Where to begin when writing a piece about one of your own heroes? Someone whose biography reads like an ecstatic, hallucinatory whirlwind—the whirlwind of Björk, a multi-disciplinary artist, singer, musician, producer, composer, actress, performer and so much more, it feels nearly impossible to write something about her that even comes close to paying her tributes. Transcending every norm, Björk creates entire universes for an audience to plunge into, exploring all the fundamental questions of human existence and channeling it through her music, all while creating a breach from the musical world to the art world. A presence so unique and magical that is out of this world—ethereal and otherworldly at once.
Aside from being one of the most multi-faceted, versatile, playful, and creative musicians, Björk is also a visual artist, and known for her spectacular, otherworldly performances and appearances and her long-lasting relationship with fashion—a ‘fashion gawdess’, as we referred to her in an earlier love letter to the artist. And the way her music is quirky, ever-changing, and always surprising reflects in her fashion too. In her albums she represents different characters and her costumes are an essential element in that—clothing is used to represent her emotional world, showing the outside what she feels on the inside.
Throughout her career, she has collaborated with notable designers, such as Alexander McQueen, Hussein Chalayan, and Iris van Herpen to create her stage gowns. As someone who is known to take risks, never shy away from trying something new, and creating a new vision in a collaboration, with artists and designers, she has a long list of iconic moments for us to take a look at.
After completing her last world tour Cornucopia at the end of 2023, Björk headed into this year with collaborations in the field of art and fashion, joining Rick Owens’ catwalk in February and becoming the subject in focus of an exhibition featuring never-seen-before portraits of her by Spike Jonze. Let’s take a look at her most recent and most iconic fashion moments.
Dressed in Maison Margiela couture, Björk graced the latest cover of Vogue Scandinavia and described her long relationship to the fashion house. It all started in the early nineties, when her first Album Debut and the Single Human Behaviour were published and the cover shows a young, shy Björk wearing Martin Margiela, photographed by French fashion photographer Jean-Baptiste Mondino.
In the same year, these photos by Glen Luchford were taken, where she is shown in an intimate setting, also dressed in Margiela.
Björk by Glen Luchford, 1993
The decade Björk and fashion became inseparable.
In 1994 she even made a rare appearance on a fashion week runway – and not any runway, she walked for the Jean Paul Gaultier F/W 1994 show, alongside Linda, Naomi, and Kate.
For the cover of her Album Homogenic she collaborated with Alexander McQueen and Nick Knight to create a character that represented the way she felt when creating the album. In the documentary Inside Björk from 2003, McQueen remembered:
“She rang me up, and she explained what the album was feeling: she said it was kind of a blue period in her life. It was a turn of phrase related to Björk’s hard year, of course, but Björk had also been drawing inspiration from the evocative melancholy and humanism of Picasso’s Blue Period paintings. Picasso was born in Malaga, not far from El Cortijo, and Björk also wanted an image that reflected the way in which she was drawing from many sources, many countries, but still remaining herself.”
“She rang me up, and she explained what the album was feeling: she said it was kind of a blue period in her life. It was a turn of phrase related to Björk’s hard year, of course, but Björk had also been drawing inspiration from the evocative melancholy and humanism of Picasso’s Blue Period paintings. Picasso was born in Malaga, not far from El Cortijo, and Björk also wanted an image that reflected the way in which she was drawing from many sources, many countries, but still remaining herself.”
“I was saying to Lee [McQueen], I’m like the most global citizen from Iceland,” Björk explained. “When I’m in Iceland, I’m like the cosmopolitan, you know. When I’m in New York, I’m like the Icelandic person.”
And so, for the Homogenic character, McQueen, Knight, and stylist Katy England crafted their vision of the modern multicultural citizen: Maasai-style neck rings, a European manicure, a handmade damask silk Japanese-style kimono dress, and butterfly-whorl hair inspired by the Native American women of the Hopi and Tewa tribes. Björk also wanted the image to evoke her warrior of love, and, as a result, the image bristles with a defensive tension that is heightened by the restrictive nature of her costume.
“I had the big head, the contact lenses, the long fingernails, sewn-back costume, I couldn’t move but still had to send all the love in the world back to the camera,” she recalled.
Here it becomes clear again: Björk is a visual artist just as she is a musician, there is art in everything she does, and collaboration has always played a big part in her work. She draws inspiration from everything surrounding her and translates that into her creative universe. While there are so many more iconic moments throughout the years (think: The Swan Dress at the Oscars, the collaborations with Hussein Chalayan, for the Post cover photographed by Stephane Sednaoui, and even a runway appearance at the SS ’96 Chalayan Show) let’s take a look at some of her most recent appearances in the fashion sphere. Because it seems like Björk is everywhere again—and we never get tired of seeing her.
“The day I met Björk” by Spike Jonze
Björk Today.
If the last references didn’t already make you nostalgic—this jewel definitely will. Captured by filmmaker and photographer Spike Jonze, a series of unseen portraits of Björk in the 90s has come to light. The photos that intimately capture Björk at their first encounter at the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles in 1995 are now shown in an exhibition at a gallery space in Los Angeles, Arroz & Fun, and as a digital zine accessible for everyone.
For her latest surprise performance, Björk was seen at a Fashion Week after-party in Paris as she joined Arca on stage for a surprise performance at the Bourse de Commerce in yet another spectacular gown as remembered by Dazed: a “fresh-off-the-runway Rick Owens, a rubber cage that encased her so completely she was practically unrecognisable.”
Her next scheduled performance is on May 10th—a DJ set in New York. Until then, we remain curious to see what she has in store for her next appearances (and listen to her last radio show for Sonos Radio).
*Header: “The day I met Björk” by Spike Jonze.
