Fashion Neurosis with Lorde

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1:10Hi, come in.

1:18Welcome to Fashion Neurosis, Lord. Thank you. Can you tell me what clothes you're wearing today and why you chose them? I'm wearing this old Yoji blazer that I really love. I'm wearing old Margiela trousers. I don't know where the top is from. It's not mine. And I'm wearing just some old shoes. I've been trying to wear a lot of my own clothes at the moment. It feels quite different to wearing an outfit that doesn't belong to you. it's just a different something happens when you as we all know when you're in your pair of jeans that you love day after day they start to imbue you with something different when you put them on as opposed to the unzip the garment bag and put this thing on that you've never worn before yeah they're more friendship aren't they somehow they have your back more supportive And I love that you call yourself Lord and Lord has so much more flair and humour than lady or dame.

2:31Where does your fascination with the idea of aristocracy come from? And I wondered how old you were when you named yourself? Well, I was 15, I think, or 16 when I named myself. It was very last minute. I was putting the songs up online, needed a name. Yeah, I had had this sort of fixation on aristocracy and history in general, but definitely looking at these sort of old ruling classes, there was something so interesting to me about the, I don't know, I mean visually they were all so interesting, but there was this sort of feeling of that they were trapped and doomed. you know it was sort of there was like a pull and a push no one I don't think anyone actually wants to be in that position so but I don't know like I was I was into the Anastasia and all the Duchess's and Duke there and and sort of all the English rulers going far back and you know the intricacies of court life and all this sort of stuff and I don't know I think I thought that there was something about the juxtaposition maybe of bringing one of these sort of old heavy names and also sort of playing with gender with it too like taking Lord just obviously masculine and sort of softening it, that was totally intentional.

4:34I've always felt like I needed some masculinity to explain myself. Like a kind of a god almost. Just like that then I'm fully represented. Yeah. If everything's there, both sides are there. And I think it's so funny having made the album that I've made, which sort of deals with a lot of those feelings to realise that it's baked into, you know, even my name from age 15. It has a lot of flair, though, the idea of a young girl kind of summoning up a guise of Lord, like a calling card, is like those kind of very brilliant figures in storybooks like the White Rabbit and, you know, being incredibly busy and looking really cool with this amazing outfit.

5:37And it just seems to suit you really well. You've got all these guises and it's really fun and then it's got power because it's a lord. It's really good. I love it. Thank you. and I watched an interview you did with David Byrne where you were wearing these um he was head to toe in pale blue and you had a fuchsia satin suit and I wondered if you'd you were interviewing each other I believe and I wondered if you'd agreed upon this color formation and somehow you had the strong color and he had the delicate color I wondered if they had a code I think on the day there was we just sort of came into my dressing room and said I might wear this one and I said alright I'll wear that one when you're around David you want to follow his lead obviously because what he

6:46what he brings and what there's just something there that wants to be followed and you have the sense that in entering into his world and sort of doing things the way he does them that might deliver you somewhere you've been trying to go, you know. Well, like it will rub off on you. Like it might rub off on you, yeah. And it has really rubbed off on me, actually, because I remember he came to that shoot on a bike. He, like, rides his bike everywhere. And he looked so cool. He has this cool helmet. I don't know how to describe it. It was, like, some fabulous helmet. Anyway, he said, if you ever need to borrow a bike in the city, because I'd just moved to the city.

7:43You can borrow one off me. So nice. And I did take him up on that, and for years, you know, spring would come and I would go to David's and get his bike and then drop it back in the winter. I've still got it, actually. I need to give it back to him because I've got my own bike now. And honestly, riding a bike actually kind of changed my life. So if you do follow, my own thing is proving true now I'm thinking about it. He'll take you where you want to go. It's exciting. It's great when someone passes on their good ideas and their good ideas for you as well, because that doesn't always happen at all.

8:28I read that you have synesthesia where music can translate into colors. and I wonder, is there a colour that makes you feel more extreme or is there such a thing as a good colour or a bad colour?

