Jeauni Cassanova is perched on top of a marble mantel, mesh-gloved hands adjusting the bustled train of a Vivienne Westwood dress. “I love the built-in titty,” Cassanova says, gesturing downwards to the padded bustier. “That, and it’s meant to have a whale’s tail so you can show your ass crack.” The gown is one of the most impressive scores in a collection brimming with rare designer archival pieces and idiosyncratic vintage treasures, marked down from something like $8,000 retail to $1,500 at the sample sale to under $500 thanks to a friendship Cassanova struck up with one of the regular employees at the sales.
Despite the current pose, Cassanova is far more than an object to be admired: the layers of tulle and taffeta contain rich narratives, well-studied reference points, and a sense of romance that draws people in. Whether walking the dog around the block at home in New Jersey, making an entrance at a Manhattan fashion party, or styling John Galliano-era Dior for an Instagram video, Cassanova turns heads.
The glamour, at least, makes for good conversation; people always want to know more. “Sometimes, you get people who treat you like an attraction or like something to experience rather than someone to get to know,” says the collector and creator. “But then other people want the story, and that’s where the meat is; that’s where the delicious opportunity for connection is.” Clad in feathered fascinators, skintight stiletto boots, and strands of silk and freshwater pearls—designed by Rolly Robínson, Cassanova’s ex-wife and the co-founder of the jewelry line Isshi—Cassanova is open to the world (and always to the possibility of love).
“So much of what I wear, I think some people view it as armor. But for me, I view it as an invitation to the right people. I’m not trying to keep anyone away as much as I’m just trying to let the right people in.”
While other kids grew up dreaming of becoming movie stars and race-car drivers, Cassanova’s biggest aspiration was to fall in love. “That’s all I ever wanted. That was my dream. And I think that clothing has given me the opportunity to do so many times.” That’s evident in the painstakingly detailed custom Barbie doll that usually sits on the mantel—a gift from a lover, designed to look like Cassanova down to the Isshi pearls and flash of nipples above the gown’s cowl neck. The easy repore on-set in Cassanova’s home also speaks to a tight inner circle of collaborators among whom gender and fashion feel like essential sites of ingenuity and self-expression.
Against a Soundcloud soundtrack of Versace runway shows, the conversation flowed from fashion freebies to cherry blossoms to clothing’s capacity to cope with the looming specter of death. Cassanova’s enthusiasm for clothing, for creativity, for getting dressed is infectious. I walked out with a firm conviction that I needed more gowns in my wardrobe. And anemone-esque earrings. And probably a hand-painted fan. Below, get a peek at a collection that includes Chanel couture, fly-girl rhinestones, and a hat rescued from the tracks of the New York City subway.
“This dress is Christopher John Rogers. I got it because I was part of his muse campaign. And so I was allowed to get something for free-ee! I love that it looks like origami paper that’s been folded and then made into a dress. Japan is a big influence on the way that I dress and just all reference points of beauty—the way that they appreciate beauty, the way they think about beauty. My favorite book series is called 100,000 Years of Beauty, and one of the things it talks about in terms of beauty, especially in Japanese culture, is the reason the cherry blossom is so beautiful is that its beauty is fleeting. Beauty only exists because it’s in a permanent state of disappearing—because it’s ephemeral. That just really speaks to me.”
“I feel like a lot of what’s special about my pieces is just the fact that I got them for so cheap. Like that Marc Jacobs gown that’s hanging up there, the one that looks like a rosebud, that was at the sample sale for $50. It’s a look from the runway! And no one was grabbing it. I was going to buy it even if I was never going to wear it. That was that pandemic sample sale moment where people were just trying to get rid of stuff. They did it for the girls. They were like, ‘liquidate!’”
“Lil’ Kim is a big inspiration for me. I’m always referencing her; I have gold metal pasties somewhere. She’s a big reference point for me; that’s my queen.”
“I’ve never worn them out of the house. I think that they are probably my hardest shoes to walk in. Like, I’m genuinely afraid. I got them at Beacon’s Closet in New York. My roommate at the time, she called me and she’s, like, ‘Bitch, if you don’t get here right now—’ She stood there and waited with those in our hands and was, like, ‘No one’s taking these.'”
