you gotta behold the dress code at scale.
Theres a lot of baby blue, a lot of pale pink.
Sequins and hearts are encouraged.
BED CHEMGucci dress and bracelet. Paris Texas heels. Tiffany & Co. earrings.
So are kiss marks.
Carpenters fan base wasnt built in a day.
The former Disney star, now 25, put out five albums between 2015 and 2022.
BLONDE AMBITIONCarpenter, a former Disney star, has recorded six albums—the latest being her platinum hitShort n’ Sweet.Tiffany & Co. earrings.
But her sixth,Short n Sweet,which debuted at No.
1 on the Billboard 200 chart in September and quickly went platinum, has struck a different cultural chord.
With the new album, Carpenter, formerly something of a teen-pop confection, also took an aesthetic turn.
CAN’T SLEEPCarpenter’sShort n’ Sweettour travels to the UK and Europe this spring. Burberry dress. Christian Louboutin heels. Swarovski earrings and necklace.
BED CHEMGucci dress and bracelet.
Tiffany & Co. earrings.
The backstage area, open and bare-bones, felt a little like a YMCA locker room.
GOOD GRACESPrada dress and heels. LaPointe feathered jacket. Graff earrings, necklace, bracelet, and ring.
Her hair had been transformed into a surge of blonde curls.
(Curls so full and bouncy, theyve sparked speculation that she wears a wig onstage.)
Her cheeks were glowing with the inimitable rosy flush that launched a thousand makeup tutorials.
SOME LIKE IT HOTChanel top and skirt. Jimmy Choo shoes. Chanel High Jewelry bracelet.
From the neck down, though, Carpenter was still in civilian mode.
She had on a Phillies T-shirt and sweatpants.
Conversation turned to the fans outside.
Often, when she spots her fans before a concert, she is wearing the equivalent of gym clothes.
They dont even know its me and Ill be standing right behind them.
Hes obsessed with humping peoples legs today, she warned about Louie.
(She wasnt wrong.
Louie humped my leg later.)
She was also a quick wit.
After a while Carpenters parents, David and Elizabeth, came in.
A lot of issues, David said.
Yeah, we hit a tree, Elizabeth said.
The tree is fine.
Carpenters Grammy nominations had been announced two days earlier.
In the dressing room at Pechanga, I asked Elizabeth where they were when they learned about the nominations.
Everyone in the room let out some sort of loud noise.
(Louie barked his head off.)
This istonightscolor, Carpenter said of the red, in a faux-melodramatic diva tone.
When the commotion died down, Elizabeth picked up where shed left off.
They were at an RV lot in Bullhead City, Arizona.
Thats when Carpenter called from a tour bus on the outskirts of San Francisco.
Shes like,Mommy Elizabeths voice cracked and trailed off.
And it just says:Fuck.
Big laughs all around the room.
Not even like:Still thinking about that.So proud of you, baby girl.
We get there two minutes after they closed.
Did she explain the circumstances?
The six Grammy nominations?
Absolutely, and theydid not care, Carpenter said, visibly amused.
It was so funny because it was just like: You know what?
This is so humbling.
Life just really does go on.
But wow, no one gives afuck.
The Short n Sweet Showis a pop musical in three acts.
Think Chers 1970s variety show crossed withPlayboy After Dark,with twists.
It begins with video of Carpenter in a bubble bath.
In San Diego this incited Beatlemania-volume screaming.
She performs her country ballad Slim Pickins in front of a mid-century fireplace, wearing a sheer babydoll nightie.
Why not upon-eth me?
/ See it in my mind, lets fulfill the prophecy.
CANT SLEEPCarpentersShort n Sweettour travels to the UK and Europe this spring.
Swarovski earrings and necklace.
On tour, Juno has taken on a life of its own.
Before the song begins, she brandishes a pair of fuzzy pink handcuffs and arrests someone in the audience.
and then debuts a new position.
(Yes, that kind.)
Videos of the various positionsmissionary in New York City, cowgirl in Nashvilleimmediately go viral online.
On TikTok her fans have been contributing increasingly acrobatic and outlandish positions of their own.
A core faction of Carpenters audience has followed her every move from the beginning.
(Her European dates begin in early March.)
We met at the Cara Hotel in Los Feliz.
We sat at an outdoor table in a courtyard encircled by tall hedges.
Short n Sweetis absolutely me, she said.
Theres no, like, alter ego.
Im a fan of it, she told me.
Growing up, those were the kinds of shows I would want to go to.
Ones where I thought I knew what I was getting, but I got something completely different.
Some felt that her show was inappropriate for children.
Others wondered how anyone could be surprised at the racy segments considering the content of her songs.
Still others thought it strange that anyone found Carpenter risque, given her mid-century look.
These dissonant elements have been in the DNA ofShort n Sweetfrom the start.
Its tongue-in-cheek bubblegum, delivered so playfully that you could easily miss the innuendo.
