Stevie Nicks Formed Her Distinct Style After Seeing a Random Woman in Santa Monica
Stevie Nicks isn’t just a rock ‘n’ roll Queen; she’s also a fashion icon. No one else wears black and mauve lace, velvet, or chiffon numbers paired with gorgeous custom-made shawls quite like her. Nicks’ style (plus her overall vibe) might insinuate that she dabbles in the occult, but that’s not the case.
She doesn’t want to look like a witch, even though she loved dressing up as one every Halloween as a kid. Nicks formed her distinct style after seeing a random woman on the streets of Santa Monica.
A random woman in Santa Monica inspired Stevie Nicks’ style
According to the Pocono Record, Nicks describes her style as “an amalgam of goth hippie, bohemian Californian girl and Victorian priestess.”
The Fleetwood Mac frontwoman can trace the origins of her distinct “Stevie Nicks style” to 1970, during the days of Buckingham Nicks, the duo she formed with her then-boyfriend, Lindsey Buckingham.
“Before their show at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, Nicks saw a woman walk by on the street,” the Pocono Record wrote. “She was a vision in mauve and pink, with an edged-out layered skirt, riding jacket and cream-colored platform boots. Her hair was done like a Gibson Girl. And Nicks wanted to be her.
“This girl obviously had some money, because this was not a cheap outfit. It was beautiful, and I went, ‘Oh, that’s exactly how I want to look,'” Nicks remembered.
However, Nicks continued to wear her street clothes on stage for another year until a friend introduced her to a designer who “helped her bring her vision to life.”
“On paper, Nicks sketched a stick girl with bell sleeves and a top hat. She has never gone on stage without some version of this uniform since – save for a stint in the early 2000s, when she hurt her hip and was forced to wear tennis shoes.”
Nicks stays in shape to fit into her custom stage clothes
The “Gypsy” singer has been on Weight Watchers since 2005. “She’s never considered being a spokeswoman for the brand because she prefers to follow one of the company’s now-defunct plans from 15 years ago,” the Pocono Record wrote.
However, she doesn’t only stay in shape to do the vigorous world tours she constantly embarks on. She watches her weight so she’ll continue to fit into her custom stage clothes. Gaining weight cannot affect Nicks’ style. She said “it would be too costly and annoying to have them remade.”
Last year, when she went to film a new music video for her political song “Show Them The Way,” she put those iconic numbers back on after being in quarantine for so long. They fit, but she didn’t have her makeup artist on hand.
“It took her three hours to put on her face. The eyeliner, she says, was the most difficult part, because she had to redo it ‘about 50 times.'” Either way, putting on that black chiffon dress, six-inch platform boots, and makeup made her feel like Stevie Nicks again. “It was like, ‘Oh, I’m still alive,'” the singer said.
Nicks stopped wearing black for time becuase she was sick of being called a witch
In 2009, the New York Times wrote that Nicks’ “stylistic persona is as rock steady as her sound. Part healer, part sorceress, at 60 she is still working the gossamer tunics and shawls that have influenced two generations of Stevie acolytes, and given her performances the feel of a Wiccan ritual.”
It’s the association with witches, though, that Nicks has never enjoyed. It also didn’t help that she introduced Fleetwood Mac’s “Rhiannon” by saying, “This is a song about a Welsh witch.”
“Rhiannon was the only song I ever wrote about a sort of celestial being,” Nicks told the Guardian, “but that song and the fact I wore black, floaty clothes somehow became this, this … this witch thing.”
Eventually, the witchy connection started to scare her to the point where she had to stop wearing black entirely. “About three years into it, it actually started to scare me,” Nicks said. “People were writing me really weird letters that were scaring me. So I had Margi [Kent, still her personal designer] make me up a bunch of outfits that were just horrible – I call them the Easter Egg outfits because they were peach, mint green and blue… not colours for me. And I wore them and so did my girl singers. I thought: ‘I’m going to put the top on the box of this one.'”
“Oh, after a while I said: ‘Screw that, I’m going back to black!’ And if they think I’m a witch I don’t care because I’m not a witch!”
Whatever inspired Nicks’ style, we’re thankful for it. Without the layers of clothing, there wouldn’t be a Stevie Nicks.
