Sofia Coppola Teases Her Chic New Barrie Collaboration (With a Little Help From Margaret Qualley)

STAR TURNS Actor Margaret Qualley wears a cashmere sweater and pants from the new collection.
STAR TURNS
Actor Margaret Qualley wears a cashmere sweater and pants from the new collection.
Photo: Melodie McDaniel

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Gen Z content creators on TikTok have found the perfect cinematic excuse for an untidy nightstand: “When a girl’s room is messy, it’s Sofia Coppola,” states the voiceover in @its_​that_​redhead’s tour of her bedroom. The video—which documents a shambolic domestic interior with crumpled sheets and a dressing table strewn with trinkets akin to those of the doomed Lisbon sisters in the writer and director’s 1999 exploration of girlhood, The Virgin Suicides—has amassed over 600,000 views. Search “Sofia Coppola aesthetic” on TikTok and you’ll also find videos of bucolic picnic spreads laid out with icing-piped cakes evoking Ladurée’s French pastries in Marie Antoinette (2006) alongside montages of Coppola herself sporting chic navy knitwear and ballet flats.

A reason, perhaps, for women worldwide to straighten up their wardrobes: Coppola’s new collaboration with 120-year-old Scottish cashmere specialists Barrie on a 17-piece capsule collection of sumptuous, heaven-sent basics guaranteed to make anyone feel like a film heroine. “Barrie indulged me,” says Coppola, with a smile, of working with the heritage label, which has been part of Chanel’s Métiers d’art network of artisans since 2012. (Coppola’s relationship with the Parisian maison, of course, spans decades: She famously made photocopies for Karl Lagerfeld when interning for Chanel in the ’80s.) “I’m always thinking about my dream winter wardrobe, asking [Barrie creative director] Augustin Dol-Maillot: Can you make this or that? ”

Sofia Coppola and Qualley on set in Paris this past summer.

Photo: Melodie McDaniel

First on her wish list: the “ultimate version,” as she puts it, of the go-to puffer jacket she favors on set. Barrie is renowned for its trompe-l’oeil-inspired design—dexterously crafting cashmere to resemble, say, distressed denim or fuzzy shearling—and the collection also includes a wondrously soft take on an army jacket and a velvety cardigan, “dressy but unlined,” with golden buttons featuring the Barrie logo and Coppola’s initials engraved and intertwined. Insouciant ease is essential, from twin sets or “elevated pajamas” to pullovers and cardigans mixed and matched with cigarette pants or slouchy trousers. “You can throw them on in your hotel room and go to the bar to grab a bite and look casual but put-together,” Coppola says.

One of the most iconic looks in Coppola’s oeuvre, of course, is the gray knit sweater and candy pink underwear Scarlett Johansson wears in bed high up at Tokyo’s Park Hyatt in 2003’s Lost in Translation. Gen Z fans of this soft-focus, pastel-punctuated aesthetic will find affinity in the macaroon pinks and blues and heather grays, as well as a classic dark blue—“I’m boring and always wear navy,” Coppola says, with a laugh—a “neutral” khaki, and a chunky black-and-white magpie stripe.

Barrie and Coppola tapped actor Margaret Qualley to star in their Melodie McDaniel–shot campaign, which channels an easeful Parisian chic. “Everything Sofia touches lives in this universe she’s created,” Qualley says, and when she shrugs on a sweater or a jumpsuit, “I get to step inside it. Sofia is the North Star of style.”