Hayden Anhedönia is better known as Ethel Cain, but you’d be mistaken for thinking they’re one and the same.
The singer, who broke through with her record Preacher’s Daughter, has long held a specific vision for her alter ego. Ethel Cain uses fashion to shine a light on Americana in its many forms, from a (Givenchy) cheerleading uniform to a Budweiser tank top. Now, as Anhedönia looks to the future of the project, she is using clothing to help define the next chapter. “I’m very interested in character studies," she says. "Working on this new project, I wanted to take a step away from the solo narrative that Preacher’s Daughter was built around and branch out into some other things.” While she keeps a tight lid on what’s in store, she does offer a hint: “Each of these characters became a costume, and then each of these costumes became a look for the show.”
Fashion—particularly costumes—have been important to the artist for as long as she can remember. Anhedönia was raised Christian in the Florida Bible Belt. Homeschooled, the only media she consumed were old VHS tapes. “I was watching Little House on the Prairie, The Waltons, Picnic at Hanging Rock," she says. "My favorite Disney movie of all time is Tuck Everlasting, which is the Edwardian period. All these films [have] that beautiful silhouette of the turn of the 20th century. It always captivated me.”
So it should come as no surprise that the films she watched as a child have bled into her sartorial direction for Ethel Cain. “I still do think that the Gibson Girl is the peak, in terms of the female archetype. Edwardian fashion blends the right amount of sexuality and figure and silhouette with modesty,” she says. “You see this extremely covered up, bustled feminine look that is so staunch. But also, they’re padding their hips, they’re corseting their waists. You could see it was a bubble of female sexuality that was about to pop in the twenties.”
Fans got their first taste of Ethel Cain’s next chapter at her recent show at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles. The singer not only debuted unreleased songs, but also emerged in a new look, rooted firmly in the Edwardian fashions from her favorite childhood films. “I have a lot of 110-, 120-year-old dresses that I don’t want to wear on stage. I don’t want to damage them,” she says. To help bring her vision to life, she spent hours scouring Etsy to find historically accurate recreations of the bustles, pigeon breasts, and high necks that captivated her as a child. “I was plotting out the tour outfits six months in advance and trying to think of what I wanted to see on stage and how I wanted it to translate as an aid to the music,” she says.
Anhedönia commissioned Etsy sellers Gibson Girl Dress and Made of Sentiments for her look: a high-neck black pleated blouse with billowing sleeves tucked into a long, cinched A-line skirt. “I wanted to do something historically accurate and very buttoned up,” she says. The Edwardian fashion, for Anhedönia, serves as a bridge between inspiration in her personal life, and the future of Ethel Cain. “It lends itself to the music and the visual style, and helps to bring the project to life,” she says.
Anhedönia struggles sometimes, to create a distinction between herself and Ethel Cain. “I sometimes get a little worried that my life is becoming a stage play with a bunch of characters, and I only exist as an actress to play them. And sometimes I have to ask myself, Where are you at? What are you doing?” she says. Fashion can help. “Obviously, in my personal everyday life, I’m not running around in a bustle or a corset,” she says.
There are certain things that Ethel Cain would never wear. “I never want anything with Ethel Cain to be extremely sexual,” she says. That, however, does not bar Anhedönia from wearing the things that Ethel would avoid. “Being from Florida, sometimes you go out in a little tank top or a tube top or some little short shorts or something. It’s the clothes that I get from Walmart that I wear every day, like a cartoon character,” she elaborates. “You’re never going to see Ethel Cain in a two-piece at the beach. You’re never going to see her booty shorts from Walmart. You’re never going to see her in a face gaiter as a tube top.”
It came as a bit of a shock, when on Thursday night, Ethel Cain took the stage in New York City’s Central Park wearing a black cropped tube top and jeans. After the show, Anhedönia sets the record straight: While her Edwardian getup may have been six-plus months in the making, she never knows what she’ll wear until she’s about to go onstage. "Because I’m so strict with myself in all other aspects of this project, and live performance isn’t as crucial to the narrative of the story for me, I usually let each show stand alone as a surprise to both myself and the audience. It’s certainly a surrender of control that I would usually refuse to give up,” she says.
Not only was it oppressively hot during the New York performance (Anhedönia called for a medic so many times while performing the new song “Amber Waves” that she restarted.) The black high-necked blouse and long skirt were, at best, impractical. “It’s tight, restricting, near choking sometimes—all things that are counterintuitive to the art of live performance,” she says. “Sometimes my body genuinely will not let me wear something on that particular day. And while some days I feel up to the challenge of balancing physical suffering with giving a good show, other days I choose to give in and wear a tube top and sing my ass off.”
As for her strict sartorial distinction between herself and Ethel Cain, Anhedönia is willing to let us in on a little secret. “If you want the real truth, I’m always Hayden onstage,” she says. “I could do my best to try and play Ethel, but I can’t ever really do that because she’s not real and that’s honestly why I planned it that way. At the end of the day, I’m just a girl trying to make it through a performance, one show at a time.”
