Caroline Polachek is a performer who feeds off contrasts. Her style is simultaneously tough yet fluid, precious but accessible, expertly curated except for the raw wildness that threatens to rip all that signature KNWLS tulle apart. Fitting, then, that the visuals for her fourth studio album, Desire, I Want to Turn Into You, were based on volcanic eruptions. Specifically, the tense bubbling before molten lava flares up and scorches the earth. Niche? Not quite enough for the woman who was once described as a “cyborg who has somehow wandered into a Tolkien novel.” That explosive red and brown palette was put in Polachek’s own melting pot of inspiration along with medieval silhouettes and textured, artisanal antiques. For Caroline—who co-founded the indie band Chairlift in college, but quickly forged her own alt-pop path—there must be a complex character at the core of fashion for her to put her name to it.
Polachek’s Brits 2024 look is the final hurrah in this era of volatile, directional style that has also leaned heavily on Acne and Mugler, before crescendoing with a vintage Olivier Theyskens look with blood vessels snaking down it at the Grammys. The Brits demanded a volte-face, thought her European stylist Tati Cotliar, fashion director of riotous cool-girl mag Buffalo Zine. “It had to be extremely shocking and definitely not black,” explained Cotliar, whose first port of call was Simone Rocha.
Cotliar, it turns out, had bumped into Rocha in the pub last summer when the Irish designer was swimming through the depths of her research for the Jean Paul Gaultier couture gig. Hearing Rocha wax lyrical about the level of detail in Gaultier’s Paris atelier—combined with the social, political, and sexual messaging of the rebellious creative’s work—stayed with Cotliar. And when she saw look 11 from the haute couture spring 2024 edit—a pale streamlined gown with fluid corset ribbons looping down the side and a “very cool” take on Madonna’s famous cone bralette—she thought of Polachek immediately.
“The bra almost has a mythological shape,” enthuses Tati, a keen storyteller in her own right. “A lot of people think a red-carpet gown just needs to look beautiful. And yes, it’s important to look amazing, but it’s also important to have a message behind whatever Caroline is wearing. Very few musicians care about character.” For Polachek’s part, “the Brits means dressing the way your music sounds… but still being able to party.” The fierce, athletic singer, who also trained in opera, clearly related to Rocha’s mission to “harness the femininity, the sexuality, the sensuality, [while] being very provocative… and very, very individualistic.”
When we speak, Polachek is still playing around with her Brits beauty, but she knows she’ll have her freshly dyed black hair down for a gothic twist on all that ballet-pink satin. Surprisingly, perhaps, for a musician who has been compared to prodigy Kate Bush, Polachek has also been practising posing in her pretty, punkish eveningwear and perfected the taxi-to-O2 arena sashay to ensure she looks the part. Caroline Polachek is a perfectionist, but she’s human. She’s otherworldly, but resolutely a part of the fabric of what modern-day pop should be. The Brits is the last time the world will witness her fashion blow up in the same way because, says Cotliar, she’s “escaping from her Desire era” and ready to unearth something new.