“Romance is really intertwined into a lot of what I do, which I think is why I’m drawn to sheer materials, laces, silks, velvets. Love is probably the North Star of everything in my life. And so I think everything that I do has that thread of romance. So always big silhouette, soft fabrics—and then I think sometimes there’s that like raw, animal side of me. I love a little leather moment.”
“The dress is by Charles Harbison—I remember seeing it and being, like, ‘Oh my God.’ I had pulled it for a party I wore it to, but then when he finally released it, I sent him a message and I literally did an installment plan with him and paid for it one month at a time so I could own this dress. The kimono I got at the Manhattan Vintage Show. Kimonos, ugh, they’re all that matters. It’s a wedding kimono from the ’80s.”
“A lover made this for me—Harrison Broadbent. We met for, like, 10 minutes, and then he started working on it. Then he came and visited one time and it was the same week that the actual dress that I bought was delivered. He didn’t know that the inside of the bow was copper, so when he saw the dress in person, he took a mental note, and then, a few months later, gave me the dress. And when he did the Barbie, he shaved her chest off and then repainted it, because when I had worn it—and I don’t even remember saying this to him, but I guess I said it in passing—my nipples kept falling out of the dress. It ended up becoming a part of the outfit. The hair is there. Everything is there. The necklace is Isshi; it’s from Rolly’s jewelry line. It’s the custom bridal one that Bella [Hadid] ended up pulling, so there’s only one of them. If my house was ever on fire, this is what I would grab: The doll, the dress, and the kimono, because they have such sentimental value.”
“I love details that are reserved for intimacy. [Like the pattern on the red version of these boots]—other than me, showing you and being like, ‘Oh, do you see the Oblique pattern?’—someone would have to basically, like, lick your boots. For me, this is such a sexy detail. I love things that feel like you have to get close in order to enjoy them. Especially something on a shoe. You can see earrings close, but to see a shoe close, you’ve got to get down and look at it. I think that’s quite special and romantic.”
“This hat was made for me by Ann Claire Millinery. It was one of my first pieces that made me feel like a Dior Haute Couture [model]. It’s pagoda-shaped, or it could be like a rice hat… I was on the 125 Street subway platform, and a train across the way went by and it flew off my head and into the tracks. I think I had two or three minutes to get it before the train came. So I’m standing at the ledge looking in, and I’m like, ‘I’m going in.’ And this woman yells at me, ‘You can’t do it.’ And I was like, ‘I’m not letting this hat go.’ Because it meant so much to the beginning of a fashion journey for me. So I was like, ‘Can you just help lift me out when I’m done?’ And I jumped in. She ended up not being any help at all; thank goodness I have upper-body strength. I pulled myself out of the subway with my hat. And I lost a brooch when I did it, but it was an exchange.”
“I tried on a version of this dress in Paris and it was like $8,000, and I thought, ‘Okay, well, I can’t afford this. But one day, I’m gonna have this dress—I don’t know how.’ And then a few months later, it was at the sample sale. You can also just wear it as a corset. It’s very multi-functional. I’ve also worn it with the matching poncho, and what I do is I take a pannier and tie it around my neck, and I turn it into a football look. And then I’ll put the bustier over the poncho so you get this really beautiful silhouette with these giant shoulders. It’s very Viktor and Rolf.”
“[Getting dressed is] probably the one time I don’t think as much. I just think about what it all means. But in terms of the actual execution of it, it’s very organic. I’m trying to dissect myself, trying to be my own therapist, like, ‘What’s going on there? What is this communicating? What does it reflect in my life?’”
“The shoe story is interesting because it’s my journey of embracing my femininity: When I was in high school, I used to wear heelless shoes like the ones that Gaga had—but I would buy the Jeffrey Campbells because who could afford the Noritaka [Tatehana] ones? My [Margiela by Galliano platform loafers] were the first heel I ever got. At the time, I was trying to become more comfortable with being very feminine, but I still had a lot of roadblocks. But because they were a thick heel, because they were a platform, I could justify them in my brain as still not being too feminine. Next, I got a boot with a smaller heel. Then, [my knee-high Dior boots] were my next step into very comfortably femme, skinny high-heel. I still hadn’t owned a pump yet. Those were a gateway to me getting there.”
