plurivocality

Lou Stoppard has spent her career refusing to choose a lane, working as a writer, curator, critic, and moderator, and it’s precisely that restlessness that makes her one of culture’s most incisive interpreters. From her early days interviewing icons live on camera to profiling figures like Harry Styles, Stoppard has built a practice around a single, deceptively simple aim: to find something new in people the world thinks it already knows.

This year, she brought that same curiosity to the Miu Miu Literary Club, moderating a conversation on Annie Ernaux’s ‘A Girl’s Story’ under the theme “Politics of Desire.” Following in the Club’s lineage of spotlighting significant women writers — from Alba de Céspedes to Simone de Beauvoir — the discussion wove together journalism, feminist theory and literature to unpack Ernaux’s unsentimental, genre-defiant relationship to memory, shame and self-determination.

Stoppard talks to Schön! about the throughline connecting her writing and curatorial work, what she learned moderating a room of disparate literary voices, and why desire — why we want what we want — remains the question she can’t stop circling back to.

You’ve built a career moving between journalism, criticism, curation, and cultural programming. What skills have carried across all those disciplines, and how has your understanding of storytelling changed over time?

I would hope that curiosity is the trait that unites all my work. I’m pretty ambivalent about arbitrary distinctions between disciplines or forms of working – be it art, fashion or photography, or curating versus writing – and I tend to enjoy projects that blur these boundaries, or situate visual culture within broader socio-political contexts or understandings. I also very much enjoy working collaboratively, which is probably why I undertake curatorial or speaking work: it’s a welcome break from the lonely life of a writer!

You’ve interviewed some of the most closely watched public figures in culture, including musicians and actors whose lives are intensely mediated and there’s a mystification around them. When profiling someone like Harry Styles, how do you move beyond the public image to uncover something more revealing or human?

I’ve always said, since my earliest days of interviewing, when I was in my twenties and working at the moving image platform SHOWstudio and being given the amazing responsibility and access to interview cultural icons, often live on camera, that my only hope from an interview is to get something – just something – new from the person. So many public figures are interviewed so constantly that by default they start regurgitating the same anecdotes or answers, so my hope was – and still is – always to get something new, some fresh understanding – be that from something they said, or just an insight into them, from their demeanour: a moment of insecurity or nervousness or combativeness. I wanted to feel I’d broadened understandings of that person, and their cultural output.

Many of your interviews feel as interested in the cultural moment around a person as in the individual themselves. Do you see profiling as a form of cultural criticism as much as journalism?

Of course. Fame, popularity, relevance are so deeply reflective of the society that bestowed them. I’m fascinated in such moments, or movements – the trends, the obsessions, the moral panics, the shifts in norms, the cycles.

At this year’s Miu Miu Literary Club, you moderated a discussion on Annie Ernaux’s A Girl’s Story, focusing on desire, consent, memory, and self-determination. What aspects of Ernaux’s work felt especially resonant in 2026?

I think Annie’s work has galvanised a cross-generational readership, and she has inspired and engaged so many young writers because of her attention to social norms, hierarchies, class, patriarchy. To see a writer in her 80s speaking to so many women in their teens, twenties and thirties is really exciting. It mirrors, I think, a broader appreciation for the work of women artists of all ages. I think Ernaux’s form is groundbreaking and unique: that’s what has made her such an influence on so many contemporary authors.

She is undefinable, unlimited by genre or conventions of form, be it “autofiction” or “memoir”. I think that liberation is very freeing for writers today. Her form also reflects memory: we move, in our minds, between fiction and reality, what is hazy and what is definable. And she writes about life, sex, abortion, memory, shame in an entirely unsentimental way – bold in its flatness and clarity (“flat” is a term that Annie herself uses for her writing). I think that lack of sentimentality is radical.

The Literary Club draws inspiration from the tradition of literary salons while engaging contemporary political and social questions. As a moderator, how do you create space for disagreement and complexity without reducing conversations to simple positions?