8:46No good colours, no bad colours. Some colours drain me of my power. Some colours give me power when I have none. is it always the same colours that give and take or do they change no it changes I feel like and I sort of feel this way about

9:15like men's clothing versus women's clothing some days wearing going too far in one direction will, like, drain me of all my power and vice versa, and that changes too. But I feel like colour-wise, I mean, I'm from New Zealand and we all wear a lot of black. We're a nation of black wearers. Why is that, do you think? I don't know why that is, actually. I feel like we're quite sort of modest and also strong and we want to, you know, in black you can hide but you're also, there is a strength. Maybe it's, I mean, that's sort of what it was for me. I felt very like reinforced when I wore black and I felt grown up and yeah, I could like see myself on the page or something.

10:27So I wore a lot of black. I'm wearing less black now. I think I'm actually wearing a lot of gray and silver and stuff. I don't know why, but I'm liking that. Like anything, like metal, anything metallic or, yeah, there's sort of like, there is a materiality to what I've been wearing at the moment and I haven't, I don't really deviate from it, but I'm trying to think colour-wise. I'm actually, I've also just started wearing red. I never had any interest in wearing red. it felt like I know it just it wasn't something I could connect with and now I and now I'm I'm in on red great that's so interesting it's cool it's a cool it's quite a commitment isn't it because it's so alluring and beautiful but it's hard to keep oneself in it put it on and then like oh gosh am I measuring up to the red that's what I often find yes yes no It's funny.

11:40I know I went blonde a couple years ago and it was like a light bulb was on over my head in the way that men were so interested in it. And it was just like, you know, it was like they could see me all of a sudden. That's so useful. Really? That's all it took? It was like going blonde. So silly, you know. I missed it. I don't know. But that also, you know, you can get lost in that for sure. And I definitely feel like I did. It's kind of thrilling though. It's a useful thing to know these things, how to switch on and off. It's great. I wondered if there was a piece of clothing you were obsessed with as a child.

12:28What were my special bits? I had these brown boots that I really loved, brown leather boots. I remember going to I must have been this is right before my 10th birthday being taken to there was sort of a chain for young girls in New Zealand that was sort of specifically for kind of pre-teen girls it was called Urban Angel and it was like it was so cool It was like, I don't know, it just really, there was something about stepping into this room where Urban Angel was and you sort of knew that you were on the precipice or in between these two worlds. You weren't a little girl anymore. Like maybe there were some kind of padded camisoles and such in there, but no bras, you know, and things were about to change.

13:34And I remember I had a couple of cool T-shirts from Urban Angel that were very, very cherished by me. It's such a key thing, isn't it? Those special things for that moment of cusp when you're sort of moving into preteen and you're allowing yourself to be noticed for how you look and it's such a big deal. and so exciting. Absolutely. And you're never tentative or you never seem to be tentative. And when you put work out, people get it immediately and you seem to expect to be understood. And I wondered where that kind of deftness comes from. Wow, thank you. I like that that's how it's coming across.

14:26I feel like it's, maybe sometimes it's more of a fear of being misunderstood. I find the feeling of being misunderstood very uncomfortable. Maybe we all do, but I definitely, it does something to me when I'm being misunderstood. So I think sometimes in my work I have tried to make it very clear. I don't know. Wait, what was the question? I lost. Bring it back. It's like this kind of... It was a good question. I mean, I sort of can relate to this kind of, this sense of this is how things need to be. but at a young age, because I found once I crossed 12, I became incredibly indecisive. But you've had this aura of sort of certainty, even though you're clearly seeming to make a lot of inquiries about everything.

15:33And it's such a remarkable quality. And I just wondered if you had some sort of feeling about where that sort of, it's almost like being a plant and you grow into something and it's just there written in you. And you, I mean, that's what comes across in your music. Thank you. You know, I think it's a combination of things. I think I grew up in a very loud, busy, turbulent household, a lot of big emotions, and I was a very sensitive child, and words really mattered to me. I took people at their word and I was very confused by things not being clear and so I think when I was coming into my own voice as an artist I really prized things being clear in part as a sort of, some sort of correction maybe around how chaotic it had been growing up, you know, with three siblings and my parents.

