Does what you wear affect how you feel when you perform? Do you have special pieces of clothing that you like to perform in? Is there a particular favorite?
Oh, yes. The ritual of getting dressed up, before I play a show, is very important to me. I don’t really focus on it consciously, but sometimes I become aware of that funny, giddy feeling, like I’m dressing for some mysterious and wild convergence of possibilities, like I’m about to go out and experience something very special, very rare. It’s like the opposite of ominousness, whatever that might be. I feel like to not dress-up would seem instinctively rude, or disrespectful to that strange and fragile magic which has somehow miraculously allowed me to play music for a living. I almost always wear dresses onstage, for that reason; very seldom jeans or pants. I definitely have a handful of favorites. A Christopher Kane electric-pink velvet dress, a vintage emerald-green Radley silk-jersey gown, a silk crepe vintage Ossie Clark print dress, and, recently, an amazing black dress that the unbelievably lovely Rodarte girls gave me. My dream would be to buy one of the pale green and blue dresses Rodarte made for Fall ’09, but those are too expensive for me. I did get to borrow one, once, and it was incredible. The handwork, up close – the tiny, tiny beads, and the tissue-thin lace – made me feel like a walking, talking Faberge egg.
Have you always loved clothes and fashion? What is it about clothes that you love? Who are your favorite designers, and why do you love them? How has your relationship with fashion changed over the years? When did you discover designer clothes? How does what you wear in your daily life and what you wear to perform differ? How do clothes and dress-up make you feel?
This is a long question! And I think the answer is a little complicated for me. I’ve always loved clothes (or, at least, been excited and inspired by them). I have a sort of love/hate relationship with “fashion,” but I’ve always loved clothes. I grew up in a house where new clothing was almost never bought. Our school clothes were mostly mined from the local consignment store, and our special-occasion clothes were sewn by my mom. I spent my young years insanely envious of the girls who went on shopping sprees at Nordstrom at the beginning of each school year. But I know now that I was, of course, very lucky to have my mom sew me such beautiful things. In advance of every Easter, she would make both my sister and me each a beautiful new dress. She would take us to the fabric store, and let us choose our dress pattern from a huge book, and let us choose the fabric, and the buttons, and the trim. She’d spend weeks sewing us these lovely things. I remember my favorite dress was black silk velvet, with huge puffed sleeves, trimmed at the wrists with crocheted Belgian lace (which my mother had been saving in tissue paper for years), and embellished down the front with a row of tiny, pink silk rosebuds.
Anyhow, I think my emotional experiences with clothing, growing up, sort of combined to become a sometimes irritatingly potent influence on me, as an adult; watching my mom sew our dresses gave me an attention to miniscule details, a love of beautiful construction, and the fantasy of being able to imagine something ideal and exciting to wear; and though I appreciate my parents’ attempts to shield us from the “societal cycle of disposable consumerism,” etc. by not buying us new clothing (I must say, nonetheless, that my childhood was spent gazing longingly at the shop windows, and magazine covers) it might have impressed on me the faintest association of store-bought clothing with some ultimate, eminently desirable luxury. There’s always been an aura of magic, for me, surrounding gorgeous clothing. For years, all through high school and most of college, this found expression for me through collecting vintage pieces. By the time I made my first album, I basically wore only vintage. But it was all pretty deliberately edited vintage pieces, hoarded for years — Yves Saint Laurent, Biba, Jean Muir, Holly Harp (the Ossie Clark wouldn’t come till later), and, of course, a closet full of Gunne Sax. This is where I always feel a little weird, talking about clothes, or fashion, because, when I started touring, and had a little income, I started picking up more special pieces, here and there, and I think some people perceive me as having had some drastic change in style, but that wasn’t the case. I just suddenly had a world of costuming options open up to me that I’d never had before, a world to which I’d previously been just a spectator – an avid spectator, like a sports fan who knows all the statistics or whatnot, but a spectator, nonetheless – and I was so excited to finally be able to dress up, to just be near clothes like that. I never wear beautiful clothes just for the function; there always has to be an element of fantasy, or a story. And my style – by which I mean, the things I personally find beautiful, and want to outfit myself in – hasn’t changed. I have very strict rules about what I wear; for me, there’s a clear trajectory between the old Gunne Sax and everything else I love; I still stick, more or less, to that silhouette (nipped-in, hourglass-ey shaped dresses, volume in the shoulders, etc) and I still require a certain character or drama in a dress; something off-kilter about its proportions, or something that provokes an emotional reaction in me, I do tend to still prefer vintage, most of the time. And I love clothes that evoke the early ‘70s (for reasons that I’m sure connect to the fact that I love music and films from the early ‘70s), even if the evocation is quite abstract, not literal.
