Gwen Stefani has always known exactly what her "uniform" is. Whether it's thrifted men's pants in the 'Hollaback Girl' music video or Valentino at the CMT Music Awards, Gwen's signature style is all about her unmistakable sense of identity. For the 20th anniversary of her debut solo album, "Love. Angel. Music. Baby.", Gwen takes us back to her most memorable looks and shares the stories behind them—from her Vivienne Westwood dress that stole the show at the 'The Aviator' premiere to her custom Met Gala look by Jeremy Scott for Moschino, a tribute to the old Hollywood films she once worshipped.
Listen to Gwen Stefani's album "Bouquet" here: https://GwenStefani.lnk.to/Bouquet
Watch 'The Voice' on NBC or stream on Peacock.
Listen to Gwen Stefani's album "Bouquet" here: https://GwenStefani.lnk.to/Bouquet
Watch 'The Voice' on NBC or stream on Peacock.
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00:00And I almost got to kiss Leonardo DiCaprio,
00:03but I didn't get to.
00:04So, too late for that.
00:06Hey, what's up, Harper's Bazaar?
00:08I'm Gwen Stefani, and today we are going to be looking back
00:12at some of my fashion moments.
00:15This is Fashion Flashback.
00:19All right, the first one is in 1996, maybe?
00:24I'm looking down at this, I'm thinking,
00:26this is a girl that had a makeup box,
00:29a suitcase that didn't have much in it,
00:31didn't have a stylist, didn't have a hairdresser,
00:34didn't have a makeup artist,
00:36just had a bunch of stinky boys.
00:37And I remember this exact outfit
00:40because I had this uniform of things
00:42that I had to wear to make me feel
00:44like I could be me on stage.
00:46And it had to be a cutoff shirt,
00:47and it had to be a certain length.
00:49It had to be a tank top,
00:51and I had to have men's trousers.
00:54I don't even know where I got the jacket,
00:55probably some main jeep or a store.
00:58It looks like it smells a lot in this photo.
01:00I can smell it from the photo.
01:03But I remember this time.
01:04It was a really hard time for me, actually,
01:06because the record that I wrote
01:08was a record about my boyfriend dumping me.
01:12So you may or may not know, he was in the band.
01:16We went on tour together,
01:17and I had to be there with him singing these songs
01:21I wrote about him, still wanting to be with him,
01:24but he didn't want to be with me.
01:25I just remember every night, singing those songs.
01:28Let's just remember how you felt again.
01:30Don't speak.
01:31You know, that was the bad part,
01:32but the good part was like, yes!
01:34And we were just having the time of our lives,
01:36and we knew we were so good
01:37because we had nine years to get good.
01:41All right, next up, guys, 2001 MTV Awards.
01:46I can remember very specifically
01:48knowing exactly what I wanted to look like that night.
01:51I really wanted to have that 1940s, the roles,
01:54and I had tried to do them myself before I went platinum,
02:00and it's very difficult to do,
02:02but once you burn your hair and ruin it, it's not as hard.
02:06And I really wanted to give that sort of 1940s
02:09soldier girl, USA pinup girl look,
02:13and I had an amazing stylist at this point.
02:16I had met my soulmate, Andrea Lieberman.
02:19She was all about making custom clothes.
02:22She even made the Rocksteady knuckle jewelry,
02:26which I don't think it was real.
02:27I have them still.
02:28I was so naive and so pure and so ready
02:33to just be a fan of all the things that I loved,
02:36and I was gonna take all that, and I was gonna wear it.
02:40It didn't even matter what anyone thought.
02:41I was like, this is who I am.
02:44Onto the next one, 2004 MTV Awards.
02:48I can remember this night really well.
02:50Let's just go from the top down.
02:53My hair was on point.
02:55Danilo Dixon, he was all about any kind of glamor set,
03:01and I thought the hair was just so beautiful that night,
03:03and I got to wear this stunning Louis Vuitton dress
03:08by Marc Jacobs.
03:10It's just such an incredible foreshadowing
03:13because what came next after this was my solo record,
03:17which was very inspired by Alice in Wonderland,
03:21and I feel like he was very inspired by Alice in Wonderland
03:24with the blue and the white and the ruffle and the black bow,
03:27but it was just an amazing time.
03:29I was working with Andrea Lieberman.
03:31She could find things that I didn't even know about
03:34because she lived in New York,
03:35and she knew all the designers, and she knew how it worked,
03:38and I was just a girl from Anaheim
03:39that went to the fabric store and the thrift store
03:42and made my own thing up, and when we got together,
03:45it was when things just elevated
03:48because it was like a little bit of both mashed into one,
03:51her and me, and I was in love with her, in love.
03:56All right, 2004.
03:58This is the Aviator premiere.
04:00Martin Scorsese, mic drop.
04:04Vivienne Westwood, for me, was something that I discovered
04:07before I knew who she was.
04:09She's like the creator of punk rock.
04:12I didn't know.
04:13I was like a super fan,
04:14so anytime I could wear Vivienne Westwood, I was that girl.
04:18I think what's so incredible about the dress
04:19and what Vivienne Westwood would do
04:22is she would take classic, vintage, romantic ideas,
04:26and then she would mess them up and twist them,
04:28like how she twists the fabric on the pockets,
04:30all messed up.
04:31I mean, it's all designed so inside out and beautiful.
04:35She went into my heart, and she was like,
04:37okay, I'm gonna figure out what Gwen wants,
04:39and then she designed it.
