“‘Go As A Dream’ was first written as a piano ballad before Pang even took shape,” Caroline Polachek said following the release of her debut solo album. “[It] was a song about how memories fracture and dissolve.” On the single cover, the singer stands in an icy forestscape; she wears a tartan KNWLS set and holds a white porcelain teacup. The album’s narrative unfolds across 12 more songs, each accompanied by its own similar storybook image and talisman. To Pitchfork, Caroline recounted the process of distilling each song — its moods, themes and emotions — down into a single, symbolic object: a lasso captures the freewheeling longing of “So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings”; a large, gothic key embodies the wide-open optimism of “Door”; “Go as a Dream”’s pristine teacup is pregnant with the possibility of fracture.
A similar kind of alchemy is the work of her stylist, whose job is to transmute these complex, oftentimes fantastical musical worlds into wardrobe. Setting themselves apart from the mainstream, avant-garde popstars seek to push the boundaries of the musical genre, beyond the conventional Top 40 earworms towards the outer edges of the as-of-yet unimagined. These artists craft elaborate stories, using clothes as costumes to bring characters to life. Think Caroline and the duo of stylists, Mindy Le Brock and Kat Typaldos, who helped her weave Pang’s fairytale dreamscapes with witchy Mega Mikaela knitwear, swashbuckling Ottolinger blouses and angelic swathes of Olivier Theyskens silk. Or FKA twigs and creative director Matthew Josephs, who styled the popstar through Magdalene’s ornate Edwardiana to CAPRISONGS’ club-ready maximalism. And Rina Sawayama and stylist Jordan Kelsey, who elevated the popstar’s Hold the Girl look to levels of editorial artistry.
For these avant-popstars and those that came before them, their work is always conceptual. Near literary, even. Artpop foremother Kate Bush borrowed from Emily Brönte’s Wuthering Heights to pen her debut single. (In its music video, she wears a dress as ethereal as the novel’s ghostly protagonist). Mindy, who began styling Caroline at the outset of her solo career, notes that the artist’s work is particularly narrative driven.
Similarly, twigs drew on literary tropes of biblical proportions to illuminate Magdalene’s graceful journey through heartbreak. The era’s looks are just as monumental as their source text: in the “Cellophane” video the singer lives through the epic highs and lows of love in a gilded bikini, custom created by designer and frequent collaborator Ed Marler. Her gorgeously-wrought “Sad Day” video references wuxia, a fantastical Chinese opera genre; its two protagonists sword-fighting over London in an allegory for a relationship at its bitter end. In lieu of the traditional Chinese Hanfu, twigs wears a billowing Burberry trench coat that fits right into the video’s desolate backstreet settings, elevating the loneliness of the proverbial end of the road.
“I listen to a lot of music as I’m working and researching ideas in my studio,” Mindy says of her styling process. “I’m quite obsessive, often listening to a song or an album on repeat. I feel something in their music.” With Pang, Mindy translated these feelings — the album’s melancholy, longing, serenity, transcendence — into a wardrobe as ethereal as the singer’s operatic vocals. KNWLS chiffons that haunt. Hyein Seo harnesses that ensnare. A Maroske Peech slip, crimson as heartbreak (or, perhaps, burning desire).
Caroline describes her latest single, “Welcome to My Island”, as “bratty and stupid […] the worthy soundtrack for an epic walk of shame.” To embody the song’s winking impudence, Kat dressed Caroline in an “American Apparel-inspired” custom Ella Mae bodysuit. “We spent hours trying on a variety of accessory options to evoke a feeling of being deranged and a bit bratty. We landed on her black knee-highs (a CP staple!), an archetypical square toe pump and topped it all off with a giant bow and an artisanal one-of-a-kind belt made by Corrina Goutos. The vibe ended up feeling like a hot mess version of Eloise at The Plaza.”
