- Like a Genie in a bottle. [woman laughing]
[bright music]
Hi Vogue, this is Christina Aguilera
and this is my Life in Looks.
Yes, this was where it all started,
introduction to the world.
At a time where yes, I was very green and fresh faced.
I call her baby Christina, but so excited
and grateful to be making a first record.
I had all these creative ideas
and I just wanted to be very expressive and over the top
and so this was very, you know, playing it safe.
I didn't really have any mobility to have a say yet,
so I felt very plain I remember on this photo shoot,
but thankfully looking back, that wouldn't last long.
[woman laughing]
Okay, she's getting excited now.
This is around the time when I started working
with Trish Summerville.
I had just released "Mi Reflejo,"
my first Spanish-Latin album.
I was starting to be able to step out
of my shell a little bit, experiment with colored streaks
in the hair and peekaboo slits
and patches of cut out clothing.
That was me starting to come into expressing who I was
and having a little bit of fun and not feeling so boxed in.
The Versace dress, it was so unexpected.
I didn't have anything prepared
to give a speech or anything.
I felt I was just too new to the platform
to even be nominated.
Best new Artist is one you can never win again,
so it was extra special.
It's so beautiful now to see down the line
other incredible women owning this dress
and giving it new vision.
[upbeat music]
She was so bold for this one.
To this day, when I'd see this pop up
on memories throughout the year, interviews,
it's one of my favorites just because it was
so rebellious at the time.
I hadn't even done Stripped yet, hadn't worn the chaps yet.
Joanne Guerre did the makeup, such an artist
the way she paints bodies.
I was just so into not conforming.
I wanted the teased out sort of over the top look.
This looked like it should have been maybe
photographed for a magazine or an editorial spread,
but it was very much something that, at the time,
would never be accepted on a red carpet.
But that was probably part of my love for the rebelliousness
of knowing that it offended certain people,
that were like how could she?
I really wanted to start expressing myself,
and it was almost my way visually telling people
to back off and I'm gonna do my thing now.
I loved embracing these looks for the red carpet
and being what people would consider extreme,
but to me it was just completely normal.
In my mind I was like, yeah, of course these go together.
Like we're doing it and it's gonna be fun.
Lady Marmalade made this look tame.
One of my favorite moments of my career.
This is where we stopped apologizing for anything.
It was an explosion of
everything being at the right place at the right time.
I loved these girls and working with them,
and even seeing what they're doing now is so beautiful.
When you share something like that
and you can look back on such an amazing part of pop culture
in that way.
I was still transitioning between my initial debut record
and everyone sort of thinking I was gonna fit that box
or that mold of what the label wanted me to be,
but I was starting to come in to myself
and that would be the gateway to what was to come.
You had nods to burlesque, old Hollywood glam.
You had all these showgirl aspects and as a performer
I got to just live my best life in this creative world.
I was always growing up, and doing shows,
and performing since I was really, really young,
which I think also probably had a play
on why it was so important to me when I did come
of age and I was getting older and could finally have a say
in what I was doing, how I was singing,
what really influenced me and not be, you know,
formatted into this stereotypical box
of how we should be, especially as females.
I think now they call it the hair bra.
[woman laughing]
I've heard it being referenced that now.
I wanted this album to embrace every different part
of being a woman from feeling empowered,
and strong, owning my sexuality,
and not from what a guy thinks it should be.
There's such a rule book that we
need to look a certain way on a certain front,
act a certain way, be sexy, not too sexy.
Be good girl, but not too good 'cause that's boring.
There's such a rule book that's handed to us
and I was given it since I was very, very little
and the older I got, the more I realized
you're either going to be a part of the problem
or you're gonna stand up against it
and create your own story,
and that's what Stripped was about.
I get emotional talking about it.
I love expressing my sexuality
but I owe no one an explanation about
what that even means to me.
I wanted to go against the grain.
I wanted to be anti what the rulebook was,
and what a pop star should look like and sound like,
and I had to take the bullets for it, too.
I definitely had the conservative police
come after me a few times.
There were a lot of boy bands out at the time,
and I remember so many times like,
"Why are they not getting in trouble
for this and that and these gestures and this on stage."
I didn't even think that there was anything wrong
or upsetting or offensive about Dirty whatsoever.
This was truly me living my best life.
We made the micro mini skirt, chrome hearts chains
all around my waist, and that was literally a scarf
that we were just playing with in the mirror.
I just scooped it around my back.
Trish pulled it up the sides and I was like,
Okay, great. We're done.
We're going. That's the look.
Oh, I loved the Versace campaign that I did.
Donnatella was amazing and so warm to me.
I'm a huge makeup fan and I love being over the top
and this was the first time, especially in this era,
I was okay with stripping it back.
Pat McGrath actually did me this day
and this morning I woke up, it was like my only day off
and in the middle of the Stripped tour.
I'd gone out and celebrated with the dancers
the night before, and I was so hungover this day.
I was beyond and I could barely get off the couch
and I just remember Pat's energy was so warm
and she was just refreshing
in like the most chill way though.
She made me so comfortable with just putting moisturizer
on my face and I went to do like a test shot with Mizel.
Then they were just like, no, it's good.
We're keeping it.
That's the look and looking back, it was just such a cool,
beautiful different thing
and different take on beauty for me.
We are entering the back to basics phase.
One thing that's really important to me
as an artist was making sure
that I really embodied the different chapters in my life,
my personal growth and the music that I was listening to
at the time or had been influenced by
and that stemmed from throwback music,
the visuals of old Hollywood and you know
depicting characters from Veronica Lake to Marilyn Monroe,
to Billy Holiday, Sarah Vaughn, Ella Fitzgerald.
These were the makers and creators of blues,
jazz, and soul music that truly inspired me
from a young age that I had to sort of silence
about myself whenever I got my record deal
because I couldn't sing a certain way.
You know, don't do that.
Don't ad lib, that's too much.
We don't do that in pop music.
So I had to sort of really minimalize
what I wanted to do creatively to appease everybody.
I was on the way to, I think a tour show,
and I went nowhere without a red lip at the time.
[jazzy music]
So this was a full circle moment.
I won for Ain't No Other Man here,
that also had a huge performance this night.
It was my performance of It's A Man's World.
All the looks from this night
definitely had an old Hollywood glam sort of throwback look
from this acceptance dress to,
I wore for the James Brown tribute performance,
an all white suit.
I like giving the theme for the music that it represents.
Burlesque. I love this green dress.
I thought it was such a beautiful look
and in such a vulnerable song.
I was going through such an emotional,
personal day on this day.
So I really poured my heart out.
Everything I was feeling
in my day into the performance of this song
Christopher Buckle and I embraced doing this movie
at the time Christopher was my makeup artist
for Back to Basics and he just nailed the glam look.
Oh my God.
But I remember the flower being like a thing.
I really wanted the flower.
I had to fight so hard to put that flower in my hair
but Christopher had my back.
We fought for it and we got it.
[woman laughing]
I was so excited to collaborate.
One of my favorite collaborators is Mel Ottenberg.
He literally brought back my chaps idea
except he made me a crystallized thong
under tuxedo pant chaps.
He always sort of comes up
with something really different and unexpected
and so I was going to do Gay Pride, Lady Land,
New York City.
What better way to do it than to
show up as the Statue of Liberty
and be so tongue in cheek, so campy.
We literally had so much fun playing up
to this like camp fun idea and where better than to do it.
New York City Gay Pride.
So that was my Life In Looks.
Thank you so much for helping me go down memory lane.
This has been so much fun
and hope to do it in the next 20 some years.
Mwah. [pen scratching]
[soft music]