The iconic style of Paris Pick makes her a natural to compete in the Style Icon contest
Wherever she goes, Paris Pick’s inimitable style goes with her. For example, when she calls me from the Fraser, B.C., highways maintenance camp, where she’s working as the cook, she tells me that she just dyed her hair pink because she’s turning 31 the next day. “I’m not going into my ‘thirty-one era’ without some colour,” she says.
Before she left the Yukon, a few years ago, to go to music school in Nelson, B.C., Pick was recognized not only for her catchy pop songs but also for her bold, irrepressible fashion sense. Pick might be sporting glasses with oversize frames and a leopard-print catsuit, one day, and a vintage wedding dress with sparkly crocs the next. It’s fair to say that her campy, mash-up style can give an early Elton John vibe.
It’s no wonder, then, that Pick is a quarter-finalist in Style Icon, an online competition presented by Elton John and his husband, David Furnish.* If Pick wins, she’ll receive a trip to Versace Fashion Week in Milan, a feature in Flaunt magazine and $20,000 cash.
But for Pick, it’s not all about the prizes; it’s about the cause that the contest supports—the Elton John AIDS Foundation, an organization “committed to overcoming HIV and LGBTQ+ stigma, discrimination and neglect that prevents us from ending AIDS for everyone, everywhere.”
People vote for their favourite contestant: one vote is free, but you can also donate money in exchange for votes (e.g., 10 votes for $10; 25 votes for $25), with proceeds going to the Foundation. Pick figures that, whether she wins or not, she’s using platforms like Facebook and Instagram to promote her Style Icon page and to raise money and awareness about AIDS.
“We use social media all the time to, like, rot our brain,” she says. “So why not use it for something good for once, you know?”
As a self-described “dirt-bag trailer-park princess,” Pick creates her looks from second-hand items she finds in thrift and free stores (her first pair of beloved Crocs came from the Mount Lorne Transfer Station).
She draws inspiration from superstars of the 1970s and 80s: Elton John, Freddie Mercury, Michael Jackon, Cyndi Lauper. She loves vintage clothes but doesn’t confine herself to any one era. In her photo spread for Style Icon, Pick wears an eclectic sampling of looks: a ruffled poet shirt, with disco-ball earrings; a black, white and gold-printed romper with fishnet stockings and pink boots; a lace-up vest, floppy cap, and square glasses that channel Janis Joplin.
Pick considers fashion as empowering and hopes that she can encourage others to explore their personal style as a means of self-discovery and self-expession.
“Finding my fashion helped me unlock so many pieces of my personality and self-confidence, and I’ll forever be grateful for that,” Pick says in an Instagram post.
The confidence she gains from her fashion is something she also brings to the stage and to performing. She said that her look also adds to the intrigue for new audiences who aren’t familiar with her music; they see disco-ball earrings and don’t know what to expect.
“[My style is] kind of part of the music, you know, like my music’s very uplifting and upbeat. So I guess also having loud outfits that kind of mimic that energy helps.”
At the same time, Pick doesn’t take herself too seriously. When I suggest she has a glam side to her style, she agrees but also emphasizes that she’s “a really lazy person” and that comfort always trumps glamour.
“I could actually look a lot more glamorous if I tried, but I just don’t care that much,” she says. “I want to express myself … but for me, that means being comfortable, like, you know, comfort comes first.”
Pick brings the same chill attitude to winning the Style Icon competition. She finds the idea of travelling to Milan and winning $20,000 to be “unreal” unless it actually happens. For now, she’s focused on donations for the Foundation, and she’s raised over $1,000 so far. But if she were to win, she says that she would use some of the money towards buying a home for her mom, who was the original inspiration for Pick’s second-hand aesthetic. “It’s important to take care of family,” Pick concludes.
People can vote for Paris Pick as a Style Icon, daily, at styleicon.org, either for free or by donation to the Elton John AIDS Foundation. Visit eltonjohnaidsfoundation.org for more information.
