- I'm so happy we got to do this.
- Thank you, I know you have been so generous
with your time.
I just have to tell you that I really believe in you
and I know last year we did a cover, and I knew it.
I believe in your story.
And I think you're such an incredible role model
for this generation.
Were you happy with the pictures?
- Oh my god I am so happy I can't wait to have that like,
come and do a--
- But looking back, if you had to choose
a cover, would you have
- No, no, I love the cover picture
and I love that Gucci dress.
It was one of my favorite things on the rack,
I was like yes I really really love this.
- You look amazing.
You know I remember Dua,
that was February 18,
I was on my way when I left the shoot,
I was on my way to go to Milan
and then a week later everything changed
so I'm happy that we got this in.
- One of the last things that I ended up doing
because the next week I went to London
and then I thought I was going to get to come
back to New York and everything kind of shut down
so yeah, no I'm really grateful.
- Where are you now?
- I'm in London I'm in an Airbnb.
It's so silly because I'm like I'm in an Airbnb
on the same road as my apartment
but I couldn't stay in my apartment
because I had a massive flood.
- What do you think is the biggest thing you
learned out of this process?
- The way I think that we are, the way that music works,
the way fashion works, the way so many industries,
we live life very fast,
we're always looking into what's next,
what are we doing next
and this has been such a wake up call to take
a step back and appreciate the things
that maybe we have been taking for granted, ya know?
The five minute phone calls that you get with your family
or your friends or whatever,
to ask really meaningful conversations
and you know, seeing a different side of it.
And also it's the connection that I feel like
I have gotten from this
and the connection that I have with my fans,
like now being able to go out on a livestream,
which is completely out of my comfort zone
cause I'm terrified of just talking to a screen.
It was interesting to like, get up and write
every single song that I have on the record
and why I wrote it, what it means to me
and all that, you know, the stories behind it
and that has brought so much closeness
and so much unity, I think, just like
not just to me but I think people all over
because we're all going through the same thing
it has been nice to have that kind of common ground
and to share these moments together.
Yeah it's again trying to look at
the bright side of things at a time
like this as much as we can.
- Well other artist have been, you know,
canceling their launches,
you really, you went ahead with yours
and I think that what always connects with your music
is that you're really authentic
and maybe this is just, you know,
everything is the way its supposed to be and its a chance
it's hard, I'm sure it's hard to launch an album
coming from your airbnb, you have everything there,
but you're doing an amazing job
and it just again proves what a superstar warrior you are.
How are you keeping healthy?
How are you, what are you doing for exercise?
- Yeah yeah I can, I've actually you know,
been trying to make it fun again
like connecting with my friends doing like
morning FaceTimes where we all get on together
and we're all doing the same workout
but all from home but sometimes,
we felt like we are all in workout class together
and that's been, that's been really nice
that's been something like,
to look forward to in the mornings
and it does make workouts a lot more fun
when you do it with friends.
- So Dua, what does a normal day
look like for you right now?
You wake up, do you cook?
- I do cook.
- Yes!
- I'm like I feel like everything that I've done
is always been really easy like,
I know what things work
and I feel, I think they taste good,
my boyfriend eats it and likes it.
I wake up in the morning I like,
take my vitamins, I do a workout with my friends,
have a coffee, shower, and then I get ready
to do some promo and then from like one to five
I do promo some interviews I try and you know
do whatever kind of like work bits I can
if I have to like record some,
you know performance or getting ready for
stuff like that like whatever it is I have
in that time and then once I'm done with that,
my boyfriend and I make dinner together
- And in terms of fashion
like what are you doing to like,
because I live in like sweatshirts, sweatpants, jeans,
T-shirts, that's about as much fashion as I have here
and I feel like that.
- Yeah I'm pretty much the same, honestly,
cause I've had to move from basically
when I got my apartment when I got back from Australia,
I just moved out immediately so that
suitcase that I had.
I had like a couple like,
cute kind of fashion-y outfits but once
I'm in them for like three seconds I'm like,
okay I'm ready to go back into my sweats
now that I'm home.
So they don't last very long so I've just been
in like a hoodie and trackies
and that's just been comfortable and fun and easy.
- Tell me what you're watching.
- Oh my god we watch so much,
we've watched "Tiger King", "Ozark", "The Night Of"
- "Ozark", I am obsessed.
- So good, okay you're watching it too.
It's really good.
And then we went and watched "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"
and "Snatch".