Short n Sweetis absolutely me, she said.
Theres no, like, alter ego.
But its definitely a more emphasized version of me.
But then, when Im speaking to the audience, Im just myself.
Theres nothing too complicated about it.
My hairs very natural.
Then, on theEmailstour, something began to shift.
I started wearing outfits that felt more like myself.
I remember feeling inspired by images of women that felt very strong and hyperfeminine.
And then being like:If only she said what she was actually thinking.
She started posting them when she was nine, as her tool to a Miley Cyrusrun singing contest.
In one video she does a convincing rendition of Sinead OConnors Nothing Compares 2 U.
In another, she hits all the notes of At Last by Etta James.
Theres an interpretation of Sweet Child O Mine, complete with Axl Rose headband.
GOOD GRACESPrada dress and heels.
Graff earrings, necklace, bracelet, and ring.
This was in and around Quakertown, Pennsylvania, where Carpenter grew up the youngest of four girls.
(The oldest, Cayla, a half sister from her dads previous relationship, is a hairstylist.
Her other sister, Shannon, is a dancer.)
Asked to describe her hometown, she answered with one word: Desolate.
She then added that it holds a record for the most fast-food restaurants in a square mile.
Thats basically what were known for.
So I had a really big imagination, which was super necessary for me, I guess.
Carpenter was a precocious childa sarcastic, snarky kid from day one, she sayswith serious singing chops.
(Her mom would make Carpenter give the money back.)
That was a short-lived dream, but also kind of my first real audience.
Starting in the fourth grade, Carpenter was homeschooled.
I dont know why, but I decided I wanted to focus on my career, she said.
I was like,I want to audition for things.
While her sisters were at school, she spent a lot of time alone.
During that period, she told me, I got to know my weird little head.
In the Miley contest, Carpenter made it to the final three.
I also felt like I was finding my voice through covering other peoples songs.
Her dad had turned a small closet into a recording space.
It was like a Harry Potter closet under the staircase, she said.
He painted it purple and put padding on the walls for me and my microphone in there.
And I just felt super legit.
Carpenter refers to her tween years as her fedora era, because she often wore that style of hat.
I got very artsy with my videos.
Sometimes I would take itoutside.
And because the whole operation was improvised, she learned to keep it tight.
We didnt know how to edit, you know what I mean?
My dad didnt, like, know what he was doing.
It was like:Record.
Eventually she started working with a vocal coach.
Carpenter signed a five-record deal with Disneys Hollywood Records when she was 12.
By then she was also getting acting jobs.
Carpenter was given a lot of rein to make her character, Maya Hart, her own.
Very witty, very quick, she said.
Kind of emotional and all over the place, which feels like me in a lot of ways.
(She had roles in the moviesThe Hate U GiveandTall Girl.)
The song doesnt get into her legal ordeal, but she did take inspiration from it.
In the end Carpenter made four albums with Hollywood Records, not five.
(I definitely didnt fulfill my contract, thank God.)
I wrote it not envisioning it coming out, Carpenter said.
It was a bit of a whirlwind.
And also because the songs were deeply personal.
My biggest heartbreak to date, she said of the relationship that inspiredEmails.My firstrealone.
I hate to say that.
It definitely makes all my exes before that feel like shit.
I dont mean to do that.
I just think in a sense of really understanding the grieving-someone-thats-alive feeling.
I never felt that until this one.
Thanks to you, I cant love right, she sings.
Why do we end up loving the people we love later in life?
That song just really made a lot of things make sense for me, she said.
I was curious how she handled this with her dad, how he learned of the songs existence.
Sure as hell did not play it for him in person, she said.
I sent it to my mother first.
But you birthed me, so you kind of have to deal with the repercussions.
CarpentersEmailstour lasted almost a year.
Her stadiums make my shows look like clubs, Carpenter said.
One night in Buenos Aires, she went out with: When Im in the bedroom looking sexy.
Hes having a ball, he call me Messi.
Argentina, will you be my bestie?
In Rio de Janeiro, it was: Sipping on me like a caipirinha.
How to turn me on, boy, I can teach ya.
My new name is Ipanema Brina.
And in Sydney: Yeah, hes pretty cute but will our kids be?
This countrys so big, I hope it fit me.
I Vegemite be in love with you, Sydney.
That might have bled into the next album.
But it wasntbecauseof that song.
If anything I was kind of conscious of not doing Nonsense 2.0.
Carpenter didnt set out to writeShort n Sweet.She didnt have a blueprint in mind.
She did know that she wanted to make a point about crossing genres.
That was the one thing that I knew.
The impulse was an irreverent one, in part.
Im such a stubborn little spit, she said.
And that always bugged me.
SOME LIKE IT HOTChanel top and skirt.
Chanel High Jewelry bracelet.
She wrote Espresso first, in France, on a 10-day break from theEmailstour.
It was the middle of summer, in 2023, and Chailland was deserted.
They worked at a leisurely pace.
