March 12, 2025 |
For more than four decades, Tori Amos, 61, has been one of pop’s most impactful storytellers. Across 16 lauded solo albums, the esteemed vocalist and pianist has proven herself to be a musical shapeshifter. Helping her craft those eclectic visual worlds is the super-stylist Karen Binns, who has worked side by side with Amos for 34 years and counting. Here, the pair join in conversation to look back at some of their most extraordinary and innovative fashion moments together, meeting at Amos’s remote home in Cornwall to craft the painterly portraits of the legendary musician and songwriter that grace the pages of the magazine.
from left: LOEWE, CHLOE
10 How did you two meet?
Tori Amos This photographer, Cindy Palmano, who went on to do the first three album covers [Little Earthquakes, 1992; Under the Pink, 1994; and Boys for Pele, 1996], put me and Karen together. She just thought, “You need somebody in your life that is a conceptualist – somebody that’s thinking about not just a photoshoot, but really listening to the music and getting to know you and collaborating. Not just for a photoshoot, but for life.” Because let’s be honest, styling was not my thing. If you see the cover of Y Kant Tori Read [the only album by the big-haired ’80s synth-pop band of the same name, which Amos fronted], that tells you everything you need to know about [being in] Los Angeles. Unfortunately, that affected my fashion choices, which horrified Karen. By the time she saw me, I’d taken off the hairspray and got out of that bustier. As my mother said, “Darlin’, I thought you were gonna die in that bustier.” By the time I ran into Karen, I was in Patagonia. The first thing you said to me was, “Girl, you in London – what mountain do you think you’re climbing?”
Karen Binns I did find a way to embrace the Patagonia. I had Andre Walker design three looks in a Patagonia fabric, which was fire.
TA I wore it for the 1994 Grammys. A long, beautiful, dark blue Patagonia.
KB I’d never worked with anyone like her before. We’re similar in age – I’m older than her, but we had similar values and we were both American expats in London. I come from a very gangster vibe where you can’t just walk out the house, you got to look left or right. The shots are fired. And Tori comes from the South, honey, where there’s no way out, especially the way she is, in that she’s extremely diverse. I know she grew up around a lot of Black folks in the South [in North Carolina], which a lot of people don’t mix with. Tori don’t care.
TA I needed Karen to become fashionable. My fashion choices, I just didn’t have a knack for it. And I’m not saying I do now, except she’s trained me so well, just what not to pick up off a rack after 34 years of working with her.
KB Let’s keep it cute. We’re not trying to blow our scene about how old we are… I realised the music that she played was what I listened to as a girl because my sister was a bit of a hippie. It’s all from the ’70s and I’m a ’70s girl. I had braided hair, I was into Black power, I was into Woodstock. With Tori, if she has an idea, if it’s fashionable and suits her, we got a winner. It still has to go with the aesthetic of what she represents because she is a real alternative. She’s not pop music. She’s very political. I thought it was a match made in heaven and also the music made me cry. I felt she has to give emotion with the way she looks.
from left: coat, jumper and trousers by MCQUEEN, shoes by RICK OWENS and STELLA MCCARTNEY
10 How do you describe your collaborative process? When Tori is about to start a new album cycle, do you say let’s change the look?
TA I play with the music and we start from there. Or a children’s book [I’ve done] that’s coming out. Karen will decide the look because I’ll be signing in bookstores and it’s a huge age range. I guess you could say the book is for tiny toddlers till [age] 102 and beyond.
KB When she starts to write the album, she’ll call me and recite some of the poetry within the words of the music. Then I start dreaming and eventually go to Cornwall to hear her play, talk, recite and sing it. Immediately, and it happens every time, I close my eyes, listen and develop an idea. But keeping her on the level that she needs to be, which is sustainable, consistent and still that cool bitch that you forgot, don’t even.
TA When I don’t listen to her, I always regret it… for example, in 1998. The photographs exist and I’m just going to tell the truth. My amazing new husband [sound engineer Mark Hawley] said, “I like you in jeans and a T-shirt.” You know how it is with young love. Well, not young love, but early. I called Karen and said, “My husband thinks I should be in jeans and a T-shirt on stage”, and Karen said, “You will live to regret that decision.” I did not listen to Miss Binns, and when I look at these pictures… it doesn’t work on stage, it doesn’t work with movement, because I play like a wild banshee. There’s a piano and a keyboard, I play between the two. Karen takes all that into consideration, the movement, the light. Every time I look at that awful fashion car crash, it’s a reminder: never before did I not listen to her and not since have I not listened to her. Do you remember you did this incredible glamour apron, like a blacksmith’s apron, but completely beaded?
KB I started her off as a ’70s, bell-bottom-jean girl. I wanted to show she’s not a girl who has a lot of money. She had an incredible body for bodysuits so I put her in vintage bathing suits, bell-bottom jeans. I reactivated the 1970s, Rickie Lee Jones-Karen Carpenter aesthetic. I brought that back in because that’s who she is. I’m like, “No darling, you have to give them backless, you have to give them life when you get on that stage.” I came up with all these jewelled aprons, so simple, cool and effective because she was still in the tight denim, but this time with a Manolo heel and a backless apron. Tori could be grunge, but sexy. It kept her young, it didn’t make her too much high fashion. But I started to realise that a lot of people in the fashion industry followed her anyway. They all had her albums because Tori always had a special sympathy for the LGBTQ+ community. I remember being in Paris and Viktor and Rolf ran down the street [towards me], saying, “You’re gonna help me meet her.”
