A young woman dressed like a knight burst into Balenciaga's salons on July 9 in Paris. Her long chainmail dress revealed two strips of tape stuck over her breasts, a dark belt wrapped around a pair of ripped jeans, and shoes as sharp as arrows.

The 28-year-old singer Lorde agreed to work with Balenciaga's designer Demna, because he, like her, combines aesthetic radicalism with media visibility. That day was Demna's final show for the fashion house, where he had served as artistic director since 2015. Before joining Gucci as its next creative director, the Georgian designer wanted to surround himself with personalities as dazzling and talked-about as his collections, such as the influencer Kim Kardashian, the actress Nicole Kidman, and the pop star Aya Nakamura.

These are celebrity royals − the kind that Lorde dreamed about when she wrote the song that made her famous 12 years ago, "Royals". Does she now feel at home among this elite, for whom fashion shows serve as both social event and family reunion?

Noble title

Ella Yelich-O'Connor – her real name – grew up in New Zealand. When she began her solo career in 2012, at just 16 years old, she chose a stage name with aristocratic overtones – if not for that final, strikingly modern "e,"which casts a hint of doubt over her identity. With this hint of nobility, she rose to become one of the most admired singers on the pop circuit.

She has two Grammy Awards (2014) to her name, as well as a Golden Globe nomination for her work on the 2014 soundtrack of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1, and four albums, almost all of which have been widely praised by critics. Her latest release, Virgin (Universal), debuted at number 1 on the UK charts when it was released on June 27, ahead of a world tour that will stop at the Zénith arena in Paris on November 10.

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