Sofia Coppola on the Girlhood Trend, Gracie Abrams and Never Growing Up
Words: Ione Gamble | Photography: Dick Page and James Gibbs | Special thanks to Jen Sagum at Marc Jacobs
Shop the Sofia Coppola Special Edition Print Zine here!
Make it stand out
I think it's fair to say that amongst the pages of Polyester, Sofia Coppola needs no introduction. 2024 has been a year defined by ‘girlhood’; bows, baby pink, collecting small dolls and embracing all the things we were taught to feel ashamed of as actual teenagers.
But nearly all of our framework for understanding ‘girlhood’ can be traced back to a single director; Sofia gave us the visual language to not just understand but to romanticise our experiences - to lovingly curate our bedroom walls, then take a picture of our trinket littered shelves, then upload them to the social media platform of our choice. Despite all of the outside online discourse as to whether partaking in these rituals well into adulthood counts as self-infantilising, she’s always taken the thoughts and feelings of women and girls seriously.
In 2024, ‘strong female character’ is a genre on Netflix; our TikTok feeds are flooded with ‘good for her’ edits of female characters (mostly written by men), enacting revenge of the patriarchy - but talking to Sofia on the phone over her morning coffee, it's clear that the film industry hasn’t always cared about our narratives. “Now it's so different. When I was younger, you couldn't get a movie made if the lead was a female. They were like, ‘Oh, boys will go see movies with the boy character; boys won't go see movies with a girl character.’ So I was like, ‘Okay, I'm just gonna do my own thing.’” Even at present, it can seem as though her soft approach to crafting stories is difficult for the industry - and audiences - to understand. Critics constantly disregard her work as frivolous; themselves unable to see beyond the pastel-hued cinematography to the women’s lives that exist within the frames. But that hasn’t prevented her films from reaching those that really matter: girls.
In 2023, Sofia released Archive, a coffee table book published by MACK. To mark the release, Sofia hosted signings of Archive in London, New York, LA and Paris. Tickets for the events sold out in minutes, with hundreds of young women - clad in coquettish looks - lining the streets of all four major cities to catch a glimpse of the artist that had made such a marked impression of their lives. “I was surprised because I'm not very aware of what's happening online. I don’t look at it much, so my kids will tell me that teenage girls talk about me or that I'm mentioned on TikTok.” It's a level of devoted fandom basically unheard of; yes, cinephiles will queue for hours to cop the latest A24 merch and men will dedicate their lives to the work of David Lynch, but an obsession with Sofia Coppola’s work feels like a shared experience.
“Meeting all these young people, especially young women, who said my work was important was really touching. It means a lot because I created it for young women, and knowing it still connects is so gratifying.” The people in the queue may share a penchant for vintage nighties, spend their weekends hand DIY-ing their outfit to wear to the signing, or knowingly nod when spotting another fan sporting the Virgin Suicides Heaven by Marc Jacobs collaboration - but ultimately all feel connected knowing they have all shared the similar feelings that Sofia so beautifully conveys in her films.
Despite only having joined Instagram herself in the last couple of years, Sofia’s work thrives online. As someone who has spent over half of their 30 year old life on the internet, I've witnessed it myself - my own generation discovering her work through Lux Lisbon screenshots then painstakingly trying to recreate their own versions of her work for our Tumblr feeds. When I tell her this, Sofia says, “That makes me so happy that it's universal and enduring. It's the thing that connects us. What I love about creating is how it connects you to others. It's always surprising and comforting to find someone who shares a similar experience”. Regardless of working as a filmmaker for a full decade before my generation reached teenagehood, her influence was felt keenly by the Tumblr generation; across Rookie and the work of Petra Collins. Now, that influence has been filtered through artists like Olivia Rodrigo and clips from Sofia’s films constantly go viral on TikTok. From generation to generation, falling in love with Sofia’s work feels almost like a right of passage as a young woman navigating the world. But as ‘cores’ become headline news and seemingly the entire world turns to TikTok to tell us what Gen Z are interested in, the girlhood trend of 2024 feels like a particular breakthrough moment - even for Sofia herself. “It's interesting how that sentiment is gaining more focus now. I've always felt it was important, and I'm glad to see people embracing it. As an artist, I sometimes feel redundant, like I'm just repeating myself. But I often find myself drawn back to what really interests me, which keeps that connection alive.”
“As an artist, I sometimes feel redundant, like I'm just repeating myself. But I often find myself drawn back to what really interests me, which keeps that connection alive.”
