Billie Eilish

BILLIE EILISH

and the clothes she wears

Terry Newman

Hello Sailor

Virgil Abloh, Instagram, June 2018.

The Sailor Moon anime series is an iconic image-fest of fashion that inspired a legion of ‘Moonies’ in the ’90s and has been taken into the digital stratosphere on TikTok and Instagram for the 21st century. Award-winning Japanese manga artist Naoko Takeuchi’s most famous creation lives on as a style inspiration and in various film projects – a two-part movie, Sailor Moon Eternal, was released in 2021, proving an unstoppable attraction for fans who love the sparkle, romance and fierce galaxy-defending charm of Sailor and her fellow Guardians. The original animation featured outfits that paid homage to Thierry Mugler, Dior and Yves Saint Laurent as well as pretty Peter Pan-collared blouses, dungarees, preppy schoolgirl pinafores and cute shorts and crop-tops.

Back in 2019, for the iHeartRadio Music Awards, Eilish wore a custom-made Sailor Moon 2-piece, designed by Slumpy Kev (aka Queens artist Kevin Roda) paired with Under Armour X A$AP Rocky trainers and diamonds by Bulgari.

this page: Sailor Moon Eternal. opposite: BE at the 2019 iHeartRadio Music Awards, Microsoft Theatre, LA, 14 March 2019.

I'm going to be my own kind of Princess

Bright Eyes

Billie represents something completely new

Alessandro Michele, Vogue, May 2021.

Kitsch and pretty, Shōjo manga are historically manga comics for girls. The imagery is flowery, sparkly and charming; the girls wear dolly shoes, ribbons and lace; hair is flippy, eyelashes are ultra-long, and the overall aesthetic is romantic fantasy. During the Michele era, the house of Gucci had a longstanding fascination with Shōjo, a visual touchstone for the brand – it was an easily adopted modern motif that felt right for much of the Gucci demographic. It’s young and fresh, innocent but brave.

Billie was transformed by Japanese artist Takashi Murakami into an anime for 2018’s ‘you should see me in a crown’ and again for the video of her 2020 song, ‘my future’, by Australian illustrator Andrew Onorato. It got 50 million approving hits on YouTube. And when creative director, Alessandro Michele, wove Shōjo imagery of a blonde girl onto an Autumn 2018 menswear brown sweater and Billie wore it on the Jimmy Kimmel Live! show in October 2021, the jumper felt like validation from an aficionado. She wore it easily as well, with a chic-geek shirt underneath and gothic platform Chelsea boots by Dr Martens, bringing out Billie’s own glittering eyes.

this page: Cover artwork of a Japanese manga comic book, 2006. opposite: Billie on Jimmy Kimmel Live wearing a Gucci anime jumper.

Girl Power

Being a Powerpuff Girl

Back in the late ’90s, Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup were a trio to be reckoned with. They were Cartoon Network characters made of sugar, spice, and everything nice, as well as a shot of ‘Chemical X’ which gave them the strength to fight baddies. They conquered the world and became a serious success, and were subsequently turned into anime, comic-book and video game versions. They inspired Slumpy Kev’s 2019 Art Basel Exhibition in Miami, where he displayed full-size images of the Powerpuff Girls as well as the all-over printed gilet and pants he designed for Billie to wear on the red carpet the same year at the ASCAP Awards where she and Finneas won The Vanguard Award – given to musicians ‘whose innovative work is helping to shape the future of music.’ Even though Billie accessorised with a Gucci bag and Prive Revaux, X-Ray Spex, white plastic ‘Bermuda’ sunglasses, the Powerpuff Girl outfit was typically idiosyncratic. And it’s clearly on regular wardrobe rotation as she wore it again at the press call for the 2020 Alternative Rock iHeartRadio ALTer EGO event where she played a 40-minute set.

this page: The Powerpuff Girls parade and screening at SXSW in Austin, Texas, 2016.

opposite: The 36th Annual ASCAP Pop Music Awards at The Beverly Hilton, 2019, wearing Powerpuff pants and gilet.

isn’t about getting your way. It’s about using your own unique abilities to help people and the world we all live in.

— Blossom.

In the early ’70s, Dapper Dan began customising heritage pieces from the likes of Gucci and Louis Vuitton and re-selling them to the hip-hop community, who preferred their logos conspicuously blinged up. Dan was a cult underground fashion hero, but it wasn’t till Alessandro Michele was accused of mimicking Dapper’s work in 2017 that the House of Gucci finally got it together and created a tribute DD capsule collection – placing the house’s iconic double GGs on jumbo balloon-sleeved jackets, velour tracksuits and boots in the style of the beat-box years.

