Nikki Igol on Library180, Pat McGrath, & Archives

Nikki Igol has a dream job that’s just about unheard of these days: She is an image archivist and researcher who pulls visual inspiration for the fashion world’s greats. “I had a rule when I started: I only want to work for legends,” she tells me defiantly as we hang out at Library180, a new research library in the Financial District that she co-founded this year with a former V Magazine colleague, Steven Chaiken.

Igol was 11 years old and living in a Detroit suburb when she came across four issues of Details magazine from the 1980s at a garage sale. “I literally lost my mind — I had never seen a fashion photograph before,” she recalls. Soon her mom was shuttling her to vintage-clothing stores to hunt down out-of-print periodicals, catalyzing what would become a lifelong obsession with archival images. When she moved to New York in 2006, she parlayed her fashion-research aptitude, gumption, and willingness to work for free into a career in fashion. “At the time, getting a job was very easy — if you looked cute and it was the right time and place, they just let you in,” she claims. She first assisted haute fashion designer Andre Walker, then helped develop one of the first digital fashion archives at VFiles under Julie Anne Quay and worked at the French luxury-fashion ad agency Baron & Baron.

Now she’s the right-hand woman to makeup artist Pat McGrath. “You have to be old guard to appreciate the necessity of someone like me. There’s nothing I can show Pat from the internet that she hasn’t seen before,” she says. Her website description, though, is more to the point: “Fuck Pinterest.”

Library180 compiles over 2,500 magazines across fetish, art, fashion, photography, and subculture, including the issues of the art-world tabloid Coagula, erotic style glossy O, and moisture-oriented zine Wet: The Magazine for Gourmet Bathing. The collection was previously hogging up space in the apartment she shares with her husband, Nelson Harst, who is also a full-time archivist, for the artist Richard Prince. (No “swag gap” over here.) In addition to vintage periodicals, Library180 is filled with other niche curios like punk condom figurines in the library’s “smut room” and cartoon-inspired cushions Igol needlepointed herself. But I would tell you to go just to spend time with Igol, a font of wisdom who is always in a great outfit.

The inspiration behind Igol’s needlepoint cushions.
Photo: Cat Zhang

Growing up, what did you look for in a magazine? 

There were two photographers that really stood out to me: Marcus Leatherdale and Bill Cunningham. Marcus Leatherdale is a very intimate photographer. He had a series in Details called “Hidden Identity” where he never revealed his subjects’ faces. And then Bill Cunningham for his fashion roundups — his angles were incredible. He must have been at the foot of the catwalk, because the way he captured women, it was not to be believed.

What was your early career arc? 

I was so obsessed with moving to New York. I would write a list of names of who I wanted to work for, and on that list were people like Stephen Gan, because he was an editor at Details, and Andre Walker, because Bill captured his collections. This is before the internet, so I had to cross-reference who was still alive and in the game. Andre Walker was the first person I called in New York and he took me on immediately. Free help. At the time, Marc Jacobs was the designer for Louis Vuitton and Andre was helping him. Andre also started his own magazine called TIWIMUTA. It was so high-concept. It had a tin cover, and he would interlace the magazine with this thinnest fucking like tissue paper. Can you imagine the printing process? This shit slipped everywhere. It was impossible to bind.

There were basically no advertisements — Siggi’s yogurt, because he ate it for breakfast every morning. Hastings Mattresses, because that’s what he slept on. That’s basically it.

What was your day-to-day like, working under Andre?

He paid me nothing. I had to blow through my bat-mitzvah money to keep living in New York. It was great. He’s really a genius. I’m good with the artist types — I don’t take things personally.

Was it basically anything goes? 

God, yes. I’m surprised he didn’t ask me to wipe his ass one day — that would have been within the realm of things.

After that, I went to V Magazine. I was there for a really long time. They had a gallery at the space, when you first walked in at 11 Mercer. I met my two best friends there, including Chelsea Fairless, who does the Every Outfit podcast. I started off in the fashion closet, but my favorite aspect was helping the editors find photos for the front of book. I noticed that no one was archiving or organizing the files of previous issues. Everything was on either flat floppy disks or CD-roms, and they would just throw all the files from that particular issue in a drawer.

I so badly wanted to know the history of the magazine. I had a man come in who was creating a digital asset-management software at the time, and he quoted us $20,000. They were like, “No way.” And this coincided at the same time that my managing editor, Julie Anne Quay, was opening VFiles. She was like, “Come with me. Archival imagery is a huge aspect of what I want to do.” This is pre-Instagram. VFiles was in the spirit of Gallagher’s, which is like the original Casa Magazine. Julie Anne Quay purchased in one lump sum all of Gallagher’s magazines, and they came back to VFiles. We’re building this website from scratch. Chelsea and I had to hire the photographers to take photos of each page and meta tag it. It’s costing Julie Anne an arm and a leg to hire the staff, and we’re getting sued, left and right. David LaChapelle is suing VFiles for using an image.

We were working in the basement of the Mercer location, and she had a street-level space. At this time, Telfar had started — Pyrex, which was Virgil Abloh’s first line before Off White, Akeem Smith was getting involved, A$AP Rocky was just getting on the scene. She invited all of them to sell their clothes in the empty storefront. Eventually, her husband, a hedge-funder, pulled the archive aspect because it was losing him money. So that was very sad. But that made me believe that this was a job.

Igol in Library180’s “smut room”
Photo: Matteo Prandoni/BFA.com/Shutterstock

How did you meet Pat McGrath? 

