The rising English star talks creating her own music, clothes, and what it was like touring with Dua Lipa.
Your favorite pop star’s favorite pop star is sitting on a bus, taking calls from a nondescript parking lot. This is a regular occurrence for Griff—the 24-year old English singer-songwriter and pop’s least likely stadium act—who is almost always killing time between cities.
Since winning the Brit Award for Rising Star in 2021, she’s opened for Taylor Swift at Wembley Stadium, Dua Lipa on the Future Nostalgia Tour, eight nights of Ed Sheeran’s +–=÷× Tour, and a handful of Coldplay’s recent European dates. When we spoke, she had just wrapped Sabrina Carpenter’s Short and Sweet Tour, the latter of which overlapped with her own solo tour.
Griff is a quiet force in the recent co-orbital pop star frenzy. In summer 2024, she dropped her debut album Vertigo, the anthemic, almost entirely self-produced project. The album laces breezy 80’s-style synthesizers and glossy power vocals next to deftly deployed quips: “you said you needed space, go on then, astronaut,” she laments on “Astronaut,” a track that includes piano from Coldplay frontman Chris Martin. (Its title track went on to garner a hefty “love this” from the ever-powerful Instagram story of Taylor Swift). It’s a pop project that could make even the most self-serious skeptic submit to a headnod or two.
When we spoke earlier this year, Griff apologized for being under the weather, crediting Europe’s always-inclement autumn. Though, there might be something to be said of her schedule. On any given mid-afternoon, Griff is more likely than not on her way to soundcheck, clad in Ganni sweats or Molly Goddard trousers (“they're comfy but they've got frills on them, so they still make me feel good”) paired with a “good knit,” from “like a car boot sale or something.” Griff’s everyday style is enviously in-the-know and fittingly cool; think elevated trackies and hints of romantic flair, or like Dua Lipa if she were on vacation less.
Though, who Griff is on the bus every morning is not who Griff is on-stage. In a few hours, she will descend down her own rabbit hole, emerging in a fantasy of lush, medieval romanticism (ruffles, puff sleeves, pastels and petticoats), British sensibility and a bit of academia (knee-high socks and crisp loafers) and Gen-Z cheekiness (tangled sheer layers and exposed bras amongst flecks of metallic).
While varied, the aesthetic is nowhere near random. The singer makes most of her own clothing, just as she produces much of her own music. Vertigo is inspired by the feeling of inversion and marked by the omnipresent spiral motif, which is littered throughout fan comments on her socials, found transposed on her thighs onstage via a pair of Maison Soksi teal wormhole tights, and atop her head as she performs with a baby hair perfected into a neat helix on the side of her forehead, much like a 2025 Betty Boop. Amongst the never-ending discourse surrounding trend cycles and consumerism, there’s something especially satisfying about a 20-something-year-old with the clear-headed intentionality of Griff.
Natalie Maher
Griff
I saw something you had tweeted about how last time you were in the U.S., you were shocked by things like yellow school buses and the existence of half & half. When you're traveling across different countries on tour, do you see the style differences, or is it hard to tell from the bus?
Oh, no, you can definitely see. I try my best to get out and about, but you can feel the style differences for sure. New York is obviously maybe the most similar to London, but even still the style is different.
Was there anywhere particular you've visited on-tour where things felt a bit bonkers style-wise?
I feel like just the closer we got into middle America, the more, I guess, practical and utilitarian this style got. To put it diplomatically.
A perfectly politically-correct answer.
[Laughs] Yeah. And then I feel like when you get to the West Coast, I think people dress for the sun, and their lifestyles are around the sun. It's not a thing for me to own a fedora really because in the UK, the weather is just so bad. So, yeah, I guess it's just the weather difference mainly.
Right. I guess if you're in California more, you'll have to get a fedora.
Yeah, exactly. I feel like sportswear is a bit more of a thing in America too because you guys have bars with huge cinema-style screens and a million different sports projected on one wall. I think that does manifest into both male and female style.
That's a good point because the jersey trend does feel international, but I suppose the U.S. has a certain machismo attached to its sports.
It honestly feels a bit fake and cheap when the UK tries to do the jersey style. Like, you know, our high streets will sell jerseys, but it's not really that good.
I can't remember where we were, it must have been in Dallas, and the venue or the security team actually got me this really incredible jersey on the Short and Sweet Tour. I'm trying to remember the team. But suddenly I was like, ‘Oh, this is what an actual real jersey is like.’ Like, I get it now.
