Earlier this month, Dua Lipa published a list of books she was planning to read while taking a short break from performing. People online, who had not previously paid attention to Service95—the musician’s editorial platform—and its literary vertical, were left beguiled. A sex symbol with an interest in Vladimir Nabokov deep cuts is a mantle few pop stars can lay claim to.
But here is someone who seems to have it all: ie, books and looks. Not long before uploading a selfie with Alana Portero’s debut novel Bad Habit, Lipa and her boyfriend, Callum Turner, were photographed leaving Chiltern Firehouse. She wore a draped Bottega Veneta dress and Knot sandals with an oversized The Attico clutch and a small fortune’s worth of Tiffany & Co. jewels. He, meanwhile, wore a Louis Vuitton Harrington jacket, wide-legged trousers and box-fresh sneakers.
Lipa, of course, looked good, having been conferred with genetic and financial fortune from a young age. But it takes more than expensive clothes and a well-structured face to lead an aspirational lifestyle. A book club here, countless expeditions there, it all casts a halo of worldliness around Lipa. “Dua Lipa is really out there traveling to the most beautiful places, wearing fantastic clothes, kissing pretty guys and reading the best books…,” as one viral Tweet read back in March. “Honey, that’s life.”