“More Bedazzling, Please”; Sam Smith Revisits Their Life in Looks

I couldn't put my arms down

and I couldn't put my legs together,

so I was walking like this.

And I just remember my mum

just sitting there looking at me like,

What the [beep] is going on?

Hi, Vogue, I'm Sam Smith and this is my Life in Looks.

[upbeat music]

Ah, this is special to me,

it's super special right now

'cause I'm celebrating 10 years since my first album.

So it's beautiful to see.

I think, for me, in this picture,

this was the first time really

since I probably was about 10 years old,

that I started really wearing mass clothing.

All through school,

I wore dresses and leggings and makeup

and quite wild clothes through my teens.

And in this picture, I was 20 years old

and I just got a record deal and I'd released a few songs

and I started to find a lot of comfort

in just dressing down for the first time.

I remember that time so vividly.

Through 2014 to 2016,

I was working like a dog,

I was working really hard.

Traveling the world nonstop for three years, really.

So I didn't really have a lot of time to experiment,

time to rejoice.

When I was young, I used to have so much fun,

my clothes really used to be an armor for me.

I used to dress up before I went into school

because I'd be going into the school playground

and be dealing with bullies and horrible things said to me.

So clothing for me really was a safety.

Oh my God. [laughs]

I remember this coat, it was a really nice coat.

I remember it was the first coat

I ever wore that was cashmere and it felt so good,

it felt really good, it looks fucking hot.

And, also, I remember at the time,

there was this choice I made to not wear socks

and now I regret that.

I'm a big fan of socks now. [laughs]

Mm, this was a Gucci suit.

I remember we went in store to fit it.

This was, I think,

one of the most amazing moments of my life and my career.

I'd always dreamed of being on that stage,

and I remember just before this moment,

I think it was Guns N' Roses or something performed

and they had fire on the front of the stage,

and it, like, I have rosacea,

so if my face gets hot, like, I get really red.

And I remember the fire just made my face really red.

And then, a minute after, Stevie Wonder came on

and Stevie Wonder gave me my first Grammy, this Grammy.

I think even back then,

when I wasn't changing up my style that much,

I wanted to have a big wardrobe.

For me, it's all about intention,

I think I had intention on this night wearing this suit.

I wanted to look timeless and classic

and I wanted the focus to be on me

and what I was saying and what I was singing.

And now in my life,

I have different intentions

when I turn up to these things. [chuckles]

Oh my gosh.

So this suit, 'cause I wore a lot of suits

for like four years nonstop.

Dunhill did three suits for me during the Oscars,

for my performance, for my red carpet,

and then, for the after party, the Vanity Fair,

we did like five, six fittings in Dunhill in London

and it's like this old gentleman's experience.

And I really felt incredible on that night.

The only way to explain it

is with the waistcoat and the jacket,

it almost felt like a corset to me.

And I wore socks, thank God,

thank God, I wore socks.

You should feel like money in a good suit.

I remember I was starting to push it now in my head

'cause I was wearing like a red lace shirt underneath,

which for me was pushing it.

We shot this in Lake Como in Italy

during my second tour rehearsals.

I remember I arrived to this video shoot

on a boat in Lake Como and it felt fabulous,

I felt like Mariah Carey.

Next look.

This, oh my gosh, this was a wild night in Paris.

I didn't actually go to a lot of fashion shows,

and this was my second one,

I remember I sat on the front row

with Gal Gadot and Rebel Wilson, sandwiched in between them,

which was a beautiful sandwich.

I love this outfit,

I remember being fucking boiling, so hot.

I think that what people don't realize about me

is that I'm six foot two,

you know, I wish this coat was longer now looking at it,

'cause I like the drama,

I love the drama of wearing long things and it feels good,

it feels really good.

But I remember actually,

one of the first men I ever fell in love with

took me shopping when I was 19,

and he put me in my first long coat.

So maybe that's why I wore them so much

'cause I wanted to impress him.

Oh God.

Do you remember the pink squid in Finding Nemo?

