As the artist brings her Las Vegas residency to an end, she leaves behind a major fashion legacy. Just call her Madame A.
This weekend, Adele’s Las Vegas residency comes to an end and with it what may have been the most striking series of LBDs since Audrey Hepburn stepped
By the time the artist takes her last bow, she will have worn more than 50 long black dresses in Vegas (to say nothing of her concerts in Munich and London, where she also wore LBDs) — a different one every weekend. She started in an off-the-shoulder velvet Schiaparelli, with a long satin sash caught up by a gold buckle speckled with nipples (you read that right). She wore David Koma with crystal roses on Valentine’s Day 2023. She channeled Morticia Addams on Halloween that fall in Arturo Obegero. She got Loro Piana to make its first va-va-voom gown this month.
She has worn, in no particular order, LBDs from Stella McCartney, Dior, Carolina Herrera, Harris Reed, Prada, Vivienne Westwood, Robert Wun, Proenza Schouler, Armani, JW Anderson and Ralph Lauren, to name but a few. All were custom-made. She has worked with names from across the industry and rarely repeated a designer twice.
The only guidelines, according to Fernando Garcia, the co-creative director of Oscar de la Renta, who made the glittery sunburst number she wore for her Christmas 2022 performance, were that they be black, long, cut on the curve to show off her waist and needed to have enough give to let her lungs go.
Adele has fancied the LBD for almost as long as she has been in the public eye (see the night-sky Armani LBD she wore to the Grammys in 2012). But the sheer number of black gowns she has worn during her residency, the variety and the consistency of her presentation, marks a new milestone in what may be the most timeless garment in the fashion pantheon.
At a moment when the gravitational pull exerted by social media means that it is often the most outré outfits that are rewarded by the attention economy — most colourful! And crazy! And fringed! And feathered!— in a setting that effectively invented the rhinestone X games, Adele’s wardrobe has been a riposte to the status quo. Hers is essentially a one-woman campaign to remind the world of the power of elegant understatement.
“When everything is about being seen,” choosing a different approach is, ironically, “one way to stand out,” said Sarah Collins, the associate chair of fashion marketing and management at the Savannah College of Art and Design, which in 2012 held an exhibition on The Little Black Dress.
In the physics of fashion, in which for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, the pendulum may be swinging Adele’s way — just in time for the holiday season. According to data from Tagwalk, the fashion search engine, there were more than 800% more black dresses in the fall 2024 collections than in 2023.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.At Valentino, then-designer Pierpaolo Piccioli offered 63 variations on the black dress, 45 of them extending from below the knee to the floor. Black, he said, was “interesting because it’s the colour of these times, and it’s very universal but very individual.”
He was talking about the sense among some of dark days upon us, but the LBD has always transcended its era.
The long black dress, the more formal variation on the little black dress that Coco Chanel made famous in 1926, actually preceded that particular garment in notoriety by centuries. Its power was immortalised in the 17th-century court portraits of Diego Velázquez, and by John Singer Sargent’s 1884 portrait of Madame X (actually Virginie Amélie Gautreau), which was unveiled at the 1884 Paris Salon and scandalised the world thanks to the juxtaposition of skin, cleavage and black velvet.
Audrey Hepburn gave the LBD a boost when she teamed up with Hubert de Givenchy, whose LBD, cut to expose her shoulder bones, was both minimal and provocative. A few decades later, Elizabeth Hurley did it again when she walked the Four Weddings and a Funeral red carpet in a Versace LBD with safety pins protecting her modesty. When the Museum of Modern Art held its 2017 Items: Is Fashion Modern? exhibition, dedicated to identifying the garments that defined the 20th century, curators included the LBD in the assemblage along with jeans, loafers and the hoodie. Indeed, it opened the whole show.
At this point, you can read into black what you will — revolution, existentialism, Goth, sophistication, mystery, magic, power, grief, solemnity, formality — which means that the LBD can be all things to all people. “It means that many things go together,” Yohji Yamamoto once told the New York Times. “You need black to have a silhouette. Black can swallow light, or make things look sharp.”
Either way, what it does, unquestionably, is put the focus on the person wearing it. As Paola Antonelli, the MoMA curator who organised the Items show, said, “The LBD allows one to control one’s presence in a room or in the city, a fine-tuning of the whole attitude.”
There are a variety of theories about why Adele loves black. (She herself is not explaining.) In 2013, her former stylist, Gaelle Paul, said that her decision to wear black was an ode to Johnny Cash, otherwise known as the man in black. But while it may have started out that way, Jamie Mizrahi, Adele’s current stylist, who worked closely with each designer to create the custom looks for Las Vegas, offered another interpretation. It’s about “déjà vu in the right way,” she told the Wall Street Journal at the beginning of the residency. It’s about the multitudes of references, the history that came before, much like Adele’s music.
As a result, Sarah said, “It fits her.” Literally and artistically.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.The black dresses centre her on the stage, acting as a backdrop to her music. The length hides her feet, which are often bare (or in sneakers) for comfort’s sake. And, like her peers Taylor Swift and Beyoncé, she works with designers across the industry rather than one in particular, so the result is less redolent of marketing than creative mind-meld. When she wore Gaurav Gupta at the end of October — a couture LBD with an off-the-shoulder neckline that resembled wings and took 93 hours to make — Gaurav called it “a defining moment.”
For Christopher John Rogers, a designer known for his bright colours, “it was a fun challenge to figure out how to CJR-ify her signature.” His solution, which Adele wore for Pride Day last year, was a crepe and silk dress with a train of rainbow stripes.
“There’s something very old-world and sculptural about black,” Christopher John said.
Yet, despite the fabulousness, the LBD translates relatively easily into the everyday, which is also part of the appeal. “It’s democratic — everyone can wear it,” Sarah said. “It’s sophisticated. It focuses attention on the silhouette.”
“And it is timeless,” she continued, pointing out that while colours go in and out of style, black is eternal. That means it is a good investment.
“I think we’ll still be looking at Adele’s residency 10 years from now as a master class in how to dress up,” Fernando said.
That’s not impossible, since all of Adele’s LBDs are being archived, preserved for some point in the future. Even if she does take a long break from music and public appearances, as she has said, these looks could potentially go on: into an exhibition — or a book.
“So much is about streetwear and casual wear today,” Sarah said. “But sometimes, you just want to be glamorous.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Vanessa Friedman
©2024 THE NEW YORK TIMES
More on music
From local artists to international pop stars.
Before Chappell Roan, A Decade Long Catfish Scam Showed Tegan And Sara Fan Obsession’s Dark Side. A new Disney+ series exposes a toxic fan culture that revealed the dark side of fame.
Style Liaisons: In Conversation With Erny Belle, The Country-Pop-Alt-Folk Star Looking To The Stars. On her album Not Your Cupid, Aimee Renata embraces wit and romanticism in both songwriting and style. Hot off the back of a celebratory release party, the Taite Award-nominated artist shares some insights into her vast nebula of influences and delights in an imagined costume archive.
Vera Ellen Is In A New Era. Her album Ideal Home Noise charts the black waters that led to her “massive freakout” when the ramifications of its release hit her.
Teeks On His New Music & Unpacking Toxic Masculinity. “Being in touch with your emotions is not considered a masculine thing but because I was in the process of making this album I was like, ‘Nah man, f*** that’.”
Sabrina Carpenter Is Gloriously Sly And Merciless, So Is Her New Album. Sabrina Carpenter finds her sharp, witty voice on her sixth album, Short n’ Sweet.
