The life of IT-girl Edie Sedgewick can be described as fashionable, dazzling and timelessly tragic. Her influence on fashion and art is everlasting, even after her passing at 28 years old. Back in the 60s Edie came into the spotlight as Andy Warhol’s muse and her work in his studio The Factory. Her image was bold, with her short bleached silver hair, eyeliner and big eyelashes and her huge shiny earrings. Always seen with her black tights and fur coat and matching pill box hat, she was striking in every sense. Synonymous with the Pop Art era and Warhol, most people see her as an extension of Warhol as his first muse. But Edie herself was an inspiring artist, having lived a notoriously difficult life.

The early life of Edie was that of wealth and many hardships. Although she grew up in an elite family, her life was surrounded by family dysfunction and mental illness. Most notably her father’s manic depression and adultery, which put significant strain on their family. As a young child Edie and her siblings lived an isolated life at Corral de Quati, a ranch in California, and were homeschooled in a strict curriculum approved by their father. Supposedly her father had attempted to sleep with Edie from the age of 7, adding onto the stress and trauma of her childhood. As a teenager Edie suffered from an eating disorder and the abuse of her father, which led to her stay at a mental health facility for a while. With one of her brothers committing suicide and another one dying in an accident, Edie went through devastating losses early in her life.

Despite all her struggles Edie moved to New York in 1964, where she ended up meeting Andy Warhol. Their relationship was based on mutual obsession and romance, with Edie playing in many of his films as his first muse. She was a rising star, partying almost every night with her Harvard friends and attending galleries and exhibitions with Warhol. She was magnetic, attracting everyone around her and inspiring artists like Bob Dylan to write songs about her. As Edie’s and Warhol’s relationship fizzled out after a year, so did her trust fund money and life became a drug fueled descend into another mental hospital, where she met her future husband. Unfortunately Edie would pass away due to sleeping medications merely months after marrying him, in 1971.

Before her life as a Hollywood starlet, Edie was also a painter and sculptor. She began drawing from a young age and was praised by her teacher for being talented and ambitious. Many of her drawings are studies of horses, which she loved very much. In recent years, her art has been published for the public to see for the first time, giving a new light into the inspiring starlet’s life.

Xx Esha

21.04.2026

The IT-girl of the 60s

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