Stevie Nicks Reveals How She Put Together Her Signature Witchy Style
Stevie Nicks has a distinctive, witchy style, which the Fleetwood Mac star revealed she put together very deliberately. Here’s how Nicks created her signature fashion look.
Stevie Nicks said she developed her style because she ‘didn’t want to look like anyone else’
When Fleetwood Mac rocketed to the heights of fame and success, Stevie Nicks found herself in need of a signature look. As the frontwoman of a world-famous band, she had to stand out from the other fashionable music icons of the time.
“I didn’t want to look like anyone else – like Janis Joplin or Grace Slick,” Nicks told Harper’s Bazaar in 2011. “That’s why I never went to any of the big designers. I drew a stick figure of what I dreamed up and gave it to my costume designer, Margi Kent, who I still work with. It was a handkerchief dress with a jacket, long, droopy chiffon sleeves, and velvet platform boots.”
Nicks also made a point of dressing for comfort. “I didn’t want to wear high heels,” she said. Instead, the 5-foot-1 singer relied on hats for added height to give her more stage presence. “I found a top hat at a thrift store in Buffalo, New York, on our first tour, and I loved it,” she said. “Now I have several. It really became part of my look.”
The songstress also cut her own hair. “I’d take the top, measure it with my fingers, and chop it off. I did it pretty well.”
Margi Kent, Nicks’ costume designer, said the singer had a unique sense of style that many tried to replicate. “No one had done this look before,” Kent explained. “I remember I went on the road with them, and there were hundreds of Stevie look-alikes. Everyone wanted to look like her.”
Stevie Nicks said she needed to style herself in a ‘uniform’ to combat anxiety
Stevie Nicks revealed her signature look was an effort to reduce stage fright. Underneath layers of long, flowy lace dresses and shawls, she could simultaneously hide from the crowd while appearing larger than life on stage.
“I needed a uniform,” she told The New York Times in 2009. She worked with Margi Kent to create a look that was “something urchin-like out of Great Expectations or A Tale of Two Cities.”
“We came up with the outfit: a Jantzen leotard, a little chiffon wrap blouse, a couple of little short jackets, two skirts and boots,” Nicks said. “That gave us our edge.”
But it also gave Nicks a disguise. “I’ll be very, very sexy under 18 pounds of chiffon and lace and velvet, and nobody will know who I really am.”
The singer said her shawl was more of a “prop” than a fashion choice, allowing her to be seen from far away. “A shawl is a great prop,” Nicks explained. “It makes for big gestures. If you want to be seen at the back of that arena, you have to have very big movements.”
The ‘Rhiannon’ singer’s witchy style and reputation landed her a role on ‘American Horror Story’
Stevie Nicks’ witchy, ethereal style is so well-known that American Horror Story creator Ryan Murphy cast the singer as a witch in season 3 of the anthology TV series. Fans call the season, which centers around a school of witches, “Coven.”
Nicks was initially reluctant to accept the role. “I wouldn’t have done this 30 years ago,” she told the LA Times in 2014. “In the beginning of my career, the whole idea that some wacky, creepy people were writing, ‘You’re a witch, you’re a witch!’ was so arresting. And there I am like, ‘No, I’m not! I just wear black because it makes me look thinner, you idiots.’
But she decided to seize the opportunity and embrace her witchy reputation. “So when all this came along, I was like, ‘What, really, am I going to turn this down because of all that past nonsense?’ I’m way too old and I’ve been through way too much to give up an opportunity like this,” said the singer. “I’m fearless. You have to be fearless in life. I’m not afraid of anything.”
And thanks to Nicks’ fearlessness, she stars in an episode of the iconic TV show titled “The Magical Delights of Stevie Nicks.”
