The video for “Opulence”, the first single from **Brooke Candy’**s EP of the same title, sees the 24-year-old musician embody several personae. There’s the mullet-wigged prostitute knocking out a John who hasn’t paid; there’s the fur-clad, post-punk Daisy Buchanan terrorizing a dreary road behind the wheel of a vintage cabriolet; there’s a sort of Satanic nightmare covered in diamond dust and replete with a Miley Cyrus–length tongue; the others it’s best to just see for yourself. Suffice it to say that the last characteristic I’m expecting to describe this rapper-cum-exhibitionist with is “sweet.” And yet, Brooke Candy is as sweet as her name implies, and courteous too—even gentle.
Candy first caught our attention in 2012 as the Popsicle stick–licking, mean-mugging minx that stole the show with her space-age suit of armor in **Grimes’**s video for “Genesis”, which to date has more than 19 million views on YouTube. Since then, she’s taken on one role after another—take, for instance, the four you see in the slideshow above—and has been working toward a debut album that is expected early next year (“January is realistic,” she predicts). In the meantime, she’s somehow become a fashion-world obsession.
When we talk on the phone, Candy is staying at the Bridgehampton home of photographer Steven Klein, whom she was introduced to by Nicola Formichetti. The Diesel creative director first met her on set with Terry Richardson and quickly recognized some of the same chameleon qualities in Candy that he once saw in Lady Gaga, his longtime collaborator. Like Gaga, and Rihanna and Beyoncé (and Madonna before them), Candy displays a particular knack for dramatically transforming her look, while keeping her essential image intact—a talent that, in an ever more fast-paced Internet-influenced pop world, is more essential now than ever. It wasn’t long before Formichetti, whom his new muse describes as “protective and supportive,” was enlisting Candy to perform at his inaugural Diesel show in Venice and booking her for magazine stories with Klein, a fortuitous pairing. Candy feels especially comfortable with the famously noir photographer, who directed her “Opulence” video. “He has this darkness,” she says of Klein, “but is one of the most light-hearted people in the world.” Candy may as well be describing herself.
For all her shape-shifting, perhaps it’s helpful to think of Brooke Candy as a tabula rasa whose videos, concerts, and everyday appearances each necessitate a different character. Together, they make her a fashion plate palimpsest. “I enjoy the idea of getting into a different headspace and becoming a completely other person,” she says. “I actually think every human being has that ability.”
For all the effort put into her appearance, being (and becoming) Brooke Candy is a cathartic experience. “I think there is an element of power in aesthetics,” she says. “I think there’s power in the superficial.” It’s sort of ironic, then, that the name Brooke Candy—manufactured as it sounds, a poppy dactyl of a phrase—is the one she was born with. No guise, no stage name.
As we wrapped the four-look shoot, Candy donned one last persona for the day: a platinum blonde wig that looked like it had been electrocuted, paired with an electric pink Fendi fur. She was off to Sony for a meeting and aimed to channel Debbie Harry, inside and out. “Everything kind of happened organically,” she says of her career so far, despite the obvious artifice. “It makes me think I’m doing something right.”
Fashion Editor: Nicola Formichetti
Stylist: Hayley Pisaturo
Hair: Akki/@akkishirakawa; Makeup: Susie Sobol