Qveen Herby On Style, Identity, And Becoming Iconic

Forbes

15 hours ago

Qveen Herby performs during her 'Housewife' tour.
Amy Noonan
Qveen Herby released Frankenstein, featuring Tech N9ne, in mid-October of last year. I found out because of Google Alerts set up to notify me about new music from my favorite artists. It's a fantastic song, which was unsurprising given the talent of both artists. It is so much fun to listen to artists you love separately collaborating.
'Oh my God,' Amy Noonan, the woman behind Qveen Herby, said to me, 'he is one of the very, very best. I shot a little visual with the spider web robe that was made by one of my listeners. I sent him the footage and I said, okay, we're going to just green screen you in. Like, can you just shoot something?'
The robe was a play on a real 1920s piece with a spider web motif. The supporter became Noonan's collaborator, shifting the color of the robe to fit the Qveen's specific aesthetic. It feels like a natural progression, an intricately planned call and response to the artist's EP 9. The cover image for that album shows her in ¾ profile, hair sculpted into Elsa Lancaster, Bride of Frankenstein magnificence. It's all the creepier, in a very fun, very glam way, since the doomed designer of all those 1930s and 1940s Universal monster movie costumes, Vera West, has her own mysterious twists into the annals of mysterious, and probably nefarious Hollywood deaths.
Qveen Herby in her spiderweb robe for "Frankenstein," featuring Tech N9ne.
Amy Noonan
'He was so accommodating,' Noonan said of Tech N9ne. 'He put on his most costumey pieces, like, he put on his Vampire Daddy and it was just cool to see. When the weirdo creative people find each other, that's the best feeling, and I'm just grateful to be included.'
If you are not familiar with Tech N9ne, in addition to being one of the best rappers of all time, the gentleman has made a career-long, continuous point of celebrating and uplifting the work of other artists. Tech has been unfairly maligned for his clothing and costume choices, and hearing the song, then repeatedly watching the video, the work pulls its audience in; the words make direct eye contact. The costumes are exceptional. (I would love to speak with you Tech.)
'Nobody talks about this,' Noonan said, she was talking about the role of costume in the world of music, and I could not agree with her more, nor could this fact be more baffling. I was tempted to say something trite about preachers and choirs.
But it's true, there is very little conversation about the role of costume or clothing in the work of a musical artist. When it is discussed, the content tends towards surface level; looks are rated, someone wore it best, here's where you can buy something that looks just like that. Nothing about this is inherently bad, it's just not as interesting as asking how the clothing helps the artist, how, even in music, what we wear can be a tool for storytelling.
Qveen Herby reclines, regally, on a couch. Photo Credit Anna Azarov
Amy Noonan
Let me pause here and explain a little about why this conversation happened.
Under almost any circumstances, 'costume' is a word easily defined. We all understand that costumes are generally worn by actors to help them portray characters, and that they also help an audience understand and remember who everyone is on film or on stage. It's probably fair to say that all of us have worn a costume at some point, obviously some more than others. But between Halloween, plays and religious or secular holidays and events, costumes appear vigorously in most childhoods. Even as adults most of us have some experience with various types of personal or professional projects that require costuming.
To consider more figuratively, it is a near-universal experience to use clothing as armor, to create a barrier or for protection, to impress others or to encourage the perception by others that we are indeed a certain type. Belonging to our culture implies at least a basic knowledge of what costumes are.
In the context of what a musician or artist wears to perform, for a music video or to an appearance at an event or on a red carpet, costume is a concept much less clear.
All Hail The Qveen. Photo Credit Anna Azarov
Amy Noonan
When an artist is writing from their experiences, or about their own life, the performance of those words by their author is not veiled by fiction. The performer is a real person, not a character, but it is impossible to be on a stage or in front of a camera without the lines between person and persona begin blur. So what an artist wears to perform, is it clothing or is it costume?
If there is a line, where is it? How does anyone curate the wardrobes for two distinct versions of themself, and how on earth is it possible to decide what parts of you get shown to the public and which parts are personal and kept that way? I was lucky to talk about some of this with Trinidad James last month, but I always have more questions. I started thinking about my favorite music, and who might have insights I'd never be able to arrive at on my own.
Qveen Herby, as a character and an alter ego of sorts, is a performer who dedicates a lot of thought, time and effort into her craft, part of which is very much the styles and silhouettes the artist utilizes in her storytelling. I must have been very good in a previous life, because when I reached out to the brilliant and fabulous Amy Noonan, she very graciously agreed to meet with me.
The front of the dress Qveen Herby wore on her "Housewife" Tour.
Amy Noonan
Let's start with the presumption that both clothing and costume have the capacity to ascend to an artform, and that both, in their own ways, contribute to our cultures rituals related to the telling and consumption of stories. Where costume starts and clothing stops, that theoretical place is a zip code I would like to buy property; it fascinates me. So when we sat down to talk it made sense to start there. I asked Noonan what she thought the difference was between the two categories of apparel, what the thresholds were.
'It's really interesting,' the artist said. 'I actually have been thinking about that a lot lately because I'm always on this quest to make my brand the most clear I can make it. And on a regular day as Amy, I'm a hundred percent wearing cotton knitwear and baggy, like sweatpants, I'm very cozy girl, which I think is why I picked this book up.'
