I’m a huge Sabrina Carpenter fan. Well, I know two of her songs.
The two songs I do know — the recently Saturday Night Live-parodied “Espresso” and the TikTok famous “Please, Please, Please” — are cleverly written and easy to listen to, but they aren’t the real reason I’m a fan. It’s Carpenter’s iconic onstage fashion style that makes me proud to call myself a “Carpenter.”
Carpenter launched her “Short n’ Sweet” tour on Sept. 23, and clips from audience members have flooded my social media feeds. Trust me, I have zero aversion to this Sabrina Carpenter invasion. The clips I’ve seen from the live shows have set my vintage-loving heart aflame. Babydoll peignoir sets? Garters and stockings? Go-go boots? I’m in love!
The stage for her show is styled like a classy Barbie dreamhouse with descending white staircases making her vintage pajama-inspired pieces fit perfectly in place. Carpenter and her team have crafted the same costumes in different colors to wear at select performances. Fans have taken to social media to document the color variations she has debuted so far on tour. My personal favorites are the pink and baby blue variations.
Any nods to past fashion styles get a thumbs up in my book, but Carpenter’s focus on styles from the mid-to-late 20th century gives her a leg-up. The bulk of pieces I own or pin to my Pinterest boards come from the late 1950s through the mid-1970s, so it’s easy to say that Carpenter and I share many stylistic preferences.
However, Carpenter’s style isn’t just pure vintage imitation. At no point do her looks feel recycled or like they were purchased in the 1960s section of Party City. Carpenter and her styling team have crafted an engaging blend of modern glamour and old Hollywood style in each of her looks.
Although I am a vintage purist in many ways — and perhaps a bit of a prude when it comes to my personal style — I can’t deny that Carpenter’s upper thigh-brushing dresses are to die for. The shortened length adds a cheeky, contemporary twist to the conventional 1960s silhouette that fits Carpenter’s fun and flirty persona. Plus, having less fabric to drag the dresses down gives them a little extra flounce that sways beautifully as Carpenter dances onstage.
Carpenter and her team have also modernized some of the retro outfits she wears on tour by adding rhinestones and heart-shaped cutouts. One of the corsets Carpenter dons onstage features a heart-shaped cutout in the middle of the chest. It is reminiscent of the neon pink jumpsuit donned by ABBA’s Agnetha Fältskog in 1970, which featured a silver rimmed heart-shaped cutout in the abdomen.
Carpenter’s chunky platform go-go boots are another seemingly ABBA-inspired piece of her onstage looks. Even at five-foot-two, I have a couple of inches on Carpenter, so the height of her chunky platform go-go boots is not a shock to me. Carpenter’s boots are not only an impressive feat to dance in, but they bring in some more campy, high-fashion vibes.
The heart-shaped cutout motif returns in a pair of silver, mega-platform gogo boots that Carpenter pairs with a metallic halter top and skirt — the color of which varies by performance.
Carpenter’s costuming serves as a bit of a prop as well, and helps play a storytelling role throughout her shows. At the top of the concert, Carpenter runs onstage in a faux towel as if she is still getting ready to go on. She then drops the towel to reveal a glistening buttercup yellow corset bodysuit and matching garters. In this tongue-in-cheek moment, Carpenter embodies a modern — and blonde — Bettie Page.
A personal favorite look of mine is Carpenter’s custom black lace capri-length catsuit from Patou. It’s totally modern, but the capri length is a sweet nod to the pedal pushers of the 50s and 60s. The long evening gloves call back to even further back years of visiting the opera.
With her innuendo-charged lyrics and performance, Carpenter demonstrates that you can celebrate old clothing while holding onto your modern liberties and ideals. She refuses to sacrifice her fashion sense for her music and vice versa.
Not only does this create a fun dissonance between dainty garb and sexually-charged lyrics, but it also challenges the notion that wearing vintage-inspired clothing requires the wearer to embody the status quo of that era.
As a vintage fashion nerd, I get so excited to see Carpenter celebrate past trends and model how we can adapt them for our modern world. In a world where celebrities and influencers are the vanguards of all things fashion, it’s refreshing to see someone not push something new, but instead remind us of the beauty of something old.