After VFiles, I started working for Fabien Baron. Pat McGrath was one of our clients at the time, and she was just starting a makeup brand. He put me on her account. This was seven and a half years ago. Our aesthetic sensibilities align to a tee. We gravitate towards the same imagery: cosmetics, subculture, blitz kids, glamour, sex. She likes Newton and Erwin Blumenfeld, stolen moments, like really quiet reflections of women in mirrors, whispers and shouts. People think that they can do it on their own by going to Pinterest, Instagram. I don’t go there for anything.

When did you become interested in old erotica and fetish magazines?

Definitely in my teen years. I don’t like hardcore shit. I like when fetish meets fashion. And I love a beautiful woman. My favorite artists are Duggie Fields, Pater Sato, Alan Jones. These are all people that idolize the woman and in an erotic, fashion sort of way, who are on the fringe of like, vulgarity. I love vulgarness. I swear like a sailor. It makes people less uptight and more vulnerable.

What other pop culture do you enjoy outside of magazines? 

Cartoons, anything illustrated. I just was obsessed with Jessica Rabbit when I was little, and while doing image research I came across this other woman who was drawn similarly. I found this series called Spicy City. It’s a cartoon about the future and they were predicting sex robots and cell phones. Each episode has a different aesthetic about it. The first one was my favorite, because you almost went into a computer, and the host of the network — a Japanese lady — was hosting you throughout this episode. I love prophecies of what the future in the 2000s was gonna be like. They’re so wildly off base, you know?

I watched this one show on Apple called Drops of God. I’m a visual person. So TV, movies, and magazines are my favorite.

Where do you like to see movies? 

There’s this really great guy in Greenpoint who runs a theater called Film Noir Cinema. It’s very small, and he will literally screen anything for you. When you walk in, there’s a menu of essentially Film Forum films. I hate any theater with the food. Sit the fuck down. Just don’t eat for an hour and a half.

You are a huge foodie though, and just published a book of archival New York City restaurant ads. Where do you like to dine?

I love offal — liver, sweetbreads, tongue — so my thing is finding the best preparation of calf’s liver the city has to offer. My favorite dining spots in the city are Gene’s on 11th Street, Bar Pitti and Oh Taisho on St. Marks — they all have amazing liver dishes. Gene’s makes the best liver pâté, so I brought two pounds of it to Patisserie Tomoko, where I order my annual birthday croquembouche. But I always fantasized about ordering a Lady M cake made of liver pâté. So Tomoko made me a crêpe cake from Gene’s “Liver Mamosa!” Dreams come true.

The Face profile of you and Nelson references hologram dealers you have. Dying to hear about that.

Nelson and I used to love going to Amsterdam for Thanksgiving. Amsterdam is my favorite city, hands down. It’s similar to Seattle in the ’90s. There are tons of specialty stores: poster shops, record stores. There’s a condom store called Condo Mary that has been around since I’d guess the ’70s. They make little figurines, like little punks out of condoms. I bought them all out, and they’re gone. It’s a very easy, beautiful way of life.

Two guys are famous throughout the world for holograms. One is in Amsterdam. We would go every year and make our purchases. Every year, it got harder and harder because we had bought all the good ones the year prior. I would love to do a show one day on holograms.

When did you start needlepointing?

My mom needlepointed, so I kind of watched her my whole life, and I needed a mindless task to take up during COVID. I noticed there were so many great images within magazines that I looked at like an image and, and I was like, Okay, this is easy. It’s like coloring, but with thread. And if I enjoy coloring, then this must be like that. I found a place in London where you can send them any image, and they will put it on a canvas for you. If you get an image, it’s like $75. But every time you would add to your order, the price would go down. So I would find, like, 25 at a time, get them all printed. It would cost me like $15 and I would needlepoint constantly.

One of these is based on a handkerchief from a store called About Glamour. The owner goes to Japan like six times a year and brings everything back. He showed me this thinking I would love it.

What other New York stores do you love? 

The guy who owned Search & Destroy recently died, so now I have to go buy all the merch. I love Trash and Vaudeville and Patricia Field, and I like what the girls are doing at History Museum. I like James Veloria. I will make a point to go there a few times a year.

What are you when you’re shopping for yourself, what do you look for in your clothes?

I’ve had such a battle with clothing my entire life. There’s a big part of me that just wants to wear a uniform. Alo made this track suit just out of like cashmere. I bought seven of them, and I still wear them today. Then there’s parts of me that are very childlike [motions to her Anna Sui graphic tee]. And then a big influence of mine was Fran Drescher from The Nanny. I don’t buy contemporary clothing. I only buy older stuff.

I have a love-hate relationship with the RealReal. They kicked me out, actually, about a year and a half ago. They’re like, Miss Igol, you spent $130,000. I was like, “What? I don’t even come across $130,000.” But then the next line was like, “And you’ve returned $125,000.”

What are your most coveted items in your closet?

I have many different “sections” in my closet — I have lot of oversized black Yohji, Comme, and Miyake when I was in my “uniform era”; a large collection of tabis; a coveted section of ’90s Moschino, Oldham, Kamali, and Versace; my Fran Drescher obsession personified, miniskirts and tight blazers in animal print and bold colors. I love Dries Van Noten. I worked at a clothing store in Chicago called Blake, literally the most well-curated designer store I think in the U.S. They were the first to carry the entire line of Dries. So with my paycheck plus discount and money my parents would give me for books, I bought great pieces of early 2000s Dries. I also love “tits on toast” attire. So I buy Dolce bustiers and Gaultier bondage pieces when they fit me.