “Bitch, no. Do you?” But in retrospect, I can see that she was just like, “Let’s just make sure that these girls are okay.” She has always protected me. Is there anything more that you’d like to say about the cover?

MAGEE: There’s so much more. That cover almost delayed the entire book. I got into many very heated and long conversations with the guy who runs Rizzoli about why he wouldn’t publish that cover.

LEON: He thought it was inappropriate?

MAGEE: He had an opinion of what I was trying to portray that wasn’t really what I was trying to portray. I come across many men in leadership positions that think that about me. So we ended up making a deal, which is usually what I end up doing with these types of guys. There’s two covers. The other one, we also had to censor. The original photo shows her underwear in what he would call an up-skirt, so we cropped it. That’s the commercial trade cover. And the one with the bloody mouth is an exclusive cover that I’m only selling 500 units of globally, because he said that no retailers would sell that cover.

LEON: It’s funny, I think that if there was a man with a bloody mouth, it wouldn’t even be a question. It would be fine. And it’s kind of relevant to what I wrote about in the intro, because I was saying that MadeMe is just moving parallel to the way a man moves. And that’s very offensive and scary to most men. Maybe that’s why they don’t understand it, because there’s an element of fear that we could potentially be equal to them.

MAGEE: I mean, you nailed it. Ding, ding, ding!

LEON: You and Mayan [Toledano] are really able to capture the true essence of MadeMe girls, which makes the photos feel intimate and raw and cunty and tough. 

MAGEE: But also with Mayan, there’s a major softness to some of the photos, too. She captures this tough and raw feeling, like you said, but there’s some photos, especially of you, where they feel really vulnerable.

LEON: Yeah. Something that I really appreciate about working with you guys is that I’m allowed to bring whatever I’m going through at the moment to that shoot, and you allow me to go through it. I don’t have to put on a mask or a front, and that gets photographed. I remember a time where I was so, so sad one day. I think I had a nasty breakup. And you can kind of tell that I’m sad in the photos, but it works because it was so real. Do you remember?

MAGEE: It’s the one when you were wearing the plaid?

LEON: Yeah.

MAGEE: I remember that day so clearly. My mom was about to die. I dedicated the book to my mom because she died in the middle of me making the book. But before that shoot, I was with her in the ICU in Toronto for five days and I left in the morning to make it to your set. I was like, “I planned this big thing, I can’t miss it. Let me fly down to New York City for the day and then I’ll fly back to my mom that night.” I was so sad that day, too. You were a few hours late and you literally fell out of the car with a pillow and a toothbrush.

LEON: Yeah, because I had slept in the car.

MAGEE: Like my seven-year-old daughter. And you were brushing your teeth slowly, half-asleep, stumbling up. It took a couple hours to do your hair and makeup, and you were telling us about how you’re feeling. And we listened. I think that’s how they all start.

LEON: I feel like it’s been my favorite way to work, ever.

MAGEE: I don’t know what other sets are like because I just go to mine. 

LEON: They’re different.

MAGEE: Maybe also because it’s mostly all women on my sets. And we’re all friends and part of the same community. You can see that group photo that we did in the book. All those people have been involved in the brand and most of them are women.

LEON: What do you think that a MadeMe girl is? I really hate this term and I think we should trash it, but how do you think that it’s different from being an It Girl? 

MAGEE: You know what’s so crazy? I think people think I’m obsessed with an It Girl.

LEON: Yeah. I don’t think you are.

MAGEE: Okay, cool. Because I go through lots of like, “Do people think that I’m just obsessed with this ‘next It Girl’ thing?” The whole thing that Mayan and I work on together is just based on the girl that doesn’t give a fuck, the girl that will risk everything to do what she wants. That’s not an It Girl.

LEON: Yeah, and not even risk everything to do something, but risk everything to just not care.

MAGEE: To fuck off, yeah. To do what the fuck she wants. The person I married is also like that. When I was dating Nicole [Albino], I really figured it out. Because she would sleep through $100,000 modeling gigs. I would be like, “Excuse me? That’s what I make in a year.” She’s like, “I just didn’t feel like it.”

LEON: My new thing that I say is, “It’s not aligning with my spirit.” Because it’s really hard for someone to—

MAGEE: Argue with that. 

LEON: You can’t really say anything back. It’s not aligning with my spirit…

MAGEE: Yes. All of you, prioritize spiritual alignment. 

LEON: It sounds kumbaya, but it’s really not.

MAGEE: It’s actually anti-kumbaya. And it’s the opposite of It Girl, because spirit alignment and girl therapy will not show up to any fashion week event.

