AUGUST 16, 2017 // Lourdes Leon Comes Into Her Own in the New MadeMe x X-Girl Campaign

As a streetwear label “by girls, for girls,” MadeMe made headlines last year for its collaborative revamp of X-Girl, the beloved alternative ’90s label. The campaign images featured Coco Gordon Moore, the daughter of X-Girl creator and Sonic Youth singer Kim Gordon. To celebrate this season’s collection, MadeMe founder Erin Magee looked for a face that would evoke the attitude of both female-centric labels—and Lourdes “Lola” Leon, Madonna’s daughter and the second campaign’s star, had been on her mind for quite a while.

The 20-year-old possesses a ’90s-minded style that fits well with the MadeMe and X-Girl ethos. “I personally wanted to work with Lola for a long time,” says Magee. “I would see her on Instagram a lot and would see the stuff she would wear. It is really close to a MadeMe vibe. She’d wear an old Polo Sport or an old Tommy Hilfiger piece.” In the images, Leon poses in fist-size hoops with straight, inky black hair—a natural, brooding fit for the rugged collection of workwear, down to her genes. (For those who don’t recall, Madonna has her own New York roots; the Queen of Pop arrived to the city with just $35 dollars in her pocket in the late ’70s.) But it turns out Magee also took inspiration from an unlikely source. “I looked through a lot of Delia’s ads because they have a real obvious ’90s vibe,” says Magee. “X-Girl is like Delia’s but cool and New York, and that is kind of what MadeMe is now.”

To capture Leon, Magee tapped photographer Mayan Toledano and lead them across downtown New York in guerrilla fashion. Back in March, when the temperature hovered around a chilly 30 degrees, the trio headed up to apartment rooftops, a jewelry store–meets–hair salon next to a subway, a dollar store, and even a porn shop—running in, snapping a few photos, then running back out. “That’s what we were doing all day,” Magee says. “We were trying to find ourselves in these New York situations.” Through them, one can see Leon come into her own.