Lily Allen’s Version of Revenge Dressing Is Inspired By Sylvia Plath
Lily Allen’s “revenge dress” isn’t a dress at all. Instead, the singer opted for something arguably more daring: a fashion-forward, lingerie-tinged set from one of New York’s hottest emerging designers (and inspired by Sylvia Plath, no less).
Fresh off the release of West End Girl, an album that delves into the breakdown of her marriage to David Harbour with unflinching honesty, she went bra-first at last night’s 2025 CFDA Awards. She slipped into a full look from New York darling Colleen Allen’s spring 2026 collection—the designer was nominated for the American Emerging Designer of the Year award.
The top half consisted of a barely-there top that featured sheer lace edging. The singer paired it with a matching silk slip skirt—with a lace panel along the reverse—and a dramatic top coat.
Allen, an alumna of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen’s The Row, looked to vintage undergarments and Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar—the author’s semi-autobiographical novel about the societal pressures placed on women in the 1950s—for her spring collection. “I’ve always collected antique lingerie as beautiful objects,” the designer said. “Putting those sorts of pieces all in front of me, I started thinking about the idea that women used to have these really expansive domestic wardrobes that would never be seen outside the house.”
The Plath inspiration comes from a scene in which the novel’s main character, Esther Greenwood, throws her newest clothes off the roof after breaking the nose of an abusive man. Allen discovered that Plath, too, once threw her own girdle off a rooftop in protest.
The collaboration between the Allens was a natural one, considering West End Girl. It takes listeners through various points of her relationship with Harbour, from the opening track centered on their famous Brooklyn townhouse to the final song “Fruityloop,” a sort of kiss-off to her ex-lover in which she sings “it’s not me, it’s you.”
At the CFDAs last night, Allen found the perfect revenge look.
