British Vogue

* 2012
* 2022

Claire Boucher (aka Grimes) quit studying neuroscience and Russian to pursue a career in pop. *Isaac Lock* meets a geek made good.

Claire Boucher, the 24-year-old Canadian commonly known as Grimes, was turned on to pop music by her dad, an accountant who, on his days off, likes to wear Hawaiian shirts. "Just before I started making music I went on a road trip with him across Canada," she says. We're sitting on a patch of grass on the road outside London Zoo, which Boucher prefers as a location to the nearby café. "On the trip, we'd each take a turn at playing a CD. I would play Nine Inch Nails, he'd play Mariah Carey. He loves Mariah Carey and George Michael and Prince. I had never listened to any of this stuff, and it blew my mind."

Boucher grew up goth. At her high school in Vancouver she was "wildly unpopular", and spent most of her time hanging out with "two or three other music nerds" listening to industrial metal like Tool and Skinny Puppy. The day we meet, her hair is powder-pink with a thick home-cut fringe, and her boots are battered and covered in hardware with heavy Buffalo soles that make her seem a million feet tall. Her arms are covered in a litany of stick- and-poke tattoos, done by hand with a sewing needle: there's an alien, the number eight (her lucky number), the four elements from Luc Besson's sci-fi staple *The Fifth Element* and a deconstructed pyramid. "That's the Triforce from *Zelda*," she says, with a pronounced lisp, in reference to the dizzyingly popular Japanese video game franchise *The Legend of Zelda*. "My brothers and my cousins all have this same tattoo. We all love *Zelda*."

All of which is to say, Boucher is the antithesis of the traditional pop star. Instead, she's a triumphant nerd, all talk about the plasticity of pre-teen brains, and the nuts and bolts of Korean pop music (with which she is obsessed). She produced and recorded her third album, *Visions*, alone in her bedroom, bar a contribution on one track from her stepbrother, a rapper who goes by the name Jay Worthy. And the way she's happy to be left to her own devices ("I don't like staying in touch," she says. "There have been multiple interventions where everyone's sat me down and said, 'We're not taking this any more, you

have to get a phone,' but I won't do it") denotes a rare confidence for an artist who's been working for barely three years.

Single-minded focus obviously works, though. *Visions* has turned Grimes into a big deal. The album was lauded by critics, who fell for its sound - twinkly-but- driving-synth with high-pitched nudging- towards-babyish vocals laid over the top- and transformed her into a surprise fashion pin-up. Yves Saint Laurent's creative director Hedi Slimane has photographed and collaborated with her several times this year; Gucci used a track of hers for its collection advertising campaign; and then Victoria Beckham set her spring/summer 2013 show to the song "Oblivion".

"I set out to make pop music," Claire says of the situation she now finds herself in, "but I really never set out to be a pop star. That term specifically delineates a lot of top tier people, and there's, like, eight of them at any given time. Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, Nicki Minaj... The farthest thing from my head when I started out was being in *Vogue*."

After school, Claire went to Montreal to study neuroscience and Russian at McGill (she's very forthright on the political situation in Russia) and it was there she began to experiment with songwriting. She eventually got kicked out of university because her tour schedule was affecting her attendance record, but she is sanguine about the decision. "The thing I hated most about university was the kids who were there and didn't want to be. I couldn't be one of them, so I left." Soon after, she was picked up by the record label 4AD (home to post-punk standard-bearers the Cocteau Twins) and released *Visions*.

"To me, pop is a really broad term," she says of being dubbed the new face of pop. "The Ramones can be pop music... Any music that's trying to hit that instantly gratifying spot. I feel like the term pop has a bad rap, or is considered lowbrow or something. I got into an argument with my band about it recently. My drummer was saying that so much pop is just these tropes that appeal to everyone, and that it's empty for that reason. But I think that's kind of beautiful, that something can be understood across the board."

I begin to suggest that a lot of her fans might find gratification not just in the easy accessibility of her tunes but in the fact that she's written them all herself, but she cuts me short. "I don't know how much I care about authenticity in pop music," she says, "especially mainstream pop, where you've got these teams of people doing the thing that they're best at doing."

Even so, Grimes is a project that appears to be entirely subversive compared with even the more outré offerings of mainstream pop. (For example, she has just released a collection of rings with the jeweller and sculptor Morgan Black. Named "pussy rings", they are cast in brightly coloured resin and resemble vaginas.) “I think my music is pointedly apolitical," Boucher explains. "The thing I'm searching for in music is a sense of euphoria, something that can't necessarily be understood in a logical way. My existence is political, though. I'll say a lot of things. I'd never shave my legs; I would never shave my armpits. I don't have any desire to comply with standards of beauty that I think are bad. I don't think those standards should even exist. One of the reasons I like playing specifically with pop music is that I want to be able to fit into it enough to challenge the image of the mainstream. At the moment, someone like Beyoncé is the image of the mainstream," she continues. "She's defining what women are supposed to be. I think if you can flirt with that and change what people expect of you, if you can be empowering by presenting something different to the norm, then you're doing something great."