That’s actually one of the things that I think is strongest about the Club: the commitment to weighty discussion, to debate and disagreement, as much as consensus. I see my role as a moderator as being about bringing together disparate literary voices – often from different generations and cultures – in a way that unites them without flattening the uniqueness of their perspectives or histories.

This year’s theme, “Politics of Desire,” explored the relationship between personal experience and larger structures of power. Did any insight from the discussions challenge or deepen your own thinking about desire, agency, or identity?

I was really interested in the part of the discussion where we considered Ernaux’s comments linking sex and writing, as acts. Annie’s project, as a writer, is often about trying to get as close to reality as possible, be that the reality of the girl of 58 in A Girl’s Story, or the realities of family members, of other past selves. In this act, this process of self-making, she writes about a parallel to orgasm. In Shame, she compares writing to orgasm, saying that during orgasm, as when writing, “her sense of identity and coherence is at its highest.” I asked the panellists what they made of Ernaux’s assertion, and about whether we could consider sex a creative act, or an act that mirrors or enables writing, and was curious about a theme that emerged in their responses: the idea of writing and sex as acts that involve searching, or grasping for some kind of resolution, or certainty, a moment of clarity, an end point, of sorts.

The panel on A Girl’s Story brought together voices from journalism, feminist theory, and literature. What do multidisciplinary conversations offer that more conventional literary discussions sometimes miss?

It’s simplistic, but broader perspectives and disciplines make for broader discussions. The blend also allows the literary club to contextualise writers and works within broader social, political and feminist histories.

Fashion houses are increasingly investing in intellectual and cultural programming. What do you think initiatives like the Miu Miu Literary Club can contribute to contemporary cultural discourse when they are done well?

I think the Club is an example of cultural programming done really, really well. The Club is committed to furthering discussion about significant female writers: it’s about sharing knowledge, spreading enthusiasm for amazing talent. Over the years, we have moved from Alba de Cespedes, through to Simone de Beauvoir and now Annie Ernaux: what a joy to have the task of rereading these writers so deeply. And how great to see a fashion brand investing in spotlighting and supporting female writing.

Looking across your work, from writing profiles and essays to curating and moderating public conversations, what kinds of stories or questions are you most interested in pursuing next, and where do you see the most exciting opportunities for cultural journalism today?

Fittingly, given the theme of this year’s Literary Club, I’m always interested in desire: why people want what they want, why they envy, why they return to certain obsessions or habits, what attracts them, what repels them. I think within these questions are fascinating opportunities for writing and debate.

Learn more about this edition of Miu Miu’s Literary Club at miumiu.com.

photography. Courtesy of Miu Miu
interview. Kelsey Barnes

top. Little Viking Vintage
skirt. Yufei Shi
boots. Lili Curia
earrings. Gillian Horsup
opposite
top + skirt. Little Viking Vintage

Growing up is rarely a straight line. It loops, doubles back, twists and turns, and sometimes reminds you of memories you didn’t know you were looking for. For Holly Humberstone, that loop led her back to her childhood bedroom in the East Midlands, where she sorted through artifacts and mementos that defined who she would eventually become. “The process of moving out of that house was extremely cathartic and sad, and also a really nice chance to reflect and reconnect to who I was as a kid, just dreaming about getting to do music,” she says. “I feel like I had completely lost sight of her and her values and what she wanted. Being swept up in the music industry is really confusing, and this gave me a real chance to realign my priorities and remind myself how cool it is that I was dreaming about getting to do this as a kid, and now I am actually doing it.”

After packing up her childhood home that her family was leaving behind, Humberstone began dreaming of the album that would come to define this new chapter of her life. There’s a moment, about two-thirds through our conversation, when she thinks back to one of the objects she uncovered: a jewellery box with a broken hinge and a ballerina that, remarkably, still spun. It’s a small detail, but it might be the key to everything on ‘Cruel World’, her sophomore album. On it, she trades the interior, wounded intimacy of ‘Paint My Bedroom Black’ for something wider, stranger, and more joyful: a world built, quite literally, from the debris of growing up. It’s a record about being suspended between adulthood and escape, about surrendering to a life you can’t control, and about the particular chaos of trying to define yourself in your twenties while the ground shifts beneath you.

