CHANNELING EDIE SEDGWICK

The Sedgwick family were wealthy and highly educated. Edie’s great-great grandfather, Robert Weeks, started the New York Stock Exchange. Her great-great-great grandfather Theodore Sedgwick was both a U.S. Representative and Senator from the state of Massachusetts as well as the fourth Speaker of the House. Her grandfather was an executive of the Southern Pacific Railroad. Another great grandfather made the family wealthy by owning a shipping route that served the Gold Rush in California. Many of her relatives were lawyers and authors. She came from blue ribbon aristocratic beginnings that were tarnished by a sexually and emotionally abusive father. Two brothers died, one an apparent suicide, and her mother was eventually admitted to a mental hospital. Edie was sent to another sanitarium after she told her mother about an affair that her father was having. They came from the classic, ‘Looks good on the outside’ family system. Nobody in town knew the horrors happening inside their home. The patriarchal sociopath ruled the house with an iron fist.

Once she got the chance, Edie moved to New York City after living for a stint in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She took to the road with Danny Fields and Tommy Goodwin, among others. Edie shared with her brother that she was going to be the biggest star in New York. The old adage, “Be careful what you wish for,” couldn’t ring more true in her story. Along with stardom, Edie developed a massive drug problem after entering Warhol’s Factory.

Andy believed he would get to Hollywood with Edie on his arm. Not to mention her wealthy friends helping support his career. Edie was, at least for a while, fed emotionally by Andy, who played a fatherly role to her. He actually saw her talent while her overly critical father frequently put her down.

Edie starred in numerous films by Andy Warhol until their relationship started to crack. In Beauty #2, he had Edie lie on a mattress in just bra and panties while an attractive guy groped her. A creepy off-camera interviewer asked inappropriate questions about her molestation, to her chagrin.

This was the bad time. Andy hadn’t paid Edie for a single film and Edie felt betrayed and used. Her addiction grew worse. She set fire to her room in the Chelsea Hotel after nodding out with a lit cigarette in her hand. She was rescued by the fire department, and photos of the young socialite being carried out with ash across her face were sprawled across newspapers.

Eventually, Edie moved home to Santa Barbara where she was sent to a rehabilitation facility by her father and actually got sober for a bit. She met and married another resident at the facility eight years her junior. On her wedding day, her brother looked into her big brown eyes, expressing his joy that she was sober and happy. After he told her that he had been worried that she was not going to make it, he watched all the light escape her eyes. Two weeks later, Edie succumbed to her addiction, perishing of a barbiturate overdose at the age of 28.

Many models and actresses have tried to emulate the Edie look. It’s a hard one to pull off. Most are too polished looking. After all, Edie had one-inch roots, a cigarette hanging out of her mouth and that wild gleam behind her eyes. Edie had, in fact, accused Twiggy, the supermodel of Swinging London, of stealing her look. To be fair, Twiggy’s hairstylist was the one who had the idea to transform her long blonde locks to a hip, side-swept pixie.

Mazda Isphahan is a Swedish artist and filmmaker who also happens to be an Edie Sedgwick lookalike. Gillian McCain made me hip to her Instagram which blew my mind. It’s hard to distinguish the real Edie from the lookalike in many of them. I chatted with the creative beauty on her life living in Edie’s pointed pumps.

@mazda_isphahan

PKM: When did you start your transformation into Edie?

Mazda: There’s a kinda fun story to it. I have been experimenting with makeup and clothes since 2014, but I appeared in the “Mazda Isphahan” look (which you know from Instagram) only fairly recently in 2018! It was a day of my bachelor’s exam at the Academy of Fine Art. My major was animation at the Intermedia faculty, so naturally my thesis project was a teaser for an animated film about Edie Sedgwick. I thought that it would be fun to combine animation with performance art. I did an Edie look and went to take that exam! Guess what? Professors who have known me for three years didn’t recognize me! They even asked who I was! I will never forget that day!

PKM: Have you modeled before?

Mazda: I started modeling a few years ago on Instagram, when I received my first pair of Edie Sedgwick-inspired earrings by Steve Sasco. Steve designed earrings for the film Factory Girl (2006), in which Sienna Miller played Edie. I have been modeling his wonderful creations for six years now. I am a huge fan of this man — he is a true master! But modeling is not my job, I am not signed to any modeling agencies. I’ve never contacted any of them.

PKM: What celebrity would you be compared for before your Edie transformation?

Mazda: No one has compared me to anyone, so I don’t really know.

PKM: What are your favorite things about Edie?

Mazda: She is almost like a mythological figure. She is an enigma. She had that unique quality and aura around her. She was timeless. She was incredibly talented. All of these aspects inspire me, plus the glare in her eyes and a smile that could have lit up the room. I really wish I could have met her in person. For those who read this interview and would love to learn more about her, I invite you to check out my FB group: ‘Conversations with Edie Sedgwick,’ and follow the Instagram account: @dearest_edie!