This story originally appeared in i-D’s The Summer! Issue, no. 372, Summer 2023. Order your copy here.
Over the past few seasons, the most striking sight at fashion week in Paris and Milan wasn’t found on the runway, but rather on the seats lining it: two twins, towering above their fellow onlookers – in large part thanks to their comically scaled Rick Owens Kiss boots and Christian Louboutin pleasers; identical in their ice-cool countenances, butt-skimming platinum wigs and sculpturally contoured physiques. To call their presence conspicuous would be putting it mildly. But it’s not a remark they’d take offence at. After all, as if it wasn’t obvious at first glance, Shannon and Shannade Clermont – or The Clermont Twins, as you perhaps know them – were born to stand out.
You see, not only have Shannon and Shannade Clermont always been different but they have, for the lion’s share of their 28 years alive, been aware of their inherent difference, too. The realisation first dawned at the age of nine, when the twins moved from the richly diverse New Jersey town of Montclair to Dallas, Georgia – a rural community around 40 miles from Atlanta. It was there, at elementary school, that they first started to elicit the sort of gawps and gasps that they’ve since grown accustomed to. There’s a key distinction between now and then, though. While those seen and heard today are typically in response to the distinct aesthetic that the twins concertedly cultivate through styling choices and cosmetic enhancements, the subject of their new classmates’ fascination was something far beyond the twins’ control.
“It was when we moved to Georgia, to a predominantly white neighbourhood, that we first realised we were different,” Shannon recalls over Zoom from LA, sporting the single-shouldered jersey singlet and chunky Rick Owens sun visor that she and her sister have made recent wardrobe staples. “We were the only Black kids in the classroom,” she continues. “And they were so intrigued by us, even if they didn’t necessarily accept it. We had friends who’d be like, ‘Oh, I’ve never really brought a Black person home before’,” an identically clad Shannade concurs. “And later on, that turned to people telling us we were pretty… for Black girls. It was always these underhand compliments.”
This acute experience of otherness at such a young age can be, as any amateur psychoanalyst will tell you, cause for some serious self-esteem issues later down the line. For the twins, however, the result was perhaps the opposite of what you might expect. “It definitely exerted a toll on us mentally, but I think it also allowed us to grow stronger,” Shannon affirms. “It made us realise that we were different, but what were we supposed to do about it? It made us ask: ‘how can we try to exist in these spaces that we’re not technically supposed to be, and we’re not used to being in, and feel comfortable?’”
The answer they arrived at was learning to metabolise those feelings of insecurity and process them into sources of strength. “At a young age, we realised that we allowed people to see different things – to question, to wonder, and even learn something from us,” Shannade says. “We really get people to think, and once we knew that, we would walk into a room and feel sure of ourselves because of that.”
In other words, not only did they create their own space at the margins to which they’d been consigned, but they made it much more interesting than the space they’d been excluded from. Fashion, naturally, played a vital role in this process of self-actualisation. “A huge part of it was developing our personal style, and finding comfort in that,” Shannon says, reminiscing on the regular detentions they’d be booked in for due to the racy, self-made looks they insisted on wearing in middle and high school. Their dress code-violating dress code also comprised enough piercings to make airport security a nuisance, featuring nose rings, nipple rings and dermal piercings on their hands and hips courtesy of “a piercer that would come over to our house for piercing parties – and our mom had no idea!” Shannon giggles. The most iconic of their schoolyard looks came on prom night when the pair showed up, hand in hand, in looks that playfully ribbed the evening’s ceremonial tone. “We wore wedding dresses!” the pair squealed in joyful unison. “Honestly, it was giving Vera Wang,” Shannade quips. “We were wearing Louboutins, 40 inches of long black hair… It was a real bride and bride moment!”
Indeed, this shared appetite for using fashion to create moments is arguably what has spurred the twins towards the pop cultural prominence they now enjoy. It was on moving to New York aged eighteen for their studies – Shannon at FIT and Shannade at Parsons – that this journey started. Though they had participated in acting classes and small-scale fashion shows (encouraged by their aunt, an artist and fashion designer based in the city), it was here that they really began to tap the potential of the outré personas they had cultivated at school. “New York was such a melting pot, and I think that’s where we really became our true selves,” Shannade recalls, “It’s where we met people who had the same interests as us – they didn’t give a fuck! The streets of New York are a runway so, whatever we wore, we always caught eyes.”
While their (at first, uninvited) appearances at shows and events across the city certainly garnered attention, that attention wasn’t always for the best. “When it came to our style, we used to kind of just do things, and think, ‘Oh my gosh, we really just did that!’” Shannade continues. “Like, once we wore ten-inch Louboutins that had guns for heels to the airport, and we obviously got stopped – but that was all Shannon’s idea!”
The controversy that the twins have courted, however, is not limited to their risky style choices. In 2015, a year before their respective graduations, Shannon and Shannade made an appearance on the 14th season of Bad Girls Club. While the cult show “gave an opportunity for people around the world to notice us on a more global platform,” as Shannon puts it, and was, without doubt, a career catalyst for the pair, it also made their fiery temperaments public knowledge. Then, in 2019, the twins’ reputation for transgressive behaviour was reinforced when Shannade was arrested and convicted for wire fraud and sentenced to a year behind bars.
