with the sort of can’t-be-bothered sexiness that only
those at the dewy dawn of adulthood can pull off: cycle
shorts, a Calvin Klein bralette, and fluffy Fendi slides.
“Lashes, nails, and hair,” she confides. “That’s how you
can get away with it.”
The ability to feel comfortable anywhere is something
the 23-year-old learned young. Born in Málaga, Mabel
had lived in London, Stockholm, and London again
by the time she was 18, spending most of her teenage
years in Sweden. Since releasing her debut single in 2015,
Mabel has chosen to lean into this itinerant lifestyle.
“I wake up in hotels now, and I have no idea where I am,”
she says. Still, anything beats being bored in Sweden.
The country venerated by lifestyle bloggers for its
philosophy of lagom—balance and moderation in all
things—was too small, slow, and obsessed with acoustic
guitars for a girl who dressed like Aaliyah (the result,
she says, of having two older sisters obsessed with ’90s
R&B). “I felt trapped,” Mabel recalls. “I didn’t look right.
I didn’t sound right.” She became depressed and left
school in her teens to study at home. “I wonder sometimes
if it was extreme exhaustion from being really anxious,”
she says. Mabel now views the depression as situational
but the anxiety as lifelong—a reality she confronts on
High Expectation’s “OK (Anxiety Anthem).” “I’m not
going to wake up one day and it’s just going to be gone
forever, and that’s fine,” she tells me.
Tonight she’s dedicating a rare night off to cooking
vegan lasagna with friends at her flat in Notting Hill—a
decorous neighborhood that she chose explicitly because
“I’m not going to run into people who I’d bump into in
the club.” When she has a break she reads—currently
Isabel Allende’s Maya’s Notebook—and plays the piano
that sits pride of place in her otherwise sparsely furnished
apartment. (She’s converted the master bedroom into a
walk-in wardrobe to house her sneaker collection.)
Mabel knows it would be a bad idea to get too
comfortable right now. With the exception of “OK,” High
Expectations is an album almost exclusively about her exes.
Mabel loves love—and tells me so repeatedly. She even
kind of loves heartbreak. The problem is that it’s been ages
since there was time for any of it. She says she’s so busy
that she’s been single for a year and a half (then sheepishly
corrects the record: It’s been more like two). While she
eventually hopes to find a relationship that emulates her
parents’ 30-plus-year partnership, she’s mature enough
to know that what she needs right now is—ironically—
a bit more drama in her life. “There’s only so many songs
that I can write about being really happy,” she tells me
bluntly, rapping her beige acrylics on the table with sweet,
scheming intent. “Who’s album two?” she muses.
“Where do I look for you?”—harriet fitch little
“Whenever I knew my parents had
friends coming round, I’d be like, ‘Okay,
tonight I’m going to do a show’”
—LILAH RAMZI
CABANA GIRL
BEACHY SLIM AARONS
PHOTOGRAPHS OF TANIA MALLET
FILLED MILLSTEIN’S MOOD BOARD.
PUFF PIECE
THE BILLOWING,
OFF-THE-SHOULDER
SLEEVES CAN
BE TRACED BACK
TO THE 1830s.
PERFECT CUT.
VLIFE
104 OCTOBER 2019 VOGUE.COM
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: RAYMOND HALL/GETTY IMAGES; SLIM AARONS/GETTY IMAGES; DEAGOSTINI/GETTY IMAGES; HENRY CLARKE.
VOGUE,
1964
