Langley Fox Shows Her Stripes

When the illustrator and model Langley Fox, whose parents are the actress Mariel Hemingway and the documentary filmmaker Stephen Crisman, was a kid growing up on film sets in Ireland, Canada, Panama, and Cuba, she would draw as a way to combat shyness. First it was “star people” (abstract figures made from the five points of a star) and spiders. These days, the 24-year-old has a photo-realistic aesthetic, which she lends to collaborations with fashion brands. Two years ago, she created an animated portrait of the designer Stacey Bendet for Alice + Olivia; this past spring Louis Vuitton enlisted her to make sketches of shoes for a store opening in Venice, Italy. Fox also wears her art: She has eight tattoos, including an arrow and a stick she designed with the tattoo artist Dr. Woo.

“I like things that are slightly creepy but have an innocence to them,” she says of the furry beasts and gothic, lanky girls that populate her portfolio. Apparently, she has always been her own best muse. As a student at Colina Middle School in Westlake Village, California, she could often be seen dressed in mismatched striped kneesocks, a khaki pleated uniform skirt snagged from her older sister (Dree Hemingway), and a Superman cape. High school was her punk period—all shrunken Ramones T-shirts and Converse sneakers; not to mention that Fox has been dyeing her hair everything from red to green since she was 7. But lately she has adopted a more laid-back style—think vintage dresses with tennis shoes—that suits her stay-at-home existence. Based in Silver Lake, she sketches during the day, save for the occasional modeling gig, and says that her cat, Jack Skellington, is pretty much her main source of company. “I will literally go four days without seeing anybody,” Fox says. “And then I feel like a weird cat lady taking pictures of Jack and putting them on Instagram. I’m, like, that person.”

Photo: Lauren Dukoff. Hair by Nikki Providence for Oribe at Jed Root; makeup by Gloria Noto at Jed Root; Photography Assistant: Sean Costello; still lifes photographed by Tim Hout, styled by John Olson; Ryder: Everett Collection.