Photo Getty ImagesThe question is Would you rock an evening swim cap for your next gala or soirée? Only the brave will attempt it. Clearly, Hawke gets an A for risk taking. And an A+ for somehow making it feel red carpet worthy, too. At this point, Beyoncé’s Renaissance world tour is part concert, part extended exercise in seeing just how many custom looks one pop star can commission and pack. Queen Bey has upended the typical stadium show model and turned it into an ever changing format full of surprises and new looks. Nearly every tour stop so far—there are 51 dates on the books in total, as of right now—has featured a new never been seen look designed by some of the biggest names in contemporary fashion. Off White, Balmain, Brandon Blackwood, and on and on. What you may not have noticed, however, is that Bey often honors the country she’s in by wearing a designer who calls that nation home Jacquemus for Marseille, France (the designer’s hometown) Alexander McQueen, David Koma, Robert Wun, and Stella McCartney for the singer’s five night residency in London custom Fendi in Barcelona that featured designs pulled from Spanish artist Antonio Lopez. It’s the pop star’s version of fashion diplomacy. Using fashion as a medium to silently signal a connection and appreciation towards a culture or community is nothing new, but it’s more usually the territory of royals (see Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle) and political figures (first lady Jill Biden being one great example). But then again, Beyoncé, with over 300 million followers on Instagram, is her own kind of head of state. The full throated amplification of international voices feels even more poignant in a post COVID landscape. Only a mere few years ago, such a large scale world tour, bringing together thousands of people, was hard to imagine happening again.
But such is the sartorial savvy of Beyoncé. She has developed a penchant for pulling multiple looks—in varying colorways and shades—for a single tour, often bringing new custom looks in and out for a specific leg of a tour or a marquee performance. But the Renaissance world tour takes the idea of constant reinvention, long popular among female pop stars especially, to unprecedented heights. There is a seemingly never ending stream of shiny, disco era inflected looks that build upon Renaissance’s ballroom inspired sonic and visual aesthetic, styled by KJ Moody, Shiona Turini, Karen Langley, and Julia Sarr Jamois. There’s something campy and almost Barbie like about the sheer scope of the singer’s wardrobe at this point. It aligns with the maximalist, more is more theme of Renaissance and its celebration of ballroom culture. In the underground world of ballroom and drag, largely populated by marginalized Black and brown queer voices, there is nothing more aspirational than unbounded excess.
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