17:10and my mum is very strong and she's a poet. I wasn't super privy to her kind of being in her art when I was a child, but I definitely had experience with someone saying, this is how I see things. her worldview is very rich and very singular and so I think I had this great modeling for I guess yeah world building yeah which I do now so yeah sort of some combination of those things I think I know my father was like that he was just so certain and And even when he died, I thought, maybe this will be a good thing for me to stop double checking everything through my imagined idea of his lens. And it was, you know, even though we were so close, it was quite a liberation.

18:19And when he did, it was like his last gift and which was a wonderful feeling to have that sort of thing that I dreaded to be a great gift. And you recently talked about going on a psilocybin weekend and doing MDMA therapy. And I wondered what you were trying to shake up within yourself. Wow.

18:49Well, I sort of started as you pull one thread, then you unravel the whole sweater, you know. It started as I was trying to find a life after stage fright because I had had really, really awful stage fright my whole life. I started doing like local theatre in my town when I was five because I was so shy. My mum thought it might help me be able to speak in front of other people and it totally did. But the amount of kind of anxiety and yeah, it was very physical stress. It was just like immense from that young age. And that really carried right through my work. And it did get quite debilitating at times.

19:52There were times when I really wasn't sure if I was going to be able to do the show. And we would maybe lose a lot of money if I didn't do it. It was volatile. Yeah. And I thought, I know I love performing and if there's a way I can live without this, I'll do anything, you know. And at that point I had done everything. I'd done everything. Gosh. And was sort of, you know, told about this therapy which was like almost comical how quickly it worked. Like I did the MDMA therapy, which is sort of not similar to this. You're like lying on a sofa. I mean, not quite as chic in office. And it was just open and shut.

20:50I knew the – I almost knew before it was over that my stage fright wouldn't be with me anymore. Wow. Because it is really, for me, it really was just something like lodged quite deep in my body. And yeah, there was just sort of some conversation that needed to happen between me and sort of like different parts of my body. It sounds fruity, but. Was it like a molecular change that transpired? Totally, yeah. and that was so amazing and so kind of you know I was like wow okay that's possible that's cool and then I did the psilocybin one for the first time I've done a few now but I did that for the first time really because I was feeling this whole like symphony of things that were all along the line of I don't feel at home in my body and I never had or I felt like I never had and I was sort of, I could feel myself looking in the wrong direction over and over and over.

22:20Yeah. And that sort of culminated with deciding that maybe the answer was not eating very much and I just became this sort of small contained version of myself that then I would like have the answers or something and it was just so unpleasant and so really blocking of like all life force that I have and all creativity and just, yeah, sort of, you know, created a very annoying, quite frankly kind of mess to have to um unpick you know so so so I think that at some point yeah it was in 2023 the start of 2023 I just said I actually can't do this anymore I'm interested in trying to forge a relationship with my body that feels healthy and real and I'm going to be in this body for the rest of my life and I want to start now at trying to, yeah, really love it, really understand it and listen to its stories.

23:48and that really like changed my life honestly. Now I was so interested to read that, your experience about that because I went through something similar when I was young and it was almost like a warped form of self-care that self-denial was self-care and did anyone confront you? How did you kind of wake up from that? because it's quite trance-like, the feeling of control around that. I think that's why it's so pervasive. It's something you can do, but it's so, you know, it's so reductive literally and in every other way. And did anyone call you out about it? No one ever called me out. I don't think anyone really knew.

24:42almost no one would have known. I didn't even really know, I think, you know, for a long time. Not until like, yeah, I didn't know. I think it's easy to be in denial about these things, especially if you, I don't know, for me it was like I had decided that I was not the kind of woman that would go through something like that. Yeah, that's so interesting. I'm a reader, you know, and I would read all sorts of texts about women not eating, women's relationships with their body. So like I understood it on this theoretical level, but I was still trying not to eat. Yeah, I know. Yeah, and there's so much shaming around it.

