12 Times Courtney Love Was a Lady . . . (Or a Vamp)

Courtney Love is an unlikely style icon, yet fashion has long adored this onetime exotic dancer turned alt musician and actress, who, with husband Kurt Cobain, became an original poster child for grunge. Though Jean Paul Gaultier would describe that rumpled secondhand aesthetic as, “nothing more than the way we dress when we have no money,” grunge became a defining look of the ’90s and is memorably, and continually, channeled by designers including Marc Jacobs (Spring 1993) and Saint Laurent’sHedi Slimane (Spring 2016). Now, with a soon-to-be-released collab with Nasty Gal, Love will turn the tables, playing designer, rather than muse.

Play is the operative word here. Poring over hundreds of pictures of the blonde, scarlet-lipped Love, it’s clear that the Hole frontwoman knows how to manipulate fashion to her own ends, easily careening between a slapdash Desperately Seeking Susan vibe and channeling her inner Marilyn Monroe or Catherine Deneuve. The common denominator between Love’s dressed-up red carpet mien and her down-and-dirty grunge look is the slip dress, and she’s seemingly as comfortable in a glamorous goddess version by Versace as her signature vintage satin nighties. (Cigarette burns optional.)

As we wait to see whether she’ll channel the lady or the vamp in her line for Nasty Gal, above are 12 times Love dressed the parts.