Florence Welch says she channeled Mary Shelley through the lens of nineties cult classics such as The Craft for looks that are 'Georgian and grunge, all at once.'Autumn de Wilde/Supplied
Fans of Florence Welch – the frontwoman of alt-rock band Florence + the Machine – know that her body of work is as much about what is seen as what is heard. Over six albums, she’s consistently merged performance with costume, often barefoot. Far from today’s pop-diva pantheon – think the glittering polish of Sabrina Carpenter or Taylor Swift’s run of sequin bodysuits – Welch gravitates toward looks that flow, evoking a Stevie Nicks–ian boho dreamscape.
Her latest record, Scream, follows suit. Due out on Halloween, it delivers a double dose of the ages Welch holds most dear: the Gothic and the Romantic.
“It’s not a throwback to anything today,” Welch says via Zoom from her home in London. “I’m trying to create a moment that amalgamates eras – that floating space between the 1980s and 1880s.” The video for the single Everybody Scream, directed by Autumn de Wilde – known for collaborations with Rodarte and Prada, and directing the 2020 Regency drama, Emma – sets the album’s sartorial tone.
“We treated the video like a folk horror film,” Welch says. “We sourced vintage pieces, had costumes made and pulled from my own closet. Lots of Edwardian bustles were used. We found this strange red polyester secretary dress and red dowdy pumps.”
Fans noticed. “It wasn’t the fact that I was screaming into the ground that scared them,” she laughs. “It was that I was actually wearing shoes.”
After 17-plus years of fame and more than a decade of sobriety, Welch turned inward for Scream. “I stopped drinking, and all my energy went into collecting vintage clothing and writing songs.” She wore a rare Biba suit from her archive in the visualizer for an upcoming single One of the Greats, which relays the thunder of Jim Morrison – a “modern Gothic fantasy,” as she describes it.
Welch grew up with dark fables on her parents’ bookshelves. Her mother, a Renaissance literature professor – author of Fashioning the Early Modern: Dress, Textiles and Innovation in Europe, 1500–1800 – raised her in Camberwell, London. When the pandemic hit, the stories and style she grew up with further fused into a single obsession: folk horror.
“I recommend Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched to everyone,” she says. “The documentary took over my life – it covers folk horror across Eastern Europe, England, America, Australia.”
Irish writer Sinéad Gleeson also gifted her Damnable Tales, a collection of supernatural short fiction. One story from the book, Laura Silver Bell, instigated a song called Drink Deep. Another track, Perfume and Milk, references Julian of Norwich, the mystic whose writings position God as both a woman and a mother. “So much lace and longing,” Welch says of her inspirations.
Welch points to tracks such as Witch Dance and Kraken as having entire lives – and key wardrobe items – of their own. She sees “wailing, older women running in the woods in see-through nightgowns” when imagining visuals for a potential video for the song Witch Dance, and she envisions Kraken as “an army of girls that are terrifying siren mermaids in prairie dresses invading the stage.”
Throughout the making of Scream, Welch says she channelled Mary Shelley and the Brontë sisters through the lens of nineties cult classics such as The Craft and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. “I wanted to build a world where these contrasting [references] could co-exist – Georgian and grunge, all at once.”
Hard-core devotees know Welch has long used clothing as a storytelling tool – most vividly in the video for her 2015 hit song Ship to Wreck. It was filmed in her own home, where cameras zoomed in on her furniture that was strewn with racks of couture, period costumes and ready-to-wear.
“I have so many incredible lamé capes from the twenties and a shredded red Victorian petticoat I can’t part with,” she says, trying to pick favourites. “Some pieces are relics now – memories of the music they were part of.”
Cherished pieces come from Alessandro Michele, her long-time collaborator and former Gucci creative director, now at Valentino. Michele famously listened to What Kind of Man on rotation while drafting his first women’s wear Gucci collection in 2015. Welch’s appearance at Valentino’s Spring/Summer 2025 show in Paris, draped in a red and gold embroidered cape, has shown their connection remains solid.
Florence Welch arrives at Valentino Pavillon des Folies Show as part of Paris Fashion Week in September, 2024.Victor Boyko/Valentino/Getty Images/Supplied
Welch, who turns 40 next year, says she’s come to realize that garments from artists like Michele aren’t mere adornments – they’re talismans, tools of evolution, maturity and transformation. “Clothing has become a form of salvation,” she says. “It can guide and protect me from the black hole that the music industry can often create.”
Florence + the Machine will perform in Montreal at the Bell Centre on April 15, 2026, and Toronto at Scotiabank Arena on April 16, 2026.