‘Cruel World’ is the sound of a woman in her mid-twenties trying to hold two truths at once: that the world is frightening and uncertain, and that it can still be full of wonder if you let it. Over the past two years, Humberstone has moved out of her family home as her parents sold the house that shaped her, renovated a new one in London with her sisters, and began touring the songs before fans ever heard the studio versions. Somewhere in all that upheaval, she found her way back to the girl who fell in love with ballet at the Royal Opera House, who lost herself in Brothers Grimm fairy tales, and who made music for no one but herself.

“Whilst I’ve been writing ‘Cruel World’, I feel like I’ve been afforded time to grow up as a person and to just reevaluate my life and figure out what I do want to write about and how I want this chapter of my music to sound,” she reflects. “I had so much to celebrate. I think being in your early 20s is super confusing, and you’re constantly trying to define who you are. I still feel like that, for sure, but I think I’ve learned to let go a little bit, and I think that that’s why ‘Cruel World’ feels a little freer and just a little more hopeful.”

In conversation with Schön!’s Kelsey Barnes, Holly Humberstone discusses the objects and fairytales that find us when we need them most, crafting the universe of ‘Cruel World,’ and the strange gift of finally feeling like herself.

jacket, corset + skirt. Les Fleur
shoes. Roger Vivier
necklace. Gillian Horsup
rings. Atlas Carré

Your first album often felt like looking inward, whereas ‘Cruel World’ feels like looking outward. What happened between the two records that changed your perspective, and how did that relate to your growth as an artist and songwriter?

Totally. For me, the processes of writing each album were so, so different. ‘Paint My Bedroom Black’ was written over the course of a lot of touring and finding little pockets of time between tours to quickly go into the studio and write some stuff. Touring and playing shows, and then playing music, are two completely different things. I felt a lot of pressure as well back in 2023 and 2024, when I was writing ‘Paint My Bedroom Black’. I felt like I had so much to prove, which I still feel, but I think that I can be a little more objective about it now that I’ve been in the music industry for six years, and I’ve just learned to prioritize what’s important.

I also think having full frontal lobe development has really helped me be objective about the music I make. I’ve realized that I’m really, really lucky to get to do this, and I want to write music that feels joyous, especially in a world that doesn’t feel like that at all, and it’s really easy to feel quite hopeless. I’ve been given this amazing opportunity, and I want to write songs that make people feel good and turn those confusing, stressful emotions into a song that people can sing and get lost in for three minutes.

Also, over the past two years, whilst I’ve been writing ‘Cruel World’, I feel like I’ve been afforded time to grow up as a person and to just reevaluate my life and figure out what I do want to write about and how I want this chapter of my music to sound. I had so much to celebrate. I think being in your early 20s is super confusing, and you’re constantly trying to define who you are. I still feel like that, for sure, but I think I’ve learned to let go a little bit, and I think that that’s why ‘Cruel World’ feels a little freer and just a little more hopeful.

You’ve said your younger self would think you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be. I always think that, as adults, we’re trying to reconnect with that childlike sense of wonder when we create. What do you think she’d be most surprised by with the person you’ve become?

I think she’d just be surprised that it’s happened and that I’m actually able to make albums and go on tour and sell tickets and stuff. I think growing up in the East Midlands, there’s really nothing going on at all, and it’s all I’d ever really wanted to do with my life. I never felt like I ever had something that I was good at. It was always music. I think that I’d be really, really just so gassed that I am getting to do this.

Something definitely switches when you start making music for other people, and you start doing it, and you’re making an album to be released into the world for other people to listen to and consume and have an opinion on, versus when you’re just doing it at home for yourself, being creative with no expectations or external pressures. It’s a very different feeling and a very different thing. I feel like, for the first time, I felt that feeling again, like making music just for myself.