- Oh fun
- We went to some older movies which has been fun
and yeah, some anime.
- Speaking of clothes is there a designer
that you particularly love to wear?
- I love so many different designers and
I'm such a fan of Marc Jacobs.
- I'm just going to show the readers because
that was one of my favorite shots of your,
when we did the shoot, it was the Mark Jacobs.
And I really, really, we really thought about
making this a cover, the Moschino cover we loved
because it was so much emotion in your face and
the Gucci was just so cool and so but that was a good one.
I love Marc.
- Yeah yeah, me too.
What are some of your favorite designers at the moment?
- You know, things are changing so much that
I really feel very passionate about
the New York designers
and I know this industry is going through a
really rough time and it will be going through
an even rougher time
and I'm really into supporting the new young talent because
they're going to need our support more than ever
and there is so much talent there at the young brands
that are coming out both in London and New York
and Paris, its a real moment for that.
How do you plan? How do you see, Dua,
I don't know, do you see the future putting
live performances on soon?
- Yeah, I mean I've been doing some live
performances from home like I did Fallon.
- You did Jimmy Fallon?
- Yeah and I did the "Late Late Show"
with James Corden and it's so fun
and different to get creative from home
and think about ways of bringing people together
and you know that's been fun and challenging at times
but exciting.
It's been like a whole new learning curve,
I mean yeah, I guess we're all kind of like
adapting to new things like-
- Yes it is an opportunity to all kind of reassess
and do things different and its been a really,
for me as an editor it's also been a
learning curve because we work, as you know
we work three months in advance, we plan things,
everything, and now its just things are by soon,
we're trying to coordinate shoots in a very different way,
we hold meetings in a very different way,
and we see layouts through, you know,
so you guys just have to be less precious
but as passionate, so we love that
and now more than ever I think
music is really connecting us,
and your album has been incredible and I love the
title of your album, "Future Nostalgia".
That really, and especially now because its like
the future we thought we were going to have
but it's an opportunity to create another future
and a better future for us.
- Yes absolutely.
You know it's a time for like,
reflection and focusing on you know,
what we're gonna do and how we're gonna tred
once this is over,
the changes we're gonna make collectively.
- So we talked about what you're watching,
what you're cooking, what you're wearing,
what are you listening to?
- Lots of different stuff I always like to find like,
new artist or new albums or
whatever's playing, you know, happening at the moment,
listening to lots of friends playlist that they're making,
discovering lots of new music but also,
going back and then listening to the Gorillaz
and listening to Tame Impala,
and listening to some Gwen Stefani,
and going back to some of my favorite albums.
Which has been really nice too.
You know, I guess, you know especially with work
like I'm constantly moving and going
and sometimes I don't really have the chance to just
take a step back and watch movies and listen
to lots of music and so its been really nice.
- Did you know that your hair
and what you did to your hair would be such a,
I mean become such a trend?
- No, I didn't,
it was quite funny because I was on a shoot with
Juergen Teller this is a while ago
and he was like "just put this blond wig on,
like just whatever, he's like leave your hair
just put the blond wig on just put it on
however way you want it."
and I had all my dark bits of hair coming out
and I was like, "I really like this".
I was like this is how I'm going to go into it
and literally a couple of weeks later I was like
"so I want half of my hair blond,
half of it brown.
- I loved it.
I remember coming to the shoot and being like
I love your hair.
- Thank you, yeah it was fun and it also felt
like you know the juxtaposition,
the two sides of the story,
the future and the nostalgia
and the nostalgia being the bit underneath,
the part of me that I've known my whole life
and the blond is something knew,
something different,
so, it was fun to look at it in that sense.
- Is there anything else that you want your fans to know?
Your Elle readers to know?
- Honestly, I just want to send so much love
and good health to everyone, you know?
We're all going through this together and
I guess at a time like this we should just use
it to reflect and to send out so much love and
support to each other and you know,
be there for each other
and have more meaningful conversations cause I think those
things are really going to carry us through and
hopefully soon we'll see the finish line
and take all these things with us.
- Something that really stayed with me
when I saw you give the grammy speech you said,
"Never give up on the power of your dreams"
and I think that is so true and I think that
we need talent and we need the creatives now
more than ever to keep us inspired and it's,
your music is really keeping us inspired
and music has that power right?
And so we thank you for it, thank you for your generosity
with Elle.
We love you.
You will always have a home here
- And I'll see you soon
- Yes!