### Photoshoot

[1]Outtake

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Claire Boucher (aka Grimes) quit studying neuroscience and Russian to pursue a career in pop. Angelo Pennetta photographed and filmed the geek made good for British Vogue in December 2012 for the Pop issue.
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Music: *Rosa* by Grimes

### Credits

Photography: Angelo Pennetta

Styling: Francesca Burns

**[1]** Fur coat: A/W ‘12 KENZO

### Interview

“Style is important,” says Grimes. It’s the understatement of the century from the multi-hyphenate musician and artist who has tailored her aesthetics to her musical, philosophical, and digital inclinations over the years. For some fans, the blonde-haired snake-wrangling Grimes from “Genesis” is the ultimate look. For others, the *Dune*-inspired jumpsuit she recently wore while reading *The Communist Manifesto* will be hard to top. My vote for the quintessential Grimes look goes to her 2021 Met Gala look, an ethereal Iris Van Herpen dress paired with a metal mask, sword, and light-up book.

It’s this ability to so deftly transform – and evade easy definition – that makes Grimes such an interesting star to watch. Now she’s adding another transformation to her already transformative 2022, partnering with Dion Lee on the designer’s spring 2022 campaign. With icy hair, elfin make-up, and piercing red eyes, she gives pieces that have a “medieval, sci-fi energy” – her words – a surreal new life. The photos were taken by Bryan Huynh at her home in Austin, Texas, and in classic Grimes fashion, the musician did all of her own hair and make-up.

“*Delete Forever* became my existential anthem during the lockdown,” says Lee, “and it feels full-circle to be releasing this campaign in 2022. I am incredibly inspired by how hands-on Grimes is with everything she creates, from writing and producing her music to directing her videos… It was inspiring to see how the sound translated into visual mythology for the album and the parallels between designing and creating a collection for me each season.”

I talked with Grimes about her current fashion obsessions and her beauty tips, and got a sneak peek about what to expect from her expansive upcoming album, *Book 1.*

 Why did you want to be a part of Dion Lee’s campaign? What do you like about his work?

“I’ve been a big fan of Dion for a long time! His work looks like it exists in *Dune*. Medieval sci-fi energy.”

 Which was your favourite outfit in the shoot?

“The white jacket because it feels very androgynous anime.”

 How has your style changed over the past two years of lockdowns and Covid? Do you think about how you get dressed differently?

“My style was devolved to XL T-shirts for a minute but is in recovery now.”

 How important is fashion to your life and your work? Do you feel it helps platform your ideas?

“Human and animal bodies are the most primal means of expression. In the earliest stages of evolution, physical aesthetics were perfected by the process of natural selection as a means of communication. (TBH even single-celled organisms look good.) Bodies are probably the first canvas for ideas, before creatures could even be self-aware enough to have ideas. So I think style is important.”

 Besides Dion, who are some of your favourite designers or fashion brands right now?

“Gotta shout out my friends at ttswtrs, who’ve been displaced by the Ukrainian war at the moment.  Once they’re back, we really should hype them up.  They’ve been a huge part of my aesthetic for the past year.”

 I love the way you do your make-up: what are your beauty vibes right now? A favourite product? Or favourite look?

“I’m really into all these people who are painting on their make-up with actual paint brushes, like a1jewel0310 or jaydecoxon. Just realised I can do this, def a game changer in terms of creating detail.”

 Tell me about your new, expansive project, *BOOK 1*: what is its mood? When will it come out? And are you creating a new visual identity or trying out a new aesthetic for the project?

“I love old inaccurate, exaggerated historical texts, so *BOOK 1* is my futurist version of this (see: Herodotus, Icelandic sagas for cool references!). *BOOK 1* inaccurately and dramatically details the burgeoning era of technocracy and trans-humanism from within the corpo court. This sounds pretentious on paper…. Haha, I apologise. [For my style] I am de-gothing so the aesthetic is mostly white …. And like the theme it’s mostly Medieval futurism.”

## References

1. ↑ https://imgur.com/a/BPepDz9
2. ↑ https://imgur.com/a/BPepDz9
3. ↑ https://www.vogue.co.uk/fashion/article/grimes-dion-lee-campaign