Chappell Roan’s tour wardrobe is a case study in how to build a pop star

Maybe you’ve seen Chappell Roan dressed as the Statue of Liberty, emerging from an apple (the big one, naturally) at New York’s Governors Ball. Or maybe you’ve caught footage of her at the Kentuckiana Pride festival, dressed in homage to the legendary drag queen Divine, waist nipped and eyebrows arched nearly to her hairline. Or on The Tonight Show, where she sang her heart out in white swan regalia after out-quipping Jimmy Fallon in a complementary black swan look.

It’s been an unusually rich summer for pop music, but the 26-year-old pop singer has still managed to break through, thanks to what feels like a genuinely new blend of powerhouse vocals, queer pride, and high-camp style. Her origin story feels tailor-made for a moment when audiences prize authenticity but are also looking for escapism: Talented Midwestern girl flees sheltered Christian upbringing for L.A., writes a bunch of sad songs for a label that doesn’t quite know what to do with her, has a queer awakening, and is reborn on a new label as a glitter-spangled, face-painted phoenix, rising from the ashes with an album of bangers about sex, love, and dancing.

Like her pop foremothers, she couldn’t do it without a finely honed look, which means she couldn’t do it without her stylist, the also-26-year-old Genesis Webb. “She brings the element of glam drag, and then I bring an element of more punk club kid,” Webb recently explained to Bazaar.

              Chappell Roan in a dress by Gunnar Deatherage for a performance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon

Webb met Roan at a V magazine shoot, where the two bonded over being from the Midwest and growing up far outside the industry. “Coming from more lower-class backgrounds, it just kind of brings this sense of familiarity in a space like that. And she’s also such a girl’s girl, and I was one of the only girls on the set,” the stylist said. But what really stood out for Webb was Roan’s clarity of vision. “I’d worked with a couple people prior who were way bigger than her and who didn’t really have a lot of opinions. But she had this really specific thing that she wanted to do.”

That specific thing pays tribute to drag queens and pageant queens, horror movies and historic pop divas. It wasn’t exactly Webb’s personal aesthetic, which skews to the darker side: She’s more likely to wear black shredded garments and bleach her eyebrows. The first thing you notice about her is the big rosary tattoo inked up her neck, which she says she got to ensure she would never “work a normal job.” But she vibed with Roan’s appreciation for what she calls “Midwest trashy glam,” and Roan admired the racks of vintage Webb brought to the shoot.

Now, if you happen to be a scholar of Weird Pop Girl Aesthetics, you might recall that Lady Gaga met her own frequent fashion director and co-world-builder, designer Nicola Formichetti, on a V magazine shoot back in 2009. This might not be a coincidence worth mentioning, except that when Webb met Roan, the stylist was there as Formichetti’s assistant. Chappell Roan is clearly working in Gaga’s wake; she has the theatrics, the giant voice, the queer fan base that she’s here to serve. But she also warbles like Kate Bush, flouts convention like Madonna, and dances like nobody’s watching like Robyn.

                                                          Roan in a leopard-print latex leotard by Vex Clothing

As Roan’s stylist, Webb’s fashion influences are just as informed and thoughtful. She pulls from twisted old films like John Waters’s 1972 filth extravaganza Pink Flamingos (tagline: “An exercise in poor taste”) and the 2003 club-kid-murderer drama Party Monster. At one point, she references an Elton John look from 1980. She describes herself as “anti-fashion,” but worships at the antlered altar of Alexander McQueen.

                                                                 Drag legend Divine in Pink Flamingos

“I watch his shows to this day, and I’ve seen them a million times, but I literally shed a tear because of how beautiful it is,” Webb says. “I love Rick Owens and Yohji Yamamoto, that very dark and long silhouette. Personally, I like a lot of black, but then there are designers who have recently taken over my brain, like Viktor & Rolf or Thom Browne. I love that Chappell World is opening me up to, like, ‘Oh, we can do a little color, we can add more, take more risks.’ And I’ve just gained a huge appreciation for the campy theatrical aspect not being so dark, like McQueen.”