As my career was starting and after I released those first two EPs, it was time to make an album, and I felt that there was quite a lot of pressure on my shoulders and quite a lot of expectation from fans or from industry that I had started working with. They were expecting me to produce a certain type of record or a certain type of sound that felt really global and really commercial, and I only knew how to write the song that I was feeling on that day rather than tick a box or write a song that other people thought I was gonna write.

There’s a certain amount of pressure, especially going into a second album — you don’t necessarily want to create the thing you just created, because obviously you’ve grown and developed from that person. But there’s also this idea of, “If I grow and change too much, am I still going to have the same audience that I did? What are people going to think?” 

Totally. I think I felt like that second-album pressure was my first album, because by that point I’d already released two EPs and a bunch of singles, and I felt like that expectation was there for my first album. Then that came out, and I was so proud of it, but it’s kind of impossible to avoid how something does and the reach that your album has. Then, amazingly, I just didn’t feel like I had anything to follow up on on my second album, which felt so freeing. It felt like I had no pressure again, like how it was when I was a kid, just writing music for myself. I think that made for what I think is a really good album that I’m so proud of.

Also, there was stuff going on in my personal life that allowed me to put my life into perspective a little bit and let go of some of those stresses that I felt were clouding my brain in album one. I was moving house in London, and my sisters and I were tasked with doing a bit of a house renovation on our own. At the time I was 24, and I had no clue what was going on at this point. I don’t know how to do any of this adult shit that’s coming my way, but I’m doing it with my sisters, and we’re figuring it out. It’s kind of terrifying, but also amazing that we get to do this and we get to physically design the home that we live in. We get to physically build this world around us.

The outside world feels pretty terrifying, but we have this safe haven in this house that we’ve got. I moved from one haunted house to the next. In the meantime, my parents were moving out of the haunted house that had inspired me and defined my life in so many ways and shaped me as a person. That house in the Midlands had always been my anchor, and if I felt confused about anything going on in life, I would go back there and ground myself. It felt like the only place that really felt like home.

The process of moving out of that house was extremely cathartic and sad, and also a really nice chance to reflect and reconnect to who I was as a kid, just dreaming about getting to do music. I feel like I had completely lost sight of her and her values and what she wanted. Being swept up in the music industry is really confusing, and this gave me a real chance to realign my priorities and remind myself how cool it is that I was dreaming about getting to do this as a kid, and now I am actually doing it. I want to be able to do it in the way that she wanted, in the least cringe way.

dress + bra. The Attico
necklace. Little Viking Vintage
opposite
jacket, corset + skirt. Les Fleur
shoes. Roger Vivier
necklace. Gillian Horsup
rings. Atlas Carré

It doesn’t sound cringe at all! So much of who we are and who we become happens when we’re younger, so I feel like it’s only natural that would inform much of your process.

Yeah, also through this process, I found loads of my things that I’d forgotten about, like old pieces of jewelry or an old jewelry box that I used to treasure and be really obsessed with. It was at the back of my wardrobe, and it had come off its hinge, but when I wound up the jewelry box, the ballerina still kind of spun around, and the little tune that it played kind of triggered a ‘That’s So Raven’ moment of me just being a kid in my bedroom, just lost in all of these stories.

I found my old books, and I remember getting this book of Brothers Grimm fairy tales when I was a kid for Christmas once and just being completely consumed inside this book for the whole Christmas holiday. That felt like it defined an era of my life. I think I was just obsessed with escaping into the unknown and fantasy, and I think that this album has had an element of fun and childlike wonder about it that I haven’t really been able to tap into since I was just making music as a kid on my own.

From that, that became the creative universe, which has been so much fun, and something also that I’ve realized I could lead and make my own before. As a woman in the music industry, you don’t realize that all of these things are yours to control because there are so many voices and so many dudes, respectfully, around you with so many opinions. I don’t know if they really know what they’re talking about. You aren’t really given the microphone until you snatch it off them, and I feel like that’s what I’ve done.

