Debbie Harry She Blazed a Trail As the Influential Frontwoman of Blondie and Is a Timeless Style Arbiter
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EDITTHE The INT ERVIEW: Debbie Harry She blazed a trail as the influential frontwoman of Blondie and is a timeless style arbiter. TIFFANY BAKKER meets a true musical icon Photographs by trent McGinn or Debbie Harry, it’s the day after the night before. Yesterday, she Fattended and performed at New York’s star-studded Costume Institute Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of STYLE RÉSUMÉ Art. The theme was PUNK: Chaos to NAME: Debbie Harry Couture, in celebration of the hotly PROFESSION: Singer/ anticipated exhibition there, and was a songwriter celebration of the movement which MY STYLE IS: Different. Blondie – the band Harry has fronted Sometimes it’s a disaster on and off for nearly 40 years – helped and sometimes it’s not to spearhead and establish in the public MY GO-TO DESIGNERS: consciousness. Blazer and bracelet Stephen Sprouse, Marc Despite being “honored” that Anna by Alexander Jacobs and Donatella Versace. Wintour, US Vogue editor and chairman McQueen; T-shirt by T by Alexander Tommy Hilfiger made my of the Met, personally invited her to Wang; skirt by The Met gala gown, which I loved perform, Harry is currently musing over Row; ring by Ileana Makri EDITTHE what her punk peers – many long gone – would have thought of it all. She is certain some would have sneered, and the thought makes her laugh mischievously. “Can you imagine? They would have thought it was ridiculous, the antithesis of punk! But I bet they would have wanted to be there,” she adds shrewdly. Harry, of course, was the perfect choice for Wintour. As a woman on stage heading up a band of boys, she Blazer and pants was – and still is – independent, by Saint Laurent by Hedi Slimane; unapologetic and achingly cool, in T-shirt by Zoe charge of her life, her work and her Karssen; sandals look. She is an enduring inspiration. by Burberry Prorsum; ring At the Met Gala, for example, by Solange actress Anne Hathaway walked the Azagury-Partridge red carpet with white-blonde hair in homage to Harry, and stared from decades, that pale, brilliant, feline existence anti-commercialism) the front of the crowd, hands visage has been ingrained in our popular, selling some 40-million clasped at her chest, as Blondie collective mind. Musically, Blondie’s albums. “We set out to push as many “I loved FASHION, I performed Call Me to the illustrious work still sounds current today – the boundaries as possible,” says Harry. guests. band was ahead of its time, infusing “We were very ambitious, and it was wasn’t going to hide elements of pop (Hanging On The important to us to be successful.” that. I wanted to look ne of the most magnetic Telephone), rock (Atomic), disco Born out of the musical and good, I ENJOYED singers in music history, (Heart Of Glass), reggae (The Tide Is romantic relationship between looking good. I still OHarry is certainly the most High) and rap (Rapture) into its Harry and guitarist Chris Stein (the recognizable female face of the music. Blondie made the niche ideals pair split in the early 1990s after she enjoy looking GOOD” punk/new-wave era. For four and sound of punk (its very nursed him through a rare skin Debbie Harry performing THE with Blondie EDIT in 1980 disease for several years), the Harry takes credit as the creator DEBBIE’S go-to pieces diversity in Blondie’s music came, of her own image, with a little help she says, from their childhood roots from her friend, noted ’80s and the differing cultures both she designer Stephen Sprouse. But she in New Jersey and Brooklyn native never realized the impact her style Diane Kordas Stein were exposed to. His music was had, she says, until the band “I COULDN’T sexy and pulsating, a perfect foil for started venturing outside New York. do without a her dreamy vocals. She remembers walking into one of pair of their early gigs at the Whiskey A Go close-fitting Acne black pants.” hile the music may have Go club in Los Angeles, and finding been engaging, Harry’s that “all the women had cut their striking image seemed hair and were wearing a lot of W Saint Laurent by just as important and garnered her makeup and black pants. I got a Hedi Slimane most of the band’s fame. “I’m thrill out of that”. basically a shy person,” she claims, It’s hard to believe that Harry is Helmut Lang Anita Ko adding that the attention took some Jimmy getting used to, but that she grew to Choo “enjoy it”. Punk was about brashness, “I THINK “I’m certainly not the GLOVES are but Harry’s beauty turned the only WOMAN in the sexy.” notion on its head. She was the Karl Lagerfeld genre’s first pinup. Occasionally, she world who never had says, there were calls to dirty it CHILDREN. [Chris and can I do?” didn’t feel a need. And I always down (like Patti Smith, the other I] didn’t feel a NEED” She gets equally frustrated by thought: there are a lot of children punk doyenne), but she stuck to her people asking her if she regrets in the world. I didn’t need to add to guns. “I loved fashion and I wasn’t not becoming a mother. “I’m that, you know?” going to hide that,” she says. “I a woman of 67. She says she certainly not the only woman in Of course, she doesn’t need to wanted to look good, I enjoyed doesn’t think about age as much as the world who never had explain her actions to us. She is looking good. I still enjoy looking she once did, but occasionally it children,” she says. “There are Debbie Harry – rules don’t bind her. good, although sometimes I see creeps up on her. “Sometimes I many reasons why Chris and I “I’ve had an incredible life so far,” myself on someone’s T-shirt and I win, sometimes I lose,” she laughs. “I didn’t. We were working very she says, flashing that dazzling wish I still looked like that!” just have to deal with it. What else hard, we were happy and we Harry smile. “I can’t complain at all.”.