I look at this image and I'm like, what the fuck?

But then, also, do you know what?

Fuck everyone.

If I ever see images of this,

I actually look at myself here and I'm like,

Go you, well done, babe.

Because breaking out

of six, seven years of suits and mass clothing,

breaking out of that on the world stage

is an incredibly hard thing to do.

Ah, I love this picture so much.

I got introduced to an amazing man during my album,

Love Goes, my third record, his name's Ben Reardon.

He really came on board in my life

with some amazing people who are here today too.

They picked me up [chuckles]

and said to me and took me and said,

Who do you want to be?

You know, what do you wanna wear?

What do you wanna look like?

Because I needed help.

Up until that point,

I was just rummaging around clothes,

working with amazing people,

but my life was overtaking the messaging of the clothes.

The bracelet on my wrist here says, Love Goes to my album.

And it's actually such a beautiful touch to have

when you are creating an image for an album

is to be wearing the words that you've written on your body.

The Serpentine Gallery event,

and I went with Harris Reed.

This jacket is the same designer as what I'm wearing now,

it's Elena Dawson, and this shirt is Harris Reed.

This belt is a vintage belt,

the only belt that would fit me in my closet, but I love it.

And then these are bespoke shoes I got made.

This is a look that I wear now

and it's something that I just wanna stick with forever.

I think what makes for a great Sam Smith outfit

is a great pair of earrings and some good shoes,

shoes are hard to find for me.

I'm six foot two and I have size 12 feet

so getting high heels for me is hard.

First pair of heels were from

a drag store in Australia called Priscilla's,

and they were a pair of red sparkly stilettos.

And I went and got them with my best friend

and we'd just dress up in skirts and heels

and drag and just dance.

So the first time I ever really wore heels were,

I've actually got these heels tattooed on my arm,

were these red kind of Dorothy whore shoes.

They're fabulous.

Okay, this was an amazing look, it was Hed Mayner

and this whole experience with LaHorde who did the choreo,

it was just incredible.

I wanted to turn myself into a compere

and basically start to welcome people

into this new chapter and this new show.

I had all my best friends around me,

so much amazing queer energy,

queer people were in control of my life

for the first time in terms of my creativity,

and I just felt so powerful, I felt so, so powerful.

This is my first time I wore a corset,

and it was a really long two days of shooting in a corset.

The outer world, school and music business

and all these things always wanted me to be small

and little and to control those parts of myself.

I did that for a long time, I did that for seven years.

It started to make me sick,

it started to make me ill and anxious and depressed.

And so, that was my promise to myself during that time

that I would never make myself small again for anyone else.

I've always wanted to work with Kim,

she hit me up to work with me

when I was like 21, 22, and we couldn't get it to work.

And then, I wanted this song

to be two queer people joining forces.

We walked with each other through,

I think will be the most important part of my career

and I hope one of the most important parts of her career.

To get my first ever number one

in America with Kim is an honor,

I'm so happy that we did it together and I wasn't alone.

This is Pierpaolo Valentino custom, moment at the Grammys.

It was so beautiful.

I love wearing Valentino,

I wore them for my first ever Royal Albert Hall performance.

I went to their show in Paris, which is an incredible show.

I met with Pierpaolo at the Valentino offices in Paris,

and we had a beautiful conversation,

they're such an inspiring and magical person to be around.

I was just so happy they were up

for sharing this moment with me.

And so, me, Kim, and the dancers all got dressed

and we all just walked and did no interviews

and just slowly walked through all these press

and then ended up on the red carpet,

and it was just, it was me, Violet Chachki, as well,

and Gottmik who came and were part of it,

and it just felt so good.

I normally do all these things alone,

I normally do all my, you know, my interviews alone

and it just felt so good to be with a team of queer icons

and walking together.

This is my favorite thing I've ever worn in my life.

This was February and we had done so much

in January and February

leading up to the release of this album.

We'd done SNL, we did the Grammys, we did everything,

and it was such a busy mad time.