I realized I had this amazing opportunity as an adult, feeling a little more stable and a little more confident in who I am, to make an album that I really, really believed in, and I loved all the music. I wanted the creative universe to reflect being between two worlds, like being between adulthood and having all of these responsibilities, and then also wanting to escape and needing this element of fairytale more than anything whilst all of this is going on. I feel like, for that reason, it just reflects who I am so much more than anything I’ve ever made, and I’m so proud of it, and I feel so lucky to get to promote it and chat to you about it and play these new songs on tour that I love so much.

“So It Starts” sets the tone of the album, but “Beauty Pageant” circles back with that same idea — the opening verse begins with “so it starts.” Was that sense of circularity intentional, and what does it represent for you?

I wanted the album to feel circular because that was purposeful. I put “So It Starts” at the beginning, which has this anticipation, this feeling of an orchestra tuning up, and I was heavily inspired by ballet as a kid. I think ballet was my first love, and before puberty, before your bones had fused and you’re a stretchy little kid, ballet was my favourite thing ever to do as an escape. I think subconsciously that was my segue into being musical, and I think that taught me how to be musical.

I used to do a lot of ballet as a kid, and my mum used to take me down to London every weekend from when I was eight until 11 to study dancing at the Royal Ballet School, which was just so magical for me. Getting to go to London from my small town, and at Christmas as a treat we’d go across the road and see a ballet at the Royal Opera House. It was the most enchanting, inspiring thing for me as an 11-year-old, going into the Royal Opera House to see a story being told. The whole process of seeing a ballet — the orchestra tuning up at the start, the lights dimming, the velvet curtains opening, and this fake paper world being revealed with props and painted backdrops — for me as a kid, that was just the most magical thing. I wanted “So It Starts” to feel like that feeling, like the start of a story.

The album has this cyclical nature. “To Love Somebody” was one of the first songs that I wrote, and it has this full story of a love story starting, getting messy, then you hurt somebody, and it ends, and you accept that you’re only human. That’s just one of the many confusing cycles of life that you go through. They feel like you’re being shaken around, but when you reflect on them afterward, you realize that’s just being human, and it’s normal to feel everything. This blue-and-green ball just keeps spinning, and you’ve got to move your feet and roll with the punches.

“Beauty Pageant” felt like the little ballerina in my music box spinning and spinning and spinning while all of these confusing things are going on around you as a girl. Looking pretty is a currency, I’ve realized, and sometimes when I feel like I’m not taken seriously or I can’t do my job, at least I can just keep spinning and keep going. That song felt really poignant to me, and it felt like I’d finally encapsulated a feeling that I hadn’t really been able to before writing it.

I felt like the little ballerina in my music box that I used to stare at as a kid. I think it can be a really exhausting place for a woman, just existing in the world, to be honest, and I wanted the album to feel like the inside of my brain. I don’t know if it makes sense to an outside person, but to me, I wanted “So It Starts” to come full circle from “Beauty Pageant,” and that little melody, the synth sequence at the start of “Make It All Better,” really felt like that to me. That’s how the music box tune sounded in my head, and I wanted it to feel like something was beginning and a story was about to unfold.

jacket, corset + skirt. Les Fleur
shoes. Roger Vivier
necklace. Gillian Horsup
rings. Atlas Carré

“Cruel World” and “Red Chevy” feel like two sides of love — the euphoria of being together, experiencing the mundanity of corner shops and video games, and the pain of being apart, yet still choosing each other. Did you ever see those songs connected, or did that contrast emerge over time?

I think there are two sides. I’m constantly back and forth between feeling amazing and being on such a high, and then suddenly the opposite of that, waking up and feeling like shit and like everything’s crashing down. I think this dichotomy of pain and pleasure is something that exists in all of our lives, but I think that’s what makes these really, really powerful emotions that have defined the last few years of my life whilst I’ve been writing this album, which is love and nostalgia and dealing with growing up. To me, that dichotomy of pain and pleasure exists within the same place, and that’s why these emotions are so hard to define and so powerful. I feel like that push and pull is present throughout the whole album.

