Debbie Harry Brings Some Much-Needed Punk Spirit Back To The Fashion Awards

“No blabbing!” Debbie Harry quips when she calls British Vogue for a pre-Fashion Awards debrief ahead of her surprise performance on the night. We’re dying for details of how the punk icon plans to inject some of the sass that has slowly faded since Vivienne Westwood and Katherine Hamnett first tore up the Royal Albert Hall stage wearing just fig leaves and silver-studded G-strings – oh, to be back in 1989! – but the Blondie frontwoman is in business mode. There’s a “little rehearsal” to get to, a “tech talk” to execute, and that all-important stage look to decide upon (black velvet vs red sequins: quite the conundrum). “It’s boring really,” muses the 79-year-old, as though describing just another day at the office. But the Fashion Awards means more to Harry than she first lets on.

As the star of Gucci’s We Will Always Have London campaign, the ultimate bleached blonde says she has been surprised by how the romantic, Nan Goldin-shot project has evolved. “I didn’t really know what to expect,” she admits of becoming the official face of the brand’s Blondie bag. “I should have, because Gucci has been in business for such a long time and at such a high level that I don’t think I could have failed, no matter what.” When the house suggested she perform in celebration of the campaign’s Special Recognition Award, it was an immediate yes from Harry HQ: “I wouldn’t do it if I wasn’t interested in fashion and British history – to be a part of it is important to me.”

Karolina Wielocha

Plus, new kid on the block Sabato De Sarno, who took the helm in January 2023 after Alessandro Michele bowed out the year prior, struck a chord with the “Heart of Glass” singer, who ripped up the rules of stage style one Spandex bodysuit and dishevelled prom dress at a time in the ’70s. “Sabato can do anything,” Harry enthuses. “A challenge for him is something that he looks forward to. I come from a counter-cultural approach and judging from the things he’s proposed for me, he’s done his homework.”

“When I was younger, I was a bit more reckless,” continues the Miami-born, New Jersey-raised performer, who started out as a go-go dancer and a Playboy bunny before teaming up with her erstwhile boyfriend, guitarist Chris Stein, in 1974. “I’ve become smarter about what looks good on me.” While the emphasis in the halcyon days of Blondie was on making every Stephen Sprouse get-up as rock‘n’roll as possible, Harry says her collaborators since have helped her shift her image with the tides of fashion, while allowing her to always retain that innately special rebel spirit. “As a woman, being part of an evolution and what, in terms of the present day, is right for her, is lucky.”

Courtesy of Gucci

No one-shouldered Lycra or frosted blue eyeshadow was involved in the making of Harry’s chic Ancora-red Fashion Awards look, just quintessential youth-aware, party-ready Gucci as it stands today under De Sarno. “I hit myself over the head with a hammer several times,” Debbie deadpans when probed about her pre-stage rituals. “I’m kidding, of course. I don’t know how I do it really, I’ve been doing it for long enough to roll with the punches. Sometimes things get messed up, I expect this to be done very nicely…” The pressure lay with the industry’s great and good to reach the colour-pop, give a f*ck heights of Debbie Harry as she inevitably brought the house down.

Courtesy of Gucci

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