Madison in Wonderland
- Amber Louise
- Feb 2, 2024
- 5 min read
Updated: Feb 9, 2024
Madison Beer’s ever-evolving look helps her to explore deeper subjects through her own dream world.
From outer space to a millionaire’s mansion in California, Madison Beer conceptualises her own wonderlands, taking her audience through dreamlike music video scenes and concert productions. Alongside a trusted team, she writes, co-directs, and stars in each project, creating a cohesive professional style that screams, ‘There’s a deeper meaning behind the glitz and glamour.’
Inspired by Alice in Wonderland and including those references in both music videos and songs, Beer has put her own spin on a magical world – one where she’s able to express deeper subjects through a dreamy lens. “My impression of Madison is that she has a lot to say and wants to do it in a way that isn’t just darkness – it can explore the lightness and the beauty of things as well – and the juxtaposition helps make the world a little bit more unexpected,” Lauren Dunn, director and photographer who collaborated with Beer on music videos for songs ‘BOYSHIT’ and ‘Showed Me (How I Fell In Love With You)’, shares.
Her first release after her debut LP Life Support, ‘Reckless’, is a perfect example of this approach. The single, which first debuted in 2021 before becoming a part of her 14-track sophomore album, Silence Between Songs, was released alongside a music video that depicted a contrasting view. Singing of heartbreak, the lyrics ‘Each day goes by and each night, I cry / Somebody saw you with her last night’ are performed by a teary-eyed shrunken Beer, balancing on a stack of storybooks in a fantastical setting. Adorned in babydoll dresses with puff sleeves and ruffles, Beer fully adopts a girly style, completing each look with a bow in her hair and pearl bracelets. This distinction works wonderfully for Beer, with Nadia Erwee, Lead of Collections and former Lead of Customs at LA Roxx – the custom atelier that worked on Beer’s costumes for ‘The Life Support Tour’ – commenting that “it does play together very well. Her professional music style is very consistent and girly, which is kind of contradictory to the content of her music, but definitely consistent with the type of music that she does. It’s breaking through certain expectations of a girl, and it very much compliments each other.”
"She has a lot to say and wants to do it in a way that isn’t just darkness – it can explore the lightness and the beauty of things as well – and the juxtaposition just kind of helps make the world a little bit more unexpected”
In terms of building this dreamlike world, styling has always been a huge part. Working with her longtime stylist, Kris Fe, Beer has created a style that is one of innocence and glamour. “I would say from a styling standpoint, she has a really good hold on what she’s looking for, and when you’re directing a project with someone like Madison, you want to give them that power,” says Dunn. With Life Support, Beer has solidified her style as coquette-coded. Think of 18th-century-esque silhouettes made contemporary by (dramatically) decreasing the length of the skirt. Lace, bows, and frills are all part of the heavily curated look and serve as another avenue to explore Beer’s girly persona.
Leaning into this, Beer’s tour looks took on the same whimsical style with 18th-century and Old Hollywood touches. Working with Los Angeles-based custom atelier LA Roxx, she collaborated with the team on costumes for her North American and European legs. “She was going for more of the dressy, Lolita, 18th-century period pieces. So, very cute and girly, but sexy and embellished,” says Erwee. With three costume changes, Beer honoured two of her music videos, remaking them to be suitable for the tour. The vintage black mini dress with white ruffle trim and white frilly mini dress cinched with an underbust corset worn in her ‘BOYSHIT’ music video opened the shows where corseted mini dresses with poofy skirts inspired by ‘Reckless’ and ornamented with bows, charms, and pearls – blue and yellow for the North American leg and brown and green for the European – were worn throughout most of the show. Each look was completed with matching opera gloves and – of course – a bow in her hair, something that has become synonymous with Beer’s professional style since appearing in her ‘BOYSHIT’ music video.
When asked about Beer’s involvement in creating ‘The Life Support Tour’ looks, Erwee states: “I feel like Kris Fe was just communicating all of Madison’s wants. She was involved in picking fabrics and embellishments, she did fittings, and she viewed everything.”
"I felt like Alice in Wonderland, chugging the ‘Drink Me’ bottle and suddenly being thirty feet tall, growing into my voice and my power.”
With her song ‘Showed Me (How I Fell In Love With You)’, Beer explores a slightly different narrative. What was once childlike and innocent became grown-up, independent, and for lack of a better word, badass. Creating a new narrative, she worked with Dunn to explore a different – but still equally as wondrous – world. “She wanted it to feel like a gender role reversal of a classic James Bond narrative,” Dunn explains. “She loves movies, she loves cinema, she loves the femme fatale, the classic film stars. She does an amazing job of knowing how she wants to represent that character with the styling.”
Becoming this strong female figure has been a long journey for Beer. Being signed at only twelve years old, she was forced to conform to a bubblegum pop image, sing songs she didn’t resonate with, and hold back her ideas and opinions. Now, she’s twice that age and finally standing up for herself, advocating for her ideas in the studio, with her new record company, and beyond. In her memoir, The Half of It, Beer writes, “[A]s I’ve grown, I’ve stepped into myself, and learned how to pick my battles. I felt like Alice in Wonderland, chugging the ‘Drink Me’ bottle and suddenly being thirty feet tall, growing into my voice and my power.” When she’s working on a project like ‘Showed Me (How I Fell In Love With You)’, ‘BOYSHIT’, or even ‘Reckless’, she’s taking that control back and representing it through imagery and styling.
Building new worlds within Silence Between Songs means exploring stories Beer hasn’t yet told and expressing them through her music videos, styling, and upcoming tour, ‘The Spinnin Tour’. The music video for ‘Home to Another One’ – the album's fourth single – showcases sixties mod references in an intergalactic setting, whereas ‘Spinnin’ – the album's fifth and final single – is less styled and brings viewers into a dystopian world that references parts of The Shining. “Seeing the music videos fall into a larger world and story she’s telling is interesting,” Dunn says, “She is extremely dedicated to what she does and is thinking about every detail all the time – and that is really special.” As her sound continues to evolve, there is no doubt Beer’s Wonderland will, too.
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