Fast forward to the 21st century and Imran Moosvi, founder of the Imran Potato label, stepped into Dapper’s shoes and began making clothes with supersized LV logos for a new wave of rap stars, including super-fan Bad Bunny. Billie was an early devotee too, wearing a lot of Imran Potato clothing over the years. In 2018, for the Outside Lands Festival in San Francisco, the designer created a very special LV bootleg orthopaedic foot-brace – a bootleg bootleg – for Billie to

It is glitchy, all over the place LV.

— Imran Moosvi, Vogue, April 2019.

dance on stage in. It came in the same rainbow shades of the full-look, fake TSUWOOP DIY LV outfit she wore to her Spotify

‘Billie Eilish Experience’ in March 2019 – a suitably surreal wardrobe choice to launch the mind-altering, immersive walk-through of her album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?

this page: Lollapalooza Festival Berlin on the grounds of the Olympic Stadium, 2019.

opposite: Dapper Dan and Kristen Noel Crawley attend The Fifteen Percent Pledge Benefit Gala at New York Public Library, 2022.

Big Time

The go-to celebrity label in California is L.A. Roxx. Its founder and designer, Sharon Rahim, has created pieces for stars like Beyoncé, Rihanna, Britney and Lady Gaga. His range is usually sexy and made from leather and PVC, sometimes organza and mesh, as he told Juxtapoz Magazine in a 2019 interview, to ‘layer it up a little’. For the Variety 2021 Hitmakers Brunch, Billie wore a supersized claret-coloured puffer coat that covered her from head to beyond feet, with sleeves that hung to the tips of her co-ordinating burgundy manicured nails. Underneath, she wore a matching cartoon-sized voluminous T-shirt over shell-pants. It was a baggier-than-ever outfit, in keeping with her whole-hearted love of big garms glinting with sporty, hip-hop subtext. Unexpectedly, the pink-carpet kit-out was made by Rahim and demonstrated his flair for fashion with an avant-garde twist. Suitably, Billie teamed the duvet-wear with Ruby Bunny Boots that had originally stomped the Raf Simons’ Autumn 2014 catwalk and were equally edgy, evidencing an expertise in sourcing vintage collectables.

this page: Billie's boots.

opposite: Variety 2021 Music Hitmakers Brunch, LA.

Fashion Inc.

Eilish is a big fan of ‘Seattle-born, LA-based’ brand label, The Incorporated. Founded by Mark McGinnis, it has grown organically since he soft-launched the label as a student at The University of Portland back in 2010. Between 2016 and 2019, he created seven full collections. During Eilish’s 2022 Happier Than Ever tour, she faithfully wore a spectrum of The Incorporated’s T-shirts with matching cycle-pants, all embellished with collaged imagery and ransom-note lettering. Their sustainable pieces are made up of dead stock and vintage fabrics reworked into one-off items. The Incorporated dressed Billie for the 2019 Variety Hitmakers Brunch at Soho House in West California, and the suit in which she chose to accept her Hit Maker of the Year Award was bigger and brighter than ever – a co-ordinating, upcycled, beige and tan, floral, pants-andjacket set, featuring a deconstructed zipper fastening, hung wide and long and worn over a white, supersized, rollneck sweater. She teamed it with a pair of Gucci’s Flashtrek sneakers with detachable, crystal, hiking links. It was a statement outfit, platforming Eilish’s eco-friendly credentials. It dazzled as well as declaring her environmentalist ethos.

opposite: Knockout – The 2019 Hitmakers Brunch. overleaf: 'Happier Than Ever' world tour, O2 Arena, London, 2022.

Bigfoot Strikes Again

Oversize, it’s my territory.

— Demna Gvasalia, WWD, February 2019.

Demna Gvasalia is king of big stuff. The Georgian designer thinks along Brobdingnagian proportions when it comes to his collections for Balenciaga. His work isn’t just literally great though – it makes a big statement in the world of fashion with his challenging and original ideas. He has famously redefined luxury streetwear and – case in point – when he first unveiled his Triple S trainer shoe in his A/W 2017 show, people thought they were hideous and shocking. A few years on and they sell out season after season.