And then about an hour before this photo was taken,

we actually tried on the whole outfit.

And I'll never forget it,

it was me and my team and my mum was there.

Once I was like blown up,

we then had to lube the whole outfit.

And I just remember my mom

just sitting there looking at me like,

What the fuck is going on?

I couldn't get in a car to get to the red carpet,

so I had to walk in this

outside of the O2 Arena all the way around,

past all the crew, who'd built the stage,

and I'm just like squeaking,

walking outside in this latex outfit.

And it was, honestly, I felt so powerful,

more powerful than I've ever felt in anything

because it was the humor, the humor behind it.

I couldn't put my arms down

and I couldn't put my legs together

so I was walking like this.

It was honestly amazing, I'll never forget this moment,

and we did it in heels, it was fabulous.

One day, I'll be blown up again.

She will rise again one day.

Oh my gosh, I hope to wear a wedding dress one day,

but I think this is the most important dress I've ever worn.

I've never experienced clothes

like I did wearing Andreas and Vivienne's clothes,

but I can't express how incredible it feels

to be in a Vivienne Westwood corset.

I felt like I was going to battle.

It felt really emotional

to actually have people mention me

alongside the word fashion,

because fashion means a lot to me, and it always has.

And it's definitely felt at times

like a club that I wasn't a part of,

but it's something I never let go of.

Sometimes I didn't have the courage

to say the things I needed to,

and clothes said the things that I needed to

when I didn't have the courage, same with some of my songs.

Every day when I wake up,

I decide who I wanna be that day.

And I now lean into the dynamics of it.

I'm not just gonna wear suits and have a quiff,

I'm gonna change things up and it's so beautiful,

you know, I feel like a kid in a dressing up box.

Gandalf The They.

Okay, what people don't understand

is that three weeks before this,

I had a ski accident and I ripped my ACL

but it was my first fashion show

and I'd just broke my ACL,

so thank God for my fabulous wizard staff.

And I remember seeing Andreas walking out to do his bow

and I'll never forget walking past him

and I just had this amazing moment where I was like,

lucky me, like, oh my God.

You know, as a kid, I remember working in a bar in London

and I would buy Love Magazine and I would buy Vogues

and I would sit on the train

going to my job in the bar

as like an overweight, queer, confused kid,

and I remember seeing those Vivienne Westwood campaigns

and dreaming of one day living in that world.

And it was such an amazing show to be part of,

the music was incredible.

This was my first ever Met Gala,

I'm wearing Christian Cowan

and I'm with Christian Cowan.

It was such a sensational night.

I've never been to a more glamorous night in my life.

Everywhere you turned, it was just beauty and glamour

and it was just so fun, it was so fun.

And then, you know, when Ariana came out, I just died.

I've never felt more beautiful in clothes

than I did on this night.

Christian Cowan is an incredible designer,

and I'm so excited to watch his star

shine brighter and brighter.

I wanted to wear a suit this time,

and it was the first time in a long time

that I wanted to wear a suit,

but I wanted to find a way

for it to link into my gender identity now.

And just it was so fascinating what could be done

with just a beautiful piece of material over the trouser,

it just transformed the way I felt.

I used to blame the suit,

I used to blame the suit for the way that I felt.

But now I realize that it wasn't the suit's fault,

it was underneath, I hadn't done the work in here

and I hadn't done, you know, been educated enough

and hadn't, you know, I had to grow,

I had to grow into the suit.

The main thing that I want for men's wear

and for fashion in general is for someone like me

to be able to go into a store

and actually be able to buy the clothes I wanna buy

because nothing fits me in stores.

I just would love the opportunity

to be able to go into the women's wear, men's wear

and just be able to play with everything.

That's what I'd love the most,

and just a bit more color and bedazzling, please. [laughs]

Bye, Vogue, thank you so much

for walking down memory lane with me.

This has been an absolute riot going through these pictures

and I hope I get to fill up this book

with you again. [chuckles]

[pen scratching] [bright music]

There you go.