TA That was an incredible moment. It was wonderful to collaborate with them [in 2005]. They came down to Cornwall and talked to me about their vision so I composed a piece [Take Me with You/Song of Solomon] that worked around what their ideas were, and it came from the Bible.
from left: BALENCIAGA and LOEWE
10 In 34 years of working together, are there moments that you’re particularly proud of?
TA Well, everything I’ve done with Karen. But I think two things that hold up are Strange Little Girls [a 2001 concept album made up of covers], when Karen worked with the great [make-up artist] Kevyn Aucoin to create 13 women [as personae for each song]. All the songs were written by male artists. Then we did a project called American Doll Posse [2007], which took a seedling idea and expanded it so it was 3D. Live, I would be two of these women every night. And not only did Karen come up with the look for the album, not just the cover, but the whole campaign and stage clothes. The [different personalities Amos assumed for] represented female archetypes from the ancient Greek pantheon.
KB That campaign has been copied and referenced to death. I don’t just go, “Oh, I’m a stylist so I’m gonna put her in McQueen.” Everybody does that. Meanwhile, we were the first to use McQueen and he always played her songs in his shows. I don’t think he met her, but I would bring him to the shows and he was over the moon, thrilled, he freaked out. He played, “Bring it close to my lips / It’s got to be big” [from 1996’s Professional Widow] at every other show he did. I knew that Tori was an intellectual, a real poet. Working with her has also enhanced me creatively. It’s very rare that stylists get a chance to be creative directors.
10 What did you want to achieve with this shoot?
KB I wanted to show Tori as still that bitch, still on top, still here. It’s not that Tori’s a goth, because she’s not, but there’s always that cool, sinister-ish, angelic-ness about her. I wanted to make sure that when you think of Tori Amos, she’s evolved, but she feels like something you can count on.
TA I would say probing is the right word – we investigate all kinds of emotions and sometimes sinister situations where there are dark actors. No, I don’t want to say dark. I want to say where there can be people trying to not be nurturing. What Karen and I have been doing for 34 years is going into emotional worlds that might be scary, but we take our candles with us. We take our light, any light we can find, and sometimes that’s by holding each other’s hands and making fire. I can feel the fire from her and then my light turns on.
KB Sometimes you have to go into the dark to get to the light. With this shoot, I wanted to show she’s solid as a rock. No fakeness, no sensationalism. I put her in Rick Owens because he is, with women, a sign of power, independence and the magical-ness of it. She’s very organic. Like, she’s the first person who gave me sage to keep those bad vibes out the house, girl. I put her in Balenciaga because there’s a side of her that’s been that girl for years. She’s always worn the oversized, old trench coat with a baseball cap. She don’t care. I know her so well and she always allows me to hear and see her vibe. Boys for Pele was incredible. No one has done anything as interesting. I thought of Steinbeck’s [1937 novella] Of Mice and Men when she played it. And Judy Garland, and how life could be better someday over the rainbow. And then Tori ends up….
TA Playing [with] a pig [on the back cover].
BALENCIAGA
KB Viktor and Rolf called her back – because, of course, they’re extremely obsessed – to do something for the perfume and she sang Over the Rainbow. All those bitches in fashion ended up crying that day, the whole audience was in tears. Tori said, “They need to cry. They’ve been bitches. They’ve been backstabbing for months, they need to cry.”
TA I don’t recall that altogether, but what I do want to say is, there’s no one like her. Whoever’s on the team, by the time they leave a meeting, 100 things they’ve never thought of are exploding out of their brains. You can see it. Magic colours popping out of their heads. That’s the type of magnificent brain Karen Binns has. It’s a privilege to work with her.
KB Oh, you’re gonna make me cry now, Tori. She don’t play games, don’t suffer fools, but she also pushes you to use your brain differently. It’s very rare to be able to work with someone this long that is consistent and loyal. And the book she’s done [which came out in March] is so well thought out. Every detail, to the hair of one of the children. It’s inspiring.
TA Thank you. It’s called Tori and the Muses. Karen, I’ll talk to you tomorrow. I love you, sis. Thank you so much, I’m racing to the studio.
Taken from 10 Magazine Issue 74 – MUSIC, TALENT, CREATIVE – on newsstands March 18. Pre-order your copy here.
A SORTA FAIRYTALE
Photographer KASIA WOZNIAK
Fashion Editor KAREN BINNS
Talent TORI AMOS
Hair GEMMA SUTTON
Make-up CLAIRE DE-GRAFT using YSL Beauty
Photographer’s assistant TIMOTHY HACCIUS
Fashion assistants GEORGIA EDWARDS, SONYA MAZURYK and SORAYA RIZZUTO
Production ZAC APOSTOLOU
Special thanks to JOHN WITHERSPOON
Location MARTIAN AUDIO VISUAL
Special thanks to JODIE HAMBLY
On the cover Tori wears BALENCIAGA
