Scammer Anna Delvey’s courtroom lewks inspire a new London artwork

Though almost a year and a half has passed since The Cut first broke the story of socialite scammer Anna Delvey, we’re no less captivated by the Le Coucou loving con artist-extraordinaire and her exploits than we were back in early 2018. Seemingly we’re not alone: step forward Cynthia Talmadge, the American artist who just debuted an installation dedicated to Delvey and her much-talked-about courtroom lewks on the London underground.

Entitled Four Courtroom Looks of Anna Delvey, the artwork is currently in-situ at Piccadilly Circus’s conceptual art space Soft Opening and features a dressing screen painted with blue cornflowers symbolic of the faux German heiresses rise and fall, as well as a Henri Bendel shopping bag, a branded matchbook from the Moroccan hotel where she reportedly spent $60,000 of her friend’s money, and the New York Criminal Court in Manhattan where her trial took place earlier this year. 

Behind the wooden screen, meanwhile, is a motorised rail on which a succession of the clothing Delvey wore while on trial rotates, offering onlookers only a flashing glimpse of the nondescript H&M sweater, the prim white lace dress, and the Miu Miu gown picked out for her by (pro-bono, lol) celebrity stylist, who reportedly felt Delvey’s wrath thanks to her ‘unsatisfactory’ choices. Sadly, as far as we can see, there is no sign of her infamous choker. 

Also featured on rotation is a snakeskin patterned dress. “She literally dressed as a snake as she was on trial for fraud. That is bold,” explained Talmadge ahead of the launch of the piece. But then, given Delvey accessorised her Rikers prison overalls with a pair of #oldceline glasses and described jail as “not so horrible  – I see it as, like, a sociological experiment”, what else were you expecting exactly?  

According to the artist, Four Courtroom Looks of Anna Delvey explores less what the SoHo grifter’s clothes say about her, and more about what our ‘tabloid fascination’ with what she wears says about us, with the spinning loop of clothing forming a fitting portrait of a woman who, despite being the subject of countless think-pieces and articles over the course of the last year, remains as elusive as she was when we were first introduced to her. “These courtroom outfits, presented in an infinite loop of ‘hysterical’ indecision, represent the closest we can get to her inner reality,” the work’s accompanying press notes explain. Check it out for yourself now.

Four Courtroom Outfits of Anna Delvey by Cynthia Talmadge is currently on show at Soft Opening inside Piccadilly Circus underground station until November 24.