To celebrate the release of the film Mother Mary, starring Anne Hathaway and Michaela Coel, in which a fashion designer creates a comeback dress for a pop star, we weigh up the best performative looks
“Dressed like a fabulously turned-out carrion crow,” is how our reviewer described the gothic, avian-like get-up PJ Harvey wore to perform her journalistic and theatrical ninth album, The Hope Six Demolition Project, in Brixton, south London, in 2016. The dress was the work of Harvey’s longtime friend, the Belgian designer Ann Demeulemeester, and epitomises the more dramatic stage looks – melodramatic but pared-back – that Harvey turned to for her later, darker albums. As she said of the clothes: “For me, it’s about the ability to meet the world. And it is a second skin, isn’t it? It’s protection, as well. It’s a very big part of clothing, the feeling of protection, particularly in Ann’s clothes.” Who would have thought that someone who earlier in their career took to the stage in Spice Girls co-ords and hot-pink catsuits would wind up in such serious Belgian high-fashion? Ellie Violet Bramley
It’s been called the ultimate revenge dress; on stage in Chicago earlier this year, performing a track called 4Chan Stan from her breakup album West End Girl, Lily Allen wore a dress printed with enlarged images of receipts, which some fans have linked to an an alleged affair on the part of her ex-husband. “Never been Bergdorf’s / But you took someone shopping there on May 24 / You bought her a handbag / It wasn’t cheap / I was in London / Probably asleep,” she sang, as she unfurled herself from the dress showing credit card transactions and texts. It’s a piece of pop performance art, created with the help of co-creative director Anna Fleische and stylist Mel Ottenberg, from a pop star who made a name for herself in the mid-2000s performing in more seemingly cobbled-together ensembles of gold hoops, Nike high-tops and prom-style dresses. EVB