I love that you brought those two up — it’s interesting, I hadn’t drawn the connection between “Cruel World” and “Red Chevy” before, but it makes perfect sense, because I think the title track, “Cruel World,” has so many layers. It sounds like it’s going to be a song that is pretty bleak and painful and sad, but then the song sounds extremely happy. It’s got this really optimistic, sparkly, poppy, fun sound to it, and then if you really read into the lyrics, it’s talking about really missing somebody and feeling incomplete without that one person there, and how your whole perception of the world around you can look so skewed and so different without the safety of that one person.

I feel like that is carried throughout the whole album. It’s something that I didn’t consciously set out to achieve, but listening back to the album as a whole and playing the songs every night on tour, all of the songs have this push and pull of the highest highs and the lowest lows. Even “White Noise,” which was the last song written on the album, is turning heartbreak and being unhinged and an emotional wreck and desperately sad inside a club full of people who just don’t give a shit about what’s going on in your life into something with a really fun dance-disco feel. To me, that’s just what life feels like. It’s hard to define, but you’ve got to make good of it; you’ve got to dance through the tears and embrace it.

Going back to “To Love Somebody,” for me that song is the umbrella song for the whole album, and it defines that we’re not in control of anything. Maybe it’s good to surrender to everything that life is throwing at us and realize that you can’t control any of it. Life is chaos, and we’re lucky to feel love if we get the chance to experience it, because a lot of us won’t have that ever in our lives. Celebrate being human and feeling everything. We’re not here for a long time, and I think maybe that existential vibe is what I’m feeling right now… but in a good way [laughs].

Being away from someone, you feel like you’re existential all the time — you’re always yearning, you’re always feeling every emotion at all times. 

I think just being in your 20s… I thought this feeling would have gone away by now, but I feel like the deeper I get into my 20s, the more seriously I feel like I’m having to take things, and the more life feels like it’s coming at me too fast, and like, “fuck, I should have my shit together. Fuck, I should know what’s going on, or I should know who I am by this point.”

For me, writing music, and especially writing this album, has felt like the only place in my life where I have control over anything that’s going on around me, and the only place where I can semi-sort of get close to defining the feelings that are going on in my head. I think something that I’ve learned is that it’s never going to go away, and I’m never going to feel like a refined human being, and that’s okay. I think being in your 20s is confusing, and we should give ourselves grace and let ourselves have moments of relief from that, which is, for me, what music provides.

dress + bra. The Attico
necklace. Little Viking Vintage
opposite
top. Rebecca Sweeting
trousers. Kenzo
shoes. Manolo Blahnik
earrings. Gillian Horsup
necklace. Little Viking Vintage

Releasing ‘it’s a real Cruel World‘ almost feels like extending the life of the album rather than simply revisiting it. What made you want to return to those songs in this way?

I think the EP for the acoustic versions — we made those not very long ago. The deadline was tight, and I had been playing these songs already at little store tours or to promote my album. I’d been doing some smaller shows, reconnecting with fans and introducing this new era of the music. Once you start playing the songs to an audience, they feel so different, and they feel like they’re not just yours anymore. I had been playing them in a more stripped-back way without my band, and for me that’s really special.

It’s fun to play shows with my band because people can get lost and have a dance. Playing shows with my band is the best feeling in the world because everybody gets to lose themselves and have fun. But getting to play them with just me and my acoustic guitar, in smaller rooms that felt more intimate, I could physically see people listening to the lyrics and figuring out what I was saying in these songs. I love these songs so much, and I wanted to keep reimagining them and reinventing them. I wanted people to hear them the way I played them on those smaller, more intimate shows, which felt like the first time anybody had heard these songs.

It was also just fun getting to make different versions of songs that I care about so much. We layered up a bunch of crazy instruments that were just lying around in the studio. I learned what a vibra-slap was and put that all over “White Noise.” I still don’t really know how to describe it. It looks a bit like a cowbell with a metal wire curling around it and a ball on the end, and you kind of smack it a

I’ll re-listen to “White Noise” after I get off the call with you so I can hear it for myself!

Yeah, I think it’s on all the songs, but you’ll know the sound. We went a bit crazy. We put banjo on there and layered up loads of acoustic guitars. It was really fun being able to have a bit more freedom and play around with the songs.

