Look of the Week: Dua Lipa channels Bianca Jagger for first wedding look

Callum Turner and Dua Lipa married this weekend in west London. Associated Newspapers Ltd/Shutterstock via CNN Newsource

This is Dua Lipa’s week. Not only because she is our Look of the Week, but because the next seven days — if a swirl of reports are to be believed — will be bookended by her nuptials.

On Sunday, just as north London was being flare-painted red at a parade for triumphant local soccer team Arsenal after winning the English premiership season, the pop star and her partner, British actor Callum Turner, headed to the quiet of west London, where Lipa’s bridal whites would be kept pristine, for a secret civil ceremony at Old Marylebone Town Hall. The pair will reportedly next head to the Italian island of Sicily for a more flamboyant wedding party later this week.

The bar for bridal glamour was set high with her sophisticated, low-key register office look. Lipa descended the town hall steps hand-in-hand with Turner in a custom couture Schiaparelli skirt suit complete with “personalized gold bijoux buttons,” per the brand.

The singer’s hips were padded, her hands were gloved and her face artfully shaded by a giant hat designed by Stephen Jones millinery that was lined with golf leaf. Turner meanwhile was dressed in a navy double-breasted suit by Ferragamo.

• READ MORE: Singer Dua Lipa marries actor Callum Turner: media

Lipa, who is usually styled by Lorenzo Posocco, was never going to be your standard bride. She’s a disciple of boom-boom fashion — animal print, fur, strong tailoring and glitz that flirts with garish.

Her taste is a blend of ‘80s silhouettes and accessorizing principles (more is more!) refracted through the lens of modern designers such as Matthieu Blazy, Simon Porte Jacquemus and Chemena Kamali. One of the best looks from her presumed hen-do celebrations in Ibiza was an impossibly sparkly vintage Versace mini-dress with matching boots.

The look was from the brand’s 1995 haute couture collection, modelled on the runway by Kate Moss with a bridal veil and bouquet. Lipa styled hers with a cigarette and a lighter that read “Dreamgirl.” She’s one of London’s most stylish party girls — known for heading straight back to the club after her stadium concerts end.

It made total sense, then, that at Old Marylebone Town Hall Lipa’s bridal style looked more Bianca Jagger than Carolyn Bessette Kennedy. Jagger, a woman who once wore a sequin beret (eat your heart out, John Travolta) and was photographed at Studio 54 on horseback, is something of a sartorial spiritual predecessor to Lipa — and was “funmaxxing” in style long before her.

Jagger’s Yves Saint Laurent suit worn at her 1971 wedding to Rolling Stones frontman Mick, included a bias-cut skirt, reportedly more comfortable as she was secretly pregnant with her first child Jade at the time, and a Le Smoking jacket.

It went on to inspire brides everywhere, including model and actress Emily Ratajkowski, who in 2018 married her now ex-husband Sebastian Bear-McClard in a yellow suit and black wide-brimmed hat.

We can only imagine what kind of sartorial panache Lipa will exude at her big wedding party, which is set to welcome guests across 3 days. Surely there was only one condition for whoever designs her look for their sun-soaked Italian wedding this weekend: Being able to dance.

By Leah Dolan, CNN