Her breadth of pop culture references, she says, came from Tumblr, her main escape when she was coming of age in Oklahoma City and feeling alienated from everyone around her. “Anything weird, I just wanted to suck it up because I was in a space that did not allow a lot of that. Tumblr was so valuable. It introduced me to things like Party Monster or Kids, Harmony Korine.” Kids today, Webb points out, are absorbing pop culture at a much more frenetic pace than she was a decade ago. “It’s like you can barely keep up with what’s being put out, so why would these kids try to find [things] from the past? I like bringing the references for the kids [in Chappell’s outfits], so they can be like, ‘Who the fuck is this? Who’s Divine?’ ”

                                                                        A scene from Party Monster

But if the Chappell Roan concert experience is for the kids, it’s also for, well, everybody else. “She cultivates such a huge queer space—obviously, having drag queens open—and it’s just such an amazing and safe experience,” Webb says. ‘And then I think just adding on the ’90s, ’80s, also queer references to bring it all together just works really well, and gives it the ability to jump across generations.” On TikTok, fans have rallied around a video of a white-haired older man belting out Roan’s hit “Pink Pony Club” from the balcony at a show. Webb says he’s the uncle of Roan’s drummer Lucy, but the point remains: Roan has created a space for the 26-year-olds and the Pink Pony Pawpaws.

Webb is aware that the fans are reading into every look, searching for hidden meanings. “It’s crazy,” she says. “We have to do more. People really think we’re doing the Muppets. I love it. It’s funny.” So is it true she’s been basing Roan’s looks on iconic Miss Piggy moments, as the meme suggests? She laughs: “On the record? It’s just divine intervention.”

Below, Webb breaks down four recent Chappell Roan looks.

Governors Ball
New York City, June 9, 2024

“That one was super collaborative. I sent Chappell a reference of a Playboy Bunny coming out of a cake, and she was like, ‘Let’s do an apple. We should have it be a bong, a smoking apple.’ The Statue of Liberty came naturally. It’s so camp and obviously so New York, and Elton John’s done it. And I had saved that Monique Fei dress for a long time, because of the butt opening.

“She’s so game. She wants to do everything. I even made attachments for the belt, because I thought she might not want her butt out. And she was like, ‘Can we take these off?’ ”

Kentuckiana Pride
Louisville, June 15, 2024

“Our makeup artist, Andrew, he’s from Kentucky and he’s a club kid; his looks are insane. So for him to do the Divine look in Kentucky, it all made sense. And then at the bridge of ‘Casual,’ these fireworks just went off. It was for a baseball game or something. It was just serendipity. But like a lot of the trajectory we’ve had, it felt like it was meant to be happening. It really feels magical, to be honest.”

Boston Calling
Boston, May 26, 2024

“The band is in old vintage outfits that I got from the liquidation sale of a costume house in L.A. And then for Chappell, the reference was this old cowgirl leotard that I’ve had saved since even before working with her. Zana Bayne made it; she’s just such an amazing artist. Lacey Dalimonte made the custom coat, with trinkets on the collar that are customised for her. It even has a little Divine trinket.”

Bonnaroo
Manchester, Tennessee, June 16, 2024

“This really amazing latex company, Aimless Gallery, reached out to me and wanted to do full looks for everyone, for nothing, just because of their belief in us. I had wanted to do the Party Monster nurse look for Halloween for so long. It was just a really sick queer reference that I feel like people who are younger haven’t seen. I went to Bonnaroo in 2014, when I was 16, and I was showing everyone that movie. So to be back in the same place, seeing those looks, it brought it full circle. I was crying the whole time.”

This article was first published in harperbazaar.com in July 2024

Also read: So, what is the official song of summer?
Also read: It’s the summer of pop girl reconciliation