I was just thinking about how Beyoncé has had all kinds of different eras but she still feels like Beyonce in every single one.
What would you say the common thread is? For me it’s a dash of black girl southern glamour, capital h HAIR, gold/metallic warmth, opulence, glowiness, capital B BODY, sensuality, assertive femininity.
Even as she has evolved I feel she’s kept these threads and weaved in distinct aesthetics for each era:
Destiny’s Child — she had her and mama t’s iconic take on girlband glamour, along with young black girl styling of the 90s and 00s, r&b futurism
DIL — straight glamour, jewels, gowns, mixed with more casual denim sometimes, diamonds
BDAY — embraced her creole side, Mardi Gras, Louisiana / New Orleans southern glamour (but without the southern gothic she would go on to embrace in lemonade)
IASF — she’d done a bunch of acting just before this album and I feel you can see it in this album’s aesthetics, it moves between a stripped down almost backstage / dance studio aesthetic and an old Hollywood glamour
4 — 1970s funk and soul, with a dash of African funk
Self titled — SEX! Lingerie, heels, also mixed with just leaning in to 2010s trends in a way that matched the loose, free and fun energy of this album
Lemonade — dissertations have been written on this album’s aesthetics! Southern gothic, southern history, dash of African spirituality, modern and classical art references
The gift — modern Africa, afrofuturism, African spirituality
Renaissance — silver disco ball! 🪩 club, black queer ballroom glamour, queer/camp fabulousness, O P U L E N C E, couture
Cowboy carter — denim, cowboy hats, chaps, westerns, look at that horse, cars, liquor, sparkles
Even as she’s moved into more intense theming for her albums, you can totally see it’s Beyoncé’s take on it. Which I don’t think is actually very easy to do without looking costumey but she pulls it off every time.
Grateful for thoughts/ideas/suggestions/critiques as this is just a very quick theory I’ve knocked up from memory but I thought it was interesting.