The actor talks about wearing boys’ clothes during her teenage years and feeling weird and embarrassed by what she was made to wear on the red carpet
This is me, aged 12, on the beach. I’m wearing a pair of black trousers and a black buttoned-down shirt with the the collar popped up. I was living in a small town in the north-west of the US, nobody else looked like me, especially at that age, and I tried diligently to not fit in. When we moved to the US [from Italy], my mother suggested that I try harder to fit in, but I was very anti that idea, so I went in the other direction. Robert Smith and the Doors were my style inspiration and this was a typical everyday look for me – but I was very upset about being made to go to the beach, so it called for this look in extra effect. I’m wearing boys clothes, bought from a skater store, because the girls’ clothes on offer at that time were all floral and I wasn’t having it. Everyone made fun of me at the beach but I liked that I looked so different. I felt much more comfortable being the oddball.
One of my most famous looks is the “nearly-naked” dress that I wore to the VMAs [in 1998], but that was a protest. [McGowan has said this was her first public appearance after being raped.] That was: “You want to see me? OK, let’s play.” My style was always very much my own until I got to Hollywood and they started dressing me. They discover you for what you look like, then mould you into something else. I didn’t enjoy a lot of what I wore while working in Hollywood, it made me feel weird. I was embarrassed: you’re told you have to pay someone to dress you, but that person doesn’t really know you. The next thing you know the car’s there, you have to go to an event and it’s too late to change.
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