There's a certain intangible quality about Lana Del Rey that cannot possibly be distilled into words (unless it's her own poetry book of course). The singer and musician has an energy, an aura about her that sets her apart – a dreaminess that is perhaps best encapsulated by her songwriting.
Del Rey has got a style all to her own developed over the course of a career spanning nearly 15 years now, that playfully explores contradiction. Her songs demonstrate a careless persona, louche and disinterested, basking under a dappled West Coast sun. But they also show us a woman haunted by the future, yearning for freedom and a feeling akin to hopelessness. She's the all-American girl-next-door, but she's also sultry, drawn-in and brooding. There's a reason she used to called herself the “Gangsta Nancy Sinatra.”
Since the release of her early albums - like her breakout 2012 LP Born To Die - Lana Del Rey's sartorial choices have often mirrored her musical contradictions. The Summertime Sadness songstress oscillates between donning resplendent custom Gucci and Alexander Mcqueen, hand-in-hand with Seán McGirr at the Met Gala, to showing up to the Grammys in a department store dress she purchased on a whim mere hours before the ceremony.
While she appears to favour a simple white dress on stage, she mixes things up with a traditional Americana fashion diet of blue jeans and baseball caps in her day-today. As Del Rey often touches on the themes of beauty, youth, or the fleetingness of both in her music, we're not surprised she doesn't take things too seriously when it comes to her wardrobe.
Could she be our next CHANEL bride?
Then, in a moment which unseated me from my chair, she appears to be colluding with the house, resplendent in the signature CHANEL tweed before performing in Paris.
In a cryptic black and white set of images, Del Rey donned a black mini-dress from the maison’s spring/summer ’23 collection, and a Première watches on a necklace-length chain. Her hair, adorned with a ribbon, recalled a staple pioneered by Karl Lagerfeld through the ’80s and ’90s.
Of course, there have been other signs. Del Rey previously previewed a CHANEL look in a leg-baring pantsuit to accept her NMPA's Songwriter Icon Award. If you've been following Lana for half of your lifespan like I have, you'd know that this type of markmanship is no slight of hand. Previous romances with Gucci had seen the songstress attend several events like the Gucci 'Bloom' launch in 2017 as well as the 2018 Gucci Fashion awards before debuting her role as the Gucci 'Guilty' fragrance muse along Jared Leto. That same year, she announced the Norman F*cking Rockwell album would also go to term.
If we follow the same trajectory, 2024 tells a parallel tale. With the unspecified announcement of her tenth album Lasso also slated for release and all the winks Del Rey has been flashing us in the customary tweed, we're wondering if all roads do lead to CHANEL.
Del Rey's style echoes the First Lady sensibilities she's long evoked in song form. She preordained the lace, frills, and soft pastels before it became coquette. And yet, her dedication to black bows, understated pleating, A-lines and pearls is quintessentially Coco Chanel.
We can speculate until our brains hurt, but all we have is the photographic evidence. In honour of her Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd tour which concluded this month, we rounded up some of Lana Del Rey's best style moments. Let's honeymoon into the past together.
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