Music’s Best Fashion Moments of 2011
Lykke Li performs during the Lollapalooza Festival at Grant Park in Chicago on August 6th, 2011.
Thanks to Bat for Lashes, Fever Ray, and Zola Jesus, the pagan chanteuse has emerged as a major force in music in the past few years. In 2011, no one spearheaded the abstract ideal more convincingly than Lykke Li, whose reinvention as a "pop witch" cast intriguing shadows on the styles and sounds of the mainstream.
Gallery by Colleen Nika
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Rihanna Brazenly Bares (Almost) All
Rihanna takes the stage on day two of the V Festival at Hylands Park in Chelmsford, England, on August 21st, 2011.
Rihanna continued her reign as Top 40's most unabashed sex symbol by reviving the brave world of crop tops this year. Worn with her newly burnished hair, fetish gear and occasionally profane creepers, she managed to instigate the ire of British citizens and legendary photographers alike, making it a Madonna-worthy year for the pop princess.
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Nicki Minaj: Pop’s Most Colorful Extrovert
Nicki Minaj attends the 28th Annual MTV Video Music Awards at Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles on August 28th, 2011.
Pairing Lady Gaga's panoramic fashion vision with Gwen Stefani's kawaii fetish, kaleidoscopic urban queen Nicki Minaj made cotton candy palettes the norm for pop attire in 2011. At the VMAs, she appeared as a post-apocalyptic Harakuju Barbie – or a Toys 'R' Us explosion victim.
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Madonna Ages Gracefully
Madonna attends the W.E. premiere at TIFF Bell Lightbox during the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival, as well as its premiere at the 55th BFI London Film Festival at Empire Leicester Square.
It's anyone's guess as to how Madonna will handle middle age on her upcoming new album (due in early 2012). So far, though, she seems to be courting a more elegant sartorial phase than we endured with the spangled leotards-and-bling blutz that accompanied 2008's Hard Candy. At the recent London premiere for her film W.E., she wore a simple black L'Wren Scott sheath encrusted with a becoming Far East design. Since then, she's been turning up at publicity events in similarly understated, lovely, and – dare we say it – ladylike garb. Kudos to Madge's brave new minimalism. Upgrade!
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Florence Welch Walks the Runway
Karl Lagerfeld and Florence Welch hit the runway during the Chanel Ready to Wear Spring/Summer 2012 show during Paris Fashion Week at Grand Palais on October 4th, 2011.
Chanel creative director Karl Lagerfeld and pop siren Florence Welch (of the Machine) celebrated their mutual love of Art Deco decadence with several collaborations this year, leading to the singer's most distinctly glamorous phase to date. There was the Vogue Japan cover, the very special (and steeply priced) Lagerfeld-edition "Shake It Out" and "No Light, No Lights" record sleeves via the Vinyl Factory and, of course, her imperious performance at Chanel's Spring 2012 catwalk show at the Grand Palais. From high atop a giant pearl-encrusted seashell, Flo sang her heart out, sealing her status as fashion royalty and the biggest breakout story of the season.
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Lady Gaga Goes Futuristic
Lady Gaga poses at the MTV Europe Music Awards at Odyssey Arena in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on November 6th, 2011.
Lady Gaga is now at a point in her career where she's tried every look under the sun (including those centered in galaxies yet to be discovered). That means she's at liberty to circle back to tried-and-true looks from her sci-fi regimen and mutate them further. After Manish Arora drew accolades for successfully reviving the infamous space-age label Paco Rabanne this year, stylewatchers speculated that, in light of her role as muse to the newly resuscitated Thierry Mugler house, Gaga would be fast on the heels of this latest galactic reincarnation. They were right: only a month after Arora's Spring 2012 collection garnered praise, Gaga wore custom Rabanne creations to the European Music Awards. Though her ensembles seemed comprised of various heavy metals, they were actually made entirely of paper.
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Ellie Goulding Turns Ladylike
Ellie Goulding arrives at the American Music Awards at Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles on November 20th, 2011.
À la Robyn, Ellie Goulding is the latest blonde dark horse to grace the North American pop scene after making a splash in her European homeland. Her yearning voice, intriguing lyrics and hybrid production styles helped break her to a new audience Stateside and, as such, she's been wise to keep her image smart, sophisticated and sensation-free. But that doesn't mean she's boring: she looked every bit the soignée young ingenue at the AMAs last month, sporting a dynamic black slashed-and-studded look from fellow Brit Christopher Kane. Youthful, innovative, sleek: she hit all the right notes with this one.
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Katy Perry Travels to the Far East
Katy Perry arrives at the American Music Awards at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles on November 20th, 2011.
Like Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry can't escape Gwen Stefani's far-reaching obsession with Japan, which seems to have become one of the latter's defining legacies as both a pop star and an imagemaker. The parallel was particularly unmissable at the AMAs, when Perry not only mimicked Stefani's cotton-candy punk tresses favored 11 years ago but also her obsession with quirky Vivienne Westwood gowns (Perry chose a couture look, conveniently enough, that was also pink AND Asian-themed). Originality qualms aside, we have to give Perry props for pulling this compelling look together: for that night, she truly embodied her eccentric prom queen ideal.
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Kylie Minogue’s Ladybird Chic
Kylie Minogue arrives at BBC Radio 2 in London on December 9th, 2011.