Compared to everything else Carpenter had been working on, Espresso was an outlier.
I was writing all these sad songs, and Espresso was like the one breath of fresh air.
Played live, the song elicits a passionate response.
The song manages to be vulnerable and hilarious and also sort of meta.
In making room for a range of genres, she made room for more sides of her personality.
Shes so brilliantly sharp and quick and funny, he said.
Most of the sessions, were just laughing the whole time, even if were writing a sad song.
He would get into it with her sometimes.
I was sort of like:When is this funny person gonna start coming through in the records?
Allen said that even Carpenters language is more uniquely her own, more specific to her.
The way she talks and the way she is in person is exactly how she writes, she said.
I think thats really what made her music cut through this year.
Because she says everything in her songs exactly the way she would say it in conversation.
Allen and Carpenter are close friends, and if you listen closely toShort n Sweet,it shows.
Theres a shorthand to the writing, as though the lyrics were plucked from a private text thread.
There are so many inside jokes, Allen said.
I think thats what allowed it to be so personality-driven and so intimate.
This was at a writing session at Electric Lady in New York, with Jack Antonoff.
I felt so taken aback at how emotional I felt at just that concept alone, she said.
I relate so wholeheartedly to the lyric You dont have to lie to girls.
If they like you, theyll just lie to themselves.
Every woman I know can relate to that sentence.
And its said so cleanly.
My egos another / I beg you, dont embarrass me, motherfucker.
(Its her second global No.
1 on Spotify and first No.
1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100.)
The rest of the songs were written in California.
The seed for Juno came out of a long night at the Chumash Casino in Santa Ynez.
Again, Carpenter had rented a house in the area, with Allen and Ryan.
At some point, they needed a break.
When they got back later that night, Ryan made a loop and they started writing melodies.
Sabrina said this lyric, Make me Juno.
We all sort of laughed, and that was it.
The next day, they were playing around again.
Sabrina was like,What about that Juno line?
They planted the seed in an entirely different set of chords.
By five oclock, the new song was finished.
Island Records wanted the first single to be like like like.
Carpenter felt strongly that it should be Espresso.
She knew she would be debuting the single at Coachella.
I was definitely being swayed in another direction, but I knew deep down that it was this song.
I was afraid of disappointing people for, like, five minutes.
And then I was like:No.
She performed Espresso on the main stage, one day after the single and music video were released.
Shed crashed her boyfriends car into a motel, recalled Ric Lipson, the production designer.
It really had a narrative arc.
Carpenter had started wearing corsets during theEmailstour.
Now she was adding more fantasy lingerie to her stage wardrobe.
At the end of the Espresso video, Carpenter was arrested on the beach.
Three music videos rolled out this wayas an interconnected storyline, some sort of epic.
Then there was her turn at the MTV VMAs, where Espresso won song of the year in September.
Remember the silver beaded Bob Mackie dress Madonna wore to the Oscars in 1991?
Carpenter wore it on the red carpet.
This was achieved with a prodigious amount of Swarovski crystals, said Carpenters stylist, Jared Ellner30,000 per corset.
We had a dream of the sparkliest corset on the entire planet.
Ellner also told me that theres another secret reason for all the babydoll cuts: Theyre comfortable.
Carpenter wanted the experience of watching the show to feel like flipping channels on a TV.
The songs are meant to be different channels, as are the interludes and commercials between acts.
The segue into the third act, and into Dumb & Poetic, had Carpenters audience particularly rapt.
Its a clip from a 1966 interview that Leonard Cohen gave to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
That, read correctly, the instructions from a shoe-polish can could have the same effect.
Whats the point of writing poetry then?
Carpenters sister Sarah found the clip after doing a deep dive into all things Leonard Cohen.
And the Leonard Cohen estate just, like, let us have permission.
Asked what other deep dives she did ahead of the tour, she said: Honestly, so manyPlayboymagazines.
We bought a shit ton.
We already had a bunch.
But we bought more.
Perhaps the one major thing that wasnt completely planned out ahead of time: all those Juno positions.
I dont want to let them down.
So sometimes I go:Oh, you know what?
Theres one of me.
So, um, bless me for Europe.
I dont know whats gonna happen.
I just take a stab at have fun in the moment.
Thats where most of those ideas come from.
Its really just like:Im in Chicago.
Whats Chicago gonna love?
Carpenter has a hobby that few people know about.
She draws sketchesof people, animals, landscapes, whatever shes feeling.
Its her way of keeping a journal.
I think she threw that gene to me, because I started drawing at a really young age.
Carpenter was in London for another brief songwriting retreat.
I start every year, just trying to go away and write.
Because I feel like I have a lot to say at the end of a year.
Im just kind of tucked away right now.
Its half writing and half relaxation, if thats something I can even accomplish.
Produced by PRODn at Art + Commerce.
Set Design: Mary Howard.
The March issue is here featuring Sabrina Carpenter.