Recently, in other interviews Sofia has expressed a desire to move away from teenagehood. When I ask her, she tells me, “I still love that moment. It's funny because someone sent me something about college-age characters, but I'm not really interested in that; it feels a bit obnoxious”. She continues, “There's something so pure about teenage girls. I took my daughters to see Gracie Abrams at Radio City the other night, and being in a room full of emotional teenage girls was so touching. Their full-hearted feelings were inspiring.” How I felt standing in the queues at her book signing, basking in the earnest experience of fandom, she experienced watching Abrams. “I loved being surrounded by all these girls in their bows; it felt so sincere. The way Gracie connects with that romantic side really resonates. I still feel in touch with those emotions.”
“I loved being surrounded by all these girls in their bows; it felt so sincere.”
Chronicling 20-something years of her career, the pages of Archive are filled with reference imagery, behind the scenes photographs, annotated scripts, collages and more. “I used to make Xerox zines when I was a teenager. My dad's office had a big Xerox, when I was about 10 years old. So I always thought I'd be a magazine editor.” Reading the book, it's obvious that Sofia always loved printed media - there's a reason why her work is probably the most mood-boarded of all time. “I grew up in Napa Valley, in the countryside, with chickens and everything. People don't know I'm a country girl! I used to wait excitedly for my copy of The Face, which took a long time to arrive from London. I was thrilled when I got it.” Her films often linger on the tiny moments many forget - a postcard on a bed, or a perfume; each still as meticulously constructed as a fashion editorial. Yet Archive harks back to those days making photocopied zines, echoing the scrappy diaries and hand-made collages that her own work inspires in those that love it. “Photography is always my starting point; I get ideas for characters or scenes from photos.” She tells me, “I gather images that reflect the look or colour palette, which helps define everything. Then I create a booklet to share with the cinematographer and costume designer. That’s my starting point for building the world and characters.”
The director has always loved fashion - from interning at Chanel aged 16, then consistently collaborating with the brand, to now working on a documentary about her good friend Marc Jacobs. Our conversation veers into her love of fashion tv and documentaries, her experiences at Dior by John Galliano shows, and Manolo Blahnik making the shoes for her first wedding. While her work was always adored from within fashion, she has spoken openly about how film studios have less readily embraced her work. She’s told other interviewers about her dad, Francis Ford Coppola, teaching her to generate other streams of income in order to retain creative control and not succumb to the studios. On her desire to retain independence, she tells me, “Who wants a lot of male executives telling you how to tell your story, you know? I just think as an artist, it's always better to have as much freedom as you can, and the less it costs, the more freedom you have, the fewer people involved.” Though you’d think her extraordinary upbringing in one of Hollywood’s most revered families would make her career trajectory seem completely unattainable, the familiarity of Sofia’s films makes many of us feel as though being an artist isn’t impossible. Her candidness about the flaws of the film industry, her love for DIY culture, and the fact she often spans multi-mediums makes me, amongst many others, feel as though we can create too. It's no surprise then, that when I ask for her advice for those who want to create, Sofia advises, “You always want to be scrappy and independent just to have your full creative voice and not have to think about being commercial or what other people want.”
“I think it's also important just to do what you believe in and not be dissuaded by someone not getting it. If someone didn't get it, then I would just keep going and find the person that does connect with it and will help me do it. When you have something in your mind that you want to get out there, and you feel like it's missing, like you didn't see it out there, then you can - then that's your mission to make it.”
The conversation around girlhood may have morphed into its most simplistic form, people wearing sundresses to suggest ‘girls shouldn’t have to work’, but anyone who has spent hours in their own bedroom, writing in diaries or staring at the ceiling, knows that it's not as simple as sticking a bow in your hair and calling it a day. Sofia didn't construct the world that girls live in - she simply gave us the tools to legitimise our own experiences. I ask if her view on femininity has changed, now she’s a mother to teen girls herself: “In what way? I don't think so. I still feel kind of the same, the same as I always did.”
The truth is we all feel this way - whether we’re in our thirties, fifties, or still trapped in teenagehood itself. Growing up becomes a timeline of those moments that you find yourself thinking, ‘oh, I’m still the same as I was’. It's a continuous realisation that connects us to our mothers, and them to theirs. “Why did I think that would be different? You kind of wait for this moment to be grown up, and I don't know if you ever feel that way,” Sofia tells me. “I mean, I definitely feel less insecure now; I have a better sense of myself. But I don’t feel that different from my teenage self.”
Get the Sofia Coppola Special Edition Print Zine here!
