Kelis

Fashion comes naturally to me – I don’t have to plan it. Whatever the vibe of my music is, that’s how I’m going to look. At the moment it’s more retro so I’m wearing vintage dresses. For my Somerset House gig I wore a beautiful silk piece that had a cape and blue cranes handpainted on it, and I love the pink dress I wore for Glastonbury this year. I feel like I’ve grown up – I’ve figured it out and my 30s are rocking. I feel like the wisest, smartest and sexiest I’ve ever been. But all the time, I’m going through phases. I can go wild! Stripper shoes, latex, leather, piercings. There’s a joke between me and my friends that I always make US Weekly’s worst-dressed list. I’m offended now if I’m not on it. I can be inspired by anything, but always Dynasty and Star Trek. I love Joan Collins.

The important thing is that whatever you wear, you’ve got to own it. It’s got to represent something. There are a lot of pretty girls in magazines, but they all wear the same dress and it’s a case of: “Who wore the dress best?” So boring. People like Grace Jones, Cher, Tina Turner… we knew who they were before they sang a word. And when they sang, we believed them. That’s how musicians end up defining an era of fashion. We’re interested in what the person behind the song looks like because they make us feel something.

I don’t think there’s ever been a time when I didn’t enjoy dressing up. My mum was a fashion designer so she taught me good taste young. She used to be totally cute – her hair was down to her ankles and she was this tiny little woman with a nose piercing and red lipstick – we would totally have been friends if we were the same age. She taught me what to wear for my body. When I was 17 I worked in an expensive clothes store in New York and I would say to all these rich women: “How can you not see that it doesn’t suit your body?” I’ve always known what makes my legs look like sausages. I know I absolutely cannot wear track pants, like, ever.

With my performance clothes I tend to wear everything twice and then put it in the closet I’ve had built in my garage in LA. There are hundreds of shoes because I’m a complete addict – if I love a pair, I’ll buy them no matter what the size. I’ve got some Louis Vuittons that almost killed me as they’re a size 7 and I’m a size 9. I’ll wear anything for an hour then take if off, no matter the size, no matter what.

Kelis’s latest album, Food, is out now on Ninja Tune

Brett Anderson

There’s no such thing as non-image in music. Even bands who say they don’t have an image, well, that’s their image. A look is part of the magic and mystique of why fans get into particular bands.

People assumed Suede were strutting peacocks, but it wasn’t really like that. We were all on the dole so we went to charity shops – we were styled accidentally by Oxfam. In the early 90s those shops weren’t full of Gap T-shirts, they sold clothes from 10-15 years earlier. It looked like we’d adopted retro chic, but in truth it was financial necessity. At the time I was watching classic 60s and 70s films – The Servant, a lot of Alan Bates – so I looked for similar suits and shirts in the charity shops, there was a certain Englishness to it and it became our look. But it wasn’t as self-conscious as people thought.

Bands are like families, they spend a lot of time together. When you get very close, you start borrowing each other’s clothes. That’s why bands that are any good have an identity. It’s part of the tribalism of the band, and you’re proud of it. Your music sounds a certain way and you look a certain way. I don’t think any good band is obsessed by style. It’s just an extension of your identity. You won’t be any good if you’re style over content, it simply can’t happen.

I regret I allowed the look to become cartoonish by going on stage wearing more feminine clothes, blouses. But I honestly started doing it because my clothes always got ripped off me by the audience. I had to go out every day when we were on tour and buy some flimsy old bit of nonsense from a junk shop because I knew it would get torn to pieces. If I could go back and give myself style advice, I’d say: “Tone it down or it’ll come back to bite you in the arse.” But we were young and it was exciting – part of the thrill of being in a band when you’re young is making mistakes.

I’m 47 now and I’m lucky enough to be able afford nice clothes. As you get older, you dress better. Though I’m quite conscious of not overdressing, particularly when the band is on stage. I don’t like it when we all turn up in suits, as if we’ve walked out of a Savile Row tailor.

