Lorde Takes the Mushroom Trend to an Extreme in Rodarte

Fashion’s mushroom trend continues to mushroom. On Thursday evening in Los Angeles, Lorde attended Variety’s Power of Women event in a silk satin Rodarte cape gown that covered her with fungi from head to toe. The 24-year-old singer-songwriter has been radiating trippy Earth Child energy ever since entering the era of her latest album, Solar Power, and her choice of look from Kate and Laura Mulleavy’s spring 2022 collection couldn’t be more fitting. The caped gown was the last to hit the outdoor runway of Rodarte’s latest New York Fashion Week presentation before a cult of barefoot models assembled in what could have been a scene out of Lorde’s Midsommar-like “Solar Power” music video. (“There’s someone I want you to meet,” she said of her album alter ego upon its release. “Her feet are bare at all times. She’s sexy, playful, feral, and free.”)

Up until now, mushrooms’ increasingly numerous fashion cameos have been relatively subtle. Jonathan Anderson and Ashley Williams are among those who’ve peppered in a toadstool here and there, while Iris Van Herpen has proven the expert at echoing the enchantingly intricate folds of spores and mycelium. Meanwhile, Stella McCartney and Hermès have turned the latter into actual material—not that you’d be able to tell from their vegan leather wares. Lorde, on the other hand, went fully all out with her fungi interpretation, literally wearing it on her sleeves (and more).

She wasn’t the only one in attendance to make a statement in lilac. Katy Perry also showed up shrouded in pale purple (in her case Schiaparelli couture), and the pair clearly hit it off. A couple of hours after they were spotted chatting, Perry tweeted “OMG @lorde IS A MOTHER F*CKING G.”