Sabrina Carpenter covers the March issue of American Vogue. I don’t have strong feelings about Sabrina either way – I love “Espresso” and I can’t stand “Please Please Please” and “Taste.” I like that she’s bringing back that hyper-feminine retro/bombshell look, mostly because it comes across as very “2025 Dita Von Teese drag queen” and I enjoy that. I also think it’s nice that so many pop girls are singing about how they’re hot and men ain’t sh-t. It’s a fun vibe. Anyway, I came into this Vogue piece with no expectations and I laughed out loud a few times, especially when she’s talking about her childhood in Pennsylvania.

Her fans dress in Brinacore: It involves slinky dresses and miniskirts and short shorts and fishnet stockings and those stacked platform boots called Pleasers. There’s a lot of baby blue, a lot of pale pink. Sequins and hearts are encouraged. So are kiss marks. Extra points if they’ve got one of Carpenter’s temporary kiss-mark tattoos, available at the merch booth, stuck to a shoulder or thigh. The look is both exuberantly girly and unapologetically provocative—a cousin of the capital-R romantic trend known as coquettecore, but a lot cheekier.

She doesn’t dress like that in her downtime: “I dress like a little boy for most of the day, if I’m trying to hide. They don’t even know it’s me and I’ll be standing right behind them.”

How she celebrated her Grammy noms: She & her sister went out for a celebratory meal at her favorite breakfast place in San Francisco. “We get there two minutes after they closed. And they were like, ‘We won’t let you order anything off the menu, but we will bring the scraps from the kitchen.’ ” Did she explain the circumstances? The six Grammy nominations? “Absolutely, and they did not care,” Carpenter said, visibly amused. “It was so funny because it was just like: You know what? This is so humbling. Life just really does go on. I’m so excited. But wow, no one gives a f–k.”

Her alter ego is just a more theatrical version of herself: “Short n’ Sweet is absolutely me. There’s no, like, alter ego. But it’s definitely a more emphasized version of me. It’s interesting because I’m able to dress in this way where you would kind of expect to hear like a voice from the ’60s. But then, when I’m speaking to the audience, I’m just myself. I remember feeling inspired by images of women that felt very strong and hyperfeminine. And then being like: If only she said what she was actually thinking.”

Growing up, her dad had turned a small closet into a recording space. “It was like a Harry Potter closet under the staircase. He painted it purple and put padding on the walls for me and my microphone in there. And I just felt super legit.”

Her fedora era: Carpenter refers to her tween years as her “fedora era,” because she often wore that style of hat. “I was, like, a child, but I also was, like, a studious young man,” she told me. “I got very artsy with my videos. Sometimes I would take it outside.” And because the whole operation was improvised, she learned to keep it tight. “We didn’t know how to edit, you know what I mean? My dad didn’t, like, know what he was doing. It was like: Record. Take. Stop recording. You’re done.” Eventually she started working with a vocal coach. “I was constantly taking lessons and wanting to improve ’cause I was like: I only have one take and it’s live!”

Joining Taylor Swift’s Eras tour for 25 concerts: “Her stadiums make my shows look like clubs. Watching her keep their attention as if she’s playing in their living room, it was like—and I told her this—Your tour enabled me to do mine.”

[From Vogue]

There’s a lot more about her come up, her childhood, and how she wrote and co-wrote the songs for Short ‘n Sweet. I thought “Espresso” sounded like it was written by some kind of professional jingle writer or a team of dedicated hitmakers, but no, it was Sabrina and three other people hanging out in a quiet village in France and Sabrina would go for walks and they would work out several songs. She doesn’t mention Barry Keoghan, although Vogue references him and says that they’ve reportedly broken up, but Sabrina didn’t confirm anything (I think they’re really and totally over). Anyway, she’s funny and sassy – like a cupcake with a vicious streak.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, cover courtesy of Vogue.