If there’s one overarching theme to Dua Lipa’s music, it’s that girl power knows no volume, no rules, and no excuses — and she’ll tell you that through her lyrics. Starting with YouTube covers back in 2009, Lipa would eventually branch out into original material, land herself a record deal, and hit gold with a self-тιтled debut album. So far, her entire discography can be summed up as a punch that packs electricity and sensitivity, from start to finish — think: less bubblegum, more lipstick wrapped around a cigarette.
Her personal style journey seems to be taking a similar path. While her current aesthetic feels borrowed from the pop icons who came before her (a power bra here, a man’s trouser there), you can see hints of what Lipa’s fashion evolution might look like as she comes into her own. Like rule breakers Madonna or Kylie Minogue, she believes in the liberation of young women, the power in a pair of killer heels, and the significance in making your own wardrobe choices.
“Everyone is allowed to wear whatever the ҒUCҜ they want, and it’s so important that they do,” Lipa tells me over the phone. She’s currently writing material for her next album. “This is the way we move forward in the world. We have to break the norms. If women wearing womenswear is deemed normal, women wearing menswear should be normal, too. But normality is a tricky one. It’s putting things in a box, and it shouldn’t be like that. Because what is normal, anyway?”
For Lipa, normal is buying her “dream pair” of shoes: Vetements boots, with flames crawling up from their chunky platform, which are already a hit on her Instagram. “Obviously, I can’t wear them every day, or as much as I want to. But my dream boots are always something I could never wear every day; just something I want to put in a glᴀss box and keep forever.” Though she tends prefers shoes she can move in for performing her more upbeat hits like “Blow Your Mind (Mwah)” and “New Rules” (the song that arguably put Lipa on the fashion industry’s radar), when it comes to her off-stage style, the louder, the better.
