Naomi Scott Made This Year’s Most Stylish Album—Now, She’s Taking It on Tour

Reported by Vogue.

Naomi Scott has spent the better part of a decade being everyone's second guess — a musician who got sidetracked by blockbusters, a pop hopeful who became Princess Jasmine. Then came a quarter-life identity crisis, a return to her piano in a London flat, and F.I.G., the 29-minute debut album that quietly became one of this year's most compelling artistic statements. According to Vogue, Scott is now taking it on the road for her first solo headlining tour, and the whole project — music, visuals, wardrobe — is a masterclass in doing more with less.

The album itself earns its reputation. Named for "fall into grace" (and yes, there's a Sylvia Plath Bell Jar fig tree reference threaded through the concept), F.I.G. moves across R&B, soul, funk, and alt-pop with the confidence of someone who grew up raiding her dad's Windows Media Player for Janet Jackson and Kate Bush. You can hear it: Janet's groove on "Rhythm," Prince's punchy guitar energy on "Losing You," Solange's featherlight vocals in "Bliss." That last comparison isn't accidental — Dev Hynes, longtime Solange collaborator, is a close friend and co-producer on "Cut Me Loose." The record is referential without being derivative, which is the harder trick to pull off.

The Look Is Just as Intentional

Scott built the album's visual world with creative director Katharina Korbjuhn on what sounds like a shoestring and a strong point of view. The "Cherry" video — her own direction — features Scott dancing in a women's soccer field wearing vintage Vivienne Westwood and stick-on crystals, equal parts glamour and Sunday afternoon. The "Gracie" clip, co-directed with her husband, former pro footballer Jordan Spence, was shot on an east London high street they couldn't afford to close off. The strangers stopping to stare? That's the texture. "I love those imperfections," she says. For the tour, her stage uniform is tracksuit, knee pads, heel pumps, and a bra — with a trench coat and gloves from "Gracie" thrown in for moments of punctuation. Styling credits go to Taylor Thoroski and Hamish Wirgman, with pieces from London label Talia Byre in the mix. She describes it like dressing for your own wedding: you still want to look like yourself.

The live show stays lean by design — one guitarist, one bassist doubling on synths, no elaborate reinventions. She wants audiences to feel the album, not a reimagining of it. There will be a cover of New Edition's "Can You Stand the Rain" and a mash-up of her own "Bound" with Anita Baker's "Sweet Love," which tells you everything you need to know about her taste. After the U.S. dates, she moves to European festivals and then joins Jessie Ware — another mentor — as support for a U.K. arena run. The growth has been almost entirely word-of-mouth, no marketing budget required. "I'm signed to an independent label," she says plainly. "I truly feel like once it's in the world, it's there forever to be discovered."

The most stylish thing about Naomi Scott isn't the vintage Westwood or the pink bob — it's that she built something genuinely her own and then trusted it completely.

Read the original at Vogue.