LEON: Is there anything that is really inspiring you right now? I also ask because I feel extremely uninspired and dull.

MAGEE: I have to say, doing the book put me in a new frame of mind where I feel like the work looks old to me and I want to do new things. At the time when we were doing those photos, they all felt very new and inspiring. We were doing something that a lot of people copied.

LEON: For sure.

MAGEE: Which is fine. But I really feel inspired to do something new. And what is that? I don’t know. Let’s get together and talk about it.

LEON: Let’s talk about it. What are the main subcultures, if any, that have influenced the world that you’ve created?

MAGEE: Is being gay still a subculture? That’s mainstream.

LEON: Maybe being a lesbian is.

MAGEE: Being a dyke is. 

LEON: It’s a subculture, still. They’re nowhere to be found. [Laughs]

MAGEE: I think in what I do, if you want to call it streetwear—I hate that word—there was no gay representation at all. And it felt new at the time. Now, in the skate world, there’s people like Efron [Danzig], and Akobi [Williams], but it’s still somewhat of a subculture. Gay people have kind of invented all of fashion. I don’t know why it just stops at streetwear stuff. Streetwear is so straight male-heavy, and taking this subculture into it felt interesting.

LEON: Yeah, we talk about it being a boys’ club a lot. And we both have made ourselves a part of it, and I don’t think we’d allow any man to tell us what to do or exclude us from anything, because they need us. How were you able to find your place in that world, in the boys’ club?

MAGEE: Oh, la la.

LEON: You’re like, “Buckle up.”

MAGEE: I mean, you know what it is. And like a lot of other women, I’m not alone in this. But in order to have a presence and be respected in what is considered a male realm…

LEON: You have to be a cunt?

MAGEE: You actually have to be a politician. You can’t really be a super-cunt. But what you have to be is the most cunt at your work. I have to wake up earlier, work harder, research more, take on more. Not only be responsible for creative things, but operational things, human resources things. And I have to somehow be present in every facet of the business. And men, then, have to respect who you are and what you stand for, because they have no choice. If you are a cunt, then they have something to say.

LEON: Right.

MAGEE: You almost have to be a straight-faced politician.

LEON: Diplomatic. I’m sure that can be very exhausting.

MAGEE: I go to bed at 8:30 p.m.

LEON: Do you cry yourself to sleep?

MAGEE: Yeah. It is exhausting, but it’s the world in which we live.

LEON: Do you think that anything else is missing from fashion right now? Or are you sick of anything? 

MAGEE: Actually, I have a couple brands I really love, and I think they’re doing such great things. I love Vaquera.

LEON: Yeah.

MAGEE: I absolutely love what they do. They’re so talented and so smart and they’re kind of punk and they’re from New York. I love Martine Rose. I love what she stands for. I love her as a person. She’s a fucking amazing designer. I’m so happy to have her on this planet. There’s some really great things happening in fashion, but it’s so tough to be those people. It’s very tough to run a business right now. So I know why there is a lot of shit in fashion, because it’s difficult to do it. 

LEON: Well, I don’t know anything.

MAGEE: You’re a famous art critic.

LEON: I’m a critic of everything that I don’t know anything about.

MAGEE: You’re a music girl. You sent me that song last night [by Ayesha Erotica]. I was like, “I don’t know who this is.” But then I looked her up and she was cool, because she had a Remy Ma bang in one of the photos. I was like, “All right, if she’s going to pull that look, I’m in.”

LEON: I like that song because she says, “Shout out to the girls…” Hold on, let me find it. She says, “He hit the spot to make me squirt, and let me paint his nuts. He paid me right then, right when I make him bust. I’m a fake bitch, so I’m paying him dust. I do it for the girls and the gays, that’s it. The queens and the queers, they love my shit. Shout out to the girls with the big-ass lips, and shout the fuck out to the girls with the big-ass dicks.”

MAGEE: Exactly. 

LEON: I was like, “Erin…”

MAGEE: Let’s shoot her.

LEON: Okay. Well, don’t forget about me. [Laughs] Do you want to say anything?

MAGEE: Thanks for writing the intro. Everyone said it was going to be an impossible feat to get you to do that.

LEON: It was. I had to be pinned down to the couch. You had to send two of my friends who never come to Brooklyn.

MAGEE: I put them in an Uber with multiple bottles of rosé. 

LEON: Yeah. They were like, “Bitch, we’re getting this done today.” I was like, “Okay. You got me.” 

MAGEE: Thank you so much for that.

LEON: Thank you so much. See you tomorrow.