When Lorde was backstage after her live performance at the Grammys, an entertainment reporter asked the same question that had been asked of every star that evening. Not "where do you find your inspiration" or "what drives you creatively" or anything else remotely relevant to an evening dedicated to recognising the best in the music biz, but ... "what are you wearing?"
Her answer ("a white top and black pants") will forever remain in my top-10 list of best come-back lines. Ever.
While fashion reporters are apparently crediting the simple outfit to Prada and Celine, I wouldn't be at all surprised if she simply grabbed the combo from some beaten-up drawers that used to hold her flannelette pyjamas when she was 5, and stuffed them in a duffle bag before she left New Zealand.
Just like her lyrics, the outfit was a one-fingered salute to the manifested glitz and glamour of the music industry and I suspect there were a few well-coiffed divas in the theatre that night who weren't at all comfortable at having the institution they are queen bees of quietly but clearly mocked by a whippersnapper 17-year-old from a tiny country at the bottom of the world.
Or am I reading too much into this?
Although I felt awfully fashionable as I watched Lorde's live performance and realised that I, too, was wearing a white top and black pants, it has since occurred to me that this coincidence could have more to do with the Kiwi style (or lack of) than any big score on the fashion front.
Was Lorde nonchalantly cool? Or was she just a typical teenage girl from New Zealand who doesn't know, or doesn't care, how to dress for an occasion?
Did we miss our moment as a nation to show the world that we can run with the pack, lead it even, not just in our music but in the way we present ourselves?
Or did we just give off the impression that while we can blow a chart-topping hit outta the park once in a lifetime, we can't go the extra mile and get a trim before performing it.
More likely than not, Lorde is just way too cool to care about this, and clearly has chosen a moody counter-culture as her signature look, a way to stand out from the crowd of genetically superior, slightly starved human beings whose beauty can distract the eye so the ear is perhaps less attuned than it should be to the talent (or lack of) inherent in the music.
Whether the star-studded, glitzy music industry will welcome Lorde into the fold permanently or just indulge her as a temporary novelty remains to be seen. As she herself said, "This time the weirdo won out".
What I'd like to know is if the weirdo wins out next time, will she still be wearing a white top and black pants?
And if she's really as cool as they say she is, will everyone else be too?