04:40Not in my wildest dreams would I ever imagine
04:43that I would ever be in a film,
04:45but not only was I in a film,
04:48but I was in a Martin Scorsese film playing Gene Harlow,
04:51and I almost got to kiss Leonardo DiCaprio,
04:54but I didn't get to, so too late for that.
04:58That was one of the most incredible, scary experiences.
05:03I didn't have any skills.
05:04I just tried out, and I went to the Bel Air Hotel,
05:07and they were just literally trying out girls.
05:10They were walking in and try out, and you walk out,
05:13and I just remember I walked in.
05:14I did the scene, and they were so nice,
05:16and Martin made me feel so normal and comfortable,
05:19and I got the part.
05:21I had like three lines, but I got the part, okay?
05:24All right, 2005, and this is on the set of Hollaback Girl.
05:30I was so absolutely clear on what I was doing,
05:34not just the music, but even what I was gonna wear
05:37was very, very clear, and I really wanted to go back
05:41to my roots, and this is exactly my uniform
05:44of what I would wear.
05:47In fact, I believe that those are one of my pants
05:51from the old days, like some thrift store men's pants.
05:54There's not much to it, guys.
05:56It's a bra that shows, a tank top.
06:00Of course, Andrea blinged it out, made it look cool,
06:03and then she made me the bananas belt,
06:05which my favorite thing about Andrea was spare no expense.
06:08She's like, oh, I'm gonna go make you a metal
06:10bananas custom belt, you can wear that
06:12with your old haggard pants that are from your closet.
06:16Do you still have the belt?
06:18I do have the belt.
06:19It's in my closet.
06:21Are you trying to get someone to come raid my house?
06:24All right, next up, this is The Met, 2019,
06:28and it's Jeremy Scott from Moschino.
06:30This look was just created for me.
06:34Jeremy called, and he was like,
06:36do you wanna go with me and be my guest?
06:37And I was like, you know what?
06:39Yeah, I want to.
06:41And he sent me the sketch of this.
06:42It looked literally exactly like this.
06:44It was my face with the ponytail and the outfit,
06:48but I was thinking, ooh, that's tiny.
06:51Like, is that an outfit,
06:52or is that like a showgirl baby suit?
06:55Like, what am I doing?
06:55I was so excited to wear something
06:57that's so sparkly and so glamorous.
07:00It just echoes back to all of those old-time movies
07:04that I used to worship back in the day,
07:06and anytime I can wear a feather boa, like, yes.
07:10I'm gonna say yes to that.
07:11The next one.
07:13All right, now we are in 2023, the CMT Music Awards,
07:18and I'm wearing Valentino.
07:19I was there with Blake,
07:21and it was a really unusual situation
07:23where they had invited me, the CMT Awards,
07:27to come and sing Just a Girl.
07:29When I do that song, it's very, like, specific.
07:33I have to have my hair a certain way.
07:35I have to have my makeup a certain way,
07:38and the energy has to be sort of masculine in a way.
07:41It can't just be early and pretty and soft.
07:43Like, there has to be, like, a little bit of edge.
07:46My gorgeous, stunning hairdresser, Suzette,
07:50absolutely sliced it because she pulled my face back so far
07:54that I look like a mannequin in the best way.
07:58As far as the outfit goes,
08:00this is, like, the perfect outfit
08:02that describes probably my style overall.
08:05It sums me up, I think,
08:07and it was just such a perfect way
08:09to walk out on the red carpet with my husband.
08:12I felt like we looked like two cartoon characters
08:14of ourselves because we don't go together,
08:17but we go perfectly together,
08:18and I got to perform Just a Girl.
08:22It was amazing.
08:23All right, 2024, Coachella.
08:26And this is Roberto Cavalli.
08:28Did you ever think that was gonna happen?
08:30I didn't.
08:31This was one of the most incredible performances
08:35that No Doubt's ever done.
08:37We knew it was gonna be, like, super iconic
08:41just for ourselves, our own souls,
08:44that we would get reunited and do the show.
08:46To be able to get up there and come out of the stage
08:49and the energy with all those people there,
08:52I described it like a tsunami wave of love.
08:55When we were thinking about looks,
08:57it was like, how do we do something
08:59that feels like the past,
09:01but it elevates to where we're at right now?
09:05Look at this outfit.
09:06It's ridiculous.
09:07It is so on point.
09:09It was like a little romper
09:11that has asymmetrical punk rock skirt,
09:14and it was a lot of layers, guys.
09:16It was hot.
09:17I had, like, one, two, three, four tights,
09:21a wool, like, jumper, and then fake leather sleeves.
09:26Like, I was dying, but worth it.
09:29And lots of fights about the hair.
09:31Suzette, she's always trying to push me
09:34to go as far as possible,
09:37and I'm always like, I've done all of them.
09:39Like, I need to grow up.
09:41Playing on the theme of the bun,
09:43she was like, no, but what if we do tassels?
09:45I can't, I don't know, I'll show you.
09:46And so she kind of showed me this,
09:48and I was just like, I don't know.
09:50I was stressed.
09:51Long story short, she did it.
09:54She killed it.
09:55They flowed in the wind,
09:56and they were just this evolution of everything I'd done,
09:59but we were in the future now,
10:01and I'm just so proud of this whole moment,
10:04the look, all of the people
10:06that I got to collaborate with,
10:08the band, and everyone that showed up.
10:10Thank you, guys.
10:11I love you.
10:12That's it.
10:13That's all you get.
10:14Thank you so much for listening to me babble
10:16about my past looks,
10:19and also, don't forget, Bouquet is out now.
10:22Check out where we're at right now
10:24and where we're in the future.
10:25Love you guys.