“We grew up in the nineties, and at first we copied musicians. We wore big pants, plaids, ripped jeans. We were rave punk kids, but we refined ourselves in our twenties,” says Tegan Quin, one half of the rock duo Tegan and Sara, the out and proud gay Canadian twins who will be performing on The Tonight Show this Thursday and at Coachella on Friday. The two have been successful singer-songwriters for well over a decade, enjoying a status that goes way beyond cult.
But it’s not only their infectious, inclusive music that makes them so beloved: “The exchange between us and the audience is, number one, our music, and second is our style,” Tegan explains. This style, which could be described as friendly-hipster, today involves a mash-up of biker jackets, Docs, and layered tees.
“People are so interested in what we wear, and they like to wear the same outfits. It’s like, the whole front row shows up wearing the same sweater we have!” Sara laughs.
Among Sara’s prized possessions is a Gary Graham leather jacket that has taken on a life of its own. She found it at a favorite store, Gravity Pope in Vancouver, and it was one of the first big-ticket items she ever purchased. “It was on the sale rack, and I thought it was $150 but it was $1,500, and I bought it anyway,” she admits, adding that it wasn’t easy for her to spend that much. But her instinct was correct, and now, she says, “The fans actually do fictional stories about the jacket.”
On a recent afternoon, the two enthusiastically agree to a little shopping in SoHo. As we stroll from the Little Cupcake Bakeshop on Prince Street to Rag & Bone on Houston (a favorite label), Sara describes the fashion intelligence the pair have lately accumulated, which includes the realization that a sleeker silhouette is better for performing. “And you know what doesn’t work for stage?” Sara explains. “Color! But black reads very well—maybe because we do a lot of projections and light shows.”
They have also developed an understanding of the kind of clothes that best suit their diminutive physiques, recognizing that higher priced items tailored for women can be preferable to the vintage and men’s department finds the pair love but which, alas, often swim on their small frames. “We still wear larger things,” Sara says, “but with a structured element.” They don’t want to be locked into any preconceived notions of what young, cool gay women should be wearing: After all, Tegan adds, “If Kanye can wear a skirt on stage, why can’t we be somewhat androgynous? But it’s a feminine androgyny, doing it in our way.”
At Rag & Bone, the women consider a pair of lean trousers that are half fabric, half-leather: “We can be the Bon if not the Jovi!” they joke. Tegan falls in love with a witty biker jacket that has a scarf-print front and back—blue flowers on a yellow background—and leather sleeves, saying she wishes they were Oasis and could just wear jackets and jeans on stage. A few blocks away, at A.P.C., Sara is taken with a hooded khaki parka, but, true to her reputation as the more conservative one (at least when it comes to purchases,) she says she wants to think about it, though it does have its plus points—she says it might help her in her quest to look like one of her fashion icons, “Judd Nelson in his trench at the end of The Breakfast Club.”
As Sara regards herself in the mirror, Tegan muses, “Thirteen years ago I couldn’t have imagined that everything we are doing could have happened—that we would be talking to Vogue! We were so used to the idea that we were gay, so we would be marginalized. But now we are really getting to be a part of the conversation, and our audience is so, so diverse. Our mom called us the other night to tell us we were on The National, which is like the Canadian version of 60 Minutes, and we thought, ‘Wow, that’s mainstream! And we got here being able to be ourselves, and be happy.’ ”