The book she showed me, 1920s Fashion: The Definitive Sourcebook by Charlotte Fiell (2021) is a comprehensive resource related to the decade, and it's obvious from Noonan's chic Louise-Brooks-bob that she's feeling aesthetic tugs from a century past. She laughed when I pointed this out, Noonan is the sort of person who chooses to live a joyful life. 'I keep cutting my hair shorter. I'm like, what is this?
Qveen Herby's 1920's inspired look. Photo Credit Anna Azarov
Amy Noonan
'The context historically,' the artist continued, 'is when women were starting to wear pants, started getting rid of the corsets, back when Chanel began to make athleisure, or leisure wear, out of these really glamorous silks. I'm learning the historical context. I'm trying now, in this next chapter of my career as Queen Herby, to blend the two, clothing and costume. I would love to be able to do that, to be Queen Herby all the time. Amy loves to be cozy, but Queen Herby loves to show out her identity. She's very glamorous.'
Please know, glamour does not always imply luxury price points, our Qveen loves vintage and crafting, both of which she was exposed to early through her grandmother. Whether Amy or Herby, the artist sees potential when she looks at assorted components, one of her many talents is drawing together seemingly disparate ideas.
'When I started Queen Herby, I actually saw her as my higher self,' the rapper told me. 'Because when I'm writing music, it feels like I'm channeling something from somewhere else. So when I'm dressing her for her character, it's kind of the same thing. It's like, what does she want to wear? What's her most dynamic silhouette? What is her uniform?'
All artists evolve over time, but achieving a sense of continuity across one's career is not always as easy as Noonan makes it look. She is not a highly strung diva with an ongoing list of demands and caveats. This flexibility of thought, blended with the artist's desire to refine her craft, has led her stylistically to the 1920s. That influence is clear in photos, I now knew about her research into the era, and I asked how these aesthetic decisions fit into her plans for new music.
Qveen Herby performs during her "Alchemist" tour, wearing sequined hot pants. Photo Credit AMANDALA PHOTOGRAPHY
Amy Noonan
'The last round of music we put out was called The Alchemist,' Noonan told me. 'I did really deep research into noir. Somehow I've kind of pinpointed the 1920s as my favorite era, and I'm trying to understand how to pull that into the modern world, and into the Queen Herby world, in more ways. But making choices, like wearing a suit and putting my videos in black and white, had a pretty profound effect on my viewership. People really, as we like to say, 'gagged' when they saw me.'
The haircut is gorgeous, let's be clear about that. Its inspiration came from a couple Noonan met at The Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo. They were in their eighties, the wife with a coif similar to the one Amy now sports. The circumstances inspired a conversation between the singer and a pair of strangers in possession of an equal amount of admiration for dedication to a look. Another real life example of the ways that clothing can draw people together.
'There's something about seeing a 1920s noir film star rapping,' Noonan said, thinking about that weekend. 'It makes everybody really excited. That's been my favorite look when I get the vintage thing just right. When I get the rapping just right. And those combined, I think that's my favorite.'
The juxtaposition of these two things: classic, early Hollywood decadence, which is languid and which has its own flavor of Americana, next to frank, twenty first century poetry written to music. I mean, that's got to be a really interesting puzzle for a storyteller, a stance from which to make their art. It is very easy to understand how much fun it must be to organize such a scheme, for that to be the arena where work is transformed into play.
Qveen hErby channels a 1920s gangster in pinstripes.
Amy Noonan
'It's very disruptive,' Noonan told me with another wide smile. 'Anytime I wear a dress that's just bold and irreverent. And when it comes to vintage dresses, you have to know the line between pretty and chaotic. In my video for Vitamins, I'm wearing a plaid dress with a Peter Pan collar. I cut the hemline shorter because I didn't want an A-line skirt. I wanted it to be pretty short. I remember thinking, 'oh, this is really it with the glasses.' It was very striking. I'm really fascinated by what actually sticks. Sometimes I'll wear something and it doesn't really hit on me as a character, but then I'll wear something so simple, like a headpiece, and people are losing their minds. And I'm like, we got to do the headpiece now.'
This writer is always ready for more headpieces and hair jewelry.
But thinking bigger than character, a queen is after all a powerful figure, before our conversation ended I wanted to know how when something worn by the Qveen became iconic.
'If we stick with it consistently,' Noonan said with confidence, 'it's going to become iconic. I love the word 'icon' because like, what does that even mean? You establish an identity that people can immediately recognize and that's so different for each person. And if you don't have the courage to explore that for your character, you might just end up wearing basic clothes forever. Everyone is so unique, but again, I do come from Nebraska. There's a lot of conformity there. I've come to find that conformity is like my biggest enemy, like the thing that I would like to help people overcome the most is this idea that we all have to look the same. It's just silly.'
Qveen Herby channeling 1920s Cleopatra. Photo Credit Anna Azarov.
Amy Noonan
Outside of her own work, how does she see clothing or costume elevating other artists?
'You have folks like Billie Eilish,' Noonan told me, 'who wear baggy gym shorts and gigantic shirts. She's so iconic for that. Those are the people that I envy. It's like, you get to be cozy and authentic and iconic. And there's always obviously a beautiful place in history for Cher and Bob Mackie, his dresses for her are so insane. She convinced me that she did wear those on her days off, like she felt comfortable and maybe that's what it is.'
Noonan paused thoughtfully before continuing.
'It may be that the hazy line between costume and clothing is actually just how energetically comfortable people are. It feels like a costume if you had to put it on, and then you had to take it off after.'