Rihanna: and the Clothes She Wears

A guide to the style of Rihanna, a 21st-century fashion icon Over 100 pictures of Rihanna and designers who have influenced her sartorial taste The perfect gift for fans and fashionistas
“I grew up on a really small Island, and I didn’t have a lot of access to fashion, but as far as I could remember, fashion has always been my defence mechanism. Even as a child I remember thinking, she can beat me, but she cannot beat my outfit.” – Rihanna, accepting the CFDA Fashion Icon of the Year Award in 2014.
From the author of the runaway bestseller Harry Styles and the Clothes He Wears comes a new, fresh look at style icon Rihanna.
Rihanna has learnt how to define her own terms whatever she does – whether in the worlds of fashion, music, beauty, philanthropy, business, or activism, she is both muse and creative, a collaborator and pioneer. To date she has 135 million Instagram followers and counting. In 2022 at the age of 34, largely because of her Fenty Beauty empire, she became Forbes’ youngest self-made billionaire.
But it is her personal wardrobe and the way she wears it that embodies Rihanna’s charisma, integrity, and humor most: everything she does reflects what she wears herself. She is a risk-taker, but as she said on the red-carpet in 2014 “you will never be stylish if you don’t take risks.” The gamble has paid off. Rihanna’s mix-and-match method of wearing high fashion and streetwear, young designers and vintage, hip-hop classics, and avant-garde custom-made pieces, has meant that she has equal footing in both the music and fashion industries. Chairman and CEO of the LVMH group, Sidney Toledano says she is: “a style icon for today’s generation”.
The breadth of Rihanna’s fashion knowledge and style is astounding. In Rihanna and the Clothes She Wears, Terry Newman steps into the world of this fashion icon by examining her style. From couture catwalks to her own empire Fenty, political statements to high street casual, this chic book fizzles with facts about Rihanna’s styling choices, presenting the star’s most revered looks. With quotes from key designers, this is the perfect gift for any fan.