How to Get Rihanna's Fall 2009 Style

In a few short years the singer Rihanna has become celebrated as a style icon after she took control of her manufactured pop image as a Barbadian Beyonce and transformed it into a more eclectic style that is edgier and unique. Here's a guide to getting her style this fall.

Have Some Grace

In the August 2008 issue of In Style magazine Rihanna says, "Grace Jones inspires me. She is the most iconic woman ever, in my eyes. She has extraordinary style and she's fearless."

Now a year later, Grace's influence is becoming much more apparent in Rihanna's sartorial choices

Her photo shoot for Italian Vogue with its bondage theme, bold makeup, and revealing clothes was definitely reminiscent of Ms. Jones' style. And Rihanna has recently been photographed at an event with Giuseppi Zanotti wearing a slinky hooded black mini-dress, with the hood up covering her head (hoods are Grace's signature).

And she's even been wearing edgier eyewear like Grace. She's worn everything from black studded sunglasses (even the lenses were studded allover) to an eye mask made out of lace.

More than the obvious hoods and eyewear Grace's inspiration is sensed in many of Rihanna's more aggressive and revealing ensembles that she's been wearing as of late. Plus Rihanna wears them just as confidently and unapologetically as Jones herself would.

To dress like her this fall, you're going to have to adopt an equally gutsy attitude.

Go Back to Black

Ever since Rihanna went from a good girl to bad she began to wear more black, but this fall she's practically living in the color. She's been spotted recently in head to toe black ensembles.

On the rare occasion that Rihanna's not in black the colors she's been choosing to wear have been equally sparse. She's been going for gray, white, or silver which are just watered down versions of black. Sometimes she'll wear these colors alone, but for the most part she just pairs them with black.

The only other colors I've seen her in this fall, have been the equally moody eggplant and lavender, and the chalky blue Louboutin booties she wore during Paris' fashion week.

Have a Mini Moment

This season Rihanna has been all about showing off her legs in a variety of short mini-dresses.

She's worn a few sweater dresses. There's been the black turtleneck mini with an attachable sleeve (that included a white glove). The black turtleneck dress with c-thru stripes. And the gray sweater dress with pronounced, puffy shoulders.

She's also worn tighter Grecian style mini-dresses with ruching details at the waist. Yet she's also worn a vintage inspired black beaded v-neck mini. And she recently wore a structured futuristic gray sheath that curved sharply at her hips.

Her choices in dresses have been pretty random this season, but the common thread is that they usually have long sleeves, hit mid-thigh, and they are usually form fitting. And even if they have a bit of ruching or puffy shoulders they are usually simply designed.

Most of the time Rihanna balances out the skin she's showing by wearing dresses that don't reveal her cleavage or her arms, if they do, she'll wear the dress with thigh-high boots to cover up her legs.

Underwear Optional

For some reason, this year Rihanna has opted to go bra-less (a lot!) while wearing tight fitting, sometimes c-thru dresses and tanks (if you want to go there it's your prerogative, though I wouldn't recommend it).

Yet, ironically she's also begun to wear a lot of underwear as outerwear. In the last two months she's regularly worn corsets, bustiers (some of which really look like underwear), black hot-pants (that look very much like boy-shorts), and bras.

She usually wears the corsets and bustiers with leggings (and an oversized shirt on top to cover the bum) or with jeans or long pencil skirts. When she wore the hot-pants, she also wore a black bra with a low-cut sheer black tank, but she covered up with a long oversized tuxedo jacket. At another event she donned black leggings with a long black jacket with triangular cut-outs at the bosom, which showed off her black bra that also had cut-outs.

Accessorize Like a Badass

Rihanna's been wearing fingerless leather gloves, skull rings, and bracelets, earrings, and rings with huge spikes. She's also worn metallic pasties, black lace, shoes and bags with studs and chains, long red nails, fishnets under ripped jeans, and moody lipstick in burgundy, bright red, and dark purple.

Stick to anything that will make you look moody or aggressive and you'll capture the essence of her style this season.

And Stick to the Usual

Rihanna's style has definitely walked on the wilder side this fall, but she has still been wearing the basic elements of her style - leather jackets, skinny jeans, and booties. To get more info on the basic keys to her style please read the 5 basics and the 5 steps to getting her style.

Source:

Rihanna Revealed by George Epaminodas, In Style Magazine, August 2008 issue