Lily Allen Brings Her Signature Lingerie-Clad <em>West End Girl</em> Style to Mighty Hoopla
Plus, Jade Thirlwall surprises the crowd
Reported by Harper's Bazaar.
Lily Allen has never needed a festival to validate her aesthetic — but last weekend, she used Mighty Hoopla as a full runway moment anyway. Headlining the London festival at Brockwell Park as part of her West End Girl tour, Allen delivered a set that ran through her latest album front to back, with a few curated surprises folded in.
The wardrobe, naturally, did most of the talking. Allen cycled through three looks across the night: a sheer white lace bodysuit layered over a cream pencil skirt; her custom yellow bouclé suit from Self-Portrait; and a baby-blue satin bustier paired with a butter-yellow skirt — the outfit she happened to be wearing when she brought out her special guest. According to Harper's Bazaar, Allen had just dropped a remix of her track "Beg For Me" featuring former Little Mix star Jade Thirlwall, and Thirlwall joined her on stage for the song's live debut, dressed in a blue slip with floral embossing and a fringed bodice. Coordinated without being matchy. Intentional without being try-hard.
The Backstage Fit Might Have Been the Best One
Post-show, Allen swapped the stage looks for something that felt equally considered: a semi-sheer black crop top with a deep V-neck, ruffle cap sleeves, and white polka dots interrupted only by a lace hem and a tiny baby-blue ribbon tied into a bow. Her high-waisted black mini echoed the dot print, and she finished the whole thing with a pair of slippers — the kind of detail that signals someone who dresses for herself, not for the exit photo.
What Allen keeps proving, show after show, is that lingerie-adjacent dressing works best when it's worn with this kind of specificity. Not just a bustier, but that bustier, with that skirt, in that colorway. The precision is the point. The bouclé suit isn't an accident next to the lace bodysuit — it's range, deliberately deployed.
When your backstage outfit is as thought-through as your stage looks, you're not just performing — you're editing.
Read the original at Harper's Bazaar.
