Me in college when my fashion icon was Casey Niccoli from The Gift. @ogclassicgirl - you can’t even help outshining Jane’s Addiction. ✨💋✨ #TBT #caseyniccoli #90s #janesaddiction (at VCU) https://www.instagram.com/p/CMzqycclApE/?igshid=30dd84ewa39z

Drawings from Gift (1993) #sketchbook #comics #preparatorydrawing #janesaddiction #perryfarrell #killyouridols #caseyniccoli #im15again

GIFT | A few short years before I’d witness someone OD in real life I’d witnessed Casey Niccoli do it from the TV screen in my bedroom. If I hadn’t already seen Gift—this “documentary” directed by Jane’s Addiction’s Perry Farrell and his then-girlfriend (wife?) Casey Niccoli—I don’t know how I would’ve handled the situation when it finally went down. At 17 years old Gift was the realest, most illest, most legitimate shit. It prepared me for real life and for what art could be. This band blurred so many lines in their sound as well as their appearance—pulling from glam rock, metal, funk, hip-hop, psych, goth, and more—without ever being overt, that they may be the one band of the true alternative era to actually embody that moniker most naturally and to the fullest. To think that this came off of the Sunset Strip in the ‘80s is mind-blowing. I’ve had this VHS since a year after it came out in 1993. It still holds up, and yes, I watch it using my VCR. I feel that there’s no other way you should. Do yourself a favor and check it out (look out for Harry Perry and Ice-T) and be sure to get the albums Nothing’s Shocking and Ritual de lo Habitual.