The first designer I remember becoming truly interested in was Marc Jacobs, in Spring 2002, because that show was, in my mind then (and now!), basically perfect. I think I’ve never quite gotten over the heartbreak of not having been able to afford anything from that collection (nor could I ever track anything down on Ebay, or in any consignment shop). Everything about it – the bright, color-blocked dresses, the nipped in waists, the flower-sprayed organza prints, the t-strap shoes, and the cheeky Koos van den Akker quilting/patchwork references – just seemed gorgeous and perfect to me.
But I have a really specific style, which makes me fickle about designers, since they tend to change so much from season to season. I’m sure Marc Jacobs continues to be amazing, and I’ve certainly seen individual pieces of his, over the years, that I love, but he’s never, since that Spring ’02 show, produced an entire collection that resonates perfectly with me, in the way that particular one did (except for the collection he did for Louis Vuitton in Spring ’09!). I had the same instant-love reaction to Chloe, in Fall ’06, Balenciaga and Chanel in Spring ’08, Gucci in Fall ’08, Nina Ricci in Spring ’09, and Rodarte in Fall ’09. And this Spring, 2010, I’m weirdly loving Etro more than anything! So, I have no loyalty. Also, it should be said, I own almost no pieces from any of the collections I just mentioned. I’m still mostly a spectator. I try to keep my enthusiasm for these things mostly in the dream-realm; I try to be conscious of some boundaries, in the clothing-acquisition department, lest I become an asshole. I’m pretty sure that’s what happens, eventually, if you buy everything you want!
*Claire from the Joanna Newsom forum Milky Moon graciously typed up these parts of an interview from Lulu Magazine (Issue 10) where she talks about fashion.
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“It had a nice a ring to it when the ol’ opry house rang. So with a solemn auld lang, ‘Signed, Sealed, Delivered’, I sang”
- Good Intentions Paving Company
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There is a blacksmith, and there is a shepherd, and there is a butcher boy,
and there is a barber who is cutting and cutting away
at my only joy.
I saw a rabbit as slick as a knife
and as pale as a candlestick,
and I had thought it’d be harder to do,
but I caught her and skinned her quick.
Held her there, kicking and mewling,
upending, unspooling,
unsung and blue.
Told her “Wherever you go, little runaway bunny, I will find you,”
and then she ran
as they’re liable to do.
Be at peace, baby, and be gone.
Be at peace, baby, and be gone.
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"…But there’s also so many things that are OK and good that sometimes it makes you crumple over with being alive. We are allowed such an insane depth of beauty and enjoyment in this lifetime. It’s what my dad talks about sometimes. He says the only way that he knows there’s a God is that there’s so much gratuitous joy in this life. And that’s his only proof. There’s so many joys that do not assist in the propagation of the race or self-preservation. There’s no point whatsoever. They are so excessively, mind-bogglingly joy-producing that they distract from the very functions that are supposed to promote human life. They can leave you stupefied, monastic, not productive in any way, shape or form. And those joys are there and they are unflagging and they are ever-growing."
Joanna Newsom, Nearer the Heart of Things (aka the best JNew interview you will ever read)
Perfect
(via littlewillowcabin)
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