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Charli XCX is a girl on the go. The British pop star hops on a call with me hours before her final U.S. tour stop in Chicago, which is coming up “in a minute,” she tells me over the phone, attempting to be heard over the whirring of an electric nail drill (she’s redoing her signature acrylic claws for the show).
The 29-year-old singer’s latest album, Crash, is a love letter to the ’80s that Pitchfork called a “ruthless, intoxicating dream factory”—which checks out, once you hear Charli describe the environment from her most recent shows: “My audience knows how to party. They match my energy, and it’s really high octane and full of love."
Thirteen years into her career, the singer—known for her love of camp and over-the-top performances—finally feels her platform is large enough to lift up other non-mainstream musicians.
Just this past month Charli partnered with jewelry maker Pandora to create Oasis, a two-day mini festival and party held during Coachella. As creative director and unofficial vibe coordinator of the jewelry brand, the “Vroom Vroom” singer tapped her favorite female musicians, including Shygirl and Kitty Cash, to round off the lineup.
“There’s not enough women on lineups, you know, across the world,” she says, referencing the dearth of female-fronted headlining acts at festivals like Coachella, Lollapalooza, and Governor’s Ball. “For the Pandora Oasis, I could basically just choose whoever I wanted to perform and really allow the stage to be a platform for iconic female artists to do their thing and create this kind of girl power.” It’s all in a day’s work.
We sat down with Charli XCX to discuss her love for fried chicken, her latest “silly” coat, and her on-tour obsessions that she’s constantly shopping for in our latest edition of Your Fave’s Faves.
My favorite Pandora piece
I’ve actually really got into the rings recently. They’ve just done these new, really cute silver heart rings, which I love. I also layered necklaces and bracelets with some different medallions on them, and those are my favorite.
What I eat in between tour stops
Fried chicken. Whatever I can get. It’s all good.
An album I constantly have on repeat
Honestly, probably my own. It sounds narcissistic, but I don’t know—I’m just really proud of it, so I listen to it all the time.
How I define my style
I really dress for my mood, to be honest. So my style is kind of ever evolving because it really just depends on how I feel the morning that I’m getting dressed. I’d say I’m really into this vampy ’80s world at the moment, and especially when I’m on stage. I think that’s probably what I’m most inspired by right now.
My tour essentials
I always take ginger shots on the road, and that’s always really good. I like getting IVs. Honestly, just a good sheet mask is always really good as well.
On finding creative inspiration for my album aesthetic
I feel like it’s pretty driven by the music. Crash was very inspired by a lot of ’80s music and ’80s characters, so I think it jumped off from there really. There was this kind of darker tone to some of the things that I was thinking about and some of the references I was pulling from, so I think that kind of led to this B-movie girl as being a key reference point for the album.
What Crash would smell like as a candle
Probably gasoline.
My on-the-go makeup routine
I’m honestly not really good at doing my makeup when I’m on my own, but I brush up my eyebrows with hairspray and then I do like a smudgy lip stain. I really like a lot of the Glossier lip colors just because I think they pat on as a stain really easy. At the moment I’m really into one called Leo.
My favorite gift to give
I feel like you can kind of get a cute personalized gift for anyone at Pandora. You can customize all their jewelry so much that you can really just make it feel like you know, yourself, or you can make it feel unique to the person that you’re buying it for.
My top look from the “You Used to Know Me” music video
I think I’d say the custom Mugler bodysuit just because it felt so iconic.
My biggest purchase recently
I bought a coat that was very silly. It’s a statement coat, so once someone’s seen it, they’ve seen it. I definitely overspent on that, but it’s really iconic. It’s just really fluffy and very impractical, but I love it.
The most comfortable pair of shoes I own
When I’m in a comfortable mood, I just like wearing trainers, but I don’t wear them on stage. I wear these Dior boots that go up to my knees on stage, and they’re also pretty comfortable, but it’s not an everyday thing.
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