There’s nothing wrong with Billie Eilish’s sexy Vogue cover — but how much of it was her choice?

Natasha Pszenicki
WEST END FINAL

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The latest British Vogue cover features Billie Eilish as we’ve never seen her before. Gone are the baggy clothes and acid green hair — instead she’s almost unrecognisable in old Hollywood-style blonde waves and figure-hugging corsetry. Of course, the internet erupted with lots of people loving the look but others weren’t so sure. One magazine cover doth not an image overhaul make, but there’s something to be said about how quickly young women in the music industry go from age appropriate to sex symbols within moments of turning “legal”.

Craig McDean for British Vogue

I often think about Britney Spears on the cover of Rolling Stone in 1999, 17-years-old and splayed out on a bed in her underwear next to a stuffed toy. The implication is unsettlingly perverse and as we all now know from the New York Times’s Framing Britney Spears documentary, the singer’s youth was used against her for all types of exploitation. Whether it’s through dodgy record label heads with questionable agendas, or older men in showbiz who are seemingly allergic to women their own age, the entertainment industry is one that lies in wait for girls to come of age.

As long as they’re adults, young women have the right to explore their sexuality as publicly as they like, but any of us who have been 18 and seen the back of it long ago know there’s a difference between an adult with years of experience and hindsight, and an adult in their teens still learning how to say “no”.

What makes Eilish’s transformation so jarring is how vocal she’s been about her discomfort with being sexualised. Any other starlet who may have shown more ease with this wouldn’t have caused as much of a stir. But Eilish, who is 19, feels differently. Critics on the internet have unfairly accused her of selling out and being strategic in her approach to bare all, forgetting that the strategising is often left to artist management. On the other extreme end, supporters of her new look have slammed people with valid concerns as being unfeminist for questioning her sudden U-turn. Why can’t it be possible to be supportive of a young woman’s autonomy, while still being conscious that the music industry is more than capable of preying on her vulnerabilities?

Eilish’s rise to fame was especially refreshing because of everything she represented about what a popular female musician can look like and everything you shouldn’t have to be in order to achieve mainstream success. The direction she goes in next should be her choice and that choice should be respected. Despite this, I hope that we continue to interrogate the trajectories of young women in the public eye — the last thing we want is for the girls who are being pressured to go overlooked.

While we’re on the topic of fashion, an interesting detail has emerged regarding the lead-up to ex-deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner’s dismissal. According to The Guardian, Oldham MP Jim McMahon commented that she had been “dressed inappropriately” on a campaign visit to Hartlepool. The outfit in question was a pair of leopard print trousers, stomper boots and a hoodie. When we have a Prime Minister who refuses to look at a comb, plus a Cabinet full of men wearing ill-fitting suits, I don’t think the male demographic in Parliament have a leg to stand on in the wardrobe department. Sexism and classism seem to run through Parliament and comments like McMahon’s highlight them. Labour has a lot to be concerned about — how female members of the party dress isn’t an issue.

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