‘My life right now is pretty crazy,’ Laufey tells Grazia as she hits Paris for the Chanel Haute Couture Autumn/Winter '25 show. Laufey’s not wrong. Just a few days ago, the Icelandic musician was making her debut at Glastonbury, joining Noah Kahan on the Pyramid stage for a surprise rendition of Call Your Mom that sent social media into meltdown. Today she’s front row at the final Couture show from the studio team before incoming creative director Matthieu Blazy makes his debut for the house this autumn.
‘Glasto and Couture week are such a good embodiment of the two opposites that I have right now - and my real life is somewhere between the two,’ she laughs. The musician who’s been billed as making jazz relevant for Gen Z found fame on reality TV show Iceland’s Got Talent. Two albums and a Grammy award later, Laufey’s about to launch her third album A Matter of Time and go on tour across America, supported by fellow friend of Chanel, Suki Waterhouse.
Along the way she’s become a fashion favourite and attended her first Chanel show last year. ‘Fashion for me as a musician is such an important way of describing who I am visually,’ Laufey says of the commonality between the worlds. ‘My sound is such a classic sound but with a little bit of a modern twist. It’s ultimately very cinematic and so the clothing that I wear it’s so important that it embodies that too. It’s classic with a fun twist. A little bit playful but theatrical. And I really think my outfit today really captures that.’
She cites the Pierrot style collar of her Couture Chanel outfit and the exaggerated sleeves that give the mini dress a girly, romantic feel. ‘Any time I get to wear Couture I feel so special because the amount of detail on the clothing is just kind of beyond.’
Haute couture might not work for two-month tour, but Laufey puts as much thought into her performing attire as she did today’s look. ‘Dressing for stage is such a delicate art. I want to feel good. Feeling good makes me perform better so clothing is actually so important,’ Laufey reveals of her approach. ‘Beyond that I love a skirt that kind of dances. Any kind of tulle always makes me feel like a ballerina. I like flat shoes, because I like to twirl and I like to have the stakes pretty low. I don’t want to trip. It’s all about feeling good.’
If she were to pick out her favourites from the Chanel Couture show though, she says it would have to be the tweed. ‘When I think of Chanel, I think of classic, with tweed of course at the top of mind. I loved all the beautiful flowing skirts and the more masculine tweed jackets. It was perfect.’
She’s not wrong that the show had a romantic feel. Tiered skirts, embellished with lace, fringing and intricate beading, were grounded with floor-dusting coats and flat knee-high boots. Inspired by the Scottish moors and English countryside, the palette was muted: several shades of browns, moss green and heather purple, punctuated by golds that picked up Coco Chanel’s famous talisman and now code of the house – a wheatsheaf.
‘There’s a common thread between music and fashion,’ Laufey mused afterwards. ‘Just like any other art form they change with history and time and often grow in tandem.’ Poetic words for a turning point in Chanel’s storied history. Next season the oldest couture house still operating will have a new creative director. But as today’s show demonstrated even in new beginnings, when you have a heritage as rich as Chanel, it’s always worth looking back.
Hattie Brett's first job in journalism was editorial assistant of Grazia – and in 2018, she returned to the brand as editor-in-chief. That means she oversees all the editorial content across print, digital and social. She loves campaigning on issues that really matter to her audience, for example calling on the government to hold an inquiry into the cost and accessibility of childcare.