Music
When Tove Lo announced her upcoming album, ESTRUS, she wrote that "there's no good advice on this album... just a lot of feelings, no solutions."
There is, however, good styling, courtesy of Anais Castaldi and Hannah Greenblatt.
The Los Angeles-based creative duo are known for bringing a strong visual tone to projects through their wardrobe. Their work spans brands, cover stories, and artists like Dom Dolla, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Coldplay.
Here, they break down the sartorial choices seen in Tove Lo's music video for "I'm your girl right?" the lead single from ESTRUS.
This interview has been edited for style.
Tove Lo has described the album as “primal, contradicting emotional chaos.” In the “I’m your girl right?” music video, the change from uniform to lingerie seems like a visual expression of that tension. How did you approach styling that shoot?
There’s definitely juxtaposing themes in her wardrobe. Narratively, we follow Tove go from an unyielding environment where everyone does everything the same, constantly.
She is the catalyst for change as she begins to do her own practice, and we see the rest of the cast follow in breaking free from the norm that they were adhering to.
Tove has never been the norm, and she is multidimensional, so when sorting out what her other extreme would be, what the liberated side looked like for her, it had to be different and it had to feel her.
We ultimately landed in a look that would appear as if it was pieced by bits she collected from past members of the cult. Collaborators like Charlie Le Mindu or Lou de Bètoly really understand the assignment.
Garments created by multiple granny panties and bras aren’t just a lovely visual contradiction, but also kind of a “Fuck you. Scared of a bra? Well, here’s 25 bras.”
And doesn’t that sort of sum up the female experience today in some poetic way?
Is there a piece you sourced for the album's visuals that you feel especially connected to, either because of the process of finding it or how it ultimately came to life on Tove Lo?
Yes, the underwear look at the end by Charlie Le Mindu. We were familiar with his work since his collaborations with Lady Gaga in, like, 2010, when the possibility of our own careers as stylists was just being born.
Related: Meet the Designers Behind Lady Gaga's Red Latex Cape from the "Abracadabra" Music Video
To collaborate with him on a couple of looks for this new era has been surreal and a full circle moment. His raw, yet delicate craftsmanship is uniquely “Tove Lo” and has been beyond consequential for the visual story we are trying to help tell with her wardrobe.
Were there any outside references from fashion, film, art or subculture that helped anchor your styling choices?
Always: the archive in our minds of working with Tove for 12 years and obviously religious subcultures like the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and Mennonites for the "ESTRUS" era as a whole.
The director, Fernando Nogari, and cast costume designer Marina Viera also brought up Peter Mullan’s The Magdalene Sisters when crafting the uniform look for the video.
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