25:37And often from people very close to you, that was my experience of, it's terribly alarming when someone calls you out without offering you help, really. And I think there's a lot of misunderstanding about that. And it's so isolating and lonely. Yeah, it sort of felt like this sort of noble woman's work or something. I was like, this is what you do. This is what women do. You know, we limit ourselves because the opposite, to be fully embodied, fully wild, fully in connection with all of these parts of yourself and therefore your world seems dangerous and we should be doing all that we can to keep that danger contained.

26:40You know, I sort of, yeah, I felt that I was stepping into this kind of distinctly female lineage and that it was sort of my duty and it's just, God, like, what a... I completely reject that notion now. I'm like, I think the opposite is true, I think. This episode is brought to you by MUBI, a curated streaming service dedicated to elevating great cinema from around the globe. From iconic directors to emerging auteurs, every film on MUBI is hand-selected so you can discover incredible movies and series, streaming anytime, anywhere. Now streaming on MUBI is Twin Peaks. The cult TV masterpiece is now on MUBI in celebration of its 35th anniversary.

27:37I've been re-watching the series and it's as mesmerising and adrenaline-inducing as ever. The beauty of the filming, the David Lynch lighting, so moody and evocative. The music by Angelo Badalamenti is haunting. And then there's the cherry pie. The whole thing is a feast. You can watch for yourself. Try Mubi free for 30 days at mubi.com slash fashion neurosis. That's m-u-b-i dot com slash fashion neurosis for a whole month of great cinema and TV, totally free. But you also said this thing which I so related to as well, which is always wanting someone to be god and um you've been pretty successful in being lord god yourself but i wondered how do you envisage yourself when you're the needing person in the relationship and do you have like a almost like a color for it you know because it's i when i when you said and the the way you describe it is just brilliant and i thought oh god i know i know that feeling and it's like knowing what you want but wanting someone else somehow to decide it because then you can be the little one in the whole thing but you're the big one but that makes any sense absolutely oh no yeah I mean I think I sort of think it doesn't matter how powerful you are at work or in life you know you're going to keep electing that person over and over us I don't know if that's a path you just need to kind of go down until you don't need to go down anymore.

29:28And, you know, I left home very young. My mum travelled with me, but I was really sort of out of my family home from 16. And not just out of my family home, but out of my country and my whole side of the world, you know. I really found the change between life in New Zealand and life in America very significant and very sort of complicated and scary and different. And, you know, yeah, I just started trying to shelter with someone. You know, it was like a survival. It felt like for my survival I needed to be picking someone to, I don't know, yeah, to be God. Yeah. This was also like part of the, what I have found to be a sort of kind of after effect of the psilocybin work that I have done is that I'm able to come towards those God-like parts of myself a lot more.

30:50And also, you know, nothing makes you feel like more of a speck and that it's not really going to be any other human being who's God for you, you know. So it's something much bigger than that, I think. It's true. It's a bit of a kind of fantasy that you don't really want to come true. It just sort of delegates the responsibility for a minute of decision-making, but then you seem infinitely able to be God when you want to in your songs me well that's i'll take it i really like that you describing that though that you finding those specks of it within yourself because i suppose finding it possible to have those things at the same time that that you enjoy one can enjoy having a sort of person that you occasionally delegate as God, but sometimes that's you and that's kind of exciting.

32:10Oh, yeah, and very necessary, I think, especially in my position, I think that if you're going to stand up there in front of all those people, it has to really be you standing up there. And you described going to the Man of the Year Award and wearing a hot girl dress, but you felt more affinity with the cool guys. And what would you wear as a cool guy? What would I wear as a cool guy? I mean, I would wear this jacket probably, these trousers, you know, but I'm sort of girl today. I've got my heels on, my little top. So it's sort of always a combo. What would I wear as a hot guy? I feel like...