As Madonna dabbles with the idea of handling the aging process with grace instead of obstinance, Kylie Minogue, also "fabulous and over forty," has been taking that concept in stride for quite some time. For her, this has meant channeling the Swinging Sixties, a decade of style with which she seems preternaturally at ease. As the Telegraph's Kate Finnigan points out: she's a "dolly-bird" and "wears it well." Blessed with a petite stature, long limbs, and taste for French less-is-more discretion, the pop icon has recently shown an interest in Prada's mid-2oth century shifts and minidresses, as well as knee-high go-go boots. She proves, once again, that the best looks can indeed come in small packages.
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Frances Bean Cobain Travels Light
Frances Bean Cobain arrives with her boyfriend at JFK airport in New York City on May 5, 2011.
As we discussed this summer, Frances Bean Cobain has come into her own as an accidental style icon. Her moment of glory may be incidental, but it's also well-timed: she embodies the lux grunge aesthetic currently so popular on runways and in editorials alike – a grimy, glam look we should expect to see skyrocket in the coming year, as the 1990s revival comes into full effect.
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Kanye West Takes the Stage
Kanye West performs in concert during the Watch the Throne tour with Jay-Z in East Rutherford, New Jersey, on November 6th, 2011.
Kanye West's own fashion line, D.W., may have been a critical bomb, but he faithfully executes impeccable taste when curating the work of others. Riccardo Tisci, by now as much as collaborator as muse to the rapper-turned-mogul, conceived and designed the art direction surrounding West's and Jay-Z's Watch the Throne campaign. The Givenchy creative director also continues to be a mainstay in West's personal wardrobe, as seen when the singer mosied down to the Occupy Wall Street epicenter for a few hours this autumn.
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Kate Moss as the Thin White Duke
Kate Moss dresses as David Bowie on the cover of French Vogue in December 2011.
To some, Kate Moss is (still) the coolest woman on Earth. To even more, David Bowie will always be one of mankind's coolest aliens. With these standards in mind, Vogue Paris put two and two together and hired Moss to recreate the epic visage of Ziggy Stardust for their December issue. With her sharp bone structure and accuratedly rendered hair and makeup, the trick worked uncannily well, reminding us that Bowie's influence over fashion can only continue to serve the world nobly.
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Grace Jones Maintains Her Edge
This autumn, Jean-Paul Goude, one of the most paramount fashion photographers of the 1980s and the man who made Grace Jones a robotic pop icon, displayed a collection of his portraits of the singer, bringing to mind just how much her shockingly modern and avant-garde visual tested pop's outer limits. And how fearless it remains: now 63, Jones remains the original Amazonian post-everything style dynamo, as seen in the assemblage of recent live footage captured here.
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Beyoncé’s Pop Art Odyssey
For her "Countdown" video, Beyoncé took viewers on a colorful, retro-tastic trip through pop art utopias, Flashdance moments of euphoria, as well as a lion's share of Audrey Hepburn visual nods. Simple, striking and very, very cool, it was the singer's moment to cheerfully reflect how other icons before her have built her into the unstoppable diva-in-command she's become.
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Drake Fixes Up, Looks Sharp
Drake attends Bing's Celebration of Creative Minds at BOA Steakhouse in West Hollywood on June 22nd, 2010.
Drake looks great, sounds great, and has built a compelling empire in two short years based on those colossal strengths alone. But then, what else does he need? Well, a clothing line, of course. Dubbed O.V.O, it's a study-in-progress; however, judging from the carefully customized "Take Care" jackets released last month to a select few retailers, it looks to be what we have come to expect from Drake: masterful, modern, urbane.
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Hurts’ Well-Groomed Gloom
Adam Anderson and Theo Hutchcraft of Hurts attend a party hosted by Emporio Armani to celebrate their final performance of their European tour at 50 St James in London on November 4th, 2011.
Simply put, Hurts are the most stylish band in the world right now. Best of all, it's obvious they were born that way. A perfect amalgam of Hedi Slimane's slick shadow-goth appeal and Anton Corbijn's Ian Curtis-obsessed empire of doomy beauty, the videos and photo shoots that Hurts produce gain as much attention as their reliably epic, synth-laden pop dirges. With "Wonderful Life," the debut single that remains the band's chief calling card and most spectacular video moment, they introduced the idea that terrifically handsome men, Kraftwerkian sparity and extremely depressing lyrics still have a home in pop music. Not shockingly, they are immensely popular in Germany.
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Lana Del Rey Pairs Glamour and Pain
In 2011, Lana Del Rey escalated from little-known, previously shelved artist to YouTube sensation to major pop cultural meme. Why? Well, there are her sweetly sinister torch songs – only two official singles so far, "Video Games" and "Born to Die" – but they're worth remembering since you won't be escaping them any time soon. More potently, their videos manage to delight and repel viewers equally. Again, why? Del Rey is a mystery, and perhaps engineered to confound, and that bothers people who like their pop stars to assure us they are utterly self-aware. "Authenticity" qualms as an artist aside, audiences find her strangely alluring: attractive but "off,"discomfiting in the much-cited Lynchean sense, sexy but sad, and totally unlike anyone else preening in pop right now. Like Cults and Cat's Eyes, she reflects a continual urge to re-explore the smoldering tear-strewn ballads and tragedy hymns of the 1950s and 1960s, but her approach is more postmodern: more than any L.A. Noir siren, she resembles the 1990s Lost Lolita obsession à la Fiona Apple or American Beauty's Angela Hayes. Ironically, Del Rey may reflect the 1990s revival better than anyone else.