Of course, it goes without saying that the instances above constitute sanctionable conduct, and some would argue that due to it, they should not enjoy the cultish fandom and adulation that they do today. But it is arguably their own acceptance of their ostensible shortcomings that has encouraged so many people to admire them – particularly in an industry like fashion, where false standards of moral unimpeachability are par for the course. “We’re just unapologetically ourselves, and I think people put us on a pedestal where we’re seen as abnormal – but we are human beings,” Shannade sighs. “We all do stuff, but because we’re on this platform, and are more transparent about what we do, we then receive a lot of judgement for it.”
It isn’t just their behaviour that has routinely come under scrutiny, but their physical appearances, too. As self-professed fans of cosmetic procedures (in a tweet last Christmas, Shannon even went as far as to dub her twin her “surgery bestie”) both Shannon and Shannade are quick to accept that the extensive work they’ve undergone places them towards the extreme end of the scale of aesthetic modification. In fact, they’re widely quoted as saying that they’ve had “everything besides [their] boobs” done – a statement that turns out to be false when Shannon shares that her breast augmentation is, in fact, her best-loved bit of nip and tuck (Shannade’s, for the record, is her lip filler).
That the end result of their extensive procedures aligns with an exaggerated, pornographic archetype of women’s bodies is far from a coincidence. Indeed, a brazen expression of their sexuality is a key part of their public personas, as anyone who caught Shannade’s tweet on August 15th 2022 – which read: “GETTING MY ASS ATE ON A BALCONY IN LONDON?? I WON” – or, failing that, has seen the scanty outfits and prurient poses in the accompanying images, will know. Indeed, the cultivation of a bimbo-ish body image – a caricature of what’s deemed hot through a straight male gaze – is part of the goal for the twins. “Being hot just has so many perks to it. People will be like, ‘Do you not see those guys looking at you over there?’ And we’re just like, ‘Ugh, we’re so used to it!’” Shannon laughs.
Granted it’s a perspective that many a keyboard warrior has felt bristled by, with the twins often accused of intentionally transgressing societal and sexual norms as if they were hell-sent agents of social disorder. Haters aren’t people they pay much mind to, though. “I think that when you’re confident about whatever you’re doing, and it’s something that people aren’t used to, it becomes controversial,” Shannon says. “But we don’t purposefully do things with controversy in mind.”
Indeed, rather than products of some deep-seated self-loathing, or self-subjugation to heteropatriarchal conventions of desire, the twins share an understanding of their bodies as more than just vessels to live in. “We’re always changing and evolving, and ultimately, we see ourselves as artworks,” Shannon says. Shannade affirms: “Exactly, for us, getting a new procedure is the same as us painting our bodies – or making my boobs a bit bigger in a photo, but in real life. It’s part of the process of us becoming walking works of art. Our mediums are our bodies, our appearances and our fashion.”
It’s a pursuit that anyone who’s glimpsed the twins in person will agree has been a success. Though, even if you haven’t, just take a look at the pictures here for proof. Styled by Lana Jay Lackey and shot by Tyler Kohlhoff in the hills above Malibu, the images are a testament to Shannon and Shannade’s commitment to using their bodies as artistic tools, balancing and bending themselves into shapes that probably require the mastery of Ashtanga yoga and a hell of a lot of practice to pull off. More than a testament to their talent, though, they also offer a glimpse of the genuine tenderness that underpins their relationship, a quality often overshadowed by the bolshy image they project. “When we’re shooting, it’s really our time to bond,” Shannade says. “Even Tyler was saying that when we were shooting: it’s like we’re in sync – we become one.” “We really wanted to show our bond as twins,” Shannon echoes, “and how we [quite literally] lift each other up and inspire each other.”
Granted, to many, the image that The Clermont Twins project of themselves is less inspiring than it is alarming. To their detractors, they are walking depositories for values that openly flout (supposedly) liberal, contemporary cultural narratives; ones that bolster patriarchally-instilled beauty standards and trumpet ‘authenticity’ as a high virtue. They can be understood as the same narratives that preclude half of Hollywood from openly discussing their penchants for threads, fillers, Ozempic et al., putting it all down to fortunate genes. But reading the twins’ Instagram filter template of hotness simply as toxic sort of misses the point. More than girls who just want to look hot, there’s a critical grain to what they do that can’t be overlooked. Extreme as their appearances may be, they are intentional, inciting beholders to ponder the reactions their presence triggers and why.
“For us, we’re artists, and this is part of our self-expression,” Shannade says. “There are many people in this world that feel inspired by us doing what we do. So if we have to be on this platform, and be nailed every now and then, that’s fine. But if it inspires someone else to step up and live their truth, then we’ve done our job.” “But society has so much more growing and learning to do,” Shannon adds, “so I feel like our job will never be done.”
Credits
Photography Tyler Kohlhoff
Fashion Lana Jay Lackey
Hair Rachel Lee at MA+ Group using Oribe & Kendra’s Boutique
Make-up Deanna Paley
Photography assistance Bryon Nicleberry and Andrew Hazeltine
Fashion assistance Hayley Francise and Rider
Hair assistance Nathan Unce
Executive producer Simon Malivindi at 138 Productions
Producer Madison Krieger at 138 Productions
Production assistance Travis Wetheres, Megan Rodricks and Robbie Brockel
All clothing and accessories RICK OWENS AW23