Billie and Balenciaga are a cool match. She wears Demna’s menswear easily and in the brightest of spotlights, chooses neon and fluorescent shades to shine and show off in – a tangerine windcheater, shorts, and T-shirt at the April 2018

ASCAP Pop Music Awards in Beverly Hills; and lefthandla lime green sweats and a MISBHV Dance Club hoodie at KIIS FM’s Jingle Ball show in 2019 where she sported the famous co-ordinating Triple S Sneakers.

this page: Street fashion – Balenciaga Triple S sneaker.

opposite: The 35th Annual ASCAP Pop Music Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel, 2018.

Me and My Calvins

Fashion-folk remember with fondness the Raf Simons Calvin Klein years. He brought his European stamp of subcultural style to the illustrious American brand and for three seasons, presenting collections that infused the hallowed House with imagery and symbolism. He collaged shots of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws shark onto T-shirts and sweaters, and morphed classic stars-and-stripes, Western cowboy tailoring into men’s and womenswear.

His Autumn 2018 collection, shown at the Stock Exchange Building in New York, which was decorated inside with Sterling Ruby sculptures and peeling Andy Warhol photographs, felt plain-spoken and was punctuated with protective pieces, like firemen jackets and trousers striped with reflective tape. It was the collection Billie chose to wear when she sat front row the following September at Raf’s final CK show, alongside Khalid and Mia Goth.

this page: A model walks the runway for Calvin Klein Collection Ready to Wear A/W 2018-2019 during NY Fashion Week, 2018. opposite: Ready for the Calvin Klein Collection front row, New York Fashion Week, 2018.

Check Up

English heritage brand Burberry, founded back in 1856, is a master of re-invention. But it wasn’t until 2020 that its instantly recognisable classic Nova check was declared a trademark – a surprise as the Creative Directors of the label have showcased the tartan in all its black, tan, and red glory in myriad ways over the years, to such an extent that it has occasionally suffered overkill. However, Riccardo Tisci’s tenure from 2018-2022 firmly reasserted its traditional influence and the House has gone from strength to strength.

Wearing the label head-to-toe is still quite a statement, though. And in 2019, at the AMAs, Billie declared her testimonial for the hallowed check by sporting a baggy, bespoke Burberry t-shirt with crystal lattice sleeves, matching, recycled polyester trousers, and sneakers that flashed with tartan. But the pièce de resistance was Billie’s sparkly, veiled, beekeeper bonnet – a newfangled Burberry piece from Tisci’s S/S 2020 catwalk – which gave Billie the sartorial edge on her competitors.

this page: More trophies!

opposite: Bee for Billie – arriving at the 2019 American Music Awards in sparkly, all-Burberry beekeeper fit.

Goodnight Sweetheart

Wearing nightwear out on the town is a cunning plan. On returning home, the faff of tumbling into something more comfortable is forgotten. Instead, you’re all ready to fall straight into bed. When Billie and her then boyfriend Jesse Rutherford, the lead singer in The Neighbourhood, glided onto the red carpet at LACMA’s Gala dinner and party in November 2022, they made a point of dressing for bed, wrapped in a Gucci blanket, Billie accessorising with a logoed sleep mask. Her bronze satin double-G-ed satin negligee, slit to the thigh and worn with all-over printed tights and platform sliders, was a sultry choice that proved she can be every bit the grown-up agent provocateur when she feels like it. Turning her nightie into an entertaining diversion from the serious business of looking good for the camera she, of course, looked both fantastic and fun, which is always impressive.

this page: That’s a wrap – Billie and and Jesse in a blanket. opposite: The 11th Annual LACMA Art + Film Gala at Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2022.

BILLIE EILISH and the clothes she wears

Stella McCartney, i-D, July 2019

Billie Eilish is a fashion phenomenon. Her goth-skate-animemeets-Jessica-Rabbit wardrobe resonates loud and clear with her generation and anyone who doesn’t want to be defined. Courted by the world’s biggest fashion houses, Billie has a way of spotlighting inclusivity, body image, environmental issues and more, while always looking awesome. Mixing and matching Chanel, Balenciaga, Rick Owens, Yohji Yamamoto, Raf Simons and Prada with finds from Slumpy Kev, Skoot, The Incorporated and Freak City, the result is beyond the realms of meta-modernism. In the latest addition to this popular series, fashion writer Terry Newman casts her eye over a young megastar with oversized clothes and an even bigger attitude.

[She has] a strong message of identity and staying true to yourself, never compromsing. That’s something The Beatles did too.