It’s been really, really fun to make them, and it was another chance to create visual content to go alongside the songs and invite people into the visual world that my sister and I have made together, which has been so fun. It’s also a chance to build the world a bit more, and I’m really excited for everything that’s coming later this year. I feel like I’ve got a bit more up my sleeve, but for now I wanted to sit in these songs that I’ve been so excited to share with people for the past two years. I hope people like the EP. It’s really fun to get to reimagine songs that I love so much.

I feel like once you’re playing the songs for other people and you’re seeing them sing those lyrics back to you, the songs almost take on a new meaning. 

Oh yeah, 100%. The songs take on a completely new meaning. Sometimes I’m even noticing lyrics and bits of meaning in the songs that I hadn’t noticed while I was writing them, or even lyrics that audiences have gravitated toward and scream back to me that stand out in a way I hadn’t recognized as a big part of the song for people. Getting to play shows is just so cool, and it’s something that I’ll never, ever take for granted. It’s also really gratifying for me to stand in front of a physical audience of people who think in the same way that I do and connect to what I’m saying, people who are going through the same things that I’m saying I’m going through.

I was on tour in the States, and I was so far away from home, but people are the same. We’re all so connected. We’re all different, but we’re so, so similar in many more ways than we think. Playing shows feels so good because it reminds me that I’m part of the world. I’ve really been trying to refocus my priorities and remember why I’m doing this as a job. It’s easy to focus on stats or compare yourself and your career to other artists or other people around you and be hard on yourself, but playing shows is the one time where I can physically see that this is what is important to me.

Music is a leveller; it brings us all into the same space, and it reminds us that we’re just little humans with all of these confusing emotions that we don’t really know what to do with. Life is full of scary shit, especially right now. The world feels pretty hopeless, and music is the one place that I can escape to and feel some sort of release, like my brain shutting off and going somewhere else completely, being in a different world for a minute. That’s what these shows have felt like, and I’m so grateful that I get to share that with other people. It’s just the best feeling in the world.

top. Rebecca Sweeting
trousers. Kenzo
earrings. Gillian Horsup
necklace. Little Viking Vintage

I feel like, especially coming out of the pandemic, shows have very much become like a safe haven for people, even more so than in the past. I think being able to create a space where everybody is just feeling free, screaming the lyrics, dressing how they want to dress — I think that’s really, really beautiful. And the fact that people are coming together for your music specifically must feel so affirming.

Yeah, that’s the word. I think it’s really affirming. So much about making music feels so selfish and self-indulgent and self-focused all the time, and I don’t feel like that’s how I am naturally as a person. I grew up with three sisters, and I feel like I’m the peacekeeper in a lot of my social groups and in my dynamic with my friends and my sisters and in my house at home. I feel like I’m constantly trying to understand other people and mediate between people and relate to other people. Writing songs, for me, is my way of understanding myself, but also understanding the people around me and their experiences and what other people are going through, and it really does make me feel connected to something outside myself. Even though I’m writing songs that are about my life, it makes me feel like a little human just trying to figure it out. I think that’s the beautiful thing about music.

A lot of things in this world can make us feel really isolated. Mentioning social media is probably stating the obvious, but we all exist in this place that is supposed to make us feel connected, and yet it can make you feel so alone. It’s a confusing feeling that’s hard to define. I think the bottom line is that music makes us feel like one. It makes us feel connected, and there are not many other things that can do that for me. I need that right now, just as much as I think the people coming to my shows need that. I’m so lucky that I get to do it and share it with other people, and that it isn’t just about me, because that’s really not why I’m doing it at all.

Let’s say we put ‘Cruel World’ in a time capsule, and someone discovered that time capsule 10, 20, 30 years from now, not knowing anything about you or anything about your music. After they finished listening to that, what do you hope they would understand about the person who made it?