“I’m really afraid of dying. No, I am! I am. And I think that finding beauty in decay has made embracing death a little bit easier—or at least aging a little bit easier. We live in a culture that really values youth. But Margiela for example, or early 2000s Galliano, you have these pieces that look like they were left in a chest for 100 years. There’s so much beauty in this idea of just letting things fall apart and decay; it gives it a story. It gives it a life. Clothing is meant to be lived in—I hate when people just collect and don’t wear their clothing. There are a lot of collectors like that. I don’t understand; clothing is meant to live, just like we’re meant to live.”
“Rolly made [the hat]. It’s Isshi… I think it’s a [piece of] silk they sewed all together and took tree branches from the neighborhood and then stoned it [with crystals] and here we are. I find that the best place to find a lot of vintage hats, feather hats, fascinators is on eBay. They’re always inexpensive—no one wears hats anymore! Where are the hats? They don’t wear hats and now they’re not wearing necklaces. I don’t understand. Every red carpet is like a dress and earrings. Where are the necklaces?”
“Galliano is my North Star in general. Anywhere he’s goes, I’ll probably just follow along behind. Probably two years ago is when I started to be like, ‘What’s going on over there at that house? I’m very excited about everything that’s happening there.’ And I started just hounding the brand, trying to get my hands on stuff. I became friends with one of the PR people, and I showed him these photos of me in Paper wearing the skirt that they had pulled. And he was like, ‘You need that skirt. I’m gonna get it for you somehow.’ And then right before Christmas, it arrived. I didn’t know what they were sending; a box came and I opened it up on camera. So there’s a Reel where I literally lose my fucking mind. Incredible—I could not believe.”
“Oh, the fan—she’s from my favorite fan shop in Chinatown. I got my first fan there when I was 18 or 19, and I’ve been buying fans there since. They have beautiful small ones that are like $10 and they have beautiful handpainted silk ones, but I’ve never seen one like this at the store, and I needed it for that [kimono-sequined gown] look.”
“Have you heard of a theremin? It’s an instrument you play with the air. So my dream—I gotta learn how to DJ so that while I’m doing a set, I’m on a theremin. In a look, full geish. It’ll be fab. They won’t see it coming. That’s how I’m going to open up a Margiela show.”
“Fashion was fun. It’s not as fun as it used to be. [Galliano] was the only one doing it and he’s the only one still doing it; it’s very upsetting.”
“I communicate the way I love through clothing. There’s so much communication happening within clothing for me.”
“The biggest thing about my wardrobe is that it’s all somehow connected to someone I love—I’ve made a friend, and then we became close, and they just happen to work for the house or something that I love.”
“Some of my most powerful connections have come through the fact that someone has admired the way I’ve looked in something and then that’s opened the door for so much beauty.”
“I think clothing is very much a mirror. [Before this, I was in] a showgirl era. I think that was when I had just started posting on Instagram and social media very publicly and letting myself be seen, so the clothing mirrored that. But I wasn’t thinking about it. I look back and I’m like, ‘Oh, that was it.’ I think that keeps me from anything ever being inauthentic, because I’m never deciding, like, ‘This is my next thing.’ I always just slowly end up there. Like, I went from showgirl to opera star, and then opera star fell in a swamp and then they pulled her out 100 years later. That’s where I’m at with clothing.”
“Kim Kardashian owns this dress, but my friend who’s a vintage dealer got it for like $300. She wasn’t sure if she was going to sell it because it’s lambskin—it’s not actually ostrich; they faked it—and the ostrich texture doesn’t wear well over time. So a lot of it was missing, and she was like, ‘I don’t think anyone’s going to buy it. If no one buys it, you can get it from me for what I paid for it.’ And then someone bought it. I was like, ‘I can’t have anything nice.'”
“I always buy clothing that I’m going to love forever, but the way that I interpret that clothing changes.”
Style Editor: Camille Freestone / Art Director: Smiley Stevens/ Casting Director: Yasmin Coutinho/ Executive Producer: Marc Duron
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