Lana Del Ray's costume is significant to how she as an artist is represented, but also the genre she applies to.

 

Firstly the playsuit Lana is wearing is short, showing off part of her bum. We can apply this to Mulvey's theory on 'Male Gaze'. Because of the length of the playsuit Mulveys theory would suggest that her target audience is men by attracting them with the way she looks.

Looking past costume and at the way Lana is positioned can also support Mulveys theory. The way shes standing allows her bum the be  main focus of the photograph and obviously something she is trying to 'show off'. The photograph itself has no props that show a libk to her music or singing in general. There for from the picture the focus is more on her body rather than her talent. Futhermore she is seen biting her tounge. This is a fliratious sign and shows that they fun or seen as playing hard to get if focusing your attention towards someone thye are attracted to. Lana make eye contact to the audience of the photograph adding that personal touch and giving the audience the sense that she is flirting with them. Therefore also supporting Mulveys theory, and her appealing to men.

Another part of the costume we can look at is the colours and pattern on the playsuit. Lana's playsuit includes a pattern that appear to be representing flowers with the whole outfit following the colour pallet of pastel pinks and greens. Lana Del Ray falls within the indie folk genre and all of these could be seen as connotations of the indie genre. For example the indie genre can be closely linked to being very natural and linked to outside settings in music videos such as fields. The flowers show this link to the indie genre as being very 'natural'. The pastel colours also apply to colour conventions of the indie genre.

Indie artists are conventionally seen as having a very 'natural' look to them. The artists like to have very subtle hair and make up which makes them look like they have made no effort at all to look the way they do. The point of this natural look is to fit in with the calm style of music they sing. Location is also very fitting with the genre. Lana's hair is in big waves, people associate this type of hair style with being effortless. Maybe your natual hair type. However to get Lana's hair like that a hair stylist would of spent alot of time making it appear as it does. The added flower crown is yet another link to the indie folk genre but also adding to Lana's feminine apperance.

Finally we can look at the jewllery that she is wearing. Lana wears earings and a neclace that we can see on show. Usually jewllery is recognised as being a statement of wealth. However although the jewllery has a sparkle to them, I would not class these as statement jewllery. They are more subtle pieces compared to the sort of necklace for example a conventional rapper would wear (big bulky golden medalians to show wealth). Although Lana wants to appear as desireable, the genre wants the artists to look 'down to earth'. The audience will be able to make a better connection to her as although the whole outfit is most likely very expensive, fans could easily recreate her image on a budget.