Everyone knows that Robyn is back. This week, the Swedish pop star put out her first solo song in nearly a decade, and publications from Rolling Stone to Pitchfork to Stereogum shared the news. The single, \u201cDopamine,\u201d sounds just like a Robyn song should, with effervescent mixing and a propulsive beat and the sort of lyrics that have made the singer famous, yearning but not too self-serious:\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI know it\u2019s just dopamine \/ but it feels so real to me\u2026 I just need to know \/ that I\u2019m not alone.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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In a press release, Robyn explained that the song was inspired by her exhaustion with our need to explain every little thing \u2014 to overanalyze our emotions instead of just feeling them. \u201cIt\u2019s like we don\u2019t even accept that we\u2019re human anymore, like we\u2019re trying to shoot ourselves out of it,\u201d the singer said. \u201cThat\u2019s also why the world is shit: this idea that you can figure it out and win life or something.\u201d Her goal, she said, is to walk the line between thinking critically about feelings, and accepting them as inexplicable.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But there was another part of the \u201cDopamine\u201d rollout that caught our attention: the way Robyn looks in the music video. The singer is known for her avant-garde style<\/a>, favoring ruffles and origami folds, dramatic hemlines and futuristic catsuits. The collection she designed<\/a> in 2019 with Swedish sportswear brand Bj\u00f6rn Borg involved a track jacket with an argyle-lined arm slit, leggings that looked pulled from Star Trek, and a shearling harness.\u00a0<\/p>\n In \u201cDopamine,\u201d by contrast, Robyn is stripped down. If she is wearing makeup \u2014 likely, considering there\u2019s a makeup artist in the video\u2019s credits \u2014 you can\u2019t tell. She\u2019s dressed in a white T-shirt and a charcoal hoodie, staring down the camera against a simple blue backdrop. The outfit looks like something a teenage crush might wear, or a Los Angeles Apparel model, or anyone, really.\u00a0<\/p>\n The whole video was styled by Haley Wollens, whose body of work is vast and diverse. She\u2019s dressed everyone from Drake to Miley Cyrus, per The New York Times<\/a>, and is a close collaborator of Chlo\u00eb Sevigny. A spokesperson for Robyn told Highsnobiety that the white T-shirt and the grey hoodie are both vintage; the hoodie came from Carrrpenter<\/a>, the French vintage store that showcases Japanese Americana. (We may never know who made it, but it\u2019s not dissimilar to Addison Rae\u2019s<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Your Highsnobiety privacy settings have blocked this YouTube video.<\/p>\n Enable All Media<\/p>\n As our editor in chief himself pointed out a few weeks ago<\/a>, there\u2019s just something about a hoodie. \u201cThe hoodie has a unique and specific kind of swag,\u201d he wrote. \u201cWhich is why it\u2019s also the ultimate egalitarian piece of clothing. Not just because there is a hoodie out there at just about any pricepoint, that meets the very specific needs of just about anyone. But because it\u2019s the only thing that automatically makes anyone wearing it look cooler. It\u2019s what people think a leather jacket is.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The fact that Robyn is tapping into the power of the hoodie now, at the moment of her reemergence, feels significant. At 46, she\u2019s been performing for about three decades, showing us myriad versions of herself. The version that appears in \u201cDopamine\u201d feels honest, like she\u2019s handing us something tangible. It feels comfortable, like dangling drawstrings and an unzipped fleece. \u201cIt\u2019s important not to squeeze my body into things that don\u2019t feel good,\u201d she told The Cut<\/a> in 2019. \u201cI was more prone to doing that before \u2014 fitting myself into things. Now, I think it\u2019s important to wear things that fit me, instead.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n