33:00I don't know, I mean, I have been wearing suits since I was a teenager. Recently I've been wearing, yeah, lots of old Marjala, old helmet, you know, just sort of like the classics. t-shirt just like keeping it pretty basic and almost unimpressive I remember actually David Byrne being such a inspiration for this album because Stop Making Sense was re-released into the theatres at some point when I was in the studio and I went to see it so many times I've seen it a million times on a laptop screen over the years but I'd never seen it in the cinema and what struck me was his purity he was radiating out from under his own skin there was nothing between his spirit and me He was dressed very plainly and his haircut was very simple.

34:24He was sort of unadorned. He was like a monk, you know. Yeah. And that really worked on me. It was just sort of his eyes and his cheekbones and his voice, you know, his dark hair. and I remember actually in the theatre, knowing in that moment, you've got to dye your hair back dark. You're not supposed to be blonde. Take away as much as possible between the spirit inside you, where the art comes from, and the people who are going to be looking at you because the membrane can be this thin and the way it is between the viewer and David and Stop Making Sense. So, yeah, I forgot about that actually.

35:16So interesting. How inspiring that was. That purity and that integrity. And I wondered if you fancy someone and don't like something that they're wearing, does it kill your attraction? Yeah, I think it would. I think it would I'm always I'm lucky though I feel like everyone I everyone I date or hook up with they're all really good dresses I don't know what that's about but they always are it's funny how that can be either really specific or just nothing really but everyone seems to have something either from completely phobic like heida ackerman said he's literally phobic about buttons and he was kissing this guy and then he noticed that he had three buttons on his one of those t-shirt things and he just had to back off and leave and just go yeah i have things that you know mine are like that mine would be there's a way of dressing that I see a lot in LA, which is like sort of the cool, crazy hat and the cool, crazy sunnies and the cool, crazy shoes and the cool, crazy haircut.

36:46And you could sort of make a cool outfit if everything else was played and you had one cool, crazy thing, but all together combines to be totally cuckoo to me. I always think that's what would make me not kiss you if you had too many elements of strong flavour. That's a good description. And you've been quoted as identifying as in the middle gender-wise and that you're a woman except for on the days when you're a man. And I wondered how you dress for that. And did you feel a bit boy-girl as a child? You know, I have come to see in the last couple years that I think this is sort of true of children, that everything about you as an adult was already there.

37:53I was always that. I was always that. There was, I never felt, I never really felt the presence of any gender, to be honest, as a child.

38:13I felt like, you know, a little creature sometimes. I felt like a fairy sometimes. I was a big thinker, a big reader, a big player, tree climber. Did you identify with any literary figures? Because I'm just, as you're describing, I'm thinking of the little prince. Like, that is quite a kind of encapsulation of every aspect of gender, really. Yeah, who did I? I mean, I read all sorts as a child. I'm trying to think. I didn't really feel like a little girl all the time. But it's funny now, like I really do feel like a woman. Like I am a woman. And I think I will always be a woman. It's just that there is this deep masculinity in me that actually enhances my womanhood, I think.

39:17I feel like a woman. And my femininity is, there just is a strength to it that sort of shares space with masculinity or something. I don't really understand. And I, you know, it's been interesting kind of talking about some of this and I do explore it in the album. I think it's quite difficult for people when you don't give them a neat answer to this sort of question. But I just don't think there is one to give maybe for me right now. But I do know that in sort of letting my masculinity in a bit more, it was sort of only then that I really felt like a woman. I understood feeling like a woman. And I do think I've made a distinctly kind of feminine record.

40:24I was trying to make something that was a document of my femininity in all of its kind of like grotesqueness and intensity and glory and, yeah, and innocence, and they're just as masculine and contained within that. I think I also, like, because I grew up, my mum was so cool. She really, like, like I knew about the concept of being androgynous, you know, from such a young age, and she would show me, I mean, she showed me Bowie so young, you know, but also like Grace Jones, just these figures who you didn't need an explanation. They were the explanation. Yeah. Like just them in their bodies. It was like, understood.