Addison Rae on Her Mermaid-Inspired Thom Browne CFDA Awards Look—And Her Halloween Costume

“I’ve gotten to a place in the last few years where I’ve felt really confident about following my instinct and leaning on myself. It’s been a nice few years finding what I wanted to do with my life and my career,” Addison Rae tells Vanity Fair the morning after the CFDA Awards.

It’s a moment of reflection for the pop protégé, who attended the event on Monday in an ensemble from Thom Browne. As she got ready for a night out at the Museum of Natural History in New York, where the Council of Fashion Designers of America honored excellence in American fashion design, Rae listened to her own music, including, “Aquamarine.” The latest addition to her growing catalog helped to inspire the whimsical-but-tailored mermaid look that she wore on the red carpet. “And ‘Diet Pepsi’ too!” she says, adding another one of her own tunes to the playlist. “It was really, really sweet and incredible seeing everyone singing along to the songs. It was such a surreal feeling.”

In “Aquamarine,” Rae sings, “The world is my oyster, / And I’m the only girl,” a sentiment that must have rung true when Thom Browne opened up their archives for Rae and her collaborator, Interview’s fashion director, Dara Allen, to explore. The two, who first started working together back in September for Rae’s VMAs look, and then for her “Aquamarine” music video, rummaged through racks at the Thom Browne office before deciding on the pièces de résistance, a SS18 mermaid skirt featuring iridescent paillette and tulle madras embroidery. “It was so stunning even hanging,” Rae says. “We have to just do the mermaid theme. We have to go for it. It’s so serendipitous.”

Allen and Rae tried a few different options before ultimately pairing the curve-hugging skirt with a signature gray Thom Browne corset that cinched Rae into an hourglass shape, and a strand of Mikimoto pearls, bringing new meaning to the term “office siren.” “It just felt perfect,” she says of the look. The skirt, which cascaded out from under Browne’s exquisite tailoring, reflected the light in such a way that Rae appeared to have just emerged from the water like a mermaid making her way onto land to live out the night as a human.

To bring the fantasy further into the real world, Rae worked with the legendary makeup artist Pat McGrath, who she calls a “visionary” with “an aquamarine heart,” to complement her bright blond beach waves. “Every look she creates speaks volumes, and she knows exactly how to make a girl feel beautiful,” Rae says.”I’m so lucky to work with her for these special moments.”

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As for her accessories, Rae’s shell “purse” for the evening looked like she picked it up off the shore on the way to the awards show, and while it was not functional, it added to her ethereal aesthetic. “Dara’s mind works in mysteriously wonderful ways and she walked in and said, ‘I got a shell,’ and I was not sure what that meant exactly,” she says. “Then she pulled out this conch shell and it was just perfect.” Rae, leaning into the whimsy, playfully posed with it like a “shellphone” throughout the night.

The scene was redolent of Aquamarine, the charming 2006 film about friendship that bears the same name as Rae’s song, starring Sara Paxton as the titular mermaid alongside best friends JoJo, and Emma Roberts. “I had rewatched the movie probably for the thousandth time like a week before I went into the studio,” she says. Though the song is not entirely reflective of the film, Addison was inspired by what the word and the color could convey about her own journey of self-discovery. “I wanted to find what aquamarine meant to me,” she says. “It was just a perfect moment to reflect on my transformation and feeling comfortable in change, embracing it, and aligning with yourself, and really following your heart and your gut.”

Rae, who originally rose to fame as a Hype House fixture and is now one of the most followed people on TikTok (with 88.8M followers currently), recently made the crossover to certified It girl, dipping her toes into the fashion world, starring in films like Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving, and carving out her own space in the pop landscape. Along the way, Rae has used fashion to express herself, referencing icons like Britney Spears and Madonna, and taking inspiration from old films, magazines, Pinterest, and Tumblr. “It’s not just taking something and trying to recreate a look, but maybe recreating a feeling that I got when I first looked at whatever piece of inspiration I found, or an accumulation of inspiration, and finding how to trigger that feeling in a new piece.” It’s an approach that Rae says has been instrumental in her reintroduction to the world as a musical artist. “I think fashion is such a language of its own, and you can say so much through the clothes you wear and how you choose to present yourself. Gradually over the years I’ve wanted to be bolder with the words I speak through fashion and let them tell a story on their own.”

The words that Rae sings have also helped forge her own path forward in the industry, in particular with the breakthrough hit “Diet Pepsi,” which is slowly rising up the charts. The response has been “overwhelmingly positive,” she says. “I’m so grateful.” The track has been such a fan favorite that Rae recently performed it live for the first time, alongside Charli XCX—who she previously collaborated with on the “Von Dutch” remix from the singer’s album, Brat and It’s Completely Different but Also Still Brat—and Troye Sivan on the viral Sweat Tour. “I’ve worked on everything that I’ve wanted to and really honed in on things that are important to me and have been for so long, and things that never really felt possible or realistic growing have become such a priority to make real for me,” she says. “If I can inspire any young people to do anything, I think it’s that no matter how much people try to put you in a box, that doesn’t have to define you and you can chase your dreams.”

Making her way back home to Los Angeles the morning after the CFDA Awards, Rae’s mind is already on to the next look: her Halloween costume. She’s hesitant to give too much away (“It’s nothing crazy, just something cute,” she says) Rae hints that her costume is related to the current movie scene, though perhaps not Aquamarine related. “It’s something I’ve always loved, and the person that plays this specific role I have always loved and been so inspired by.”