I still go into charity shops, though, I love them. I’m nosy. I like looking through other people’s junk. I’m like one of those people who doesn’t want to buy a house but still books appointments with estate agents just to have a look around.

Suede will release a limited-edition box set of Dog Man Star on 20 October to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the album’s release

Flying Lotus

My music is rooted in hip-hop. That was the starting point for me, the love of rap. At first I was listening to guys like Dr Dre and then I expanded from there. Now I rip from everything, sample from everywhere – jazz, classical, video games, films. I guess it’s similar with my clothes. When I was coming up in Los Angeles I didn’t have a lot of money, or a wild fashion sense, but I still tried to keep up, to fit in with the homies. There was an era when all hip-hop kids were wearing white T-shirts and baggy pants, so I was like: “Great! I can do the basic shit – white tees, no problem!” Then everyone got into football jerseys and I was like: “Easy, got ya.” More recently guys like Kanye have come along and raised the bar.

I love all that far-out stuff. Hip-hop has become more interesting because artists are taking more risks and trying to tell different stories, and that’s related to fashion. A$AP Rocky has been able to go further because of his fashion sense: he’s able to be in magazines in a different light as he dresses expensive and crazily. Then there is Thundercat – he’s low key but really influential in fashion. Whenever I’m out with him someone’s always trying to take his picture. He was wearing those big hats before Pharrell [Williams] and Erykah [Badu] – always a step ahead.

When I was starting out, other people in the industry asked me quite early on what my look was going to be, but I’ve only started paying more attention to it recently. At heart I liked to keep things simple: black tees, black trousers, black socks, Nikes and Supras. Sometimes rather than washing my stuff I’ll just go into American Apparel and buy 20 of the same black T-shirts.

But I’m equally interested in visual arts and music, and I recognise that clothes can be an important part of the performance. Being onstage has made me more appreciative of fashion as an art form, but I’m suspicious of people who pay for the brand rather than the design – like, hundreds of dollars just to have “Supreme” written on something. That’s not tight.

Anime and sci-fi are big influences: The Fifth Element, Blade Runner, video games like Final Fantasy. When I go to Tokyo I’m amazed by the little rich kids who look like straight-up anime characters – everyone should be doing that stuff. It’s fun to dress up and do your own thing: take an old sweatshirt and cut it up and match it up with some $600 trousers and a weird chain. Mixing shit up – that’s the fun part.

You’re Dead! by Flying Lotus is out on 6 October on Warp

Anna Calvi

It was David Bowie who I noticed first. I got into him when I was quite young and I had a photo book of him. I remember flipping through pictures of his outfits and thinking: “How is it that you can make such ridiculous clothes look so good?” When I try to think of male musicians like that now, who are peacocks and enhance their femininity in a way that people find sexy, I can’t think of anyone.

In a fashion sense, I’m usually inspired by men. When I was 10 or so, I found a black velvet jacket with a Chinese dragon on the back. I thought it was so cool and made me look like the Fonz. I like the way Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds dress, too – gentlemanly but sleazy. It’s not like they put on these clothes just for their shows either – it’s how they live.

The masculinity in what I wear, for me, is about combining both sides of who I am. It makes me feel feminine to slick my hair back and to wear severe clothes; it brings out the woman in me somehow, because it makes me feel elegant and it also shows me where I am more feminine.

You can use the shapes of your body to express your music. When I was in my early 20s I loved all the iconic women of the 50s, like Marilyn Monroe, because that period accentuated the hourglass shape. I experimented with wearing dresses and pencil skirts. But then I had the idea of the male flamenco dancer. I was trying to find a way to explore the passion and romance in my music, and flamenco dancers dress in a strong and sensual way. I had a big flamenco skirt made, but then when I tried the male outfit it felt much more exciting. I play with what I’m wearing, too, and how that affects the way I sing. If I wear my hair down it changes my performance – I feel wilder. When it’s slicked back, it’s more of a stern performance. While recording my first record I experimented with dressing up and putting on lipstick to channel that passion. I tried doing a vocal take topless once when no one could see me. It was an intimate song and it changed the vocals – they felt very vulnerable.

