Across her career, PJ Harvey has turned clothes and make-up into extensions of her music, using them as masks that both conceal and reveal the many faces of her selfhood.
Few artists have treated their appearance as a field of constant experimentation the way PJ Harvey has. Over the years, she has shifted between extremes of austerity and excess,. Her clothes and make-up have never been decoration but part of the drama, shaping how her music is seen as much as how it is heard. In her hands, selfhood becomes a mutable script, one that can be masked, exaggerated, or stripped bare.
From austere beginnings -bare face, severe hair, simple clothes that rejected adornment- Harvey took a dramatic turn with Down by the Water (1995). In the video, she appears in a red satin gown, a heavy wig and bold, theatrical make-up, a look she self-consciously called “Joan Crawford on acid”. Harvey herself later described this entire phase as “lurid, glam-grotesque”, a deliberate distortion of glamour that turned femininity into theatre and beauty into something uncanny.
“That was kind of a mask. It was much more of a mask than I’ve ever had. I was very lost as a person, at that point. I had no sense of self left at all.” – PJ Harvey
By exaggerating or withholding femininity, Harvey shows that identity is not an essence but an act, a fragile drama played out on the skin, in costume and gesture. This tension was vividly staged in C’mon Billy (1995), which unfolded like a surreal western cabaret: Harvey in a mauve satin dress trimmed with green feathers, her face painted with exaggerated make-up and oversized false lashes, garter belt visible beneath the costume. She plays the cabaret performer with theatrical intensity before the scene shifts to a bedroom, where she lies in black lingerie, blurring the line between performance and confession.
Dressed in a little black dress with a plunging neckline, thigh-high black patent boots and a gold handbag, Harvey’s strut through the London streets in Good Fortune (2000) made the city lights part of her performance. The outfit balanced glamour with edge: sensual but never ornamental, urban yet theatrical, it transformed a simple night-time walk into an act of presence, turning movement itself into spectacle.
The following year, in This Is Love (2001), Harvey appeared in a striking white leather suit with fringe sleeves, designed by Todd Lynn. The outfit, somewhere between glam rock and Elvis revival, became iconic: paired with her guitar, it condensed defiance and sensuality into a single stance.
“It’s that combination of being quite elegant and funny and revolting, all at the same time that appeals to me. I actually find wearing make-up like that, sort of smeared around, as extremely beautiful. Maybe that’s just my twisted sense of beauty.” – PJ Harvey
During the Uh Huh Her era (2004), PJ Harvey embraced a raw yet playful aesthetic that collided vintage Americana with camp excess. She appeared in tight retro T-shirts, sequinned or printed mini-skirts, star-spangled shorts and knee-high boots, a look that felt both thrown-together and deliberately staged. Oscillating between irony and sincerity, the result was an image at once gritty and glittering, with her legs taking centre stage as the true protagonists of the look.
With albums like Let England Shake (2011), The Hope Six Demolition Project (2016) and I Inside the Old Year Dying (2023), Harvey’s visual language shifted towards a more restrained elegance. On stage, she has embraced feathered headpieces and feathered scarves, turning plumes into extensions of her body, almost ceremonial masks that frame her presence with a ritualistic aura. At the same time, her dresses have become more sober: long, fluid silhouettes in neutral tones, pared-down and discreet. This balance between the theatricality of feathers and the restraint of minimal garments reflects a new phase of maturity, a presence that is powerful without excess, symbolic without flamboyance.
“In your late 40s, you realise you have to start letting go of the way you used to be, the way your body used to be, the way your face used to look. It’s a humbling experience. But you need to embrace it. And I have to say I’m enjoying getting older – for the letting go. When you’re young, you worry so much about appearance and what people will think. You’re full of anxiety but, as you get older, you can let go of that and it is incredibly freeing.” – PJ Harvey
By exaggerating and distorting femininity -or by withholding it- Harvey exposed the fault lines beneath it. Is this performance for desire, or against it? Can beauty remain beautiful when it borders on grotesque? Across time, she has shown that her selfhood is always in motion. Each look, whether austere or extravagant, is less about fixing an identity than about staging its mutability.
–
Follow us on TikTok @veinmagazine