In many ways, the avant-pop stylist is also a masterful storyteller themselves. Jordan Kelsey, who has worked with Rina through her Hold the Girl era, began her styling career at Love Magazine. Today, she admits that her passions still lie in the experimental, story-driven world of editorial and that’s why she’s found such an affinity with the artist. “[Rina’s] like a walking editorial,” Jordan says. “She isn’t afraid to push and she really puts herself out there.” Along with creative director Chester Lockhart, Jordan’s process is quite similar to that of crafting a magazine editorial: “We have this platform to really ‘wow’ people. To create moving art. That’s what we want to do,” she says. “We treat every look as a moment. I think it’s always better to take a risk. And people on the internet gag over seeing something new!”
On the cover of her recently-released sophomore album, Hold the Girl, Rina dons a piece by recent graduate and up-and-coming designer Terrence Zhou. Less a gown, more a sculpture, the dress’ structural skirt engulfs her frame in a big, black balloon. “Rina’s Hold the Girl style is very influenced by shape, texture and deconstruction,” Jordan explains. “Taking things apart, turning them inside out, putting things on upside down to create weirder versions of things. We were experimenting with shapes and pushing her look into a different dimension.”
To keep up with the artist’s desire to push pop music into new, yet uncharted dimensions, the avant-pop stylist is after the same kind of novelty, frequently enlisting the likes of emerging designers. Beyond Terrence Zhou’s eye-catching balloon dress, Jordan Kelsey has pulled designs from Hodakova (known for their belt-strap miniskirts), Dilara Findikoglu (known for her devilish lingerie hybrids) and FANCÌ (known for their bubbly Y2K confections.) Kat says that she loves working with Caroline because her looks tend to center new talent, like Elena Velez’ gothic bondage gear and, more recently, in intricate, ethereal knits by Swedish designer Mega Mikaela.
Their ingenuity comes through in the remix: mixing and matching elements of old and new, high and low brow into something never heard or seen before. For the Grammys, Matthew and Ed outfitted twigs in a Victorian tracksuit, a nod to both the baroque and R&B stylings of the singer’s Magdalene era. Of its regalia-meets-streetwear look, Ed said, “Things that are mundane mixed with something regal. I think people think I’m away with the fairies all the time, but what interests me is something completely extraordinary that’s grounded by something everyday.”
Caroline and Kat are also inclined to such juxtapositions. In addition to emerging designers, Kat explains that Caroline’s stage wardrobe consists of “personal pieces from her collection, thrift and Canal Street shopping, and pops of dance culture.” Of the looks in the singer’s “Billions” video, she says, “We aimed to balance the wardrobe in a way that would serve a Lilith Fair crunchiness with a side of subversion, like using white aprons paired with a baseball cap and white lace hosiery from a sex shop. She wore a Vivienne Westwood look for the final scene, with her grandma’s netted headscarf. We wanted the mood to feel sensual and irreverent — naturally Vivienne Westwood made sense!”
But sometimes, ready-to-wear is just not enough. Matthew commissioned Ed Marler to create a series of custom looks to capture Magdalene’s Bulgarian folk, electronic and operatic sounds. For the 2020 Grammys, he dressed twigs in a custom gown worthy of a Goya portrait; for a late-night TV appearance, a filigreed look inspired by illustrator Aubrey Beardsley. To telegraph the purity, the elation of the soaring chorus on “Home With You”, Ed and Matthew collaborated on a snow-white gown made to look like a pair of Edwardian bloomers. As the chorus swells, twigs sprints, child-like, through an elysian pasture. It’s innocence, euphoria, embodied in a single look.
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“Magdalene was definitely a character and I feel like twigs in CAPRISONGS is somewhere in between,” Matthew said, referring to the sartorial shift that came with the dancehall, grime and hyperpop inspired mixtape. “[CAPRISONGS] is twigs showing her vulnerability, her goofiness, her approachability. She’s not this ultimate ethereal goddess. It’s about trying to connect with more people.” On the mixtape’s cover art, she wears a Vivienne Westwood crown and jeans from a high-street shop. “She just looks cool, I wish I looked like that,” the creative director said. Speaking to their working relationship, he said, “I think the thing that we have in common is that we both work towards making real the fantasies we see play out in our imagination.” Forlorn lovers battling against the London skyline, a woman running homeward across verdant paradise, our heroine reborn on the pole. “We are both quite committed to going full on with what we see as beautiful.”