Billie’s World
Billie Eilish’s irresistible
brand of dreamy,
macabre anti-pop has
made her into a
new kind of hit maker.
Rob Haskell meets
the 18 -year-old superstar.
T
he Coachella music festival, not
necessarily known for its ador-
able moments, offered up the pop
equivalent of two baby pandas
playing when, under the pink arena lights
and to the accompaniment of the cheer-
ing and frantic uploading of a thousand
teenage witnesses, Billie Eilish met her idol,
Justin Bieber, for the first time last April.
The scene, touching as it was, begged
consideration of its broader culture signif-
icance. Here were two pop prodigies, ages
17 and 25, at rather different points in their
career arcs. The walls of Eilish’s childhood
bedroom were once papered with images of
Bieber, and when he enfolded her oversize
denim bootleg Louis Vuitton–logoed self
in a long embrace, a chasm seemed to yawn
underneath their adjacent but distinct gen-
erations. Eilish, whose full-length album,
When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?,
debuted at number one a week before the
festival began, is not the first young singer to
make hit records out of dark sonic tableaux.
March 2020
LIME LIGHT
With her Everygirl
relatability and
no-holds-barred
iconoclasm, Eilish has
skyrocketed to pop
dominance. Versace
parka and shirt.
Marc Jacobs pants.
Gucci sneakers.
Fashion Editor:
Alex Harrington.
Photographed by Hassan Hajjaj
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