Featured in Behind The Blinds Magazine
Grace was interviewed via Zoom by Kate Lawson for "Behind The Blinds" Magazine. She talked about Megalopolis, her new Album – and her cat.
Megalopolis
"When he [Coppola] described my character Vesta, she sounded like me, but obviously in a very exaggerated way. The pledge of a musical virginity, this budding pop princess and it just made me think of this transitional point in my life, where I knew I was so cherished as a child star, but I felt awkward and pressured to stay this caricature of my youthfulness. I felt so inspired working with Coppola, and he really gave me so much freedom in this role to develop Vesta."
New Album
"I know how fragile my feelings are, and I’ve waited a long time to lean into them personally, these untapped traumatic feelings inside, and I was never ready until now to confront them. I just knew it was the right time to tell my story in my music, and it’s liberating to reveal a lot of pain. … now I’m doing this for myself, which gives me an invincibility to any fear of what people might think or say. … an experience and song can fester within me for a while, and the greater the feeling, the longer it festers! I’m very disconnected from myself for someone who is a songwriter [laughs], but then that’s why I like writing, because it’s the only time when I can fully connect with my emotions.
I’m calling this album a project, rather than an album, because I want everything that’s gone into it, to feel like performance art and tell a story, and one of the central themes of the project is the pain of girlhood to womanhood and the romanticising of girlhood into the resentment of womanhood. … Well I’m imagining it as an art exposition, so it will have a title, the theme and each song is an art piece around the room, and that format will make up the spirit of the album, like you’re walking through a story, and there will be mixed mediums, from imagery and dancing, to my love of colours and colour theory, a lot of stuff I’ve never done before.
I’ve been exposed to so many different visual expressions and inspirations in my life, from art and painting, to acting, architecture, interior design, poetry and strong symbolism. I wanted to look within and deconstruct why things were impactful to me, like, when I read a poem, was it the words, or the flow that drew me in? Or looking at fashion and the juxtaposition in an Alexander McQueen dress, that feminine silhouette fighting against a restrictive material like leather or corsetry. I wanted to take that dagger of honesty behind everything and work out how I can bring that same intensity into a song, and that’s what’s really driven me in this project."
About her cat
"I can’t do sleepovers with anyone or meet friends for more than 5 hours because we just can’t bear to be apart [laughs]. She’s such a coward, though, she’s scared of everything and gets really overwhelmed, so I want to take her on tour, but I’ve got to work out how we can make this happen, how she can adapt, because I was away from her visiting family for two days, and I cried so hard!."
Photography by Menelik Puryear, Styling by Paris Perry
Behind The Blinds magazine is biannual publication bringing a highly personal reflection on contemporary aesthetics in Fashion and the visual Arts. We follow neither trend nor fashion, but a path that is clearly our own. Whether bright and colourful or dark and obscure, feminine and sensual or masculine with erotic undertones, BehindTheBlinds is up close and personal. We focus on the present and on a form of nostalgia found in all things beautiful. We bring you newly- commissioned editorials and portfolios alongside a selection of archival contributions. Established in Brussels, the magazine is the creation of Michael Marson (Profil on WBDM.be) who took the magazine from an online platform to print in 2016 (from a profile on express.com)
Clothes and accessories used (enlarge image to read text)
The hairdresser on the shoot Gonn Kinoshita posted a short video on Instagram of Grace posing, with the caption "BTS - stunning looks of GRACE✨✨✨"