CHANEL Extrait de Camélia supple choker in 18K rose gold & diamond; CHANEL Bouton de Camélia earrings in 18K yellow gold & diamonds; CHANEL COCO necklace in 18K beige gold & diamonds; CHANEL Extrait de Camélia bracelet in 18K rose gold, diamond; CHANEL COCO necklace in 18K yellow gold & diamonds; CHANEL Coco Crush earrings in 18K yellow gold and 18K white gold & diamonds; CHANEL Coco Crush small and large rings in 18K white gold; CHANEL Coco Crush bracelets in 18K yellow gold, beige gold and white gold; CHANEL Talismans medal reversible design in 18K yellow gold & diamonds; CHANEL bikini top; stylist’s own vintage shorts and shoes.

 

 

Gracie Abrams has been called relatable, innocent, and America’s sweetheart. She’s the girl-next-door, that is, if you grew up next door to J.J. Abrams and Katie McGrath. She is effortlessly funny, easygoing, and as relatable as they say. You almost forget she tops Billboard charts and fills arenas nightly. Gracie was born in Los Angeles and went east for college — a year at Barnard in New York — giving her claim to both cities as home. But home is a fickle thing for someone who’s on the road as much as she is. So Gracie creates a sense of comfort on planes and tour buses in the form of printed photos of friends and family, weighted blankets, and bundles of thyme, rosemary and lavender from her mother “tied in a little string.” Talismens that keep her sane. Her version of stability is made up of small moments: video calls, the pre-show huddle. “As comfortable as one can get on tour,” she says, “you still need some element of feeling rooted.”

  

 

CHANEL Coco Crush small and large rings in 18K yellow gold, 18K white gold, 18K yellow gold & diamonds; CHANEL COCO necklace in 18K beige gold & diamonds; CHANEL Extrait de Camélia supple choker in 18K yellow gold & diamond; CHANEL sweater; ARAKS bra; stylist’s own vintage shorts.

 

Gracie started writing songs at age eight, finding her own response to her mother’s insistence on journaling. Music became the organizing principle of her life. Gracie is a Virgo, the sign of order, though she admits the archetype doesn’t entirely fit. “People say we’re organized,” she laughs. “I don’t think that manifests for me, except in very isolated ways — I’m a listmaker.” Still this constant introspection and internal housekeeping became the foundation of an illustrious career, a practice that took her from the page to Billboard’s Songwriter of the Year. By 2019, Abrams was releasing songs with Interscope. The EP “Minor” arrived first, then “This Is What It Feels Like”, earning her a devoted audience who heard in her restraint something unusually adult. But more so, who saw themselves, their problems, their pain, articulated and handed back to them in perfect, three-minute melodies.

Gracie talks about the process of writing as though describing the weather: unpredictable, uncontrollable, occasionally divine. “Hundreds of times I’ve started with a clear concept,” she says. “And hundreds of times I’ve just thought, let’s see what this weird synth makes me feel today.” It’s part of her faith in the accidental, the belief that creation sometimes arrives from outside one’s will. She’s suspicious of formulas, preferring to follow instinct, even when it leads her into uncomfortable territory. “There’s a lot I still don’t know how to write about,” she says. “But recently, certain things have started to come into focus — feelings I struggled to articulate before.”

 

 

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Her debut album Good Riddance, produced with Aaron Dessner and released in 2023, established her as a diarist of heart-break and self-scrutiny, in songs of wisdom and sorrowful crooning: How are you looking at me like a stranger? I’m a radar for every deal breaker. What girl can’t relate to that? Being fly paper for red flags. I know I’ve felt this way.

She spent the next year opening for Taylor Swift on the Eras Tour and headlining her own shows for her second album The Secret of Us (the single “That’s So True”, which was released on the deluxe version of TSOU, is her biggest hit to date). Somewhere in between, Gracie became a Chanel ambassador. She describes the Chanel partnership as her “North Star,” a dream realized, speaking about the brand with reverence. She’s interested not in subversion but in continuity. “I don’t want to turn the Chanel woman on her head,” she says. “I align with that timeless element.” She’s in good company. Kate Moss, Claudia Schiffer, Princess Grace of Monaco; all women who embody Chanel power, and well, grace. “But there’s something fresh happening there now,” Gracie notes, “a kind of joy.”

