Hayley Williams' infinite hues

In Paramore's latest music video, a project conceived by Ivanna Borin and stylist Lindsey Hartman, singer Hayley Williams and her orange hair take centre stage. In a special homage to the queen of Punk, Williams delves into a world that conjures up surrealist images, first in a vintage corset by Vivienne Westwood, then in a yellow satin gown and the signature metal horns of the English Dame. Apart from their choice of hair dye, Williams and Westwood have many things in common, namely a love of punk and a hatred of conventional fashion. In recent years, the Paramore lead singer's career has taken several directions, such as the 2016 launch of the hair dye company Good Dye Young, her first solo album Petals for Armor(2020), and Everything is Emo, the BBC Sounds-produced podcast that rediscovers the Emo subculture with fans, from 2000s music to the style aspects of the time. Just as with her professional choices, over the years Williams has managed to move into the world of fashion with enterprise, never tying her person to a recognisable logo and retaining an originality of her own, thanks above all to her hair colours, an inspiration to many that has never been equalled.

Together with her hair stylist and best friend Brian O'Connor, Williams found in hair dye a way to express her artistic streak beyond her voice and clothing. Inspired by Fruits magazine, a Japanese publication bought by the singer on tour, Williams debuted the orange colour in the music video for Misery Business, a hair dye (later collected in a Good Dye Young bottle under the name Riot) recently returned on the artist's head after a platinum blonde period. «For a split second as a child, I had bright red hair,» Williams explained in an interview with Vogue, «My hair went from black to bright red to white blonde in a matter of months.» In the interview, Williams recounted that she started experimenting with homemade dyes at the age of 13, after seeing pictures of herself as a child with flame-coloured hair, and that she met O'Connor when she walked into his salon, thus beginning a friendship now developed into business. From the beginning of their professional partnership to the present day, Williams has really tried it all: colour-blocking red and pink, canary yellow and turquoise, fuchsia, cherry red, right up to platinum blonde with Debbie Harry-style brown locks. «There's a part of me that wants to remind myself that I can still imagine myself as anyone I want to be, whether my hair is orange, white, black, blue, it doesn't matter.»

Despite coming to the forefront of the pop-punk scene in 2007, when the album Riot! crowned Paramore as the paladins of Emo, Williams has always preferred to take her cues from the divas of the 80s and 90s Punk subculture. In a 2013 interview with the New York Times, the singer explained she grew up with Debbie Harry's music, an inspiration clearly visible in her style choices, from men's suits to t-shirts with rolled-up sleeves. Besides the great influence of the Blondie lead singer's style, it is also because of her negative experiences in the music industry that Williams has always maintained an anti-conventional look over the years, assiduously avoiding self-objectification of the body. Openly championing the feminist cause, Williams has recounted that she suffered severeal unfair treatments during her rise to success as a woman and teenager. «I didn't know how toxic the pop-punk and emo scene of the early 2000s could be,» the singer said in an interview with NME. «There was a lot of internalised sexism, and even when you were lucky enough to meet other bands who were nice and respectful, there were others who weren't.»

Skinny black or grey jeans, just a few rips, old band t-shirts and Converse All Stars; somewhere between punk and emo, Williams has always chosen to appear on stage in casual clothing, deliberately similar to that of any of her fans. And if in more recent times the singer has approached the world of fashion, she has done so with a low profile, opting for emerging brands or garments without flashy logos, such as Maison Margiela's oversized suits, Coperni's geometrically cut mini dresses, SHUSHU TONG's romantic gowns or Courrèges' fitted tops.

In 2020, Williams began a collaboration with Collina Strada designer Hilary Tamour, performing her single Simmer in the FW2020 show. «This show was very good because I think Hillary has a dark side to everything, and there's something very real about it,» Williams explained to W Magazine after the show, «there's a lot of texture, but it's still colourful. For my first appearance at Fashion Week, this was a perfect combination.» The choice of Collina Strada was also echoed in Paramore's latest music video, Running Out of Time, in which Williams' stylist Lindsey Hartman paired Vivienne Westwood's signature rococo corset with extremely long wading trousers custom-designed by Hilary Tamour.

Hayley Williams' latest style choices are a clear sign of the new beginnings the singer is embarking on, between the release of Paramore's new album This Is Why, and the official announcement of her relationship with bandmate Taylor York. Maybe it's the style choices of Collina Strada and Vivienne Westwood, her angelic voice, the unstoppable energy she brings on stage, or perhaps the feeling of nostalgia commonly shared by younger generations: there's just something about Hayley Williams that makes her timelessly cool, no matter the hair colour.