Her new album VIE – French for “life” – is a philosophical pivot rather than a genre turn. In conversation, Doja unpacks her desire to “swim back upstream,” suggesting not regression but resurrection: an intentional re-stitching of her artistic DNA. The blonde hair and corporate backdrop of her recent Zoom appearances aren’t ironic; they’re symbolic. The beige nostalgia of childhood office visits and sickly fluorescent lighting becomes her creative muse. Its dreamcore filtered through a post-pandemic lens – Lo-Fi longing dressed in high-gloss intent.

Sound-wise, VIE is bathed in synths and smeared in memory. The sonic palette channels ’80s textures without ever becoming pastiche. It’s a time warp refracted through internet-age melancholy, where liminal spaces and childhood disillusionment swirl into hooks and heartbreak. This is not just retromania – it’s Doja playing psychic archaeologist, digging through emotional ruins to find new meaning in the rubble. There’s comfort in the decay, beauty in the blur.

Vocally, she’s stretching, bending, growing – sometimes surprised by her own ability to now sing with confidence. But even as her technical range widens, her raw energy remains intact. VIE may be pop, but it’s pop with teeth. After claiming she was done with the genre, Doja returns to it not out of compromise but confrontation. “Pop is just popular,” she reminds us. “It doesn’t mean it’s empty.” With biting commentary on the way women and queer audiences interact with the genre, she reclaims its depth and reshapes its cultural weight.

Lyrically, the record swims in love, romance, sex, and the tension of modern intimacy – but not from a place of detachment. These aren’t just breakup songs. They’re longing manifestos. A throwback to an era when love felt like a mission, not a meme. Doja’s own desire to hope again, to yearn for something real, gives Vie an emotional charge that’s both vulnerable and audacious. She’s nostalgic not just for the sounds of another era, but for the emotional sincerity that era held.

And so, VIE becomes less of a next chapter and more of a reckoning. It’s the kind of album only Doja Cat could make – one that pulls from every version of herself, stitching together the sacred and the superficial, the profound and the playful. Like her V155 cover, it asks you to look closer: at the gloss, the grit, the ghost of the girl behind the icon. The feline has many lives. This one just might be her most human.

The post Doja Cat’s Next Life: VIE, V Magazine, and the Art of Reclamation appeared first on KIMU.

It’s only the 6th of January and there are two absolutely brilliant pieces of creative that I wanted to highlight. First of all, the covers for Lady Gaga’s rather genius curated issue for V Magazine featuring the timelessly brilliant concept of Karl Lagerfeld shooting Hedi Slimane and Hedi Slimane shooting Karl Lagerfeld. Essentially, two of fashions biggest creative / design stars going tete-a-tete. It’s beautiful.

The other covers feature Alexander McQueen and Isabella Blow posthumously edited, but originally photographed by Steven Klein. An incredible tribute. Finally, the star of the show herself – Gaga as a solo shot and even more provoking Gaga alongside Daphne Guinness.

Words on the issue, from Gaga herself:

“These are people who have kept me and protected me over the years, because they’ve wanted me to survive…that’s part of the message of this issue: we have to carry each other through the decades and take care of one another and honor each other’s work…I am saying thank you to all these people for everything they’ve given to me…I want to make sure the world knows who they are…it’s a guard of people…I call them my Fashion Guard!”

To experience the covers in full and the remaining unveils, head over to vmagazine.com

Secondly, the only health and fitness brand to truly embrace the use of high profile fashion photography is Equinox. With their last campaign photographed by Rankin, the luxury gym brand has now enlisted an even darker approach with Steven Klein at the helm of creative. The campaign is titled “Commit To Something” and is also styled by Mel Ottenberg featuring some incredible characters including Lydia Hearst.

On a third point, I really wanted to nod to and give my (albeit) brief opinion on the polarising images of Jaden Smith. Yes it is a bold and rather “late” move for Louis Vuitton, and the press it has generated is understandably polarising, but let’s please remember that the fact that a luxury brand is continuing down this path is not purely down to media agenda hijacking, but furthering equality in a genderless space that still needs a lot of work – so really it is never too late.

The post Creative Spotlight: Lady Gaga for V; Steven Klein for Equinox appeared first on KIMU.

Words cannot even with how epic this is. Lana shot by Steven Klein in this aesthetic has never been explored before. It almost feels like what the Ultraviolence video could have potentially been. The editorial is shot on polaroid with styling by the ever brilliant Mel Ottenberg. Oh and the interview? By James Franco. Go buy your copy.

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“The English photographer Tony Kent discovered me in the street in Paris when I was 16 and took me to Model Promotions, Elite Paris’s teenage division. After one season I went to London and signed with Bobton’s. These are my first and only modeling composites. On the far left I’m wearing a skirt that my mother made from souleiado, a very traditional French fabric used for napkins and table linens.” — Carine Roitfeld as told to Christopher Bartley

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