That’s a really good question; it’s so interesting. I hope that it would be an accurate reflection of how it feels to be a girl in your 20s growing up, kind of transitioning from being a teenager or a young adult, where you can kind of get away with being green and naive about the world, and then suddenly being thrust into the real world and being faced with all of these new challenges and emotions that you’ve never felt before that are so confusing and hard to define.

I think it’s just a reflection of my life, and an accurate documentation of how it feels to be a 20-something-year-old girl in 2026, just trying to figure it out and trying to make sense of the world around you. I don’t know if it would be that different — maybe it’s the same across time and across generations. Being in your 20s is always probably a scary time, and a time when you feel like you should have it figured out, but with every year that goes on, you feel further away from figuring out who you are. It’s about realizing that that’s okay, and that is kind of at the crux of the album.

It’d be really interesting to know what they thought of it. All I can make, I think, is something that feels truthful to me at this time, and I think it’s as simple as that. I think it’s just a normal person trying to figure out their 20s and figure out love, and realizing that it’s not as straightforward as you’re taught as a girl. With that comes a hell of a lot of pain, stress, and confusion, and figuring out where you fit into a world that doesn’t really make much sense at the moment. It’s about growing up and learning that change is scary, but it’s necessary for growth and self-discovery. I think it’s just about being human at its core.

top + skirt. Little Viking Vintage
opposite
top. Little Viking Vintage
skirt. Yufei Shi
boots. Lili Curia
earrings. Gillian Horsup

‘Cruel World‘ is out now.

photography. David Reiss
fashion. Lauren Groves
talent. Holly Humberstone
hair. Shanice Noel @Stella Creative Artists using Bed Head by TIGI
make up. Emma Regan
interview, casting + production. Kelsey Barnes
fashion assistants. Michaelle Guez + Derek Miller Hurtado
special thanks. Artists’ Way
location. The Corner Studio

The power of music is universal, transcending language, eras, and thanks to the internet, borders, too. MGA is Japan’s biggest contemporary J-rock band. You’ll find their songs topping the charts, played through speakers at stores and fans wearing MGA merch on the metro. First formed in 2013, the band reached a milestone on the first weekend of July, playing two nights at Japan’s National Stadium. 

“For Japanese artists, it’s really hard to get the opportunity to play this kind of venue which means we are accepted by lots of people in this country. So we’re really proud of it,” says vocalist and guitarist Motoki Ohmori on the monumental moment. The huge venue was filled to the top with members of their fan club waving lights in enthusiastic unison. It was a feat that most artists can only dream of. “We were really happy. We felt like we were in heaven.”

Behind their star-studded onstage presence, the trio are chilled and playful backstage, with a camera crew that catches their funny moments for fans. Once the spotlight switches on, Ohmori, guitarist Hiloto Wakai and keyboard player Ryoka Fujisawa, transform into superstars. They present all the showmanship of classic glam rockstars. Ohmori is a powerhouse on the vocals, effortlessly stretching his range for over two hours straight. The runs in MGA’s discography are dynamic and challenging yet Ohmori conquers them with ease. Fujisawa lights up the stage with a radiant smile on the keys (plus an impressive flute solo,) while Wakai is a nimble guitarist who breezes through funky riffs and infectious melodies. Together, they compliment each other’s strengths.

To brand new eyes, it makes complete sense that there’s a growing MGA fanbase abroad, too. In 2025, the band hit No.13 on the IFPI Global Artist Chart, alongside the likes of  Billie Eilish and Bad Bunny. The band say the welcome their international rise with open arms. “We’re always thinking about how we can deliver our music to more people all around the world,” they say. “There was a time you couldn’t even find one fan, but now, thanks to social media, we get comments and message from fans all over the world. Every single one means a lot to us and gives us energy.”

Having achieved so much in their home country, there are still goals they’d like to tick off their bucket list. They say they hope to perform in countries they’ve never played before like the UK. With a track on the new Spiderman movie soundtrack under their belt, and selling out an iconic venue,  it’s only a matter of time before the group carries the J-Rock baton worldwide.

photography. Seitaro Tanaka Photo Office + Matty Vogel
words. Shama Nasinde