One Breath, Anna Calvi’s Mercury-nominated album, is available now

Lily Allen

My style’s kind of indefinable: it’s a bit weird. Going through the ages, you associate style with different types of music. In the 70s you had the rock ’n’ roll thing going on with the Rolling Stones and in the 80s it was punk and the Sex Pistols – very much a defence mechanism, dressing in that way. It was like a warning: “Back off.” People were angry. I don’t think we have that right now. Now we have Instagram, so people are constantly putting out images of themselves and trying to control how people perceive them. They don’t have to shout so much.

I don’t really get up in the morning and say: “Which style shall I wear?” I would hope people didn’t make a judgment on my music from looking at a picture of me. I think clothes are an armour. They tell a lot about how you’re feeling. At the moment I’m on tour travelling around like a maniac, so sometimes I want to be comfortable, sometimes I want to dress up. When I’m tired, fun clothes or nails can give me an energy boost. If I’m going out for dinner with my husband I obviously want to wear something slightly chicer than what I’d wear to Notting Hill carnival.

I’ve accumulated a lot of stuff. When I first started I had one look and stuck to it: the prom dress and trainers. It was my look as a teenager because I hated high heels. And then as I got better known I had access to more. I’ve been really lucky to carry on working with amazing fashion houses, such as Chanel, and I guess that’s why my style has grown – no one would be able to afford to roll around in the amount of Chanel stuff that I do.

The things I wear always seem like a good idea at the time, so I don’t really have any fashion regrets. One of my favourite looks ever is a Giles Deacon dress that I wore to an awards do the first time I had pink hair. It was a pink dress with an old
Andy Warhol print on it, and from afar it looked like a really posh party dress. When you got up close, you saw it was a decapitated Bambi.

Lily Loves Nails are available now at Boots, Superdrug and eleganttouch.com

Neneh Cherry

A lot of the most interesting styles started in the dance floors and the streets. I remember my first time in Jamaica when I saw the kids wearing hats and shirts with the label still on. Creative fashion often comes from people who don’t always have the money to buy expensive high-fashion items, who take an idea from magazines or TV and make it their own, using whatever they can lay their hands on. I remember watching an interview with LL Cool J back in the day. The interviewer was trying to smart-arse him, asking him about his tracksuits and his medallions, and he was like: “Yo, this is just what’s for sale in my neighbourhood – I just take it and own it.”

That’s what we were trying to do with Buffalo Stance and Raw Like Sushi in the late 80s. Ray Petri [founder of the Buffalo fashion label] was influenced by African and reggae music, and by the urban scene. We took a New York hip-hop style and mixed it in with bomber jackets and leggings. Somehow it made visual sense of what we felt – it became a kind of language. Before, there was always this idea that if you had a Chanel suit you had to have the shoes and handbag to match. We’d put on a Jean Paul Gaultier jacket and wear it with trainers, because that was who we were.

That dialogue about fashion has affected my music. The designer Christopher Shannon has been a support, giving me pieces to use. I can be sitting backstage with my head in my hands, wondering what I’m going to do, and I’ll pull something out of a suitcase and it becomes almost medicinal. I’m at a stage in my career where it’s not easy, where you don’t make much money, so I’m very grateful for those collaborations.

I really hope that through my style I might have contributed something to the feminist debate, but there is still so much shit left to do. When I performed while pregnant, there was this idea that pregnant women ought to wear some kind of weird cloak. But I felt great and I wanted to get out there and celebrate it. I had my second child growing inside me, and my children are a huge part of my identity. I felt strong out there, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to disappear.

Blank Project, Neneh Cherry’s first solo album in 17 years, is out now