Bjork - A Style Breakdown Throughout Her Career

Written by Eric Syso    

Bjork is a highly talented and influential individual in music and pop culture. Her style is constantly evolving with her and her music. Bjork has been active in her solo career for three decades now, so there are countless outfits to look at over her career and admire the artistic and stylistic evolution throughout.

Before her days as a solo artist Bjork was a part of many different Icelandic bands, most notably The Sugarcubes. The Sugarcubes blended the sounds of Post-Punk and Dream Pop; Bjork had a punk rock background with her former band Spit and Snot and these musical influences shined through in her style. Her brightly colored outfits were very reflective to the lush and poppy songs The Sugarcubes had been recording and releasing. Due to her colorful and eccentric attires in the bands live shows a lot of people started to notice the uniqueness of not only her talents as a singer and a performer but her style and fashion as well.

            Bjork’s most iconic outfit is the swan dress that she wore to the Oscars in 2001. Bjork had branched out as a creative even more and took up acting, Staring in “Dancer in The Dark”. On the red carpet for her nomination for best original song, she wore this dress designed by Marjan Pejoski. (Who did not know she was going to wear his piece on the red-carpet until the morning after.) Initial reaction to the dress was negative and warranted public ridicule and was a target to be made fun of. Later down the line this look is highly celebrated as one of the most iconic looks in Oscar red carpet history. This dress was very influential for a later generation of red-carpet experimentation. (The Lady Gaga meat dress being the most popular example.) Bjork continued to experiment regardless of public reaction, and that initial negative ended up being her most iconic and loved outfits.

            Bjork in the more current stages of her career has experimented so much with sound and fashion that fans can’t even begin to expect what’s next. In 2015 Bjork had begun experimenting with masks created by James Merry. These masks were created by using a book of Merry’s illustrations combining plants and human forms. James Merry has been working with Bjork since 2015’s Vulnicura to help bring her aesthetics and ideas to life. Merry describes his ideas as something from one world transforming into something from another, which has been one of Bjork’s drawing points for decades. An example being her early solo work where she fused life into electronic music to create a beautiful world in between. Bjork is a constantly evolving creative who continues to push boundaries with her music and style regardless of public reception, and three decades into her solo career she appears to be showing no signs of slowing down.