Chappell Roan’s meteoric rise has been ten years in the making, and she has made it abundantly clear that she has been preparing to be the kind of artist who can pull off a look that’s more costume than the average breakout artist. Because so much of her artistic development has happened with relative privacy (the artist was posting through it on TikTok prior to her massive success in 2024), when time came to be photographed, let’s just say, that girl was ready.

For her first ever Grammy Awards, the singer-songwriter went theatric, to no one’s surprise. She wore a Jean Paul Gaultier Spring Summer 2003 Couture gown, featuring a painting by Edgar Degas, titled “Dancer with a Bouquet of Flowers.”

One of Chappell’s most iconic looks was from the Universal Music Group’s GRAMMY After Party in 2024, and that’s in great part to the fact that she took the photo for her single art for her instant hit, “Good Luck, Babe!” She has talked about that, saying that people were overanalyzing why they were the same or what it meant for her to be wearing a pig nose and if it was an easter egg about the song. She just needed a photo to release with the song, and why waste a perfectly good look on a single night?

That shouldn’t feel so rebellious, but it is. For a pop star it is. There is such a specific playbook that is so strictly adhered to, especially because female pop stars are so heavily scrutinized and often pulled apart before their success can really take off that it feels like a huge risk not to follow paths previously charted. But Chappell Roan’s ability to follow her instinct, which often just includes saving time and money and doing what is convenient so long as it falls in line with her artistic vision is what makes her such a modern icon. There’s no doubt her attitude toward things will be copied by future artists, but you can’t copy a trailblazer unless you’re blazing a trail of your own entirely.