10 FKA TWIGS

NEWCOMER

FKA TWIGS’ style is a decoction of vulnerability and fearlessness. Last year, she released “Thank You Song,” a ballad in which she sang, “I wanted to die, I’m just being honest/No longer afraid to say it out loud.” For many, the song brought to mind her 2020 lawsuit detailing the emotional, physical, and mental abuse she’d suffered during her relationship with actor Shia LaBeouf. In the song’s video, she appears in a soft-pink sweater and uniform-style skirt that is ripped and gashed, with safety pins straddling the plunging neckline, and deep stains on the edges of seams that appear to be pulling apart. Using fashion to make powerful personal statements comes naturally to the U.K. avant-pop artist, whose 2022 mixtape, Caprisongs, was one of the year’s most acclaimed releases. “You’ve got to have so much more about you than the way you look or your clothes,” she said in 2014, and she’s lived up to that statement over the past decade. In December, at the Red Carpet Fashion Awards, her charcoal Rick Owens dress and black face paint evoked an embattled hero rising from the ashes, which is a perfect metaphor for her own recent triumph.