 

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CHANEL Coco Crush small and large in 18K yellow gold, 18K white gold, 18K yellow gold & diamonds and 18K yellow gold & diamonds; CHANEL Bouton de Camélia ring in 18K yellow gold & diamonds; CHANEL Première Édition Originale watch steel coated with yellow gold and black leather, black-lacquered dial; CHANEL sweater.

 

She’s referring to Matthieu Blazy’s debut collection which has just premiered at Paris Fashion Week, though she could be describing her own work: elegant, unforced, threaded with emotion but never saccharine. “[Blazy’s] intention seems to be infusing joy,” she says. “And that’s why it’s so moving — it’s someone’s passion made visible.”

Joy is a word that comes up more than once as we talk. Though her songs mostly deal with the inverse of joy — rejection, grief, the slow rebuild of self — she refuses to position sadness as her personal brand. Vulnerability, to her, is a discipline. “There’s risk involved,” she says of baring her soul, night after night. “But there’s also inherent freedom in being transparent about yourself, with yourself and with others, if you’re safe to do so.”

She adds, “but it always comes at a cost.”

 

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CHANEL Coco Crush small and large rings in 18K yellow gold, 18K white gold, 18K yellow gold & diamonds; CHANEL Bouton de Camélia ring in 18K yellow gold & diamonds; CHANEL Coco Crush earrings in 18K white gold & diamonds; CHANEL Symboles medal reversible design in 18K yellow gold, diamonds and black nephrite jade; CHANEL Coco Crush mini bracelet in 18K yellow gold & diamonds; CHANEL dress; LOS ANGELES APPAREL pullover.

 

“There’s a lot I still don’t know how to write about.”

 

That paradox — the cost of freedom — feels central to Gracie’s worldview, where every confession becomes public property the moment it’s sung. “It’s all on the table,” she says, “for better or for worse.” What keeps it from tipping into exhibitionism is her curiosity about what happens next. Performing, she tells me, transforms ownership. “As soon as [I’m] on stage, the songs are not about me anymore. Once a song is out in the world, I release it completely.”

 

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It’s an elegant kind of surrender, not unlike prayer.

At twenty-six, Gracie occupies a strange and enviable position in the pop ecosystem. Her music is intricate, emotionally literate, a little too honest to be casual but too self-aware to be naïve. The Secret of Us is a record of exposure and renewal, written in bursts between tour stops and emotional collapses. She describes it as the work of a “manic, impulsive, embarrassed version” of herself, a person “immortalized” in a moment of not being chosen. That phrase — not chosen — appears like a refrain in her songs. What’s remarkable isn’t the heartbreak itself but the precision of its documentation.

 

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I imagine sharing my diary, my innermost thoughts and Notes app divulging with thousands of strangers and wince. But a Gracie Abrams show is devotional. People scream, they cry, have emotional responses more akin to a spiritual experience than a concert. “The people who fill those rooms are having such full-body experiences,” she says of performances that transform a stadium into a sanctuary. “They let me in on their lives, their loneliness, their heartbreak.”

Lately she’s been actively trying to slow things down, watercoloring, admiring the trees as the seasons change (something you don’t get in Los Angeles). The discipline of paying attention to what keeps you human. When she speaks about the future, she doesn’t invoke legacy. The word feels too heavy. Instead she talks about intention, about being careful with what she puts into the world. “As what matters to me becomes clearer, it influences the way I show up,” she says.

 

 

CHANEL Coco Crush small and large rings in 18K white gold, 18K white gold & diamonds, 18K yellow gold & diamonds; CHANEL Bouton de Camélia ring in 18K yellow gold & diamonds; CHANEL Première Galon watch in yellow gold, black-lacquered dial; CHANEL Première Iconic Chain necklace watch steel coated with yellow gold and black leather, black-lacquered dial (worn as belt); CHANEL sweater; LOS ANGELES APPAREL bra; stylist’s own vintage shorts and shoes.

 

Who is it she’s showing up for? Given the nature of her music, Gracie’s asked about men a lot. (We even talked about boys, and those crumbs they leave, at the start of our interview.) But I’m curious about the girls in her life. She speaks highly and often of her mother and her best friend and collaborator, Audrey Hobert. After all, Chanel herself was somewhat of a feminist icon, challenging gender norms through fashion. What influence do women have on her work? “My mom always says, you are what you attend to,” Gracie tells me. “At the end of the day, your girls are all you have.”

 

 

 

Makeup  Emily Cheng

Hair Bobby Eliot

Set Design  Bailey Brown

Production  Shay Johnson Studio

 

 

 

 

December 2025