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.

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 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 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.

‘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?